Musicals & Music Films > Classical Musicals & Music Films > 10 GBP to 15 GBP > by Director (by last name)

Advantages: Spitting Image, lots of laughs, great intro to classical music
Disadvantages: Deflates a little in the middle, wanted more

Introduction: Sometimes the strangest and most unexpected of combinations can work brilliantly together, so I was really intrigued to see that renowned Italian maestro Claudio Abbado had insisted that his DVD of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" should use Spitting Image puppets! Somehow it seemed a rather improbable line-up: On one side as a supreme representative of "high culture", we have Claudio with his intense music-making and lofty interpretative ...
...Verdi to pick just a few highlighted composers from his long and illustrious career. At the other end of the cultural spectrum we have the Spitting Image team who are best known for their 80's TV series featuring bitingly satirical latex puppet portrayals of anyone famous (and infamous) from the Queen Mum (complete with Brummie accent and fondness for gin...) to a manic Margaret Thatcher and her errant son Mark, not to mention such unforgettable ... Read review

Advantages: fantastic feel good film
Disadvantages: none

Just a note before I start to say that this is a film only review due to the fact that as far as I know the DVD has not yet been released! I had a fabulous evening out at the cinema yesterday watching what must be the ultimate feel good film of the year! I had heard a lot about it and I was not disappointed - in fact I don't think I have smiled and laughed so much at a film for a long time! If you have not seen it it is well worth going to see! ...
...- the music of Abba (definitely a blast from my past!), a fun story line, an excellent line up (including the gorgeous Colin Firth and the fabulous Julie Walters) and all this against the beautiful backdrop of a Greek island! What more could I ask for! So what's it all about then? Well first of we meet young Sophie Sheridan who is soon to be married. She lives on a beautiful Greek island with her mum, Donna, but she has never known her dad. After ... Read review

Advantages: Stunning musical love story.
Disadvantages: Possibly too sloppy/ slushy- but i love it.

...beautifully put together, with interactive features such as: Behing the red velvet curtain, with lets you glimpse a historical, technical, and artistic view of the Moulin Rouge! This really is a beautiful film and perfect top watch over and over again. Visually Stunning, Baz Luhrmann has created a master piece. ... Read review

Advantages: Brilliant songs
Disadvantages: NONE

...the start. For me therefore Annie Get Your Gun is the perfect musical as it certainly ticks all of these boxes as well as many, many more. Annie get your gun was released in 1950 and stars Betty Hutton and Howard Keel in a sharp shooting adventure based on the fantastic Broadway performance. Annie Get Your Gun is in short a boy-meets-girl story but the musical score and acting performances as well as the extremely well written script make it so ...
...Buffalo Bills Show and when Annie meets him she is instantaneously gob-smacked. Despite her initial attempts however Butler is under no impression that how Annie behaves is "How the girl that I marry" should. Annie however is not going to give up quite so easily and is certain that anything he can do she can do better and goes hell-for-leather to prove it too him. In her own right Annie becomes extremely successful and well sought after but she still ... Read review

Advantages: Good songs, some of the cast are having fun
Disadvantages: Poor singing; invisible choreography; badly written script; miscast actors; you want more?

...to make them meaningful. Mamma Mia is about a young girl (played by Amanda Seyfried, who looks disconcertingly like a mermaid) who is preparing for her own wedding on a deserted island somewhere in America. It's not made clear whereabouts this island is at any point during the film, but she has an American accent so presumably she lives somewhere nearby the ol' USA. She's not happy to get married until she finds out who her real father is, because ...
...watching for the first time. Mamma Mia is, perhaps, a film which works best on the second viewing. For her part, Streep is a game player, adding froth to an already overflowing film but doing so in a way which tries desperately to add to the film rather than detract. She's the only performer who you look forward to hearing, here. Indeed, aside from Streep; Seyfried's over-cute numbers (the nauseating highlight of the movie is her 'duet' with the ... Read review