Drama > W Drama > G

Advantages: Slick and moody with excellent storylines
Disadvantages: Perhaps a little too moody for some

...*** Series Background Vincent Gallagher (Winstone) is an ex-cop now running a team of private investigators in Manchester. They tackle anything, from insurance swindlers to benefit cheats, but the series itself deals (naturally) with the team's meatier and more dramatic investigations. Vincent is aided and abetted by his two senior assistants, Beth (Suranne Jones) and John (Ian Puleston-Davies) as well as by the two 'office juniors', a sweet single-mum, ...
...devoting his time to investigations Vincent is struggling to come to terms with his ruined love life. As the series gets under way we quickly learn that his partner, Cathy (Eva Pope), has walked out on him and moved in with one of his former police colleagues, DCI David Driscoll (Philip Glenister). The tensions between the trio will dominate the first series as will the subtle and understated attraction between Vincent and Beth. Episode 1 The team ... Read review

Advantages: Plot, lead actors
Disadvantages: Drags a little in places

...stage, one of these being Educating Rita. In 1983, director Lewis Gilbert took Russell's play and adapted it for the big screen, making it into a feature film and drawing in top actor Michael Caine. It was also Julie Walters' first major feature film. The script was originally intended for the stage, and was thus just a dialogue, taking place entirely in an office. For the screen, it was amended and several locations were used to make it more appealing. ...
...who are merely spoken about in the original play. The plot, however, does not really change. Essentially, it is the tale of a young working class woman, Rita (Julie Walters) who embarks on an Open University course to study literature. She finds herself lumbered with Dr Frank Bryant (Michael Caine), a grumpy English prof with a penchant for a bit of alcohol on a frequent basis. The pair of them struggle through her course together, becoming platonic ... Read review

Advantages: Interesting
Disadvantages: Slow

...the amazing Tommy Lee Jones in it who is always fabulous. What we found though was that it was quite a hard going film which was slow and depressing but because it was based on true events it was fascinating. This review will tell you why it is worth watching but only when you are in the right mood. The story of this film is that a father gets a call from the military telling him that his son has gone missing from the base. His son has just come ...
...missing. The story is made in such a way that you believe it from start to finish and it is one of those where you are just so interested in what is going to happen and how it is going to end. The film is made well and the script pace fits the story very well. On the flip side although the scripts pace does fit the story I don't think it was quick enough for my liking. Due to it being slightly slow I got a little bored and my attention did waver ... Read review

Advantages: Far better performances than the film deserves.
Disadvantages: Let's see - sadistic, inhumane, dishonest, cowardly...

...and nasty Lars Von Trier, Breaking The Waves is, like his later Dancer In The Dark and Dogville, a cynical, misogynist melodrama that comes a hell of a lot closer to "Torture Porn" than anything Eli Roth has ever crafted. Emily Watson plays the childlike, mentally unstable Bess McNeil - the Holy Fool of the piece, pretty much - who, as a means of pleasing her recently paralysed husband Jan (Stellan Skarsgård), sets about prostituting herself to an ...
...far removed from Von Trier's. Breaking The Waves engages neither the soul nor the mind - it is an (admittedly well directed, for what its worth) insulting, offensive exercise in manipulation - a Sirkian melodrama shorn of heart or insight, loaded with bile and hatred in their stead. The performances, as is always the case in Von Trier's work, are wonderful throughout - far, far better than the film deserves. The handheld camerawork which would become ... Read review

Advantages: The music is what makes this film special!
Disadvantages: None!

Capricorn one is an excellent film telling the story of 3 astronauts (James Brolin, Sam Waterston, OJ Simpson) who are forced to fake a Mars landing by the head of NASA (Hal Holbrook) Elliot Gould plays the investigative reporter who has a hunch that the 'manned mission to Mars' is not all what its cracked out to be and sets out to discover the truth. But unfortunatly upon re-entry to earth the space capsule burns up and leaves 3 very much alive ... Read review