February is here, and the countdown has begun at Netflix as many major titles are on their way out the proverbial door. With “Dune: Part Two” finally heading to theaters at the start of March, the streamer is giving subscribers one more month to rewatch (or catch up on) 2021’s “Dune,” starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and more. Plus, dive into other unfamiliar worlds with “Dredd,” “Snowpiercer,” and Prometheus.
Watch now before they’re gone: see The Streamable’s top picks for what’s leaving Netflix this month, and check out all the shows and movies leaving the streamer this February!
Sign Up $6.99+ / month netflix.com What are the 5 Best Shows and Movies Leaving Netflix in February 2024? “Chicken Run” | Wednesday, Feb. 14
More than 23 years after its release, 2000’s “Chicken Run” still holds the record as the highest-grossing stop motion animated film of all time, beating all “Wallace and Gromit” features to top the list.
Watch now before they’re gone: see The Streamable’s top picks for what’s leaving Netflix this month, and check out all the shows and movies leaving the streamer this February!
Sign Up $6.99+ / month netflix.com What are the 5 Best Shows and Movies Leaving Netflix in February 2024? “Chicken Run” | Wednesday, Feb. 14
More than 23 years after its release, 2000’s “Chicken Run” still holds the record as the highest-grossing stop motion animated film of all time, beating all “Wallace and Gromit” features to top the list.
- 2/2/2024
- by Ashley Steves
- The Streamable
Malcolm Mowbray, the British director of “A Private Function,” died June 23, producer Deniz Erel confirmed to Variety. He was 74.
Mowbray was known for directing “The Revengers’ Comedies,” “Meeting Spencer,” “Out Cold” as well as the 1984 feature “A Private Function.”
Maggie Smith, Michael Palin, Richard Griffiths, Denholm Elliott, John Normington and Tony Haygarth starred in “A Private Function,” which Mowbray co-wrote. The dark comedy followed the citizens of a small English town in 1947 who were awaiting the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. The citizens had to ration their food, but the royal celebration was the one exception. They gathered to prepare and raise a pig for the celebratory meal — but a couple, Smith’s Joyce and Palin’s Gilbert, decide to steal the pig in an act of rebellion. The film garnered six BAFTA wins, including original screenplay and best film.
In 1989, Mowbray directed the black comedy “Out Cold,...
Mowbray was known for directing “The Revengers’ Comedies,” “Meeting Spencer,” “Out Cold” as well as the 1984 feature “A Private Function.”
Maggie Smith, Michael Palin, Richard Griffiths, Denholm Elliott, John Normington and Tony Haygarth starred in “A Private Function,” which Mowbray co-wrote. The dark comedy followed the citizens of a small English town in 1947 who were awaiting the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. The citizens had to ration their food, but the royal celebration was the one exception. They gathered to prepare and raise a pig for the celebratory meal — but a couple, Smith’s Joyce and Palin’s Gilbert, decide to steal the pig in an act of rebellion. The film garnered six BAFTA wins, including original screenplay and best film.
In 1989, Mowbray directed the black comedy “Out Cold,...
- 6/26/2023
- by Charna Flam
- Variety Film + TV
Creating a charming story about life, love, family and people’s ever-changing fortunes is a powerful way to allow audiences to engage in the lives of people around the world, especially in other cultures. That is particularly true in the popular British television series, ‘Where the Heart Is,’ which is a set in the fictional Yorkshire […]
The post Actor Tony Haygarth and His Friends Take an Entertaining Fishing Trip on Where The Heart Is appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Actor Tony Haygarth and His Friends Take an Entertaining Fishing Trip on Where The Heart Is appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 12/29/2021
- by Karen Benardello
- ShockYa
Remember Kinvig, Clone, Not With A Bang? These are the UK sci-fi sitcoms you’re unlikely to see on comedy best-of lists…
With E4 sci-fi comedy commissions, Tripped and Aliens, and in-development Channel 4 projects, Space Ark and Graham Linehan/Adam Buxton collaboration The Cloud, in the works, a new crop of sci-fi sitcom could be making its way to UK TV.
Making funny sci-fi on a small-screen budget is tough enough without the additional pressure of having to attract viewers more traditionally down-to-earth in their sitcom tastes. Sci-fi sets and effects can be seen as prohibitively expensive by comedy commissioners (which is perhaps why the best UK sci-fi sitcoms of recent years has been on BBC Radio), and the genre’s niche status doesn’t scream mainstream hit. Over the years, one or two stand-outs have managed to straddle the sci-fi and comedy TV worlds, but plenty more have stumbled in the attempt.
With E4 sci-fi comedy commissions, Tripped and Aliens, and in-development Channel 4 projects, Space Ark and Graham Linehan/Adam Buxton collaboration The Cloud, in the works, a new crop of sci-fi sitcom could be making its way to UK TV.
Making funny sci-fi on a small-screen budget is tough enough without the additional pressure of having to attract viewers more traditionally down-to-earth in their sitcom tastes. Sci-fi sets and effects can be seen as prohibitively expensive by comedy commissioners (which is perhaps why the best UK sci-fi sitcoms of recent years has been on BBC Radio), and the genre’s niche status doesn’t scream mainstream hit. Over the years, one or two stand-outs have managed to straddle the sci-fi and comedy TV worlds, but plenty more have stumbled in the attempt.
- 7/23/2015
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Horror cinema has a long tradition of creating iconic characters and none more so than those borne in the early days of the genre: characters such as Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and, of course, Dracula – the king of horror. A character who, despite his many cinematic deaths, always returns to the silver screen for one more bite of flesh… As he does this week in Dracula Untold, which features Luke Evans as the evil Vlad Tepes.
With that in mind we thought we’d rundown the ten best unforgettable Dracula performances in cinema. Check them out below and let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree!
Christopher Lee – Dracula (1958)
Dracula (1958) is the first in the series of Hammer Horror films. Directed by Terence Fisher, Dracula (1958) stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh and Michael Gough. Retitled Horror of Dracula...
With that in mind we thought we’d rundown the ten best unforgettable Dracula performances in cinema. Check them out below and let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree!
Christopher Lee – Dracula (1958)
Dracula (1958) is the first in the series of Hammer Horror films. Directed by Terence Fisher, Dracula (1958) stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh and Michael Gough. Retitled Horror of Dracula...
- 10/1/2014
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
By George D. Allen
Recently, I wrote an article for the Movies Unlimited home blog, MovieFanFare, offering my quickly selected picks for 10 “desert island” movies, those films which, were I forced to choose, I felt (in those moments writing the article, anyway) I would be carting along with me to enjoy during my eternal vacation/banishment on said remote locale.
Now, monsterfans, wipe those memories of Stephen King’s gruesome short story “Survivor Type” from your mind and assume all of your other creature comforts are as normal as they could possibly be (so that you don’t have to worry about minor concerns like hacking off your own body parts for food!), and pick those 10 masterworks of the horror genre you’re going to be forced to live with for the rest of your days. I completed my own “Rorschach test” in this regard below. It was tough. I...
Recently, I wrote an article for the Movies Unlimited home blog, MovieFanFare, offering my quickly selected picks for 10 “desert island” movies, those films which, were I forced to choose, I felt (in those moments writing the article, anyway) I would be carting along with me to enjoy during my eternal vacation/banishment on said remote locale.
Now, monsterfans, wipe those memories of Stephen King’s gruesome short story “Survivor Type” from your mind and assume all of your other creature comforts are as normal as they could possibly be (so that you don’t have to worry about minor concerns like hacking off your own body parts for food!), and pick those 10 masterworks of the horror genre you’re going to be forced to live with for the rest of your days. I completed my own “Rorschach test” in this regard below. It was tough. I...
- 3/1/2010
- by Movies Unlimited
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
Three Emmerdale characters are to bow out of the show later this year. Tony Haygarth and Lewis Linford - who play farmhand Mick Naylor and his gamekeeper grandson Lee Naylor respectively - are to finish filming within the next couple of months as their characters have 'had their day'. James Baxter's character Jake Doland is also being written out of the rural drama and all three will remain on screen until early summer. Speaking to Soaplife, the show's series producer Gavin Blyth said: "Every character has their time in the show, some longer than others." When originally cast, producers reportedly intended for the Naylors to become the show's new "farming dynasty", following in the footsteps of the Sugdens in a bid to "take the show back to its farming roots". Blyth also hinted that death will (more)...
- 5/6/2009
- by By Kris Green
- Digital Spy
"Chicken Run" gives those irrepressible folks at Aardman clay animation studios, the ones behind the hysterically funny "Wallace & Gromit" and "Creature Comforts" shorts, a chance to strut their stuff through their first feature-length film.
While Aardman's founders -- director-producers Peter Lord and Nick Park and producer David Sproxton -- clearly are still finding their way in the expanded format, they nevertheless come up with a pleasing, likable comedy that will entertain nearly all age groups. A grab bag of slapstick action, whimsical characters and tongue-in-cheek makeover of the human world into animal society, "Chicken Run" definitely has legs -- albeit of the poultry kind.
Those expecting the outrageous wit of Wallace & Gromit or the all-out wackiness of "Creature Comforts" are in for a slight disappointment. Aiming to expand their audience, Aardman's animators go for much broader characterizations and a somewhat hokey story line. But that twinkle in the eye remains. Like Pixar's "Toy Story" -- or, for that matter, all great family entertainment from Peter Pan to Dr. Seuss -- much sophisticated humor and adult sensibilities underline the childlike fantasies.
Inspired here by "The Great Escape" and all those other POW movies, "Chicken Run"'s characters are trapped behind barbed wire with little to do other than plot endless escape attempts. Only these prisoners are chickens and their Stalag is Tweedy's Egg Farm. Supplying urgency to their conspiracies is their hard-hearted owner's determination to transform her egg farm into a chicken pie emporium.
To the seeming rescue of the alarmed hens comes a rascal rooster named Rocky, a "lone free ranger" who promises to teach these earth-bound birds how to fly. But when a cannon and other means fail this objective, he flies the coop, leaving the hens including Ginger -- with whom he has a "thing" -- in the lurch. Ever the optimist, Ginger gets an inspiration, and, in the nick of time, Rocky returns to save the day and help the chickens abandon Mrs. Tweedy to wallow in her own pie filing.
One of the fun conceits by these British animators is to create a culture clash by casting Mel Gibson as the brash "American" Rocky, while giving all the hens British voices. The sweet-natured, visionary Ginger is voiced by Julia Sawalha from the hit BBC comedy series "Absolutely Fabulous", while another alum from that series, Jane Horrocks, plays Babs, forever knitting and never fully cognizant of the danger the flocks is in.
Imelda Staunton is champion egg-layer Bunty; Lynn Ferguson plays the Scottish chicken, Mac the engineer; and Benjamin Whitrow is Fowler, an aging rooster always willing to reminiscence about his days in the RAF. Abetting the fowl conspiracies are rats Nick and Fletcher, voiced by Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels, who play the rodents like a pair of music hall comics.
On the human side, Miran- da Richardson supplies Mrs. Tweedy with a mean, shrewish streak that bedevils gentle, hen-pecked Mr. Tweedy (Tony Haygarth) almost as much as the chickens. Mr. Tweedy greatly suspects that more is being hatched in the chicken coop than eggs, but his warnings are ignored by Mrs. Tweedy. Which leaves him to mutter "It's all in my head" whenever he happens upon more evidence of chicken chicanery.
No one is better at clay animation than Aardman, but fashioning cartoon chickens proves quite a challenge. Their chickens are rubbery in appearance, and for all their different scarves and "hair-dos," there's an unmistakable sameness that inflicts the characters. The animators also don't yet feel comfortable with feature length; certain scenes feel padded or redundant.
Nevertheless, the pacing is brisk and only the attention spans of the very young are likely to wander. For that matter, the very young might be inappropriate for this movie. One chicken's slaughter when she fails to produce eggs is all too real for the very impressionable.
CHICKEN RUN
DreamWorks Pictures
DreamWorks in association with Pathe present
an Aardman production
Producers: Peter Lord, David Sproxton, Nick Park
Directors: Peter Lord, Nick Park
Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick, Jack Rosenthal
Based on an original story by: Nick Park, Peter Lord
Executive producers: Jake Eberts, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Rose
Supervising director of photography: Dave Alex Riddett
Music: John Powell, Harry Gregson-Williams
Line producer: Carla Shelley
Editor: Mark Solomon
Supervising animator: Loyd Price
Color/stereo
Voices:
Rocky: Mel Gibson
Ginger: Julia Sawalha
Mrs. Tweedy: Miranda Richardson
Babs: Jane Horrocks
Mac: Lynn Ferguson
Bunty: Imelda Staunton
Fowler: Benjamin Whitrow
Mr. Tweedy: Tony Haygarth
Running time -- 85 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
While Aardman's founders -- director-producers Peter Lord and Nick Park and producer David Sproxton -- clearly are still finding their way in the expanded format, they nevertheless come up with a pleasing, likable comedy that will entertain nearly all age groups. A grab bag of slapstick action, whimsical characters and tongue-in-cheek makeover of the human world into animal society, "Chicken Run" definitely has legs -- albeit of the poultry kind.
Those expecting the outrageous wit of Wallace & Gromit or the all-out wackiness of "Creature Comforts" are in for a slight disappointment. Aiming to expand their audience, Aardman's animators go for much broader characterizations and a somewhat hokey story line. But that twinkle in the eye remains. Like Pixar's "Toy Story" -- or, for that matter, all great family entertainment from Peter Pan to Dr. Seuss -- much sophisticated humor and adult sensibilities underline the childlike fantasies.
Inspired here by "The Great Escape" and all those other POW movies, "Chicken Run"'s characters are trapped behind barbed wire with little to do other than plot endless escape attempts. Only these prisoners are chickens and their Stalag is Tweedy's Egg Farm. Supplying urgency to their conspiracies is their hard-hearted owner's determination to transform her egg farm into a chicken pie emporium.
To the seeming rescue of the alarmed hens comes a rascal rooster named Rocky, a "lone free ranger" who promises to teach these earth-bound birds how to fly. But when a cannon and other means fail this objective, he flies the coop, leaving the hens including Ginger -- with whom he has a "thing" -- in the lurch. Ever the optimist, Ginger gets an inspiration, and, in the nick of time, Rocky returns to save the day and help the chickens abandon Mrs. Tweedy to wallow in her own pie filing.
One of the fun conceits by these British animators is to create a culture clash by casting Mel Gibson as the brash "American" Rocky, while giving all the hens British voices. The sweet-natured, visionary Ginger is voiced by Julia Sawalha from the hit BBC comedy series "Absolutely Fabulous", while another alum from that series, Jane Horrocks, plays Babs, forever knitting and never fully cognizant of the danger the flocks is in.
Imelda Staunton is champion egg-layer Bunty; Lynn Ferguson plays the Scottish chicken, Mac the engineer; and Benjamin Whitrow is Fowler, an aging rooster always willing to reminiscence about his days in the RAF. Abetting the fowl conspiracies are rats Nick and Fletcher, voiced by Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels, who play the rodents like a pair of music hall comics.
On the human side, Miran- da Richardson supplies Mrs. Tweedy with a mean, shrewish streak that bedevils gentle, hen-pecked Mr. Tweedy (Tony Haygarth) almost as much as the chickens. Mr. Tweedy greatly suspects that more is being hatched in the chicken coop than eggs, but his warnings are ignored by Mrs. Tweedy. Which leaves him to mutter "It's all in my head" whenever he happens upon more evidence of chicken chicanery.
No one is better at clay animation than Aardman, but fashioning cartoon chickens proves quite a challenge. Their chickens are rubbery in appearance, and for all their different scarves and "hair-dos," there's an unmistakable sameness that inflicts the characters. The animators also don't yet feel comfortable with feature length; certain scenes feel padded or redundant.
Nevertheless, the pacing is brisk and only the attention spans of the very young are likely to wander. For that matter, the very young might be inappropriate for this movie. One chicken's slaughter when she fails to produce eggs is all too real for the very impressionable.
CHICKEN RUN
DreamWorks Pictures
DreamWorks in association with Pathe present
an Aardman production
Producers: Peter Lord, David Sproxton, Nick Park
Directors: Peter Lord, Nick Park
Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick, Jack Rosenthal
Based on an original story by: Nick Park, Peter Lord
Executive producers: Jake Eberts, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Rose
Supervising director of photography: Dave Alex Riddett
Music: John Powell, Harry Gregson-Williams
Line producer: Carla Shelley
Editor: Mark Solomon
Supervising animator: Loyd Price
Color/stereo
Voices:
Rocky: Mel Gibson
Ginger: Julia Sawalha
Mrs. Tweedy: Miranda Richardson
Babs: Jane Horrocks
Mac: Lynn Ferguson
Bunty: Imelda Staunton
Fowler: Benjamin Whitrow
Mr. Tweedy: Tony Haygarth
Running time -- 85 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
- 6/12/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Lushly photographed and handsomely mounted, "Swept From the Sea" is a visual treat, radiating with incandescent seascapes and majestic swatches of the jagged coast of Cornwall.
Alas, all this brilliance amounts to mere preciousness in a narrative sunk by literal melodrama and a plodding pace. Receiving its gala at the Toronto International Film Festival, this Phoenix Pictures production is alternately enthralling and disappointing.
Inspired by a Joseph Conrad short story, the saga centers on two misfits who endure the stony rigors of the Cornish coast and its icy-hearted inhabitants. They are Amy (Rachel Weisz), a servant girl considered "simple" by the villagers, and Yanko (Vincent Perez), a Russian washed up on the shores following a shipwreck.
Amy has been an outcast all her life and has retreated into an inner world, nourishing it with romantic escapades along the beach where she collects cast-off treasures. Her solitary existence is altered considerably when Yanko washes up on shore: She is initially the only one to offer him kindness.
While Tim Willocks' screenplay is scrupulously attentive to plotting, it is also maddeningly thin. Every movement is noted, including the predictable ones, which compose nearly the whole of the picture. The narrative is, woefully, a paint-by-numbers composition as we watch the townsfolk in lock step isolate and ostracize the young Russian, despite his eagerness to please and wholesome industry.
If ever there was a story in need of subplot, this fills the bill. Its skeletal narrative structure is underdeveloped in terms of ambiguity, irony or any but the most obvious complications. In short, director Beeban Kidron has etched, albeit with a sumptuous visual palette, a transparent and ultimately unaffecting film.
Still, former still photographer Kidron is masterful in her framings and use of light. The Cornwall coast is captured in all its majesty and yet, because of the skimpy screenplay, Kidron's compositions never rise to the level of visual correlatives.
The performances are solid throughout, with the shining stars being the supporting players. While Perez exudes both a vitality and kindness as Yanko and Weisz is properly subdued as the introverted Amy, there is little spark to their portrayals. It's Ian McKellen as a pompous but wise local doctor and Kathy Bates as a perceptive spinster who conjure up the most flesh and blood in this oils-and-canvas production.
SWEPT FROM THE SEA
Phoenix Pictures presents
With the participation of the Greenlight Fund
A Tapson Steel Films production
A Beeban Kidron film
Producers Polly Tapson, Charles Steel,
Beeban Kidron
Screenwriter Tim Willocks
Inspired by Joseph Conrad's "Amy Foster"
Executive producers Garth Thomas,
Tim Willocks
Director of photography Dick Pope
Production designer Simon Holland
Music John Barry
Editors Alex Mackie, Andrew Mondshein
Costume designer Caroline Harris
Associate producer Devon Dickson
Color/stereo
Cast:
Amy Foster Rachel Weisz
Yanko Gooral Vincent Perez
Mr. Swaffer Joss Ackland
Miss Swaffer Kathy Bates
Dr. Kennedy Ian McKellen
Mr. Smith Tony Haygarth
Mrs. Smith Fiona Victory
Running time -- 114 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Alas, all this brilliance amounts to mere preciousness in a narrative sunk by literal melodrama and a plodding pace. Receiving its gala at the Toronto International Film Festival, this Phoenix Pictures production is alternately enthralling and disappointing.
Inspired by a Joseph Conrad short story, the saga centers on two misfits who endure the stony rigors of the Cornish coast and its icy-hearted inhabitants. They are Amy (Rachel Weisz), a servant girl considered "simple" by the villagers, and Yanko (Vincent Perez), a Russian washed up on the shores following a shipwreck.
Amy has been an outcast all her life and has retreated into an inner world, nourishing it with romantic escapades along the beach where she collects cast-off treasures. Her solitary existence is altered considerably when Yanko washes up on shore: She is initially the only one to offer him kindness.
While Tim Willocks' screenplay is scrupulously attentive to plotting, it is also maddeningly thin. Every movement is noted, including the predictable ones, which compose nearly the whole of the picture. The narrative is, woefully, a paint-by-numbers composition as we watch the townsfolk in lock step isolate and ostracize the young Russian, despite his eagerness to please and wholesome industry.
If ever there was a story in need of subplot, this fills the bill. Its skeletal narrative structure is underdeveloped in terms of ambiguity, irony or any but the most obvious complications. In short, director Beeban Kidron has etched, albeit with a sumptuous visual palette, a transparent and ultimately unaffecting film.
Still, former still photographer Kidron is masterful in her framings and use of light. The Cornwall coast is captured in all its majesty and yet, because of the skimpy screenplay, Kidron's compositions never rise to the level of visual correlatives.
The performances are solid throughout, with the shining stars being the supporting players. While Perez exudes both a vitality and kindness as Yanko and Weisz is properly subdued as the introverted Amy, there is little spark to their portrayals. It's Ian McKellen as a pompous but wise local doctor and Kathy Bates as a perceptive spinster who conjure up the most flesh and blood in this oils-and-canvas production.
SWEPT FROM THE SEA
Phoenix Pictures presents
With the participation of the Greenlight Fund
A Tapson Steel Films production
A Beeban Kidron film
Producers Polly Tapson, Charles Steel,
Beeban Kidron
Screenwriter Tim Willocks
Inspired by Joseph Conrad's "Amy Foster"
Executive producers Garth Thomas,
Tim Willocks
Director of photography Dick Pope
Production designer Simon Holland
Music John Barry
Editors Alex Mackie, Andrew Mondshein
Costume designer Caroline Harris
Associate producer Devon Dickson
Color/stereo
Cast:
Amy Foster Rachel Weisz
Yanko Gooral Vincent Perez
Mr. Swaffer Joss Ackland
Miss Swaffer Kathy Bates
Dr. Kennedy Ian McKellen
Mr. Smith Tony Haygarth
Mrs. Smith Fiona Victory
Running time -- 114 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 9/10/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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