The Dish
In the days before the July 19, 1969 space mission that marked humankind's first steps on the moon, NASA was working with a group of Australian technicians who had agreed to rig up a satellite interface. That the Aussies placed the satellite dish smack dab in the middle of an Australian sheep farm in the boondocks town of Parkes was just one of the reasons that NASA was concerned. Based on a true story, The Dish takes a smart, witty, comical look at the differing cultural attitudes between Australia and the U.S. while revisiting one of the greatest events in history.
Brassed Off
In existence for a hundred years, Grimley Colliery Brass band is as old as the mine. But the miners are now deciding whether to fight to keep the pit open, and the future for town and band looks bleak. Although the arrival of flugelhorn player Gloria injects some life into the players, and bandleader Danny continues to exhort them to continue in the national competition, frictions and pressures are all too evident. And who's side is Gloria actually on?
The Last of the Blonde Bombshells
After her husband's death, a widow (Judy Dench) decides she wants to re-kindle her musical roots. Encouraged by her grand-daughter, she seeks out the almost all-female band she played with during World War II. The one non-female in the troop was a cross-dressing drummer (Ian Holm) with whom she still is friends. With his help, they start tracking down their old cronies - and find some dead and some mentally incompetent. Slowly the band grows, but their sound is lacking. When the singer (Cleo Laine) is added to the mix, everything comes together.
84 Charing Cross Road
When a humorous script-reader in her New York apartment sees an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature for a bookstore in London that does mail order, she begins a very special correspondence and friendship with Frank Doel, the bookseller who works at Marks & Co., 84 Charing Cross Road.
Waking Ned Devine
When word reaches two elderly best friends that someone in their tiny Irish village has won the national lottery, they go to great lengths to find the winner so they can share the wealth. When they discover the "lucky" winner, Ned Devine, they find he has died of shock upon discovering his win. Not wanting the money to go to waste, the village enters a pact to pretend Ned is still alive by having another man pose as him, and then to divide the money between them.
The Shop Around the Corner
"Matuschek's" is the gift shop around the corner. Among the staff is Alfred Kralik, a likeable young man who's in love with a woman he has never met and whose name he doesn't even know (their "romance" has been conducted through a post office box). When Klara Novak comes to work as a clerk in the shop, the sparks begin to fly: she and Alfred can't stand each other. Of course, what neither knows is that Klara is the woman Alfred has been romancing through the mail!
Calendar Girls
In the small town of Knapely, Yorkshire, England, Annie Clarke (Julie Walters) has just lost her husband, who was ill with leukemia. Inspired in his speech to the local Women's Institute, where he said that "the flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire", and "the last phase of the women of Yorkshire is always the most glorious", her best friend Chris Harper (Helen Mirren) decides to make a calendar with twelve local middle-age women nude to raise funds for the wing of leukemia treatment in the local hospital. The calendar becomes well succeeded, making them famous and affecting their lives.
The Castle
A Melbourne family is very happy living where they do, near the Melbourne airport (according to Jane Kennedy, it's "practically their back yard"). However, they are forced to leave their beloved home, by the Government and airport authorities. 'The Castle' is the story of how they fight to remain in their house, taking their case as far as the High Court.
Try to get the Australian version. It was re-cut or at least re-dubed for an American version that we hear looses a lot in the translation.
October Sky
Homer Hickam is a high school student growing up in a company mining town. There are few prospects for young men like Homer and most follow their father's footsteps and work in the coal mines. He's bright however and with the encouragement of his teacher Miss Riley, hopes to have a better life. This brings him into conflict with his father who feels that working for the mining company is an honorable profession. When the Soviets launch the Sputnik however, Home dreams of launching a rocket into space so he and his friends set about building a small rocket from whatever materials they can scrounge. Homer's father thinks it's all a waste of time but he perseveres and eventually wins the State Science Fair and manages to go on to college. He and his father reconcile their differences. Based on a true story.
Homer Hickam has also written several books that you might want to check out. Try The Keeper’s Son.
Drumline
A fish-out-of-water comedy about a talented street drummer from Harlem who enrolls in a Southern university, expecting to lead its marching band's drumline to victory. He initially flounders in his new world, before realizing that it takes more than talent to reach the top.
Descriptions are from www.imdb.com.
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