Posts Tagged ‘media-circus’

Chicago (2002)

Sunday, November 16th, 2008
Genres: Comedy | Crime | Drama | Musical
Countries: Germany | USA
Actors: Diggs, Taye | Saunders, Cliff | Zeta-Jones, Catherine | Zellweger, Renée | West, Dominic | Gere, Richard | Eastwood, Jayne | Beaton, Bruce | Baranski, Christine | Podhora, Roman | Reilly, John C. | Feore, Colm | Smith, Rob | Wayne Doyle, Shawn | Behal, Steve | Rox, Robbie | Rivera, Chita
Directors: Marshall, Rob
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Fame hungry Roxie Hart dreams of a life on the Vaudville stage, and spends her nights jazzing it up in the bright lights of Chicago, continually hoping that she’ll find her lucky break, and be shot into 1920’s stardom, so able to flee her boring husband Amos. In awe of seductive club singer Velma Kelly (who is subsequantly arrested for the murder of her husband and sister - after discovering their affair), Roxie meets Fred Cassely a man who convinces her he can ‘make her showbiz career take off’. However after Roxie has undergone the ‘casting couch’ treatment, and Fred has had his wicked way with her, he reveals that he has no more connections in showbusiness than she does. This is the final straw for Roxie, and her constant anger at rejection explodes. She shoots Fred Cassely and kills him. Upon discovering her infidelity, Roxie’s husband Amos refuses to take the blame for the murder and Roxie is sent to jail, pending hanging. In jail she finally meets tabloid darling Velma Kelly, currently receiving huge media attention for the double murder she committed earlier in the tale. Sharing the clink with Velma, are a collection of other sly females, all awaiting trial for the murders of their own partners. Velma is aloof to Roxie, however the prison Warden Mrs Morton offers Roxie the opportunity of representation by slick Chicago lawyer Billy Flynn. Billy is more a showbiz P. R agent than a legal lawyer and minipulates the tabloids into thinking Roxie is no more than an innocent ‘good time girl’ who took the wrong path, than a scheming murderess. The tabloids go crazy for the new girl on the cell block, and Roxie finally becomes a star. However due to Roxie’s new found fame, Velma is forgotten about. She is forced to approach Roxie with an offer of a part in her Vaudville act (filling the gap left by her murdered sister), but Roxie turns down her offer flat, thinking she needs no support in topping the bill. However, just as Velma’s star fell, so does Roxie’s, when Go-to-hell Kitty arrives at the jail on a multiple murder charge, the press forget Roxie and now she and Velma are in the same boat. With one more trick up her sleave Roxie manages to bring the media attention back onto her, and her day in court arrives. Billy is now ready to play the ultimate showman!

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
Genres: Crime | Drama | Thriller
Countries: USA
Actors: Pacino, Al | Cazale, John | Durning, Charles | Sarandon, Chris | Boyar, Sully | Broderick, James | Marriott, John | Springer, Gary | Henriksen, Lance | Chianese, Dominic | Levine, Floyd | Foresta, Carmine | Bogert, William | Cummins, Ron | Gerber, Jay
Directors:
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Based upon a real-life story that happened in the early seventies in which the Chase Manhattan Bank in Flatbush, Brooklyn, was held siege by a gay bank robber determined to steal enough money for his male lover to undergo a sex change operation. On a hot summer afternoon, the First Savings Bank of Brooklyn is held up by Sonny and Sal, two down-and-out characters. Although the bank manager and female tellers agree not to interfere with the robbery, Sonny finds that there’s actually nothing much to steal, as most of the cash has been picked up for the day. Sonny then gets an unexpected phone call from Police Captain Moretti, who tells him the place is surrounded by the city’s entire police force. Having few options under the circumstances, Sonny nervously bargains with Moretti, demanding safe escort to the airport and a plane out of the country in return for the bank employees’ safety.

Calendar Girls (2003)

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
Genres: Comedy | Drama
Countries: UK | USA
Actors: Mirren, Helen | Walters, Julie | Alderton, John | Bassett, Linda | Crosbie, Annette | Glenister, Philip | Hinds, Ciarán | Imrie, Celia | James, Geraldine | Wilton, Penelope | Costigan, George | Crowden, Graham | Fortune, John | Glen, Georgie | Curran, Angela
Directors: Cole, Nigel
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In the small town of Knapely, Yorkshire, England, Annie Clarke (Julie Walters) has just lost her husband, who was ill with leukemia. Inspired in his speech to the local Women’s Institute, where he said that “the flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire”, and “the last phase of the women of Yorkshire is always the most glorious”, her best friend Chris Harper (Helen Mirren) decides to make a calendar with twelve local middle-age women nude to raise funds for the wing of leukemia treatment in the local hospital. The calendar becomes well succeeded, making them famous and affecting their lives.

Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

Sunday, May 6th, 2007
Genres: Comedy | Drama | Romance
Countries: USA
Actors: Witherspoon, Reese | Lucas, Josh | Dempsey, Patrick | Bergen, Candice | Place, Mary Kay | Ward, Fred | Smart, Jean | Embry, Ethan | Lynskey, Melanie | Gains, Courtney | Rajskub, Mary Lynn | Mitra, Rhona | Graham, Nathan Lee | Bridgers, Sean | Cooper, Fleet
Directors: Tennant, Andy
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Melanie Carmichael (Reese Witherspoon), an up and rising fashion designer in New York, has gotten almost everything she wished for since she was little. She has a great career and the JFK-like husband of New York City. But when he proposes to her, she doesn’t forget about her family back down South - and, more importantly, her husband back there, who refuses to divorce her ever since she sent divorce paper for almost 5 years. To settle matters straight, she decides to go to the south quick and make him sign the papers. But when things don’t turn out the way she planned them out, she realizes that what she had before in the south was far more perfect than the life she had in new york city.

What a Girl Wants (2003)

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
Genres: Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Family | Musical | Romance
Countries: USA
Actors: Bynes, Amanda | Firth, Colin | Preston, Kelly | Atkins, Eileen | Chancellor, Anna | Pryce, Jonathan | James, Oliver | Cole, Christina | Syms, Sylvia | McGhee, Soleil | Reeves, Peter | Greene, James | Osborne, Steven | Toller, Mike | Penn, Tom
Directors: Gordon, Dennie
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Daphne, a seventeen-year-old girl from New York goes to England in search of her father, who does not know he had a child with an American girlfriend he met while working in Morocco, and whose aristocratic family did not approve of the woman.

Phone Booth (2002)

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007
Genres: Crime | Drama | Thriller
Countries: USA
Actors: Farrell, Colin | Sutherland, Kiefer | Whitaker, Forest | Mitchell, Radha | Holmes, Katie | Parker, Paula Jai | Ash, Arian Waring | Texada, Tia | Enos III, John | Jones, Richard T. | Nobbs, Keith | Yount, Dell | MacDonald, James | Pais, Josh | Constantine, Yorgo
Directors: Schumacher, Joel
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A slick New York publicist (Farrell) who picks up a ringing receiver in a phone booth is told that if he hangs up, he’ll be killed… and the little red light from a laser rifle sight is proof that the caller isn’t kidding.

Laramie Project, The (2002)

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007
Genres: Crime | Drama
Countries: USA
Actors: Ricci, Christina | Buscemi, Steve | Linney, Laura | Phoenix, Summer
Directors: Kaufman, Moisés
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‘Moisés Kaufman’ (qv) and members of New York’s Tectonic Theater Project went to Laramie, Wyoming after the murder of ‘Matthew Shepard (I)’ (qv). This is a film version of the play they wrote based on more than 200 interviews they conducted in Laramie. It follows and in some cases re-enacts the chronology of Shepherd’s visit to a local bar, his kidnap and beating, the discovery of him tied to a fence, the vigil at the hospital, his death and funeral, and the trial of his killers. It mixes real news reports with actors portraying friends, family, cops, killers, and other Laramie residents in their own words. It concludes with a Laramie staging of “Angels in America” a year after Shephard’s death.