1776
1776 is a delightful musical celebration of the founding of the United States of America based on the award-winning Broadway production.
1776 is a delightful musical celebration of the founding of the United States of America based on the award-winning Broadway production.
Choreographer-turned-director Bob Fosse (Cabaret, Lenny) turns the camera on himself in this nervy, sometimes unnerving 1979 feature, a nakedly autobiographical piece that veers from gritty drama to razzle-dazzle musical, allegory to satire. It's an indication of his bravura, and possibly his self-absorption, that Fosse (who also cowrote the script) literally opens alter ego Joe Gideon's heart in a key scene--an unflinching glimpse of cardiac surgery, shot during an actual open-heart procedure.
In this hilarious farce, three of Hollywood's favorite female stars - Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton - live every secretary's dream as they turn the tables on their boss and turn their male controlled workplace into a model office. At Consolidated, the office manager (Tomlin), the vice president's secretary (Parton) and the newest employee (Fonda) become great friends as they share their resentment about their egotistical, sexist boss (Dabney Coleman).
More ambitious in scope than any of its other animated films (before or to come), Disney's 1940 Fantasia was a dizzying, magical, and highly enjoyable marriage of classical music and animated images. Fantasia 2000 features some breathtaking animation and storytelling, and in a few spots soars to wonderful high points, but it still more often than not has the feel of walking in its predecessor's footsteps as opposed to creating its own path.
Groundbreaking on several counts, not the least of which was an innovative use of animation and stereophonic sound, this ambitious Disney feature has lost nothing to time since its release in 1940. Classical music was interpreted by Disney animators, resulting in surreal fantasy and playful escapism. Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra provided the music for eight segments by the composers Tchaikovsky, Moussorgsky, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Ponchielli, Bach, Dukas, and Schubert.
Basil Fawlty, as created and performed by John Cleese, is the rudest, most boorish, most hilariously obnoxious man on the face of the planet. What a natural for a TV sitcom!
Father Ted is one of those rare sitcoms that defies categorization--it owes as much to Flann O'Brien and Samuel Beckett as it does to Monty Python--and its blend of satire, character comedy, and anarchic surrealism has made it a cult favorite around the world. Exiled to remote Craggy Island, Father Ted Crilley shares a house with the breathtakingly stupid Father Dougal and the constantly inebriated Father Jack, who has a small vocabulary and a taste for furniture polish. Their housekeeper, Mrs.
Few things are as addictive as the addictive personalities of Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley), two middle-aged hipsters wallowing in clothes, booze, pills, glamour, celebrity, and anything else their excessive appetites demand. The fifth series of Absolutely Fabulous finds Edina coping with the unexpected pregnancy of her long-suffering daughter Saffron (Julia Sawalha) and the departure of all of her PR clients except for Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton (playing herself with good humor).
The babes of boozeland are back and drunker than ever in the fourth season of the Britcom Absolutely Fabulous. Even after a five-year hiatus, the main characters are unchanged, and the only giveaway that things are different is Eddy's defection from Lacroix to Burberry. Devoted fans will appreciate that this season (which also has the usual dieting, drinking, and manhunting) goes where no Pats and Edina have gone before, from a PR gig with Twiggy to menopause. What's more frightening: Patsy going through "the change" or the two dames dressed to the nines...
The Emmy-winning Season Four of TV's #1 comedy starts with a shock (Alan's getting divorced... again) and ends with a rock (the diamond Evelyn's new boyfriend wants to put on her third finger, left hand). In between, Charlie Harper's hip Malibu beach pad is the place for laughs, gorgeous girls, single parenthood, celebrity neighbors, family and more laughs. Charlie (Charlie Sheen) has a close encounter with his long-deceased dad. Alan (Jon Cryer), after a few resume embellishments, tries online dating. Jake (Angus T. Jones) swaps his Harry Potter posters for the joys of hottie wall art.
