I saw this film in the cinema on a visit home to Wales and couldn't wait for the dvd release. After a long wait I bought it on video in the UK and brought it back to the States. All of my British friends (and even some American ones)liked it but the Welsh ones love it. As crazy as the characters are, they are all recognizable. My favourites are Hinge, Minge and Bracket the village people wannabees. Wales is so overlooked and although I realize that this isn't going to do it many favours it will hopefully entertain. I wish that Sara Sugarman's short film "Valley Girls" was included as an extra on the dvd as that is 45 minutes of pure enjoyment.
very wonderful!
I love this movie! It's very funny but at the same time it's very sad. Also, you have to love a movie where the actors have beautiful welsh accents. I think it's a different movie from the ones you usually see, there are also a lot of great songs in it. And it doesn't hurt that the lovely Cerys Matthews from the former Catatonia appears in one scene. A very very good movie indeed!
Need to know South Wales to fully appreciate....
This was a blast of nostalgia for me since I spent many childhood vacations in a Welsh coal mining valley. The Welsh are an underated nation. Their coarse and pithy humor rides on lilting voices that are interspersed with fat vowels and accentuated syllables. Their hearts are pure gold, hence one of the main plots of the story, a village pulls together to raise money to send a sick little girl on a trip to Disneyland. Unfortunately, the idea seems more a Holy Grail in their own minds, since little Bethan really has no desire to spend her last days in Mickey Mouse land. The other main plot, is the conflict between Annie Mary and her dad, an overbearing village baker who makes her life a misery, until he has a stroke and becomes a sad and helpless doll to be carelessly carted around by Annie. I should add at this point that I was amazed at Rachel Griffiths' command of the Welsh dialect. I didn't believe it was her until I checked the credits. Super eccentric performance with a believable accent... very impressive. The rest of the movie is one of those lovely quirky low key ramblings, full of odd characters and bizarre situations. If you know Wales, you will know the characters and will smile with affection. Not an oscar winner, but a sweet little view of a working class community in a beautiful land. Treat your jaded palate to something simple.
Rising Welsh star Ioan Gruffud (Titanic, Horatio Hornblower) stars as Solomon to Nia Robert's Gaenor in director Paul Morrison's Oscar®-nominated tale of star-crossed lovers living in the wrong place (Wales) at the wrong time (1911). Solomon is a Jewish packman who travels door to door selling fabric from his family's shop to the locals. It is on one such occasion that he meets Gaenor, the soft-spoken daughter of a miner. The attraction is mutual, but he conceals his true identity from her. A few visits (and one red dress) later, and Gaenor has fallen in love with the kindly "Sam" and has even introduced him to her family. But the more he resists her attempts to meet his family, the more she becomes convinced that hers is right and that his intentions are not... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Paul Morrison (III) DVD Release Date: Released the 30 January 2001 Usually ships within 24 hours
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I found this movie to be quite good, some of it was very disturbing; which means the writer hit the nail on the head with his subject. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Colin Teague - Glenn Durfort DVD Release Date: Released the 19 August 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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When her family moves into a glamorous castle in the English countryside, Cassandra (Romola Garai) imagines great things will happen. But the decaying castle loses its appeal as her novelist father (Bill Nighy, Love Actually) develops writer's block and her mother dies of cancer. From this sad beginning, I Capture the Castle turns into an utterly engaging coming-of-age story as 17-year-old Cassandra and her older sister Rose (Rose Byrne) struggle to win the attentions of their new American landlord (Henry Thomas, E.T. The Extraterrestrial)--but when everything goes the way Cassandra hopes, her hopes fall apart. Garai's wonderful performance carries the audience through bittersweet discoveries about life and adulthood with hope and yearning. The entire... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Rose Byrne - Romola Garai - Bill Nighy Director(s): Tim Fywell DVD Release Date: Released the 23 December 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Dashing Ioan Gruffud stars as dashing Horatio Hornblower, unparalleled British naval hero, in two more delightful episodes from the A&E series. In Loyalty, a peace with France has left Hornblower decommissioned and short on funds. Only the help of his landlady's daughter Maria (heartbreaking Julie Sawalha, Absolutely Fabulous) keeps him from being kicked out into the street. Fortunately for our hero, Napoleon's armies are afoot, and Hornblower soon finds himself sailing to France in command of the Hotspur, grappling with Irish traitors and French skullduggery. Duty picks up where Loyalty leaves off; Hornblower marries Maria with some ambivalence, but the day after his wedding sails for the coast of France to find a missing ship. After rescuing a... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Andrew Grieve DVD Release Date: Released the 16 December 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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You wouldn't think a movie could look like a Vermeer painting, but Girl with a Pearl Earring is filmed with an amazing range of luminous glows that evoke the Dutch artist's masterworks. Of course, it helps that much of the movie centers on Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation, Ghost World), whose creamy skin and full lips have a luminosity of their own. Johansson plays Griet, a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth, Bridget Jones' Diary, Fever Pitch), who finds herself in a web of jealousy, artistic inspiration, and social machinations. Though the pace is slow, Girl with a Pearl Earring genuinely conveys some sense of an artist's process, as well as offering many chaste yet sensual moments between Firth and Johansson. Also... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Colin Firth - Scarlett Johansson - Tom Wilkinson Director(s): Peter Webber DVD Release Date: Released the 04 May 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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