Film Reviews by PV

OK so, if this film were written/directed/produced by men and NOT based on a non-fiction non-fiction book about the true story, it could be classed as softcore lesbian porn, and no doubt attract the ire of feminists. But it is based on a true story as revealed in a book, but a female author. Phew!

‘Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy’ by Judith C. Brown, a detailed account of the life of Sister Benedetta Carlini, who has mystic visions, and her affair with a fellow nun, Bartolomea. The book covers n Sister Benedetta’s life and her confrontation with the provost of her order, especially very detailed explicit transcripts of the inquests. It is a rare lesbian affair recorded in history, this from early 17th C - there are many more records of male sexual activity and often brutal punishment including execution. Worth mentioning too that nuns like these had it easy compared to many women and men in society of the time.

The ending is fictional: the revolt of the citizens, and the attempt to burn Benedetta at the stake is borrowed from the story of Joan of Arc. He has also stated that the dildo was required to be "historically accurate", because apparently to be burned at the stake it required that an "instrument" was used...Which is handy then, if you want to get some heretical girl-on-girl dildo action into a movie... For art's sake, bien sur...

It can be a wordy story, and it helps to know a bit of history re 17th C counter-reformation Papacy and inquisitions. Also it is maybe overlong esp with erotic scenes lingering. But it was not boring and had enough twists and turns, and action, and lesbian sex if they is your thing, to maintain interest. Visually impressive too. Well acted.

It is really a political drama, where power and faith mingle, with a series of vicious power struggles – first with the Abbess (Charlotte Rampling), then with the nuncio, a papal envoy from plague-ridden Florence. Benedetta has visions of Christ and bears the bloody marks of the stigmata, but speaks her proclamations in words deemed too lascivious to be the word of God. is she a faker? Probably, but... but... People always WANT to believe. So a bit like the X-Files then...Do you BELIEVE? or not.

Fascinating to learn about convent life then, when 'brides of Christ' AKA nuns or rather their families had to pay a huge dowry for them to enter a convent. Worth checking out Benedetta Carlini on Wiki or similar for background.

In French but not a a story from France - Pescia is in Tuscany, northern Italy, as is the always-beautiful city of Firenze/Florence (to see it in all its glory watch ROOM WITH A VIEW 1986 or HANNIBAL 2001).

I enjoyed this anyway. 4 stars.

I hated this film, Do yourself a favour and watch the truly great Norwegian film SICK OF MYSELF (2023) which covers the same ground in a satire way more classy and well-written than this dross, or AMERICAN MARY (2013) about cosmetic surgery taken to extremes. OR the 1970s class film from a classic satirical novel THE STEPFORD WIVES. Read it too, great book. As is THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY by Oscar Wilde, Same idea. This movie is SO derivative and not original even a bit.

HOW on earth did this dreadful drivel get nominated for Oscars, ditto with its sister-film Barbie? Politics, that is why. These are #metoo femifantasies which diss men massively, portray all men as repulsive evil man-monsters (only white Western me though). It is hare misandry, the opposite of misogyny, Imagine a film that showed such cartoon character repulsive women throughout.

No doubt the target audience of self-pitying self-absorbed teenage girls and babywomen will love this revenge fantasy BUT who runs TV? Women. Most producers are female and also run the magazine and fashion industry; the TV audience is mostly female too, 70-80% for reality TV and dance shows as portrayed here,. So STOP the manblaming and look in the mirror, sisters. VANITY THY NAME IS WOMAN indeed.

OTT special effects (similar to Britflick MEN) in a gorefest as the absurd main character heads for a predictable climax.

Substance has NO substance; it is style over substance from beginning to end. FAR better GRASS IS GREENER/BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR films.

French director whose only other movie is equally manblaming (issues much?) but at least REVENGE was watchable (in French). This is SO full of plot holes it could be a cheese - Swiss, of course. Too many to list.

BRAVE NEW WORLD did this cloning idea better, as did WESTWORLD 1973 movie and recent TV series, and the on-trend TV drama series SEVERANCE. Maybe HANNIBAL TV drama series too which is classy and stylish in a way this is not. This is total dross and dangerous dross at that - the systemic misandry, boybashing, manblaming in our society grows and grows. Why? Is this a good thing? Why? It is bare sexism and I call out the bigotry of it.

If you like manhating B-movie bodyshock horror films that are style over substance and make no sense and come from a bitter place, watch it,. Otherwise, avoid.

This reminds me of a stage play - I do not think it started as one. Maybe the writer came from the theatre. He - Franklin Ritch - also directs, produces and stars as the geek main character, and he also done da feem toon. Gosh.

Dangerous, that, esp for a new film maker - and the flaws caused but it show. Editing is badly needed, esp of the script - slice off the preachy flab, the lecture on AI. Improve clarity, date tags for the 3 parts (I,II, and III, which is very Roman...) would help too. Just 'X years later' for parts 2 & 3.

Part 1 is best imho. Interesting. Not sure where this would go. Subsequent parts jump the shark maybe. Depends if you like and buy the conceits in scifi, I suppose.

Maybe this was all done better with the high-budget glossy 'A.I.' in 2001. But then that was directed by Spielberg so...this wasn't.

It is arty, leftfield, low-budget and a useful contribution to the AI-movie canon. But it is mixed in quality, no more than mediocre. Part 1 scores 4 stars. 2 stars for parts 2 and 3.

3 stars overall.

Hmmm well, this film annoyed me. Why? Well I am no big fan of either of the actors Ewen M and Eva G - I find them smug and annoying, and they play such characters here.

It's unbelievable, and I mean the characters. Would a posho English rose fall for a chef? Not usually.

Then there is the unbelievable plot and the annoying narration, which has the sort of pretentious tone of so many European films, and this is Scandinavian-made. This is the sort of thing that would probably work better in a novel, to be honest. I could not willingly suspend my disbelief here and kept asking WHY WHY WHY about so much that happened. It clearly THINKS it is a groundbreaking clever film. It is not.

This sort of thing has been done FAR better elsewhere. For example in THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS or Soderburgh's realistic SARS/Covid pandemic origin story drama CONTAGION. THE BAY is another. And THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS did it better even in the early 80s TV series.

2 stars

Very annoying characters here BUT the movie gets away with it and some other absurdities because it is well made.

Would such a tower by still up and usable? Why? Would no-one notice?> Really? As experienced climbers they'd tell people where they were going surely?

It seems these days all these sort of films have to have young female leads (all strong and independent women of course), like so many shark movies, The Shallows, 47 Metres down, and so many more. It's almost as if #metoo made a man-ban real. Ironically, what we have now is a new sexist stereotype and a real cliché. How tiresome. I hope the pendulum swings back soon so both male and female actors can play such roles.

Also, I watched a documentary on the super scary spot of free climbing (as in the start of this film but worse, NO safety ropes AT ALL there) - FREE SOLO (2018) won the best documentary Oscar even. In that, there is NOT ONE female free climber. They are all me. Every one, And mad mental bonkers, every one too! Many die. Of course. See what they do. WATCH that doc and also THE WALK (2015), the movie which I loved, and watched through my fingers, and documentary.

Moreover, a quick glance at the credits reveal this film was written, directed and produced by men and a man even did the music. So the women are, for want of a better term, eye candy. What great progress for feminism,. YAY!

Could have been 2 stars but the writer does a great job in mixing it up, increasing the jeopardy as per the scriptwriting template, but in imaginative and very 21st century ways. The husband/boyfriend issue is interesting.

Yes, it's a B-Movie - but a good one! I enjoyed it.

Some here did not like the twist - I did though I usually dislike how calculated and tricksy such plot tricks are (watch 47 METRES DOWN which is maybe where the writer here got the idea from).

3 stars

I enjoyed this. It's a clearly well-written character piece with a standard chalk and cheese pairing, this time of 2 Jewish New York cousins who could not be more different.

Jesse Eisenberg shows he is bright enough to write an intelligent script like this (unlike many actors who are really not that bright - why screenplays have to SPELL EVERYTHING OUT and never use jokes or irony, because the aforementioned actors will not get it... trust me). Jesse E always directed, no easy task and one which often goes wrong for those attempting writer-director-actor trick in a film.

The acting is believable even if the tolerant reactions of all the people are not. I did like the 'prodigal son' type envy at the end, no spoilers, even if it is not really credible. Jesse E does his usual nerdy neurotic act, even mentioning Xanax and ADHD I think.

In my mind, Will Sharpe as the northern English tour guide steals the show though, and boy that character has the patience of a saint and tbh I do not really believe the reaction of him and other tour members to the deeply annoying and loud potty-mouthed insulting Benji.

I liked seeing Poland and hearing the tour guide info too.

In my view, Jeremy Strong should have won the best supporting actor for The Apprentice, not Culkin here (the association with Trump may have done for Strong's brilliant portrayal of The Donald's reptilian amoral gay mentor from the 1970s). BUT that is usual for me, I often disagree with Oscar choices,

4 stars.

I loved this. It's an imaginative and original, and very entertaining, take on the vampire myth, Dracula, Nosferaturu, The Vampyre, whatever.

The characters are great, the juxtaposition of the foppish 18th C courtier and the peasant family in some unnamed part of central Europe - a map is shown at some stage which gives a vague location. Transylvania? But they all speak French anyway...

Some nice twists here, the members of the 'strange family', the feminine cross-dressing brother, the wife, and the father of course... I suspect UK/US films would not dare show what happens to the child character here (no spoilers) though the new NOSFERATU movie also shows child victims I suppose. Anyhow, I enjoyed this modest film more than that bloated one (watched it last week).

Some 'grand guignol' horror here and black humour which i enjoyed. The SFX are fun, CGI or puppet.

And a fun ending too, no spoilers.

A hidden Gallic gem. 4 stars.

I was not expecting much from this and often dislike Matt Damon esp in the action movies.

But this slowburner was really good. Be patient and stay with it. It simmers slowly with devastating results.

Reminds me a bit of Argentinian class THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES.

A nice moral undertone to this story and the characters, about betrayal, and truth and lies, and...well, watch it.

OK the story if a tad unbelievable but...

4 stars. A solid film.

This just squeaks a 3 stars, though to be fair I did select the DIRECTOR'S CUT version not the shorter THEATRICAL RELEASE.

Very slow and ponderous, visually impressive, great caste BUT it somehow lacks heart, despite all the emoting. It is a little anaemic, perhaps...

The absolute classic 1922 Nosferatu was a film version of the novel (and then stage play) Dracula by Bram Stoker. After complaints of copyright infringement, the film makers altered some details BUT Stoker's widow still sued - a court ruling ordered all copies of the film destroyed. Luckily, a few prints of Nosferatu survived THANK GOODNESS, and thus the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre.

This movie made 102 years later by the rather over-rated director Robert Eggers (I see I gave 2 of his other films 2 stars) is a curiosity piece really, an addition to the genre but not a patch on the classic 1922 Nosferatu directed by the great German expressionist director FW Murnau, written by Henrik Galeen.

Then there is the classic late 1950s Christopher Lee DRACULA and he IS Dracula. Before my time was the 1930s Bela Lugosi version and shown so brilliantly in GODS AND MONSTERS and also ED WOOD.

This is an addition to the genre, watchable, dark, explicit in parts, no doubt some will find it scary. The main innovation seems to be to give a female character agency which is so 21st century but is also so obviously tacked on.

3 stars. Just.

I loved the director's HEARTSTONE. This is not quite as good, just a tad bloated and overlong esp in 2nd half and 3rd act.

As ever, I could do without the cod spiritual stuff - I always think that's a bit of a cop-out, a way for film makers to try and spice up a story, but it actually has the reverse effect.

This film starts brilliantly, exploring the bullying dynamic of a teenage boy gang - the amateur actors here do so well, utterly believable and naturalistic performances by all the boys. Not sure I believe some of the plot strands but...

But gosh, is Iceland really all druggies and criminals, the deranged, the sex pest perverted, not to mention the level of mental illness! And the colourful painted wooden houses all look so pretty. Instead it's a hotbed of abuse and madness. It's probably eating all that fish that does it. And remember in 16th century Europe, Iceland was actually stated as the geographic entrance to hell itself (see VIKINGS).

Flawed and overlong, but a decent film about the dynamics of teenage boys, their friendships, loves and hates. And all done without the silly boybashing manblaming moral panic of the very feminised media and TV/film industry in the UK, and our feminised politics getting hysterical about the socalled manosphere and 'toxic masculinity' socalled, words and concepts invented by misandrists maybe?

CLOSE is another films (this time Flemish/Belgian by Lukas Dhont) which nails it. WAY better than anything any Netflix/UK TV drama has done re the same subject. This writer/director really GETS teenage boys with sympathy and lived experience no doubt. Could not be different from the unpleasant boybashing attitude of the moralising movies and TV dramas made on the same subject, and the ensuing pofaced prissy moral panic of politicans and manblaming feminists.

4 stars. Maybe 4.5

Sweet Sue is piquant and sour social satire — a tragicomic British film about life among loners, strivers and skivers.

I am not a great fan of Mike Leigh, and still think his NUTS IN MAY and ABIGAIL'S PARTY were his high point way back in 1970s.

His son Leo no doubt had the double-edged sword of having a famous film maker father - the connection would have opened doors for sure, and like many a socialist Mike Leigh lives in a nice big house in north London so not short of a bob or two, and his son certainly would not have lived the working class and underclass lives of the London suburbs as portrayed here (though Hastings get a look in).

But then he had the weight of daddy's reputation and he seems in his 40s now so waited for his movie debut, and this one apes Mike Leigh's way of making films exactly, with rehearsal and improvisation. It does not always work, but has created some cracking characters, scenes and lines here.

I really enjoyed this, notwithstanding the ending - no spoilers but the film seems to go nowhere and lacks focus in that third act, ends rather abruptly imho.

All the actors are great, esp Maggie O'Neill who is utterly believable in the main role and Harry Trevaldwyn as the slacker 30-something bitchy online influencer wannbe - expect to see him in many more movies, i am sure, with that face.

But 4 stars

OH so I can see why state funding encourages diversity etc etc etc but does EVERY SINGLE film our taxes pay for (via BBC films, BFI then also lottery funding) HAVE to go to films written/directed by women or 'people of colour' with female stories (where white males are absent or only shown as baddies) or various ethnic stories?

It is literally YEARS since I watched a state-subsidised British film written/directed by a white British man about white British (male) lives - other than other tickbox ones, whether gay or disabled or whatever. It is just getting tiresome and many of these tickbox #metoo #BLM movies are really not very good.

Just to add: the Philippines were NEVER the British empire, twas Spanish then from about 1900 American, then Japan invaded in WWII, then independent. The writer/director is of that background and grew up in the UK, so that makes it authentic (though I worry about the requirement for such tickbox authentic casting as if a 'white' person can only makes movies about people who look JUST like them) which is useful in these tickbox days to get state funding, for sure.

This is strangely old-fashioned horror, maybe more modern in the far east than here, I do not know. Use of sound and quick moves are tropes, and cliches, used for many decades - it all feels a bit 1970s actually. I like sound in films but the bangs/jumps are overuse here - as I said, very old-fashioned, like old horror films, even Hammer, the loud bursts of sound in the late 1950s Dracula films for example.

The cartoon character acting is a bit OTT for me, but I have seen it in Hong Kong films, and Japanese and Chinese films, so it seems more acceptable in the far east, as opposed to the naturalism of western acting styles. Who knows?

It is watchable, but gets very tiresome towards the end. All total tosh of course. Not believable at all in so many ways.

Maybe this needed someone more detached to be involved, to call out the vanity project indulgence, EDIT EDIT EDIT, rewrite rewrite rewrite. I believe the writer/director even got what must be a a family member (called PANCAKE) on the writing credit, Well that's a first.

I'd slice half an hour of flab off this story, much of act 3, the silly final display. And I always think druggy dream sequences are a bit of an excuse for directors to indulge themselves with special effects and extras wearing silly costumes.

There is a point in this film where the main character preaches what I consider misinformation and near-hate against white Westerners incl Britain which could be called racist, Not on. This claim ONLY people of colour and immigrants are poor, disadvantaged or domestic staff/cleaners etc is wrong indeed. Plus there are MANY privileged and rich people of colour in the UK. Racialising the issue is wrong. It is a socio-economic class issue, if anything.

And remember, only 1 in 5000 people were 'upper class' in Georgian England so the VAST majority of Brits a( all but a few thousands were 'white') were not in that elite, not rich, and actually very poor and non-privileged and oppress - and STILL ARE. Try researching the hopeless lives of working class white boys all over the UK. The London townhouse featured here must be worth £3 million - and most white Brits do NOT live in such houses (Paddington, looking at you too in your £5+ million mansion).

So, I almost gave this 1 star. 1.5 stars because of the wonderful acting esp by David Hayman, though his casting as the cliched trope of the perpetual BADDIE white British man is Bollywood in its Britbashing racism. And that end scene is pure Bollywood- I have seen this a lot in films lately, Dr Who Beatles episode, and that Medusa Deluxe movie. I HATE that, I hate Bollywood; I hate song and dance numbers tacked on for no good reason!

I always have the same issue with misery memoirs - how much is true and how much is deliberately exaggerated? There are other addiction memoirs and films, from TRAINSPOTTING to THE LOST WEEKEND, to LEAVING LAS VEGAS. All fiction. Then another adaptation from a book, A MILLION LITTLE PIECES by James Frey, originally sold as a memoir later marketed as a semi-fictional novel following Frey's admission that many parts of the book were fabricated.

Anyway, assessing this as a film in its own right, I'd say it is very watchable, with interesting settings, landscapes and I liked the way it showed the main character as badly behaved and not just a victim of others, and even showed her false accusations that others were trying to control her when they were not. It touches on inherited mental illness too with the main character's father.

I suppose it is the #metoo trend now to only ever focus on female stories, as there has ben a deluge recently and it seems all state-funded films must be directed by women and feature female stories, or BAME ones. Maybe white boys need a special fund so we can have films telling their stories now? How about it BFI, BBC, FilmFour, National Lottery.

Anyway, I loved the landscape and Nature here, and the conrcrake humour. Addictionis always messy and tricky to live and experience and to portray in fiction - novels, films, whatever. This is one of my favourite addiction films tbh. THE LOST WEEKEND is the classic movie, of course.

DO watch the 5 short films in the EXTRAS section - well worth a watch. Interesting from the German female director about the colour palettes used and how it swaps as the film progresses, from colourful London and monochrome faded outdoors, to the opposite when we reach the later scenes in beautiful Orkney, the sea, the sky, the fields and wildlife - GLORIOUS! And the wind...

4 stars.

This is billed as a mix between comedy, horror and soap opera. REALLY?

Well it did not make me laugh or even smile, so if it is meant to be farce or perhaps satire, even allegorical, it fails miserably. Horror? Well if you think men in costumes gyrating is horrific, I suggest you watch some 1950s horror movies or maybe 1930s ones, like Flash Gordon's mud people. Soap opera? Well some characters 'connect' so to speak but, well, who cares?

This is one of those films which thinks it is clever but is in fact pointless, silly, shallow, unfunny and annoying. There are others which this reminds me of, like OLD by M Night Shhh, and the awful TRIANGLE OF SADNESS. Again, pointless, not satirical or profound at all, not even a bit.

This all feels so contrived and stagey - I was surprised it did not start in the theatre. It's the sort of thing the Lover Sixth do for an Easter Play, complete with cardboard brain.

Don';t bother. Unless you like the films I mentioned. 1.5 stars.

WHY THIS FILM HAS AN IMAGE OF THE FIFTH ELEMENT I DO NOT KNOW! I hope Cinema Paradiso can fix that!

This is a 1946 black-and-white documentary-style film almost incredibly filmed in situ in 1945 at the end of the war when the Nazis were still in France!

By the great French director Clement who made WHEN PARIS WAS BURNING (1966) about the end of the WWII Nazi occupation, the superb FORBIDDEN GAMES and the glorious early version of THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY called PLEIN SOLEIL.

As said before, documentary-style with sound added later, and a truly amazing climatic scene. All about the Resistance, even though yes, it ignores the massive collaboration in France and other occupied lands, or the French-run Vichy regime which had French gendarmes rounding up Jews to cram on trains bound to the death camps.

This focuses on the sabotage done by railwaymen (no women, just men) which was common around Nazi-occupied Europe. The train workers tried strikes in both Prague and Holland, which the Nazis ruthlessly put down BUT after German was losing the war 1943/4, their troops were too busy to stop these strikes so instead took revenge through cutting off supplies, as with Amsterdam - leading to the 'hunger winter' of 1944, as all food diverted to German troops and away from civilian populations after the Dutch railwaymen went on strike.

A classic and an important film, esp for anyone interested in the Second World War.

5 stars.