FilmFour & Film Four +1 : 25.07.06
Astra 2D at 28.2E 10729 V 22000-5/6
Film Four SID8335 VPID2312 APID 2313
Film Four +1 SID8330 VPID2332 APID2333
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15.00pm Topaz (PG) 1969 Thriller / Crime / Drama
Starring Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, Claude Jade and Michel Subor. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
An American agent investigating a Soviet espionage ring operating within the French government, uncovers a plot connected to a Cuban rebellion. Hitchcock thriller, starring John Forsythe, Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin and Roscoe Lee Browne
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17.40pm Horse Feathers (U) 1932 Comedy
Starring Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx and Zeppo Marx. Directed by Norman Z. McLeod.
Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff has just been installed as the new president of Huxley College. His cavalier attitude toward education is not reserved for his son Frank, who is seeing the college widow, Connie Bailey. Frank influences Wagstaff to recruit two football players who hang out in a speakeasy, in order to beat rival school Darwin. Unfortunately, Wagstaff mistakenly hires the misfits Baravelli and Pinky. Finding out that Darwin has beaten him to the "real" players, Wagstaff enlists Baravelli and Pinky to kidnap them, which leads to an anarchic football finale.
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18.55pm Explorers 1985 Family / Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Adventure
Starring Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, Bobby Fite and Bradley Gregg. Directed by Joe Dante.
Ben Crandall, an alien-obsessed kid, dreams one night of a circuit board. Drawing out the circuit, he and his friends Wolfgang and Darren set it up, and discover they have been given the basis for a starship. Setting off in the ThunderRoad, as they name their ship, they find the aliens Ben hopes they would find... but are they what they seem?
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21.00pm Elizabeth (15) 1998 Biography / Drama
Starring Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston and Joseph Fiennes. Directed by Shekhar Kapur.
The story of Elizabeth's ascendency to the throne, the plot of the movie is full of palace intrigues, attempted assassinations and executions. The movie starts with England divided by faith, Protestant vs. Catholic. The queen, Mary Tudor has no heir and her Catholic supporters fear the succession of her half-sister Elizabeth, a Protestant. They convince the queen to have Elizabeth arrested and put in the Tower of London but the queen hesitates and eventually refuses to sign her death warrant. It is announced that the queen is pregnant but it turns out to be a tumor and she dies of it a while later. Her Catholic supporters are forced to give the throne to Elizabeth. Elizabeth's first few years are shaky as she is not versed with the art of realpolitik and "rules from the heart instead of the mind". There is also the question of her succession as she is yet unmarried and her death without heir would mean the throne falling back into Catholic hands. She has many suitors but she eventually rejects them all. And aided by Sir Francis Walsingham she manages to kill all her enemies and ascends the throne as the "Virgin Queen".
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23.20pm Thirteen Conversations about One Thing (15) 2001 Drama (premiere)
Starring Matthew McConaughey, David Connolly, Joseph Siravo and A.D. Miles. Directed by Jill Sprecher.
A man approaching middle age decides to change his life. A rising young attorney's plans are thrown into disarray as the result of a single act. A woman faces her husband's infidelity. An envious businessman seeks revenge on a cheerful coworker. And an optimistic young cleaning woman awaits a miracle. These ordinary people all find themselves asking the fundamental question philosophers have pondered throughout history: What is happiness, and how does one achieve it?
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01.20am Voyage to Italy (PG) 1953 Drama
Starring Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders, Maria Mauban and Anna Proclemer. Directed by Roberto Rossellini.
Catherine and Alexander, wealthy and sophisticated, drive to Naples to dispose of a deceased uncle's villa. There's a coolness in their relationship and aspects of Naples add to the strain. She remembers a poet who loved her and died in the war; although she didn't love him, the memory underscores romance's absence from her life now. She tours the museums of Naples and Pompeii, immersing herself in the Neapolitan fascination with the dead and noticing how many women are pregnant; he idles on Capri, flirting with women but drawing back from adultery. With her, he's sarcastic; with him, she's critical. They talk of divorce. Will this foreign couple find insight and direction in Italy?
02.45am Close.
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