FEATURES
By Ann Hornaday and Ann Hornaday,SUN FILM CRITIC | May 14, 1999
"Tea With Mussolini" exudes the ineffable perfume of memory, redolent of sensory cues and ephemeral moments. Luckily for filmgoers, the memory in question belongs to Franco Zeffirelli, who adapted this film from his own memoirs with the novelist John Mortimer.The story begins in 1935 in Florence, Italy. Benito Mussolini has been in power for 13 years, and at the moment, as a subtitle tells us, "the sun is still shining on the square and statues, and the dictator Mussolini is the gentleman who makes the trains run on time."
FEATURES
By Roger Moore and Roger Moore,ORLANDO SENTINEL | April 2, 2004
SUN SCORE **1/2 Disney gets back to the basics with Home on the Range, where the characters are cute, the tunes are knee-slappers and the gags are almost as big as the West. With Randy Quaid as a yodeling cattle rustler and Roseanne Barr as a cow out to foil him, how could they go wrong? It's a stitch, from the cowboy chorale title tune to Roseanne Barr, voicing the milk cow Maggie, bragging about her udders. ("Yeah, they're real. Stop staring.") This is Disney with a hint of Pixar's comic edge.
FEATURES
By Kevin Thomas and Kevin Thomas,LOS ANGELES TIMES | June 3, 2005
Charles Dance's Ladies in Lavender teams two of Britain's grandest dames, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, in an endearing film of subtlety and charm. This lovely period picture, set in Cornwall in 1936, is a pleasure from start to finish. On a sunny summer day, a nearly drowned young man (Daniel Bruhl) is washed ashore on a craggy beach, where he is discovered by spinster sisters who share a fine old stone manor house on the cliff above. Dench's Ursula and Smith's Janet are leading quiet lives indeed, attended by their crusty but loyal housekeeper (Miriam Margolyes)
FEATURES
By MICHAEL SRAGOW and MICHAEL SRAGOW,SUN MOVIE CRITIC | February 3, 2006
Review B+ Titillation for the hoity-toity and hoi polloi. That's what the heroine and hero of Mrs. Henderson Presents, a wealthy widow (Judi Dench) and her music-hall impresario (Bob Hoskins), offer to the theatergoing public in the 1930s and '40s, as breadlines grow and the Nazi threat erupts into the Battle of Britain. Under the guise of a fact-based period piece, that's what director Stephen Frears and writer Martin Sherman bequeath to their moviegoing public, too - a humorous bounty of flesh and fantasy.
FEATURES
By Chris Kaltenbach and Chris Kaltenbach,SUN STAFF | August 1, 1997
Queen Victoria is in a funk, and Britain is not amused.The year is 1864. Victoria's been queen for 26 years, but of more pressing import, she's been a widow for three. Ever since Prince Albert Saxe-Coburg-Gotha died of typhoid, Victoria's been holed in Windsor Castle, not seeing anyone, not governing, barely living. Britain is slipping into a constitutional crisis, support is growing for an end to the monarchy, and still Victoria fails to respond.Something needs to be done. And the man to do it is John Brown, a Scotsman who tended the Royal Family's horses when Albert was alive, befriending both him and his wife, the Queen.
NEWS
By Phil Perrier | March 24, 2002
LOS ANGELES -- Judging from this year's Academy Award nominees, you would think all of the male members of the academy had been knocked unconscious and locked in a basement. The contenders for Best Picture are A Beautiful Mind, Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, The Lord of the Rings and Moulin Rouge. Oprah Winfrey's book club could have made these choices. Not one movie about soldiers, gladiators or cowboys. Perhaps after decades of critics bemoaning the lack of quality small films being nominated, this is a makeup year.