Christopher Monger Movies

The made-for-cable biopic Liz & Dick follows the tumultuous relationship between screen legends Elizabeth Taylor (Lindsay Lohan) and Richard Burton (Grant Bowler. The celebrated performers meet on the set of Cleopatra, and their almost instantaneous attraction to each other quickly blossoms into a scandalous affair that results in two different marriages and divorces. The couple contends personal issues like his alcoholism and her constant hounding from the paparazzi, as well as their ongoing attempts to maintain their highly-respected careers. Liz & Dick premiered November 25, 2012 on the Lifetime cable network. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Groundbreaking environmentalist Rachel Carson published her revolutionary tome Silent Spring in 1962, a mere two years before her death from cancer at the relatively young age of 56. In the interim, Carson - who sustained a reputation as a deliberately private and reclusive woman - was forced into an uncomfortable public role as a critic of the use of carcinogenic pesticides. This deeply intimate documentary finds the woman reacting with a mixture of anger and drollness to the attacks against her by the press, the United States government and various chemical producers. Special features include "A Visit with Roger," "A Visit with Stewart Udall," and a segment titled "Lessons from Carson and Challenges Ahead." ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A mild-mannered banker finds himself living out his wildest dreams, only to wake up to a major dilemma in a continent-hopping comedy. Raymond (Hugh Laurie) is a British bank clerk who doesn't much care for his job, and whose marriage to Cathy (Lia Williams) has hit a rut. It would appear Cathy feels the same way about their relationship, since she's been fooling around on the side with Raymond's boss, Strothers (Patrick Barlow). Raymond's one escape from his dreary life comes from his part-time job as a dance instructor, and he often fantasizes about Orlinda (Vanessa Nunes), a beautiful and famous dancer from Brazil. One day, Raymond discovers that Cathy has finally left him to run away with Strothers, and Raymond snaps; he embezzles a fortune from the bank, and hops on the first plane for Rio, where with the help of taxi driver Paulo (Santiago Segura), he finds the lovely Orlinda, and to his amazement ends up spending the night with her. The next morning finds Raymond in a more stable frame of mind, and he decides he should return the money to the bank, but when he discovers Orlinda is gone, he realizes she took the embezzled funds with her, and now he has to find her and recover the money before it's too late. Santiago Segura is a major comedy star in Latin America, but he was cast somewhat against type in this film, since he's not Brazilian, but a Spaniard. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A proud Welsh community finds their civic pride and sense of community threatened by a team of surveyors in this charmingly eccentric comedy. Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant) and George Garrard (Ian McNeice) are a pair of British cartographers with Her Majesty's Ordinance Survey Office, who arrive in the small Welsh town of Ffynnon Garw, where, thanks to a linguistic quirk stemming from the British domination of Wales, many of the citizens in this town lack proper surnames and instead are identified by occupations or personal characteristics, such as Ivor the Grocer (Robert Blythe) or Johnny Shellshocked (Ian Hart). The town's greatest pride and most prominent landmark is a mountain (named, like the town, Ffynnon Garw), which they claim is the first mountain in Wales, and which helped protect the village from any number of Romans, Saxons, Norsemen, and other foreign invaders over the centuries. However, Reginald and George have some bad news for the townsfolk: under British law, a land mass must be at least 1,000 feet tall to qualify as a mountain, and according to their measurements, Ffynnon Garw comes in at only 930 feet, making it just a big hill. The citizens are shocked, insulted, and angry, and after much debate and careful measuring, Anson and Garrard conclude that they did shortchange Ffynnon Garw, but the most generous estimate still puts it at only 984 feet. Convinced that the town's honor and reputation is at stake thanks to these meddling Englishmen, the good people of Ffynnon Garw hatch a plan by which they will add fifteen feet to their "hill;" meanwhile, the easily befuddled Anson finds himself falling under the romantic spell of a beautiful but firm-willed local woman, Betty of Cardiff (Tara Fitzgerald). Believe it or not, this seemingly fanciful comedy was actually based on a true story. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Set during the Cuban missile crisis, Waiting for the Light is an off-beat comic tale about a single mother of two (Teri Garr) who has just taken over a roadside cafe with her aunt (Shirley MacLaine), a former circus magician. MacLaine and the children pull a prank on her crotchety next-door neighbor, who is tricked into believing that the image he sees is actually an angel. Soon, the entire town believes an angel is living at Garr's diner, and eventually people come to the diner from miles around in hopes of seeing the angel. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi