By Lee Pfeiffer
Those who have a weakness for British spy movies will find plenty to like in "The Whistle Blower", a largely unheralded 1986 production that boasts a fine performance by Michael Caine. He plays Frank Jones, a nondescript middle-aged Brit with a somewhat convoluted background. He was a fighter pilot in the military but his career came to an end when he struck a superior officer. It's then implied that he went on to work for British Intelligence in some capacity, though in reality his act of military insubordination would probably have excluded him from that position. When we are introduced to Frank he is a widower and owner of a small office supply business who is paying a visit to his 28 year-old son Bob for a low key celebration of his offspring's birthday. It turns out that Bob is employed by Government Communications Headquarters (Gchq), which is a branch of the intelligence community.
Those who have a weakness for British spy movies will find plenty to like in "The Whistle Blower", a largely unheralded 1986 production that boasts a fine performance by Michael Caine. He plays Frank Jones, a nondescript middle-aged Brit with a somewhat convoluted background. He was a fighter pilot in the military but his career came to an end when he struck a superior officer. It's then implied that he went on to work for British Intelligence in some capacity, though in reality his act of military insubordination would probably have excluded him from that position. When we are introduced to Frank he is a widower and owner of a small office supply business who is paying a visit to his 28 year-old son Bob for a low key celebration of his offspring's birthday. It turns out that Bob is employed by Government Communications Headquarters (Gchq), which is a branch of the intelligence community.
- 12/6/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Bridget Jones’s Baby star Colin Firth greets Fred Schepisi in the Lotos Club library Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Universal Pictures and Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title Films celebrated Sharon Maguire's Bridget Jones’s Baby, co-written by Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer, and Emma Thompson, starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey with Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones, Sally Phillips, and Shirley Henderson at a lunch in New York at Lotos Club organized by Peggy Siegal.
Savannah Guthrie, Eric Fellner, Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Sharon Maguire, Helen Fielding Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the cocktail reception earlier, attended by The Wolf Of Wall Street screenwriter Terence Winter, The Eye Of The Storm director Fred Schepisi, Bill Blakemore (Rodney Ascher's Room 237 doc on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining) and Celia Weston, I spoke with Colin Firth about clothes making the man, revisiting Mark Darcy and Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy,...
Universal Pictures and Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title Films celebrated Sharon Maguire's Bridget Jones’s Baby, co-written by Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer, and Emma Thompson, starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey with Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones, Sally Phillips, and Shirley Henderson at a lunch in New York at Lotos Club organized by Peggy Siegal.
Savannah Guthrie, Eric Fellner, Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Sharon Maguire, Helen Fielding Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the cocktail reception earlier, attended by The Wolf Of Wall Street screenwriter Terence Winter, The Eye Of The Storm director Fred Schepisi, Bill Blakemore (Rodney Ascher's Room 237 doc on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining) and Celia Weston, I spoke with Colin Firth about clothes making the man, revisiting Mark Darcy and Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy,...
- 9/14/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Bond franchise which has been with us so long, has become so deeply entrenched in popular culture, that we often forget what it was that first distinguished the Bonds a half-century ago. Skyfall might be one of the best of the Bonds, and even, arguably, one of the best big-budget big-action flicks to come along in quite a while, but it’s not alone. The annual box office is – and has been, for quite some time – dominated by big, action-packed blockbusters of one sort of another. The Bonds aren’t even the only action-driven spy flicks (Mr. James Bond, I’d like you to meet Mr. Jason Bourne and Mr. Ethan Hunt).
That’s not to take anything away from the superb entertainment Skyfall is, or the sentimentally treasured place the Bonds hold. It’s only to say that where there was once just the one, there are now many.
That’s not to take anything away from the superb entertainment Skyfall is, or the sentimentally treasured place the Bonds hold. It’s only to say that where there was once just the one, there are now many.
- 10/26/2015
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
Christopher Reeve: 'Superman' and his movies (photo: Christopher Reeve in 'Superman' 1978) Christopher Reeve, Superman in four movies from 1978 to 1987, died ten years ago today. In 1995, while taking part in a cross-country horse race in Culpeper, Virginia, Reeve was thrown off his horse, hitting his head on the top rail of a jump; the near-fatal accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. He ultimately succumbed to heart failure at age 52 on October 10, 2004. Long before he was cast as Superman aka Clark Kent, the Manhattan-born (as Christopher D'Olier Reeve on September 25, 1952), Cornell University and Juillard School for Drama alumnus was an ambitious young actor whose theatrical apprenticeship included, while still a teenager, some time as an observer at London's Old Vic and Paris' Comédie Française. At age 23, he landed his first Broadway role in a production of Enid Bagnold's A Matter of Gravity, starring Katharine Hepburn.
- 10/11/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
(*My apologies for this coming so long after Sound on Sight’s celebration of 50 years of James Bond, but I’ve been swamped with end-of-semester work and only just now managed to finish this. Hope you all still find this of interest.)
As a coda to the Sos’s James Bond salute, there’s still a point I think deserves to be made.
The Bond franchise which has been with us so long, has become so deeply entrenched in popular culture, that we often forget what it was that first distinguished the Bonds a half-century ago. Skyfall might be one of the best of the Bonds, and even, arguably, one of the best big-budget big-action flicks to come along in quite a while, but it’s not alone. The annual box office is – and has been, for quite some time – dominated by big, action-packed blockbusters of one sort of another.
As a coda to the Sos’s James Bond salute, there’s still a point I think deserves to be made.
The Bond franchise which has been with us so long, has become so deeply entrenched in popular culture, that we often forget what it was that first distinguished the Bonds a half-century ago. Skyfall might be one of the best of the Bonds, and even, arguably, one of the best big-budget big-action flicks to come along in quite a while, but it’s not alone. The annual box office is – and has been, for quite some time – dominated by big, action-packed blockbusters of one sort of another.
- 12/20/2012
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
Pride and Prejudice
(300 minutes, 6 parts)
Directed by Simon Langton
Written by Andrew Davies
1995, UK, BBC
For someone unfamiliar with Jane Austen, it may be impossible to imagine a better advertisement for her best-known work than this 1995 BBC adaptation of that 1813 novel. In the world of literary adaptations, Pride and Prejudice is one hell of a flogged horse. Forgetting the more obvious screen translations dating back to 1940, such as the 2009 Keira Knightley vehicle, films like Bridget Jones’ Diary and even those constituting the Twilight series are indebted to Austen’s text and have re-popularised the appeal of the ‘smouldering romance’. Yet having seen this 6-part miniseries, perhaps this horse took its last great breath in the mid-90s.
Pride and Prejudice explores 19th century English society as exemplified by the callous game of love, romance and marriage. When a wealthy aristocrat, Mr Bingley, acquires a countryside property and relocates there with...
(300 minutes, 6 parts)
Directed by Simon Langton
Written by Andrew Davies
1995, UK, BBC
For someone unfamiliar with Jane Austen, it may be impossible to imagine a better advertisement for her best-known work than this 1995 BBC adaptation of that 1813 novel. In the world of literary adaptations, Pride and Prejudice is one hell of a flogged horse. Forgetting the more obvious screen translations dating back to 1940, such as the 2009 Keira Knightley vehicle, films like Bridget Jones’ Diary and even those constituting the Twilight series are indebted to Austen’s text and have re-popularised the appeal of the ‘smouldering romance’. Yet having seen this 6-part miniseries, perhaps this horse took its last great breath in the mid-90s.
Pride and Prejudice explores 19th century English society as exemplified by the callous game of love, romance and marriage. When a wealthy aristocrat, Mr Bingley, acquires a countryside property and relocates there with...
- 2/10/2012
- by Tope
- SoundOnSight
Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.
This Week’s New Instant Releases…
Promised Lands (1974)
Streaming Available: 04/19/2011
Cast: Documentary
Director: Susan Sontag
Synopsis: Set in Israel during the final days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, this powerful documentary — initially barred by Israel authorities — from writer-director Susan Sontag examines divergent perceptions of the enduring Arab-Israeli clash. Weighing in on matters related to socialism, anti-Semitism, nation sovereignty and American materialism are The Last Jew writer Yoram Kaniuk and military physicist Yuval Ne’eman.
Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009)
Streaming Available: 04/19/2011
Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Gerald Alexander Held, Lena Stolze, Sunnyi Melles
Synopsis: Directed by longtime star of independent German cinema Margarethe von Trotta, this reverent...
This Week’s New Instant Releases…
Promised Lands (1974)
Streaming Available: 04/19/2011
Cast: Documentary
Director: Susan Sontag
Synopsis: Set in Israel during the final days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, this powerful documentary — initially barred by Israel authorities — from writer-director Susan Sontag examines divergent perceptions of the enduring Arab-Israeli clash. Weighing in on matters related to socialism, anti-Semitism, nation sovereignty and American materialism are The Last Jew writer Yoram Kaniuk and military physicist Yuval Ne’eman.
Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009)
Streaming Available: 04/19/2011
Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Gerald Alexander Held, Lena Stolze, Sunnyi Melles
Synopsis: Directed by longtime star of independent German cinema Margarethe von Trotta, this reverent...
- 4/20/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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