Much ado about nothing

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Writers: William Shakespeare (play), Kenneth Branagh (screenplay)

Release Date: 1993

Genre: Comedy | Romance

Plot: Young lovers Hero and Claudio, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles Benedick and Beatrice to wed as well.

Synopsis: The Prince of Medina Don Pedro (Denzel Washington), his resentful brother Don John (Keanu Reeves), and his noblemen Claudio (Sean Patrick Leonard) and Benedick (Kenneth Branagh) return from war, ready for merriment and love. Claudio loves Hero (Kate Beckinsale), the young daughter of the nobleman Leonato (Richard Briers), but Benedick hates Beatrice (Emma Thompson), Leonato's beautiful but sharp-tongued niece who hates him back. As Claudio and Hero prepare for their wedding, they decide, with the help of Don Pedro, to trick Benedick and Beatrice into confessing their true love for each other. The plan works without a hitch but trouble comes in the form of Don John who is jealous of his brother's power and of his affection for Claudio. Don John devises a scheme where one of his leutenants will make love to Hero's maid Margaret (Imelda Staunton) at Hero's window the night before the wedding. Don John takes Don Pedro and Claudio to Leonato's house where they see the encounter and are convinced the woman is Hero. The next day Claudio disgraces Hero publicly at the wedding and throws her away. She faints and Leonato is persuaded to pretend that she is dead until the situation is sorted out. The foolish warden Dogberry (Michael Keaton) manages to arrest Don John's leutenants and they confess to the plot. Claudio is crushed when he learns that he killed Hero with his untruthful accusations. He begs Leonato to punish him and Leonato tells him his punishment is to marry his (other) niece, who is almost a copy of his dead child. Claudio agrees but first spends a night mourning for Hero and proclaiming her innocence. Don John escapes Medina. The next morning Claudio marries the secret woman who removes her veil to reveal that she is Hero. They are very happy but Benedick and Beatrice almost break up when they discover they were tricked to confess their love. In the end, all is resolved, Don John is arrested and brought back to face punishment, Benedick and Beatrice marry and all dance around Leonato's garden and sing "Noddy noddy".

Plot Keywords: Revenge | Typical Outcome | Distress | Mistreat | Bachelor

Awards: Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 4 wins & 5 nominations

Sense and Sensibility

When Mr. Dashwood dies, his estate, Norland, passes to his eldest son, John. This leaves his second wife and three daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, at the mercy of their stepson/half-brother and his selfish wife Fanny. Treated like unwelcome guests in their own home, the Dashwood women begin looking for another place to live. Meanwhile, Elinor has become attached to Fanny's brother Edward Ferrars, an unassuming, intelligent young man. But because Mrs. Ferrars wants her son to marry a woman of high rank, Elinor does not allow herself to hope for marriage.

Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters move from Norland to Barton Cottage, owned by their distant cousin Sir John Middleton, who lives at Barton Park with his family. Also staying there are Mrs. Jennings (Lady Middleton's mother) and Colonel Brandon, an old friend of Sir John. The gossipy Mrs. Jennings decides that Colonel Brandon must be in love with Marianne, and teases them about it. Marianne is displeased: she considers Colonel Brandon, age thirty-five, to be an old bachelor incapable of falling in love or inspiring love in anyone else.

Marianne, out for a stroll, gets caught in the rain and sprains her ankle. The dashing and handsome Mr. Willoughby rescues Marianne, carries her back home, and wins her admiration. He comes to visit her every day, and Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood begin to suspect that the couple have secretly become engaged. However, Mrs. Dashwood's sentimental nature prevents her from asking Marianne about her relationship with Willoughby. Marianne is devastated when Willoughby announces that he must go to London on business, not to return for at least a year.
Edward Ferrars visits the Dashwoods at Barton Cottage, but seems unhappy and is distant towards Elinor. She fears that he no longer has feelings for her. However, unlike Marianne, she does not wallow in her sadness.

Shortly afterward, Anne and Lucy Steele, cousins of Lady Middleton, come to stay at Barton Park. Sir John tells Lucy that Elinor is attached to Edward, prompting Lucy to inform Elinor that she (Lucy) has been secretly engaged to Edward for four years. Though Elinor initially blames Edward for engaging her affections when he was not free to do so, she realises that he became engaged to Lucy while he was young and naive. She understands that Edward does not love Lucy, but that he will not hurt or dishonor her by breaking their engagement. Elinor hides her disappointment, and convinces Lucy that she feels nothing for Edward.

Elinor and Marianne spend the winter at Mrs. Jennings' home in London. Marianne's letters to Willoughby go unanswered, and he treats her coldly when he sees her at a party. He later sends Marianne a letter informing her that he is engaged to a Miss Grey, a very wealthy and high-born woman. Marianne admits to Elinor that she and Willoughby were never engaged, but that she loved him and he led her to believe that he loved her.

Colonel Brandon tells Elinor that Willoughby had seduced Brandon's foster daughter, Miss Williams, and abandoned her when she became pregnant. Brandon was once in love with Miss Williams's mother, a woman who resembled Marianne and whose life was destroyed by an unhappy arranged marriage to the Colonel's brother.

Mrs. Ferrars discovers Edward and Lucy's engagement; when he refuses to end it, she disinherits him. Elinor and Marianne feel sorry for Edward, and think him honourable for remaining engaged to a woman he will probably not be happy with. Edward plans to take holy orders to earn his living, and Colonel Brandon, knowing how lives can be ruined when love is denied, offers Edward his parish at Delaford. Elinor meets Edward's boorish brother Robert and is shocked that he has no qualms about claiming his brother's inheritance.

Marianne, miserable over Willoughby, wanders in the rain and becomes very ill. Colonel Brandon goes to get Mrs. Dashwood. Willoughby arrives and tells Elinor that he was disinherited when his benefactress discovered his seduction of Miss Williams, so he decided to marry the wealthy Miss Grey. He says that he still loves Marianne, and seeks forgiveness, but has poor excuses for his selfish actions. Meanwhile, Colonel Brandon tells Mrs. Dashwood that he loves Marianne.

Marianne recovers and the Dashwoods return to Barton Cottage. Elinor tells Marianne about Willoughby's visit. Marianne admits that though she loved Willoughby, she could not have been happy with the libertine father of an illegitimate child even if he had stood by her. Marianne also realizes that her illness was brought on by her wallowing in her grief, by her excessive sensibility, and that, had she died, it would have been morally equivalent to suicide. She now resolves to model herself after Elinor's courage and good sense.

The family learns that Lucy has married "Mr. Ferrars". When Mrs. Dashwood sees how upset Elinor is, she finally realises how strong Elinor's feelings for Edward are and is sorry that she did not pay more attention to her unhappiness. However, the very next day Edward arrives and reveals that it was his brother, Robert Ferrars, who married Lucy. He says that he was trapped in his engagement with Lucy, "a woman he had long since ceased to love", and she broke the engagement to marry the now wealthy Robert. Edward asks Elinor to marry him, and she agrees. Edward becomes reconciled with his mother, who gives him ten thousand pounds. They marry and move into the parsonage at Delaford. Still, Mrs. Ferrars tends to favor Robert and Lucy over Edward and Elinor.

Mr. Willoughby's patroness eventually gives him his inheritance, seeing that his marriage to a woman of good character redeemed him. Willoughby realizes that marrying Marianne would have produced the same effect; thus, had he behaved honourably, he could have had both love and money.

Over the next two years, Mrs. Dashwood, Marianne and Margaret spend most of their time at Delaford. Marianne matures and decides to marry the Colonel even though she feels more respect than passion for him. However, after the marriage she realizes that she truly loves him. She and the Colonel set up house near Elinor and Edward, so the sisters and their husbands can visit each other often.

Source: Wikipedia

The Full Monty

Gary "Gaz" Schofield (Robert Carlyle) and Dave (Mark Addy) Horsefall are desperate to make some money, going so far as to try stealing steel beams from the abandoned factory they used to work at. When Gaz finds out that his ex-wife wants full custody of his young son, Nathan, because he's £700 (700 quid as he says) in arrears, Gaz has the idea of stripping to make money. He originally gets the idea from seeing Dave's wife Jean with some friends at their favored tavern, reasoning that if the Chippendales dancers can do it, so can he. Slowly, he assembles a group of similarly desperate men, including his former foreman, Gerald Arthur Cooper (Tom Wilkinson).

Film opening: The year is 1972, and the place is "Sheffield...the beating heart of Britain's industrial north", as described by the narrator in a short film visualising the city's economic prosperity, borne out of Sheffield's highly successful steel industry. The film shows busy steel mills, producing everything from kitchen cutlery to tensile girders, along with the run-off from the mills...successful retail establishments, nightclubs, and attractive housing. The film concludes with "Thanks to steel, Sheffield really is a city on the move!"

Fast forward to a quarter century later. The same town, but in a far different light than that of the early-1970s. The once-successful steel mills of then have grown brown with rust, rolling equipment has been removed, and the lines are silent. Gaz and Dave are inside their former workplace trying to get a steel beam out of the mill with the intent of selling it. They attempt to get the beam out of the mill by securing it to the roof of a car, which promptly sinks. Undaunted, they try to salvage the beam, but their attempts prove futile.

Gaz is later informed by his ex-wife that she intends to take court action against him for the child support payments that he's failed to make since losing his job. Compromising the situation further is Gaz's son, Nathan, who spends time with his father basically out of reluctance. He grows tired of his father's seeming lack of motivation to do something with his life and get his act together.

While Gaz, Dave, and Nathan are walking down a street, they see a line of women gathered for a Chippendales show outside a Working Man's Club they frequent. Intrigued by the women's willingness to stand in line for a striptease act, Gaz is convinced that his ship has finally come in: he decides to organize a similar act of his own, with the intent to earn enough money to pay for his child support obligations.

The first to join the act is Lomper (Steve Huison), a security guard at Harrison's, the steel mill where Dave and Gaz once worked. After Lomper finally loses his job long after the mill shuts down, he tries to commit suicide by asphyxiating himself in his car through carbon monoxide poisoning. Dave pulls him out, much to Lomper's protests. With new-found friends, Lomper is also added to the lineup. His rescue and inclusion in the group gives Lomper a new outlook on life.

Next on Dave and Gaz's list is their former foreman Gerald, whom they witness attending a dance class with his wife. They later approach him about giving them lessons, but Gerald rebuffs them with insults, telling them he's on his way to a job interview. Gaz and Dave tail Gerald to the interview, where they distract him from outside the office window to the point where he blows the interview. He confronts them both at Jobclub and physically assaults Gaz, revealing that had he been successful, he would have been able to conceal his unemployment from his wife, who is still spending money not knowing that her husband has been out of work all this time.

A despondent Gerald leaves Jobclub and sits on a park bench, all but emotionally defeated. Gary and Gaz patch things up with Gerald and tell him of their scheme. With literally no options left, Gerald agrees to be the act's choreographer.
In a sequence of darkly comic scenes, various former co-workers of Gaz and Dave perform a strip-tease for them as their audition. One of the auditioners is invited to sit down after he flunks; he says that he still has his children in the car, and that 'this is no place for kids'. The auditioner then glances over at Nathan, who was recruited by his father to work their stereo, before leaving. Other auditioners are hired for their penis size (both mythical, in the case of 'Horse', and real, in the case of Guy).

As the men practise, doubts continue to creep in about whether this is the best way to make some money, due to their individual insecurities over their appearances (Dave is overweight, for example). When the men are approached on the street by women who have heard of their show, Gaz declares that their show will be better than the Chippendales dancers because they'll go "the Full Monty" - strip all the way - hence the film's title. Dave quits less than a week before the show, deprecating himself as a 'fat bastard' whom no one would want to see in the nude - including his wife, Jean.

During a dress rehearsal in front of Horse's family, the rest of the men get literally caught with their pants down in the abandoned factory they use for their practice, causing an unconventional chase scene involving most of the main characters running from their pursuers wearing orange leather thongs. Two of the strippers, Guy and Lomper, successfully escape, and fall into a homoerotic embrace after they climb into the window of Lomper's house. The police show the men the surveillance tapes from the factory and soon their secret is out. All seems lost, with the entire city of Sheffield knowing who the members of Hot Metal are and the cast ready to quit, until the owner of the pub informs Gaz that he has already sold 200 tickets for their show.
With not much left to lose, and a sold-out show, the men decide to go for it for one night (including Gerald, who has gotten the job from the interview he thought he'd failed). Dave finds his confidence and joins the rest of the group, stripping to Tom Jones' version of You Can Leave Your Hat On (their hats being the final item removed).

Source: Wikipedia

Blood diamond

Set in the Sierra Leone Civil War in 1999, the film shows a country torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces.[1] The film portrays many of the atrocities including rebels cutting off people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections.

The film begins with the capture of Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a fisherman, by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels. Separated from his family, Solomon is enslaved to work in the diamond fields under the command of Captain Poison (David Harewood). The RUF use the diamonds to fund their war effort often trading them directly for arms. While working in the RUF diamond fields as a forced laborer, Solomon finds a large diamond of rare pink colouring. Moments before government troops launch an attack, Captain Poison sees Solomon hiding the diamond. Captain Poison is injured in the attack before he can get the stone, and both he and Solomon are taken to prison.

Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a white mercenary from Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), trades arms for diamonds with a RUF commander. He was imprisoned when smuggling the diamonds into neighboring Liberia. His smuggling-beneficary was a South African mercenary named Colonel Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo), who is in turn employed by South African diamond company executive Van De Kaap (Marius Weyers). Coetzee is Archer's former commander in 32 Battalion, the most decorated unit of the South African Border War made up of Angolan and Rhodesian soldiers and white South African officers. Archer is desperate for a way to repay Colonel Coetzee for the diamonds he lost when he was thrown in jail. While in prison, he overhears Captain Poison ranting to Solomon about the discovery of the large diamond and makes plans to hunt down the stone. He arranges for Solomon's release from prison and offers to help him find his family in exchange for the diamond.

Archer meets Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist covering the war and investigating the illegal diamond trade. Archer convinces Bowen to help him and Solomon find Solomon's family. They find his family in a UN refugee camp in Guinea inhabited by over a million refugees. But Solomon's son Dia has been kidnapped by the RUF and conscripted into becoming a child soldier. Archer says he will help Solomon get his son back if he helps him find the diamond.

Archer and Solomon pretend to be journalists to accompany a convoy of journalists along with Bowen. The convoy is attacked and Archer, Solomon and Bowen escape and find their way to the South African mercenary force under Colonel Coetzee. There they learn of the attack force preparing to retake Sierra Leone. There they leave the camp while Bowen boards a plane that is carrying foreigners out of the conflict zone. After a demanding struggle, the men find the mining camp, again under RUF control, where Solomon discovered the large diamond. Here, Solomon is painfully reunited with his son Dia, who refuses to acknowledge him due to having been brainwashed by the rebels. The South African mercenary force, also after the diamond, dispatches the RUF rebels in a massive air strike; and, through a deal with Archer, forces Solomon into retrieving the stone. In a desperate battle, Archer kills Coetzee and the other two soldiers with him after realizing that they would have killed both Archer and Solomon upon locating the diamond. At this point Dia holds Archer and Solomon at gunpoint, but Solomon manages to convince him to side with them.

As Archer turns a body over to take equipment he realizes he has been shot, but he doesn't say anything and phones his pilot, Benjamin Kapanay, who demands that Danny dumps Solomon and Dia. Up on the top of the mountain (they are currently in the valley), there is an airstrip, and the group begins to make their way. It is a slow and painful process, and along the way Archer demands the diamond from Solomon. They begin to climb the mountain, whereupon Archer collapses and Solomon carries him up the mountain. Finally unable to continue due to a punctured lung, Archer gives Solomon the diamond and urges him to leave Sierra Leone to sell the diamond in London. With a CAR-15 carbine taken from the battle at the digging site, Danny shoots down the soldiers chasing them, and then makes a final phone call to Bowen, asking her to help Solomon as a last favor. With the help of Bowen, Solomon trades the diamond for a large sum of money and the reunification of his family: as Solomon's wife and children deplane from a Lear Jet at a London airport, he and Van De Kaap make the exchange. Bowen, who secretly photographs the deal, later publishes a magazine piece exposing the trade in "conflict" or "blood" diamonds. The film ends with Solomon addressing a conference on blood diamonds in Kimberley, South Africa, describing his experiences. This refers to a real meeting that took place in Kimberley in 2000 and led to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which seeks to certify the origin of diamonds in order to curb the trade in conflict diamonds.

Source: Wikipedia