It turns out that the deerstalker hat and pipe were fictitious embellishments that Dr. Watson added to his tales of the world’s greatest detective, but it’s all a little irrelevant as since he has long to get married and Sherlock Holmes is now in his dotage and retired to live in the peace and quiet … Continue reading
Howard Marks was a drug smuggler who, when on the run as a Wanted Criminal, stole the identity of a Denis Nice. And according to this entertaining biopic based on his life it was a very appropriate name for him as everybody (except the police and customs officials) seemed to love this rather charming and outgoing fun-loving … Continue reading
Mike Leigh’s stunning biopic of J.M.W.Turner is the portrait of the leading English Romantic landscape artist who was evidently also quite a philanderer and misanthrope too. Set in the 1820’s (although Leigh never tells us that) the movie focuses on the last 20 years of the painter’s life when he was at the height of … Continue reading
At 8 30 am on a bitterly cold January morning in Park City, Utah I sat clutching my Starbucks watching a wonderful period piece movie when the teacher on screen bawled out a name and then I suddenly remembered why we had decided to make this film part of our Sundance schedule. It was Nowhere … Continue reading
We Brits evidently love an underdog breaking through. In 2007, two years before Susan Boyle dramatically assailed the musical world, a chubby and rather insignificant mobile phone salesman from Wales won the first ever ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ Competition on television. The name of this unlikely winner singing Puccini’s aria ‘Nessun dorma’ was Paul Potts, and this … Continue reading