The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates a series of murders in London in which the victims are killed according to their initials. The first victim is A.A. the second B.B. and so on. Poirot is assisted in his investigations by Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp.
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Tag Archives: UK
The Price of Silence (1959) Montgomery Tully, Gordon Jackson, June Thorburn, Maya Koumani, Crime, Drama
Roger Fenton has been released from prison and stared to build a new life. But his past catches up when an elderly visitor is murdered in his office.
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A State of Mind (2004) Daniel Gordon, Hyon Sun Pak, Song Yun Kim, Documentary
State of Mind is an eye-opener: In documenting the daily grind of 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun as they prepare for the yearly Games, Gordon reveals what it’s like to live in North Korea today.
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The Captain’s Paradise (1953) Anthony Kimmins, Alec Guinness, Yvonne De Carlo, Celia Johnson, Comedy, Romance
Mediterranean ferryboat captain Henry St James has things well organized – a loving and very English wife Maud in Gibraltar, and the loving if rather more hot-blooded Mistress, Nita in Tangiers. A perfect life. As long as neither woman decides to follow him to the other port.
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Worried About the Boy (2010) Julian Jarrold, Douglas Booth, Jonny Burt, Mathew Horne, Biography, Drama, Music
In 1980 young George O’Dowd baffles his parents with his love of frocks and make-up and moves into a squat with kindred spirit Peter,who dresses as Marilyn Monroe and calls himself Marilyn. They make a splash at Steve Strange’s trendy Blitz Club where George gets a job in the cloakroom but George is unlucky in his relationships with men until he meets wannabe musician Kirk.
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Thicker Than Water (1993) Marc Evans, Theresa Russell, Jonathan Pryce, Robert Pugh, Thriller
Debbie and Jo are identical twins. After Jo is killed in a car accident. Debbie starts to act increasingly like Jo. Mysterious circumstances lead Sam to suspect that the accident wasn’t an accident at all.
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Swung (2015) Colin Kennedy, Elena Anaya, Owen McDonnell, Elaine M. Ellis, Drama, Romance
David’s life is on the slide: he’s in the middle of a divorce, broke and ‘can’t get it up’. His girlfriend, Alice, is his rock, but the magazine she writes for is going down and the pressure is on to find a story. While job hunting online, David stumbles across the perfect antidote to his boredom: a ‘Swingers’ site. The resulting inbox of lewd invitations on the home-laptop justifiably upsets Alice, until she realises this could be just the ‘story’ she needs. The idea of uncovering the swinging scene causes quite a stir in Alice’s office and, much to David’s chagrin, she is urged to pursue the story.
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Of Time and the City (2008) Terence Davies, Documentary, Biography
Terence Davies (1945- ), filmmaker and writer, takes us, sometimes obliquely, to his childhood and youth in Liverpool. He’s born Catholic and poor; later he rejects religion. He discovers homo-eroticism, and it’s tinged with Catholic guilt. Enjoying pop music gives way to a teenage love of Mahler and Wagner. Using archival footage, we take a ferry to a day on the beach. Postwar prosperity brings some positive change, but its concrete architecture is dispiriting. Contemporary colors and sights of children playing may balance out the presence of unemployment and persistent poverty. Davies’ narration is a mix of his own reflections and the poems and prose of others.
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Nina Forever (2015) Ben Blaine, Chris Blaine, Cian Barry, Abigail Hardingham, Mandeep Dhillon, Comedy, Horror, Romance
After his girlfriend Nina dies in a car crash, Rob unsuccessfully attempts suicide. As he begins to overcome his grief, he falls in love with a co-worker, Holly. Their relationship is complicated when Nina, unable to find rest in the afterlife, comes back to life to sarcastically torment them whenever they have sex.
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The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) Ken Loach, Cillian Murphy, Pádraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham, Drama, History, War
In 1920, rural Ireland is the vicious battlefield of republican rebels against the British security forces and Irish Unionist population who oppose them, a recipe for mutual cruelty. Medical graduate Damien O’Donovan always gave priority to his socialist ideals and simply helping people in need. Just when he’s leaving Ireland to work in a highly reputed London hospital, witnessing gross abuse of commoners changes his mind. He returns and joins the local IRA brigade, commanded by his brother Teddy, and adopts the merciless logic of civil war, while Teddy mellows by experiencing first-hand endless suffering. When IRA leaders negotiate an autonomous Free State under the British crown, Teddy defends the pragmatic best possible deal at this stage. Damien however joins the large seceding faction which holds nothing less than a socialist republic will do. The result is another civil war, bloodily opposing former Irish comrades in arms, even the brothers.
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The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed, Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
An out of work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in a post war Vienna divided into sectors by the victorious allies, and where a shortage of supplies has lead to a flourishing black market. He arrives at the invitation of an ex-school friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job, only to discover that Lime has recently died in a peculiar traffic accident. From talking to Lime’s friends and associates Martins soon notices that some of the stories are inconsistent, and determines to discover what really happened to Harry Lime.
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The Magus (1968) Guy Green, Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
An English teacher arrives on a sleepy Greek island to take up a vacant teaching post. The last man to hold the post committed suicide under mysterious circumstances. Slowly but surely, he is drawn into a bizarre game engineered by a reclusive local magician. The deeper into the game he is drawn, the more he senses danger… yet cannot seem to untangle himself from the fascinating and compelling influence that the game is having on his mind.
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The Spy in Black / L’Espion Noir (1939) Michael Powell, Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, Sebastian Shaw, Thriller, War
Captain Hardt (Conrad Veidt), a World War I German submarine commander, is ordered to lead a mission to attack the British Fleet at Scapa Flow. He puts ashore on the Orkney Islands to meet his contact but finds more than he bargained for in the local schoolmistress (Valerie Hobson).
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Glamorous Night (1937) Brian Desmond Hurst, Mary Ellis, Otto Kruger, Victor Jory, Drama
The popular Ivor Novello musical play Glamorous Night was given a conservative film treatment in 1937–minus much of the Novello score that had made it famous. Opera singer Mary Ellis plays an opera singer (why not?) who falls in with a band of roguish but likeable gypsies. Mary manages to convince her Bohemian cohorts to rescue the King from the machinations of his ambitious prime minister. As “cast insurance” to make certain that Glamorous Night would get American bookings, Hollywood character actors Otto Kruger and Victor Jory are given leading roles. The US distributors also sliced the film down from 81 to 65 minutes, through the simple expedient of removing several songs.
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The Girl Hunters (1963) Roy Rowland, Mickey Spillane, Shirley Eaton, Scott Peters, Crime, Drama, Mystery
Legendary detective Mike Hammer has spent seven years in an alcoholic funk after the supposed death of his secretary, Velda. He is brought back to the land of the living by his old friendly enemy, police lieutenant Pat Chambers.
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