"Look at this place, Mr. Hornblower. No artilliary would dare cross here and if they tried my mama could beat them off with her parasol." This statement is made by Major Lord Edrington to Horatio Hornblower in the fourth episode of the Hornblower miniseries which is entitled The Wrong War (also The Frogs and The Lobsters), released in 1999. In it, Horatio finds himself leading a number of his crewmen in revolutionary France, under orders to lend support to an army of French loyalists who are endeavouring to take back their country and restore the monarchy. Major Edrington is the commander of the British troops who have also been assigned to the mission. Under orders to give full cooperation to Colonel Marquise de Moncoutant, Hornblower and Edrington soon realise that he is an unhinged sadist, interested only in revenge. They also quickly realise that the positions which they've been ordered to hold and defend- a bridge and a shallow river- are not under any serious threat of attack by the revolutionary army (hence Edrington's above statement). It is obviously a decoy; Moncoutant in his arrogance and preoccupation with vengeance has completely misread the situation and the revolutionary forces are advancing from another direction entirely.
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We seem to be on a cheesy movie musical kick... on Sunday night the movie of choice was the 1992 Disney film Newsies starring Christian Bale, David Moscow, Bill Pullman, etc. The film is loosely (very loosely) based on the 1899 Newsboys' strike against the New York World and the New York Journal. The movie was a big ol' flop when it was released in theatres back in the day and it's not hard to see why. For one thing, Disney live action musicals weren't exactly a big draw at that point; all the noise and attention were going to the animated films of this time period -Beauty and the Beast (91), Aladdin (92), The Lion King (94). Also, Newsies suffers from some plot deficiencies which I won't get into here, but they do detract from the film. And Ann Margaret's role... no. Just no. Since its release on home video however, Newsies has developed something of a cult following and again, it's not difficult to see why. It's got an attractive, charming cast and some very catchy songs- no surprise there, since Alan Menken was writing them. It's a lively, feel-good film and if the plot occasionally doesn't hold together, well, sometimes it doesn't hurt to put the brain on automatic pilot and just enjoy the ride. Oh- and in 2011 Disney came out with a live stage version of the musical which became very successful, eventually winning 8 Tony awards. I haven't seen it so am not sure if it's an improvement on the film or not.
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