Drama > A Drama > Apted, Michael

Advantages: Great storyline, fantastic acting and good action shots
Disadvantages: Will not please die hard King and I fans

...Killers) - Jodie Foster as Anna Leonowens (Panic Room, Contact, Nell, Silence of the Lambs) The Film is based on the diaries of Anna Leonowens, who died in Canada, Quebec from a stroke in 1915. I think this is better than the original (King and I) despite my fondness of musicals. The acting is superb and there is a huge cast of extras. I can't imagine how difficult this was to make a film with the costumes (that are superb) and locations involved. ...
...Fiesty teacher, recently widowed who travels to Siam to teach the children of King Mongkut. There she learns that Siam is very different from all that she knows back in England. The film is set in the 1860s and the relationship between the Teacher and the King develops from a cold respect for each others values, into a love interest/ sparring contest. Chow Yun-Fat is magnificent in the title role of the King and plays a philosophical Ruler with ... Read review

Advantages: Great plot, good suspense, supreb acting
Disadvantages: plot is a deep but good all the same

...of a machine called the Enigma , hence the name of the book/movie, that encodes the messages differently each and every time. It was thought to be unbreakable by any standards, but once the Allies salvaged an Enigma machine, the race was on to crack the riddle of the Enigma to save the convoys of ships from the undectable U-boats. The first person to master the Enigma is the mathematician Tom Jericho (dougray Scott), who goes back to Bletchly to ...
...triggered by getting dumped by his girlfriend, the lovely Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), who is a very mysterious person in the movie. Tom's the only one who has ever broken one of the codes, and the codebreakers need him back desperately. Later on, the Germans switch their original code, and now he needs to crack it all over again but it isn't as easy as it sounds. He has to do the work that took ten months in four days and failure is not an ... Read review

Advantages: Its a wonderful true story
Disadvantages: It might make you cry

...love the story of the gorillas and so he bought me this as a gift. The DVD I have is a region 2 so should play in most UK DVD players (mine is multi-region so plays anything and everything!). I just felt the need to let you all know about this wonderful film. Background Specs on the Film ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Certificate = 12 (Warner Bros) Director = Michael Apted Audio = 2.0 Dolby Surround Run Time = 124 minutes Languages = English, French, ...
...it is certainly true. Gorillas in the Mist is the true story of Dian Fossey, the first female primatologist to study the Mountain Gorilla in the mountains of the Congo and then Rwanda. The film is an adaptation of Fossey's book titled Gorillas in the Mist and an article written by Harold T P Hayes. The movie was filmed mostly in the Rwandan natural habitat of the mountain gorillas. As a background, Dian Fossey was a therapist at a childrens hospital ... Read review

Advantages: Good concept for a thriller
Disadvantages: It's become very dated

...pace. The director of Blink is Michael Apted (Extreme Measures) and in general he has made a decent attempt at making a reasonable thriller. He has done a good job of how Emma has enhanced senses such as hearing, he does this through simple things like a stool being pushed across the floor makes a very clear noise. Where I feel the film is let down is by the sometimes over the top love scenes. I personally believe Apted was trying to compete with ...
...that, a lot of thrillers from the late 80's and early 90's seem to have over the top sex scenes. The soundtrack for the film is also very typical of the era, with plenty of saxophone pieces and use of synthesized sounds. On top of this there are some very good pieces of folk music which reminds me of the band The Levellers. The film was written by Dana Stevens who went on to write the screen plays for "City of Angels" and "For Love of The Game". ... Read review

Advantages: Excellent retelling of Roman history
Disadvantages: Lashings of sex, violence and bad language

Rome II The big budget historical drama Rome, spread over two series, is the result of collaboration between HBO, BBC and Italian television company RAI. In common with other big budget dramas produced by HBO in the past (such as Band of Brothers) it is ambitious and produced to movie quality standards. Largely filmed at the Cinecitta studios outside Rome the series are impressive in scale and execution. The large cast is filled with recognisable ...
...North Africa before returning to Rome in triumph. Declaring himself Dictator for life Caesar's list of enemies grows until they are driven to murdering him on the floor of the senate. I'm sorry if it seems I'm giving too much away but you really should know all this already. That is the headline story arc of the first series but by no means the only one. The main aim of the series is to show us a less familiar view of ancient Rome, away from the ... Read review