Laura Fraser Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: Nina's Heavenly Delights
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Gay & Lesbian », Independent », Theatrical Reviews », Cinematical Indie »
Nina's Heavenly Delights, directed by Pratibha Parmar, is a slight romantic comedy with a thinly-cooked sauce of dysfunctional family drama drizzled on top. The romance is between two women, the family happens to be Indian and the setting is Glasgow, Scotland, but there's not much else to distinguish it from dozens of other sincere, feel-good films promoting the idea that if you would just follow your heart, everything would be alright.
The drama comes first. Twenty-something Nina Shah (Shelley Conn) returns to Glasgow from London, where she fled for a reason and for a period of time not initially explained. Her father, an award-winning chef at The New Taj, the family-owned restaurant, has just died. Nina is met warmly by her queenly friend Bobbi (Ronny Jhutti) and coolly by her mother (Veena Sood), brother Kary (Atta Yaqub) and teenage sister Priya (Zoe Henretty). Nina is dismayed to learn that her father gambled away a half-share of the restaurant, which is now controlled by old school chum Lisa (Laura Fraser), and balks at the decision to sell the restaurant to Raj (Art Malik), who owns a competing Indian restaurant in town. Lisa wants the money and Nina's family wants to move on, but Nina will not listen to reason.
She insists that her father would never want to sell The New Taj and backs up her claim with proof that he secretly entered a national cooking competition, intent on winning the trophy for "Best of the West Curry" for an unprecedented third time. She convinces Lisa that winning the competition will increase the value of the restaurant, thus securing a better deal from Raj. Nina embarks on a mission to touch up her cooking skills, learned at her father's side, and honor his memory in her own way.
MGM Flies to The Flying Scotsman
Filed under: Sports », Distribution »
Graeme Obree is the quintessential cycling underdog who never got the chance to thrive. Or, more aptly, he is a man with really crappy luck and one hell of a unique vision. The basic story is as follows: Obree is a down and out cycling enthusiast struggling to make ends meet. Instead of searching for funding, he decides to make his own bike, in his own unique style. Using everything from scrap metal to laundry machine parts, Obree builds a more aerodynamic bicycle that wins him the hour speed record. Then his bike was banned. He tried again with a new model, broke records and found success -- that is, until that model was also banned.
Struggling with depression, Obree left the world of racing, wrote a book, and now it's a movie called The Flying Scotsman, directed by Douglas Mackinnon. It stars the snarky Sickboy Jonny Lee Miller as Obree. Laura Fraser, who played a chilling Livinia in Titus plays Obree's wife, and that little Pippin Hobbit Billy Boyd plays his close friend. The Flying Scotsman premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this year to tepid reviews. Now, the film has been picked up by MGM for world-wide distribution.
It will be interesting to see how the film holds up to the crazy story. The North American release date is December 29, so it won't be long before we can wow over Obree's handiwork. Sports equipment has become a big business, and I can't help but wonder how much more fun sports would be if people were allowed to build their own machinery.
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