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Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (film)
''The Wind in the Willows'' (released as ''Mr. Toad's Wild Ride'' in the United States) is a 1996 British adventure comedy film based on Kenneth Grahame's 1908 novel ''The Wind in the Willows'', adapted and directed by Terry Jones, and produced by Jake Eberts and John Goldstone. The film stars Terry Jones, Steve Coogan, Eric Idle and Nicol Williamson. While positively regarded, it was a box office bomb and had distribution problems in the United States. Plot Mole's underground home is caved in when the meadow above is crushed by a steam shovel, driven by the Weasels, who are demolishing it for a new location. Mr. Toad, had sold the land to finance his latest obsession: caravanning. Mole finds the Water Rat for solace. Seeing Mole's pain, Rat takes Mole to see Toad. Toad encourages them to join them in his newly bought horse-drawn caravan. A speeding motor car frightens the horse, tipping the caravan over. Toad instantly discards the cart and becomes infatuated with motoring. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry Jones
Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020) was a Welsh comedian, director, historian, actor, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy team. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones and writing partner Michael Palin wrote and performed for several high-profile British comedy programmes, including '' Do Not Adjust Your Set'' and '' The Frost Report'', before creating ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' with Cambridge graduates Graham Chapman, John Cleese, and Eric Idle and American animator-filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Jones was largely responsible for the programme's innovative, surreal structure, in which sketches flowed from one to the next without the use of punch lines. He made his directorial debut with the Python film ''Holy Grail'', which he co-directed with Gilliam, and also directed the subsequent Python films '' Life of Brian'' and '' The Meaning of Life''. Jones co-created and co-wrote with Palin the anthology seri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guild Film Distribution
Guild Home Video (GHV) or Guild Film Distribution was one of the first video distribution companies to start operating in the UK. Unlike other independent labels such as Intervision or Videoform, GHV not only survived for a very long time, but continued to grow, eventually becoming a video distributor for independent studios such as Carolco, New Line Cinema, Cannon, and Lorimar. The videos were released by Video Collection International and PolyGram Video. Origins Originally based in Oundle Road, Peterborough before moving to Church Street, Walton-on-Thames, Guild Home Video were one of the biggest of the early video companies, and responsible for distributing a large and varied catalogue of movies. The initial batch of releases came out in mid-1980 and were easily recognisable by the sky blue, stylised 'G' symbol that the company retained throughout its life (with only a colour change to gold in 1987) and the logo was redrawn for an updated, cleaner look in 1984. The original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Ashton-Griffiths
Roger Ashton-Griffiths (born 19 January 1957) is an English character actor, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his role as Mace Tyrell in the HBO fantasy series ''Game of Thrones''. Life and career Born in Hertfordshire, Ashton-Griffiths attended Altrincham Grammar School for Boys in Manchester. He then read music at Lancaster University, where he was a member of Furness College, graduating in 1978. He began his career as a singer with the English National Opera at the London Coliseum between 1979 and 1981. He has appeared in numerous high-profile films, including Terry Gilliam's ''Brazil'' (1985) and ''The Brothers Grimm'' (2005), '' Dreamchild'' (1985), '' Young Sherlock Holmes'' (1985), Gene Wilder's '' Haunted Honeymoon'' (1986), Roman Polanski's ''Pirates'' (1986), Peter Greenaway's '' The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'' (1989), '' Mountains of the Moon'' (1990), ''Chicago Joe and the Showgirl'' (1990), '' Shadowlands'' (1993), ''The Portrait ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Boswall
John Boswall (2 May 1920 – 6 June 2011) was a British actor probably best known for playing Wyvern in '' Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest''. Early life and education Boswall was born John Stuart on 2 May 1920 in Oxfordshire, England. Prior to his career as an actor, he attended the University of Oxford and served in Burma during World War II. Career Boswall's television appearances included ''Paul Temple'' (1971), ''Wessex Tales'' (1973), ''Lady Killer'' (1973), ''Edward the Seventh'' (1975), ''The Onedin Line'' (1976), ''Love in a Cold Climate'' (1980), ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (1982), ''Sapphire & Steel'' (1982), '' No Place Like Home'' (1986), '' EastEnders'' (1990), ''Selling Hitler'' (1991), ''Agatha Christie's Poirot'' (1991), ''Drop the Dead Donkey'' (1993), '' Lovejoy'' (1993), ''Poldark'' (1996), '' Doctors'' (2000), ''Rome'' (2005) and '' Terry Pratchett's Hogfather'' (2006). [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nigel Planer
Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953) is a British actor, comedian, musician, novelist and playwright. He played Neil in the BBC comedy '' The Young Ones'' and Ralph Filthy in ''Filthy Rich & Catflap''. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including original casts of '' Evita'', ''Chicago'', ''We Will Rock You'', ''Wicked'', and ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory''. He has also appeared in ''Hairspray''. He won a BRIT award in 1984 and has been nominated for Olivier, TMA, WhatsOnStage and BAFTA awards. Early life Planer's father's Hungarian-Romanian family left Nazi Germany in 1933 and settled in Mortlake, London. He established a medical equipment company, which pioneered technology in controlled-rate freezers, IVF and stem cells. Nigel, who has two brothers, was born in Westminster, London. He attended King's House School in Richmond and Westminster School in central London, where he wrote a satirical play about the school with fellow pupil Stephen Poliakoff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Bathurst
Robert Guy Bathurst (born 22 February 1957) is an English actor. Bathurst was born in The Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. In 1959 his family moved to Ballybrack, Dublin, Ireland and Bathurst attended school in Killiney and later was enrolled at Headfort, an Irish boarding school. In 1966, the family moved back to England and Bathurst transferred to Worth School in Sussex, where he took up amateur dramatics. At the age of 18, he read law at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and joined the Footlights group. After graduating, he took up acting full-time and made his professional stage debut in 1983, playing Tim Allgood in Michael Frayn's '' Noises Off'', which ran for a year at the Savoy Theatre. To broaden his knowledge of working on stage, he joined the National Theatre. He supplemented his stage roles in the 1980s with television roles, appearing in comedies such as the aborted pilot episode of ''Blackadder'', '' Chelm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keith-Lee Castle
Keith-Lee Castle (born 14 September 1968) is a British actor. Career Throughout his career, he has guest-starred in numerous television shows, mostly British. He has also appeared in several films, including playing 'the psychotic Psychs', the owner of the doll, in ''Seed of Chucky'' (2004), and Clarence Weasel in ''The Wind in the Willows'' (1996), based on the popular book. To portray the rather loony weasel he wore small furry ears, a long tail and a long, yellow swishing coat. He also had a small part in ''Velvet Goldmine'' (1998) and in '' EastEnders'' (1999) as Dean Collins. In 2000, Castle starred in a horror, documentary-style show called Urban Gothic, in which he played Rex, a vampire who lives and hunts on the night streets of Soho. To his younger viewers, he is probably best known for his role in the CBBC series ''Young Dracula'' , which debuted 2006 and ended in 2014, as the infamous and evil Count Dracula, father to Vlad and Ingrid Dracula, he starred alongside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catcher Pouch
] A catcher pouch was a mail bag used by railway post offices of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Its use was limited to exchanges onto moving trains. The specially constructed catcher pouch was grabbed by the catcher mechanism in the passing railway car and the catcher pouch would release from the holding rings on the mail crane. This technique was known as "mail on the fly". Starting in the 1870s the use of this technique of the Railway Mail Service was an important issue in the United States. It was a popular technique and the backbone of the United States Postal Service through the 1930s.As the United States Postal Service undergoes its fiscal crisis in the second decade of the 21st century, it is well to note that these are not entirely new problems. A national pickup and delivery system to remote and small locales is a fiscally challenging model. "A Congressional Investigation of the United States Post Office Department in 1900 disclosed that postal ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sardonicism
To be sardonic is to be disdainfully or cynically humorous, or scornfully mocking. A form of wit or humour, being sardonic often involves expressing an uncomfortable truth in a clever and not necessarily malicious way, often with a degree of skepticism. Origin Both the concept and the etymology of the word, while being of uncertain origin, appear to stem from the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. The 10th-century Byzantine Greek encyclopedia '' Suda'' traces the word's earliest roots to the notion of grinning ( grc, σαίρω, sairō) in the face of danger, or curling one's lips back at evil. One explanation for the later alteration to its more familiar form and connection to laughter (supported by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'') appears to stem from an ancient belief that ingesting the ''sardonion'' (σαρδόνιον) plant from Sardinia (Σαρδώ) would result in convulsions resembling laughter and, ultimately, death. In ''Theory and History of Folklore'', Vladimir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Box Office Bomb
A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after release has technically "bombed", the term is more frequently used for major studio releases that were highly anticipated, extensively marketed and expensive to produce that ultimately failed commercially. Causes Negative word of mouth With the advent of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in the 2000s, word of mouth regarding new films is easily spread and has had a marked effect on box office performance. A film's ability or failure to attract positive or negative commentary can strongly impact its performance at the box office, especially on the opening weekend. External circumstances Occasionally, films may underperform because of issues largely unrelated to the content of the film, such as the timing of the film's re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the oldest genres in film and it is derived from the classical comedy in theatre. Some of the earliest silent films were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1930s, comedy films took another swing, as laughter could result from burlesque situations but also dialogue. Comedy, compared with other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. In '' The Screenwriters Taxonomy'' (2017), Eric R. Williams contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film's atmosphere, character, and story. Therefore the labels "drama" and "comedy" ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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