Linda Polan Movies
- 1986
Newly appointed the Lord High Executioner, Lord Edmund Blackadder takes his new responsibilities quite seriously. Assigned to remove the head of the "blasphemous" Lord Farrow, Edmund does so with dispatch and élan. Unfortunately, he discovers ex post facto that Lord Farrow has been pardoned by the Queen (Miranda Richardson). "Head" originally aired in England on January 16, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, (more)
This evocative look at a 1914 ocean voyage to scatter the ashes of a world-famous opera singer (Janet Suzman) is by turns charming, funny, and bizarre. Among the ship's passengers are aristocrats, politicians, singers, and a rhinoceros. Their episodic interactions form the core of the film, with complications (including a group of refugee Serbs boarding the vessel) carefully orchestrated by screenwriters Federico Fellini and Tonino Guerra to highlight the decay of European society prior to World War I. The ship sails on an artificial ocean against an artificial sky, crafted by art director Dante Ferretti in the studios of Cinecitta, with a result that is both disconcerting and oddly comforting. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Freddie Jones, Barbara Jefford, (more)
- 1983
This avant-garde film by Eric de Kuyper is not meant to have a conventional, or even an unconventional plot although it is ostensibly about a group of six men in formal attire in an English manor house, trying to prolong a party that has clearly ended. The men speak to each other in whatever language seems to suit the mood: English, Dutch, French, German, or Italian. They linger and lounge over discussions on women and are connected to a remote outside world by the telephone but not much else. Their general air of ennui and malaise has some intermissions -- as when a woman named Daisy pops in on them -- though the camera still remains static for long periods, and silences can stretch on and on, both techniques conveying the existential life of six men going nowhere. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Polan
- 1982
Jonathan Swift's satire about a sailor's strange voyage is the source of this, one of many filmed adaptations of the tale. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
Matthew Chapman wrote and directed this hackneyed love story with Helen Mirren as Beaty, a nightclub hostess who turns tricks. Emory (John Shea) is an expatriate American who works the lights at Beaty's nightclub and is in love with her. But Beaty cannot deal in flowery sentiment, especially since she needs money, not romance, to support her young son. But Emory sees a way to attain money and romance -- he plans to execute a drug deal with his low-life partner and use the proceeds to take Beaty and her son away from the degenerate surroundings and into the light-of-day in the English countryside. But unfortunately, things do not go as planned. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Mirren, John Shea, (more)
