Films with: Alexander, John

Betty Smith's A tree grows in Brooklyn

In pre-WWI Brooklyn, young Francie struggles to keep her idealism alive in the face of grinding poverty, her father's alcoholism, and the comedies and tragedies of ordinary life.

DVD 9948

Mr. Skeffington

Popular and beautiful Fanny Trellis is forced into a loveless marriage with an older man, Jewish banker Job Skeffington, in order to save her beloved brother Trippy from an embezzlement charge. But Fanny has always used beauty to manipulate her way through life by encouraging dozens of suitors, even after her marriage. However, when she falls ill her beauty is gone and she is lost. This film deals openly with anti-Semitism, the story spans World War I, Prohibition and the preliminary volley of World War II.

DVD 10653

Small island

Explores the lives of two couples, one Jamaican and the other English, whose worlds intertwine in post-World War II Britain, at a turning point in the long relationship between the two countries. It is a story of tender emotion and sparkling wit, of crossings taken and passages lost, of shattering compassion and of reckless optimism in the face of insurmountable barriers.

DVD 7768

Survivors.

A plague of global proportions. Anarchy in the streets. The collapse of government and the rule of law--perhaps even the end of civilization itself!--followed by the rise of tyranny and vigilantism. There's heavy stuff happening in Survivors, a British sci-fi drama offered here with all 12 episodes from its first two (and so far only) seasons on five discs. Although it shares a title, original writer (Terry Nation), and several character names with a mid-'70s series, this is apparently not a remake. But the basic idea, detailed in the 90-minute pilot episode, is the same: Present-day Britain has fallen prey to a particularly nasty influenza virus. Within days, it's clear that the disease won't be easily contained; within a couple of weeks, at least 90 percent of the population has died from it, not merely in England but across the planet. As the world as they know it quickly falls apart--no electricity, no communications, no mass transit, no readily available medical care--and those who survived due to immunity start to sort themselves out, the show narrows its focus on one disparate and distinctly multicultural group: Abby (Julie Graham), the de facto leader, who's determined to find the son she's convinced is still alive; Tom (Max Beesley), who was doing time for robbery and murder when the virus struck; Anya (Zoe Tapper), an attractive young doctor; Greg (Peterson Joseph), a would-be loner whose life had already been falling apart; Al (Phillip Rhys), a rich, lazy ne'er do well; and Najid, a devout, 11-year-old Muslim. The remaining episodes follow this core bunch as they cope with their strange new world--a world in which, as Tom puts it, "we make our own law now."

DVD 9271