Vastralaya

Evan Shively (Perseus271)

Edgar Colt

Vitor Miguel

Prisma Soulstorm

Serena

Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Update I've just watched the film. It's even better than the book, by a long way. It's very affectionate, and very much played for gentle laughs. The cast is fantastic, some of the best actresses around including Eileen Atkins and Joanna Ab Fab Lumley, Stephen Fry and Ian McKellan. The attention to detail was stunning. Everything had been thought of - the lighting, colours and even face makeup of the women changed to reflect the lessening of the stranglehold Aunt Ada Doom had on the Starkadders and the lightness that Robert Post's child, Flora, brought to the farm. The ending was also an improvement on the 5* book. If you like British films, this is so typical of gentle British humour. In an earlier decade it would have been an Ealing film. I don't think it could have been made in the US as most of the actors weren't remotely good looking. Even Elvine, playing a mini Eliza Doolittle role (an obvious pastiche) was rather average and the sex-obsessed and over-fertile girl had been made up to look like an unwashed farm girl. Only Kate Beckinsale (who is not the world's most brilliant actress, although she was competent here, was allowed to be a beauty. I do recommend the film. And the book. Rarely do I see a film much better than a really good book, but this is it. John Schlesinger and Stella Gibbons, author and director, geniuses both._______________________When Aunt Ada Doom was just a small child, she saw "something nasty in the woodshed". And if it didn't blight her entire life, she certainly made sure it would blight, or at least add even more blight, to everyone else at Cold Comfort Farm, the family home and ancestral seat of the Starkadders.Essentially this is the American tv series, the Hillbillies rewritten for 1930s Sussex and parodying Hardy, Lawrence, and various other Great British Writers, but is more related to the Hillbillies with incest, hellfire, strange obsessions (cows) and all manner of people who all have mental or emotional problems of the darker, more malign sort. Into this maelstrom of petty evil, fear and ineptness, come the heroine. Flora Poste is the posh city cousin fallen on hard times whose father the Starkadders did something unmentionable to and feel guilty about so when she has nowhere to go, they take her in. But not willingly. She sorts them all out and brings them from their ignorant, Gothic-y insular life into the modern world. It is a ridiculously funny novel, not as literary as the parodying might suggest. I haven't seen the film of it, only just learned there was one, which was apparently brilliant and stars top British actors and actresses (as opposed to 'stars' famous more for their beauty than any thespian ability). Sometimes I don't want to see the film of a favourite book in case the director hasn't seen it the same way as I have, but this time I want to.Finished 26 Dec. 2011Book review 19 May 2015Film Review 24 May 2015

I hate to be facetious about this, but it’s true. I love to read good books as much as I love to discover which ones are actual impostors—that is, which ones are overrated past the norm, books like “On the Road,” “Catcher in the Rye,” or anything by Ayn Rand. Yuck. Well, this one won the Booker, which I can only guess is a HUGE deal. But I guess the year this book was published there were a few other, if any, contenders for the top prize.It’s certainly not awful. It’s actually entertaining, readable, sometimes funny. There is true mastery of the language here, an even flow. The tone is more tolerable than say, Emma Donoghue’s “Room” which is also about a child growing up. But, although I am not at all a fan of the almighty “Huck Finn”, I must say that this one does not possess that wackiness—there is some unconscious logic to Twain's tale, at the very least. This is a chapterless novel; a pretty ordinary account of a pretty ordinary boy. What is the main motor that keeps the prose congruent, that makes the entire novel work? The fact that Patrick’s parents fight. That's all. They keep it private, they try to keep the kids out of it, yet this still registers within Paddy… he’s human alright, just not a remarkable one.Indeed Bookers are bestowed upon (like the Pulitzers here in the U.S.) to novels that exemplify the experience of being European (American for a Pulitzer). This hits several targets to become a well-loved book, but it still remains a coming-of-age story of an Irish imp—a precocious, slightly evil ten year old boy. Who do we side with in this account of playground cruelty &amp; cute impressions? With the bully? The victim? In this case, I would say... neither.Apathy is the worst type of feeling a book can give its reader.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is set in the early days of the second world war, before Benito Mussolini invaded Greece. Dr Iannis practices medicine on the island of Cephalonia, accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia, to whom he imparts much of his healing art. Even when the Italians do invade, life isn’t so bad—at first anyway. The officer in command of the Italian garrison is the cultured Captain Antonio Corelli, who responds to a Nazi greeting of “Heil Hitler” with his own “Heil Puccini”, and whose most precious possession is his mandolin. It isn't long before Corelli and Pelagia are involved in a heated affair--despite her engagement to a young fisherman, Mandras, who has gone off to join Greek partisans. Love is complicated enough in wartime, even when the lovers are on the same side. And for Corelli and Pelagia, it becomes increasingly difficult to negotiate the minefield of allegiances, both personal and political, as all around them atrocities mount, former friends become enemies and the ugliness of war infects everyone it touches. British author Louis de Bernières is well known for his forays into magical realism in such novels as The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. Here he keeps it to a minimum, though certainly the secondary characters with whom he populates his island—the drunken priest, the strongman, the fisherman who swims with dolphins—would be at home in any of his wildly imaginative Latin American fictions. Instead, de Bernières seems interested in dissecting the nature of history as he tells his ever-darkening tale from many different perspectives. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin works on many levels, as a love story, a war story and a deconstruction of just what determines the facts that make it into the history books.

This collection brings together music played by Captain Corelli himself and original pieces evoking the sounds and events of the book and of 3 earlier novels, the Latin Trilogy', by Louis de Bernieres. Mandolin music by Beethoven and Hummel is idiomatically arranged for piano by Richard Harris and contrasted with Neapolitan songs, folk songs from Latin America and Greece, and music by Stephen Warbeck.

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After his death sometime in his 43rd year, suburbanite Lester Burnham tells of the last few weeks of his life, during which he had no idea of his imminent passing. He is a husband to real estate agent Carolyn Burnham and father to high school student Jane Burnham. Although Lester and Carolyn once loved each other, they now merely tolerate each other. Typical wallflower Jane also hates both her parents; the three suffer individually in silence in their home life. Jane tries to steer clear of both her parents. Carolyn, relatively new to the real estate business, wants to create the persona of success to further her career, aspiring to the professional life of Buddy Kane, the king of the real estate business in their neighborhood. Lester merely walks mindlessly through life, including at his job in advertising. His company is downsizing, and he, like all the other employees, has to justify his position to the newly hired efficiency expert to keep his job. Things change for Lester when he falls in love at first sight with Jane's more experienced classmate, Angela Hayes. Both Janie and Angela can see Lester's sexual infatuation with Angela, who courts such attention from any man as a sign that she is model material, she having once appeared in Seventeen and is a career to which she aspires. Lester's infatuation with Angela gives him a reenergized view on life, where he openly doesn't care anymore what anyone thinks about what he does, anyone except Angela. This infatuation coincides with the Fittses moving in next door: homophobic disciplinarian US Marine Colonel Frank Fitts who rules the house with a military fist (that fist being both figurative and literal), his semi-comatose wife Barbara Fitts, and their bright and quietly subversive 18-year-old son Ricky Fitts, who openly abides by his father's rules while behind the scenes lives by his own quite different perspective. Much like Lester's infatuation, Ricky immediately becomes infatuated with Jane; he considers girls like Angela as ordinary. The entry of Angela and the Fittses into the Burnhams' lives ultimately leads to each of the players confronting what is truly in his or her heart.

Following a truck hijack in New York, five criminals are arrested and brought together for questioning. As none of them are guilty, they plan a revenge operation against the police. The operation goes well, but then the influence of a legendary mastermind criminal called Keyser Söze is felt. It becomes clear that each one of them has wronged Söze at some point and must pay back now. The payback job leaves 27 men dead in a boat explosion, but the real question arises now: Who actually is Keyser Söze?

A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting "rat" (as he calls it). This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the 'following' day, he discovers that it's Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing every day.

Four Jack-the-lads find themselves heavily - seriously heavily - in debt to an East End hard man and his enforcers after a crooked card game. Overhearing their neighbours in the next flat plotting to hold up a group of out-of-their-depth drug growers, our heroes decide to stitch up the robbers in turn. In a way the confusion really starts when a pair of antique double-barrelled shotguns go missing in a completely different scam.

Chronicles the experiences of a formerly successful banker as a prisoner in the gloomy jailhouse of Shawshank after being found guilty of a crime he did not commit. The film portrays the man's unique way of dealing with his new, torturous life; along the way he befriends a number of fellow prisoners, most notably a wise long-term inmate named Red.

1994 American drama film directed by Frank Darabont

Based on a true story, a group of allied escape artist-type prisoners-of-war are all put in an "escape proof" camp. Their leader decides to try to take out several hundred all at once. The first half of the movie is played for comedy, as the prisoners mostly outwit their jailers to dig the escape tunnel. The second half is high adventure as they use planes, trains, and boats to get out of occupied Europe.

A wild, freeform, Rabelaisian trip through the darkest recesses of Edinburgh low-life, focusing on Mark Renton and his attempt to give up his heroin habit, and how the latter affects his relationship with family and friends: Sean Connery wannabe Sick Boy, dimbulb Spud, psycho Begbie, 14-year-old girlfriend Diane, and clean-cut athlete Tommy, who's never touched drugs but can't help being curious about them...

Turkish and his close friend/accomplice Tommy get pulled into the world of match fixing by the notorious Brick Top. Things get complicated when the boxer they had lined up gets badly beaten by Mickey, who comes into the equation after Turkish, an unlicensed boxing promoter wants to buy a caravan off of Travellers. They then try to convince Mickey not only to fight for them, but to lose for them too. Whilst all this is going on, a huge diamond heist takes place, and a fistful of motley characters enter the story, including 'Cousin Avi', 'Boris The Blade', 'Franky Four Fingers' and 'Bullet Tooth Tony'. Things go from bad to worse as it all becomes about the money, the guns, and the damned dog.

The Godfather "Don" Vito Corleone is the head of the Corleone mafia family in New York. He is at the event of his daughter's wedding. Michael, Vito's youngest son and a decorated WW II Marine is also present at the wedding. Michael seems to be uninterested in being a part of the family business. Vito is a powerful man, and is kind to all those who give him respect but is ruthless against those who do not. But when a powerful and treacherous rival wants to sell drugs and needs the Don's influence for the same, Vito refuses to do it. What follows is a clash between Vito's fading old values and the new ways which may cause Michael to do the thing he was most reluctant in doing and wage a mob war against all the other mafia families which could tear the Corleone family apart.

1972 American film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Based upon a real-life incident which occurred in August 1972 in which a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Gravesend, Brooklyn, New York, was held siege by Sonny, a Vietnam veteran turned bank robber determined to steal enough money ($2500) for his "wife" (Leon, a man; the two, were, according to an onscreen TV news report, married in a church by a priest who was defrocked shortly after, although Leon says to the police that Sal is "married and has children") to undergo a sex change operation. (The real life character upon whom Leon is based did, in fact, get the operation.) On a hot summer afternoon, Sonny and two cohort, Stevie and Sal, go to rob the (fictional) First Savings Bank of Brooklyn. Stevie soon gets nervous and flees. Although the bank manager and female tellers agree not to interfere with the robbery, Sonny finds there is not much to steal, as most of the cash has been picked up for the day. Sonny then gets an unexpected phone call from Captain Moretti of the NYPD, 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.

Tony Montana manages to leave Cuba during the Mariel exodus of 1980. He finds himself in a Florida refugee camp but his friend Manny has a way out for them: undertake a contract killing and arrangements will be made to get a green card. He's soon working for drug dealer Frank Lopez and shows his mettle when a deal with Colombian drug dealers goes bad. He also brings a new level of violence to Miami. Tony is protective of his younger sister but his mother knows what he does for a living and disowns him. Tony is impatient and wants it all however, including Frank's empire and his mistress Elvira Hancock. Once at the top however, Tony's outrageous actions make him a target and everything comes crumbling down.

Thomas A. Anderson is a man living two lives. By day he is an average computer programmer and by night a hacker known as Neo. Neo has always questioned his reality, but the truth is far beyond his imagination. Neo finds himself targeted by the police when he is contacted by Morpheus, a legendary computer hacker branded a terrorist by the government. As a rebel against the machines, Neo must confront the agents: super-powerful computer programs devoted to stopping Neo and the entire human rebellion.

1999 American science fiction action thriller film

1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino

Six thugs, who are strangers to each other, are hired by a crime boss, Joe Cabot, to carry out a diamond robbery. Right at the outset, they are given false names with the intention that they won't get too close and will concentrate on the job instead. They are completely sure that the robbery is going to be a success. But, when the police show up right at the time and the site of the robbery, panic spreads amongst the group members, and two of them are killed in the subsequent shootout, along with a few policemen and civilians. When the remaining people assemble at the premeditated rendezvous point (a warehouse), they begin to suspect that one of them is an undercover cop.

Michael, Steven and Nicky are 3 best friends who enjoy going deer hunting quite often. These men get enlisted to head to Vietnam to fight for their country and celebrate with a farewell party, as well as Steven marrying a pregnant woman named "Angela." After the horrors during the war and edge-grabbing games of Russian Roulette that these men are forced to play, Michael returns home and realizes that his deer hunting outings aren't the same as they used to be, because of the war and he eventually finds out that Steven is handicapped and Nicky hasn't returned from Vietnam, and in response, he heads back to Vietnam to rescue him.

Henry Hill might be a small time gangster, who may have taken part in a robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who might have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners could kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to think about climbing up through the hierarchy of the Mob. Henry, however, might be badly affected by his partners' success, but will he consider stooping low enough to bring about the downfall of Jimmy and Tommy?

It is the height of the war in Vietnam, and U.S. Army Captain Willard is sent by Colonel Lucas and a General to carry out a mission that, officially, 'does not exist - nor will it ever exist'. The mission: To seek out a mysterious Green Beret Colonel, Walter Kurtz, whose army has crossed the border into Cambodia and is conducting hit-and-run missions against the Viet Cong and NVA. The army believes Kurtz has gone completely insane and Willard's job is to eliminate him. Willard, sent up the Nung River on a U.S. Navy patrol boat, discovers that his target is one of the most decorated officers in the U.S. Army. His crew meets up with surfer-type Lt-Colonel Kilgore, head of a U.S Army helicopter cavalry group which eliminates a Viet Cong outpost to provide an entry point into the Nung River. After some hair-raising encounters, in which some of his crew are killed, Willard, Lance and Chef reach Colonel Kurtz's outpost, beyond the Do Lung Bridge. Now, after becoming prisoners of Kurtz, will Willard & the others be able to fulfill their mission?

1979 American war film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Star of acclaimed series 'An Idiot Abroad', Karl Pilkington returns to television in his first scripted comedy series 'Sick of It', a collaboration between himself and long-time comedy partner Richard Yee. Karl plays Karl, a middle-aged taxi driver in Ladbroke Grove, London, who, struggling to get by and feeling down in the dumps after a recent break up, discovers a grumpy and misanthropic internal voice that says what Karl really thinks. The voice often tries to guide and help Karl, but just as often dispenses criticisms and expounds his unconventional and offbeat views on life, often leading to less than desirable outcomes.

Karl is faced with the different aspects of life by travelling around the world and discovering how different people face life's challenges.

British travel documentary comedy television series

The show centres on pub landlord Ken (John Henshaw), especially his preoccupation with his daughter Melanie (Christine Bottomley), and his nervous relationship with barmaid Tanya (Susan Cookson). Ken's wife left him for his best friend. The series reflects more than a little of the Northern humour displayed in The Royle Family (co-written by Cash). In a similar style to The Royle Family, every scene unfolds within the spatial context of The Grapes and it is also set in the Greater Manchester area.

When Steve is asked by The Observer to tour Northern England's finest restaurants, he envisions it as the perfect getaway with his beautiful girlfriend. But, when she backs out on him, he has no one to accompany him but his best friend and source of eternal aggravation, Rob. Series two finds the men touring Italy.

In this classic bittersweet sitcom from award-winning writer David Renwick, Richard Wilson plays the short-tempered Victor Meldrew, a man who doesn't suffer fools gladly, and to his misery frequently encounters them as well as enduring endless misfortune. His long-suffering wife Margaret (Annette Crosbie) struggles to cope with his rants against the world and the bad luck that befalls them. The hilarity that ensures is underpinned by a poignant, often darker edge little seen in most sitcoms.

Alan is handed a career lifeline - the chance to stand in (temporarily) as co-host on This Time, a weekday magazine show. But can he capitalise on the opportunity?

Jack and Victor have broken out of Chewin' The Fat and now have their own six part series on BBC One Scotland. These Glaswegian patter merchants may be long in the tooth but they're Still Game for all kinds of carry-on.

Rick Spleen is a world-weary comedian who ends up doing far too many corporate jobs to pay the bills.

Norman Stanley Fletcher is sentenced to 5 years at her Majesty's pleasure at HM prison Slade in darkest Cumbria. His naive cell mate Lenny Godber needs to learn the ropes, skives and scams and strict prison officer Mr.Mackay tries to run the prison his own way. And then there's Mr.Barroclough who is just too weak willed to have his good nature exploited.

British travel documentary television series

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant talk to Karl Pilkington about important things in life whilst Karl provides anything but intelligent answers. Comedy at its finest with wonderful animation.

Inept and manic English hotel owner and manager, Basil Fawlty, isn't cut out for his job. He's intolerant, rude and paranoid. All hell frequently breaks loose as Basil tries to run the hotel, constantly under verbal attack (and sometime physical) from his unhelpful wife Sybil, and hindered by the incompetent, but easy target, Manuel, their Spanish waiter.

Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais) is an actor with ambition and a script. Reduced to working as an extra with a useless agent, Andy's attempts to boost his career invariably end in failure and embarrassment.

Famous DJ Alan Partridge gives us an insight into what happens behind the microphone at North Norfolk digital radio.

Tommy Saxondale is an ex-roadie with anger management issues and his own pest control business in Stevenage. Having survived a hostile divorce, Tommy now lives with his girlfriend Magz. Tommy regards himself as a maverick and free thinker and takes the opportunity to impart his wisdom to his naïve assistant Raymond.

Alan Partridge hosts his own chat show on the BBC. He insults and belittles almost all of his guests and is humiliated by the rest.

Alan Partridge, a failed television presenter, is now presenting a programme on local radio in Norwich. He desperately tries to revive his broadcasting career.

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