Film A

Stealing Beauty is a moving and often very amusing film, which owes its charm to an intelligent script and a magnificent performance by Liv Tyler. The film 19-year-old Lucy, played by Tyler, moves from the USA, following the death of her mother, to stay with family friends in a farmhouse in Italy. The house is owned by Ian Grayson, an artist, who is to paint her portrait. Lucy, however, has a hidden agenda; she wants to see the boy she fell in love with four years earlier and to learn the identity of her real father, clues to which lie in one of the poems written by her mother.

Film B

August is set in a country house in North Wales during the late 19^th century when a group of people gather at the home of the Davis family. The visitors are the tyrannical Professor Alexander Blathwaite, the absentee owner of the estate, and his second wide, the much younger American, Helen. They waste little time in imposing their London ways on the rural inhabitants, including leuan, brother of Blathwaite's first wife, and the professor’s plain daughter, Sian. leuan falls passionately in love with Helen although she shows no interest in him. Sian conceals a secret love for the local doctor, Michael Lloyd, who is also in love with Helen. leuan tries to find comfort in drink and, in a series of tragicomic episodes, the ordered calm of the household begins to disintegrate.

Film C

Dead Man is a cowboy film with a difference, breathtakingly shot in black and white. In the film William Blake, an honorable accountant, has come to the west to take up a job which fails to materialize. A stranger in town, he finds himself alone and without money, and so begins a chain of encounters which lead this law-abiding citizen into crime. The central theme of the film is that life is unpredictable and that unexpected circumstances can completely change the course of a person’s life.

Film D

Denise Calls Up is a funny and thoroughly modern story about a group of young Americans whose lives are based totally on work. Their days consist of talking on mobile phones, answering taxes and watching computer screens. Lunch dates are made and missed, parties are organized but never attended, and the friends even fail to turn up at the funeral of one of their pals (killed in a car accident while talking on her car phone). Then along comes Denise, an outsider to the group. She has an urgent personal problem, but will she be able to find enough time in her busy schedule to deal with it?

Film E

A Month by the Lake is based loosely on a romantic story by H.E.Bates. In the film Vanessa Redgrave plays Miss Bentley, an independent and impetuous middle-aged woman, who travels to a resort by Lake Como in Italy following the death of her father in 1935. There she meets and falls in love with fellow holidaymaker Major Wilshore, an eccentric but likeable man. After various unsuccessful dates, it seems unlikely that the romance will ever really get going until a couple of other people begin to show more than a passing interest in the pair. If the film is unremarkable in its content, it makes good use of its beautiful Italian locations.

Film F

The oddly named How to make an American Quilt tells the story of Finn, an American graduate student, who heads off to spend her summer vacation with her grandmother and great grandmother. Soon she is introduced to a group of elderly ladies who spend much of their time together sewing. The work they are producing is useful for her studies on women's handicrafts but the stories Finn is told about their youth, family histories, loves and marriages soon prove far more interesting than their sewing skills. Meanwhile her own love life is in difficulty as she cannot choose between her good, reliable boyfriend and an incredibly attractive newcomer.

(adapted from How to pass FCE - Exam practice in Reading)

It has been a good year. I………….two books and several short stories, all of which are now in print.