FanFare

[TRAILER] Just north of London live Wendy (Alison Steadman), Andy (Jim Broadbent), and their twenty-something twins, Natalie (Calire Skinner) and Nicola (Jane Horrocks).Andy attempts to fix up a food truck for a new business. Wendy tires to help family friend Aubrey (Timothy Spall) open a new restaurant. Cranky, on-the-dole Nicola butts heads with her hard-working sister Natalie and her wary lover (David Thewlis). [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown on Apr 22, 2024 - 7 comments

[TRAILER] After their production "Princess Ida" meets with less-than-stunning reviews, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan (Jim Broadbent and Allan Corduner) is strained to breaking. Their friends and associates attempt to get the two to work together again, which opens the way to "The Mikado," one of the duo's greatest successes. [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown on Mar 20, 2024 - 10 comments

In a poor working class London home, Penny's love for her partner, taxi driver Phil, has run dry. When an unexpected tragedy occurs, they and their local community are brought back together. This was an early role for James Corden (son Rory), and Leigh would cast Timothy Spalding and Lesley Manville in a number of films. Sally Hawkins would be back for the lead role in "Happy Go Lucky" also. Leigh's ability to portray bleakness resolved by the capacity for people to forgive, accept, communicate, may feel a bit leading at times but I'm a big fan. [more inside]
posted by elkevelvet on Aug 24, 2022 - 1 comment

In Mike Leigh's 1996 Palme d'Or winning drama, Marianne Jean-Baptiste stars as Hortense, a well-educated black middle-class London optometrist, who was adopted as a baby and has chosen to trace her family history – and discovers that her birth mother, Cynthia, played by Brenda Blethyn, is a working-class white woman with a dysfunctional family. [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown on Jun 2, 2022 - 8 comments

An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter's Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. [more inside]
posted by latkes on Nov 22, 2020 - 1 comment

Timothy Spall portrays the English painter J.M.W. Turner in Mike Leigh's film about the last twenty-five years of his life. [more inside]
posted by Grangousier on Nov 8, 2014 - 4 comments