Absolutely Fabulous was first broadcast in 1992 and became an instant hit. Originally a sketch on the French and Saunders Show, Jennifer Saunders saw its potential and created one of the most ground-breaking and debauched comedies on British TV. Centred around the hip London fashion scene the series follows Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley), two women who refuse to grow up and are constantly on a mission to lose weight, gorging themselves with cocaine and/or champagne, endlessly throwing parties (or throwing up at parties), and sporting outrageous outfits which were the height of fashion at the time--honestly, Sweetie. The superb comic performances offered star status to Julia Sawalha as Edina's straight-laced daughter and Jane Horrocks as the sublimely dippy Bubble, and reinvented the careers of Joanna Lumley and June Whitfield. Saunders meanwhile secured her status as one of the top female comedians Britain has ever produced. Although its consciously chic clothing looks a little dated now, its mad characterisations endure and the jokes remain as hilariously slick and apt as ever. Ab Fab remains a landmark in TV since it was the first time that female comedians and writers had had the freedom and exposure to satirise problems close to their own heart, from their own perspective. With Feminist writers claiming that the ideals of feminism were dead in the 1990s and that female concerns were moving in the wrong direction--towards the "Laddette Culture"--and reports claiming that careers were taking a central role, forcing motherhood onto the back-burner, the series sought to embody and satirise these new supposedly "female" characteristics. As the show continued to grow in popularity both in Britain and the States, plans were made to transfer the formula to America. However, as with many other great British series, the content was considered too risqué for American audiences due to the amount of sex and drug references. Thus domestic audiences breathed a sigh of relief that their beloved Ab Fab would stay forever British to the core. --Nikki Disney
Devised and written by its three principal cast Getting On is a funny refreshing and improvised look at the staff 'getting on with it' in an overlooked corner of the health service: care for the elderly. It may be the least glamorous area of the hospital but in this comedy of characters the staff are doing the best they can in a place where difficult choices are the order of the day. It's the scene that awaits all of us - whether we like to admit it or not.
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Mono ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Mrs Hill and Lady Evelyn Chatterley are two competing brothel madames, in 1920s London, who place a bet over whose girl turns the best tricks. Hill's girl Fanny (Joanna Lumley) attempts to seduce a portly bishop, while Lady Evelyn's girl (Penny Brahms) takes a drag queen to bed! When the results prove inconclusive the madames randomly select a name from the phone book. The lucky punter turns out to be a staid wine seller, played by a bespectacled Richard Wattis, who seems to be enjoying his close proximity to so much female flesh! Only he can decide who has the best "talents"! ...Games That Lovers Play ( Lady Chatterly Versus Fanny Hill ) ( Lady Chatterly vs. Fanny Hill )
Following the disappearance of Inspector Clouseau Surete call on the world's second-best detective to bring him back. However Clouseau's nemesis the evil Chief Inspector Dreyfus interferes with the computer which assigns the world's worst detective to the case Detective-Sergeant Clifton Sleigh! Hilarity ensues as the bumbling Sleigh stumbles from disaster to disaster!
Bafta, British Comedy Award and Rose d'Or winner David Walliams returns to the sketch show format in this laugh-packed spectacular. Filmed in front of a live studio audience, Walliams & Friend captures the joyous theatricality of classic British comedy. In each episode, a showbiz luminary joins David and the regular cast in a series of rib-tickling skits and spoofs. Also includes Christmas special starring Joanna Lumley.
A well-remembered police procedural drama from the late 1960s, Fraud Squad showcases the exploits of Detective Inspector Gamble and his aide, Detective Sergeant Vicky Hicks, Metropolitan officers on the trail of the con-men and fraudsters who operate at all levels of society - from boardroom to bingo hall. Fraud Squad was notable for being one of the earliest British television dramas to feature a female detective in a leading role, while several storylines focus on Gamble's tangled personal...
Abib is a naughty irresponsible donkey who has been purchased by Joseph for the task of taking Mary to Bethlehem along with her husband Joseph for the birth of their baby. On the journey Abib finds himself playing a vital role in the greatest story ever told - the birth of Christ.
RV: An overworked Bob Munro his wife Jaime their 15-year-old daughter Cassie and 12-year-old son Carl are in desperate need of some quality time together. After promising to take them on a family vacation in Hawaii Bob abruptly changes plans without telling them. Instead of a week in a tropical paradise they're going on a road trip to Colorado in a recreational vehicle. Dragging his wife and kids kicking and screaming into the RV Bob's togetherness plan (which is partly a ruse to keep him from losing his job) almost immediately hits a major speed bump. Everything that can go wrong does. Bob's lame attempts to navigate the unwieldy oversized vehicle are met with silence and scorn from his resentful family. The RV life is a far cry from their comfortable life in Los Angeles and every attempt Bob makes to get them into the spirit of the vacation threatens to tear them further apart. At an RV camp the Munro family is befriended by the Gornicke family - an irritatingly endearing happy-go-lucky clan of full-time RVers. The more they try to elude the Gornickes the more their paths seem destined to cross. But adversity has a way of uniting even the most dysfunctional family members and each setback the Munros experience inadvertently helps them become a true family again. Uncle Buck: An idle good natured bachelor is left in charge of his nephew and nieces during a family crisis. Unaccustomed to family life Buck soon charms his younger relatives but his style doesn't impress everyone including his girlfriend. The film charts his progress from slob to a reasonable human being by having to manage with girlfriend troubles unemployment a sex mad neighbour cooking breakfast and a beautiful but rebellious niece. Are We There Yet?: 350 miles. 24 hours. His girlfriend's kids. What could possibly go wrong? Smooth operator Nick (Ice Cube) is interested in young attractive divorcee Suzanne (Nia Long) mother of a 7-year-old-boy and an 11-year-old-girl. Trying to get together with Suzanne Nick volunteers to bring her children to meet her out of town. Missing the plane they must make the long journey by car. What Nick doesn't know is that Suzanne's children think that no man is good enough for their mom and will do everything they can to make the trip a nightmare for him... Fasten your seat belts it's going to be a bumpy ride!
5 Chidren And It: Written by E.Nesbit author of 'The Railway Children' this is the movie of five childrens' chance encounter with 'The Psammead' - an ancient extremely irritable sand fairy who has the ability to make wishes come. The only problem is that the wishes only last till sunset and the children also find it hard to think of sensible wishes! Two Brothers: Two tigers separated as cubs and taken into captivity are reunited years later as enemies by an explor
Either Dean Koontz shouldn't adapt his own bestsellers, or his 1983 novel Phantoms was a pack of horror clichés to begin with, or this movie is 15 years past its due date. What might have seemed fresh at the time of Poltergeist now feels like it was made from a derivative script with pages missing. Plagued by reckless leaps of logic, the movie starts with adequately eerie atmosphere and a perversely twisted performance by Scream 2's Liev Schreiber, but decays into a familiar hash of gross-out effects, resulting from the annihilation of a small Colorado town by an evil force known as "The Ancient Enemy". In a dreary role that insults the twilight of his distinguished career, Peter O'Toole plays a paleobiologist whose crackpot ideas have become tabloid fodder; but he holds the key to conquering the beast. Or does he? Sure enough, an obligatory coda leaves room for anticlimactic doubt. Phantoms has a few genuinely creepy highlights, including a devilish beastie resembling an angry flying scorpion, and horror fans will surely find something to admire, but everyone else is advised to proceed with caution and lowered expectations. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
Two friends Ralph and Scott live in a small minded town at the offset of the Vietnam War. While Scott's brother enlists he and Ralph are outspoken in their opposition to the war. Scott's attitude alienates him from his father and he and Ralph leave town to enjoy their 'freedom'. Events conspire to lead them back home where they learn of the death of the brother...
If you've got an appetite for life: Stay Hungry. A syndicate wants to buy a whole district to rebuild it. They've bought every house except the small gym ""Olympic"" where Mr. Austria Joe Santo prepares for the Mr. Universe championships a month ahead. The rich sunny-boy Craig Blake is brought in by the syndicate as a dummy to buy the gym. But then he starts to like the people and falls in love with Joe's friend Marie-Tate...
Terry and June Medford are both middle-aged and beginning to find the trials of life are more difficult as they try to succeed in their daily lives. The couple have just moved to Purley south-east London... Aunt Lucy and the mynah bird had disappeared as had the occasionally visiting daughters. Terry and June now mixed with a friendly next door neighbour Beattie; Terry's chatty work colleague Malcolm; and their gruff boss Sir Dennis Hodge. Otherwise things were much as before w
Keys To Tulsa is a murderously irreverent tale of sex intrigue and humour in the deep dark South. Eric Stoltz heads an all-star cast as Richter Boudreau the black sheep son of a black sheep manoeuvring through a wonderfully bizzare coterie of characters as he finds himself pushed back into the world of wealth and provilege that spawned him. As he becomes the inadvertent pawn in a dangerous scheme of blackmail Richter must at last face the hypocritical values and petty jealousies of smalltown America. What emerges is a dramatic and potentially deadly journey through his past present and future.
Starring Joanna Lumley and David McCallum Sapphire And Steel was one of the most enigmatic and acclaimed of all ITC-produced adventures. It continues to baffle and delight viewers twenty years later. Sapphire (Lumley) and Steel (McCallum) are the mysterious agents charged with protecting the Universe from the malevolent forces of Time with their uncanny powers. Assignment IV an evil amorphous entity uses photographs to move between time dimensions. It takes over a junkshop and entraps the inhabitants. A golden anniversary party where the guests are being killed off is the subject of Assignment V. Sapphire and Steel meet another element/detective Silver at an abandoned petrol station in Assignment VI and become embroiled in mystery.
Sometimes a movie achieves such legendary status that it can't quite live up to its reputation. Plan 9 from Outer Space is not one of these movies. It is just as magnificently terrible as you've heard. Plan 9 is the story of space aliens who try to conquer the Earth through resurrection of the dead. Psychic Criswell narrates ("Future events such as these will affect you in the future!") as police rush through the cemetery, occasionally clipping the cardboard tombstones in their zeal to find the source of the mysterious goings-on. More than just a bad film, Plan 9 is something of a one- stop clearinghouse for poor cinematic techniques: The time shifts whimsically from midnight to afternoon sun, Tor Johnson flails desperately in an attempt to rise from his coffin, and flying saucers zoom past on clearly visible strings. Fading star Bela Lugosi tragically died during filming, but such a small hurdle could not stop writer-producer-director Ed Wood. Lugosi is ingeniously replaced with a man who holds a cape across his face and might as well have "NOT BELA LUGOSI" stamped on his forehead. Plan 9 is so sweetly well- intentioned in both its message and its execution that it's impossible not to love it. And if you don't, well, as Eros says, "You people of Earth are idiots!" --Ali Davis
Terry and June Medford are both middle-aged and beginning to find the trials of life are more difficult as they try to succeed in their daily lives. The couple have just moved to Purley south-east London... Aunt Lucy and the mynah bird had disappeared as had the occasionally visiting daughters. Terry and June now mixed with a friendly next door neighbour Beattie; Terry's chatty work colleague Malcolm; and their gruff boss Sir Dennis Hodge. Otherwise things were much as before w
Having recovered from a shattering emotional breakdown, college professor Ben Marshall (Ed Stoppard) relocates to the countryside with his wife (Sophia Myles) and young son, hoping for a fresh start. He has a teaching job lined up and a new home to move into; things finally look to be going Ben s way. Until, that is, he starts to feel that something isn t quite right in the house. Finding himself plagued by visions, Ben becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind a local mystery that appears to be putting the lives of his family in danger. He begins to investigate the local gamekeeper Jack (Russell Tovey) and the ex-paratrooper vicar, Father Patrick (Paul Kaye) but things complicate when an old friend Dominic (Greg Wise) and his girlfriend (Joanna Vanderham) enter the frame.
A masterful production of the Sondheim clasic this seamless fusion of fairy tales will strike at the child's heart in all of us. A baker and his wife journey into the woods and meet up with a beguiling cast of characters that will make you laugh and cry. Recorded in 1988 this production won three Tony Awards for Best Score Best Book and Best Actress (Joanna Gleason). Includes 'Children Will Listen' and 'No One Is Alone'.
Absolutely Fabulous was first broadcast in 1992 and became an instant hit. Originally a sketch on the French and Saunders Show, Jennifer Saunders saw its potential and created one of the most ground-breaking and debauched comedies on British TV. Centred around the hip London fashion scene the series follows Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley), two women who refuse to grow up and are constantly on a mission to lose weight, gorging themselves with cocaine and/or champagne, endlessly throwing parties (or throwing up at parties) and sporting outrageous outfits which were the height of fashion at the time--honestly sweetie! The superb comic performances offered star status to Julia Sawalha as Edina's straight-laced daughter and Jane Horrocks as the sublimely dippy Bubble, and re-invented the careers of Joanna Lumley and June Whitfield. Saunders meanwhile secured her status as one of the top female comedians Britain has ever produced. Although its consciously chic clothing looks a little dated now, its mad characterisations endure and the jokes remain as hilariously slick and apt as ever. Ab Fab remains a landmark in TV since it was the first time that female comedians and writers had had the freedom and exposure to satirise problems close to their own heart, from their own perspective. With Feminist writers claiming that the ideals of feminism were dead in the 1990s and that female concerns were moving in the wrong direction--towards the "Laddette Culture"--and reports claiming that careers were taking a central role, forcing motherhood onto the back-burner, the series sought to embody and satirise these new supposedly "female" characteristics. As the show continued to grow in opularity both in Britain and the States, plans were made to transfer the formula to America. However, as with many other great British series, the content was considered too risky for American audiences due to the amount of sex and drug references. Thus domestic audiences breathed a sigh of release that their beloved Ab Fab would forever stay British to the core. --N!ikki Disney
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