Film Reviews by PV

This is one of the British films which is entirely state-funded bia BBC, BFI, lottery - which these days means a full-on preachy woke agenda and loads of tickbox colourblind casting and metoo themes. Happily this was made in 2011, before that rot set in.

It is a neat idea, and funny concept - not original,, rather a new-ish twist on an old theme. The humour is droll and arch, and that 'know the face not the name' actor Burn Gorman is perfectly cast, with his world-weary eye-rolling stoicism. The manic Rash character is also bang-on authentic. I believed these people - they are real. The previous Asian 'carer' character Mo I think is completely extraneous though. Maybe the actor was a mate of the writyer/director?

Having said that, the film is short, 1 hour and 10 minutes or so, which is all it needed. It COULD have been a 1 hour TV drama. Many movies could and most should be editing, with flab sliced off to make movies 90 minutes on average again, not the massive average these days of 2 hours 20 minutes.

A modest, unflashy, genuinely funny film. Some baffling bits and padding, but generally worth watching and I enjoyed it. Loved the music too.

4 stars.

What to say about this film? Well, it is trash. made because Winnie the Pooh came out of copyright this year (75 years after the author's death - same reason Spielberg made his War of the Worlds movie (DEATH + 75 means copyright for books ends and anyone can adapt them into movies).

The world of trashy B-movie (or D-movie or Z-movie) horror films is lucrative - straight to DVD territory is massive in the USA and makes money, hence the sheer number of awful cheap horror films, often churned out by small companies, several a year.

Never heard of the director (also writer and editor and producer etc) but found this: In 2021, Rhys Frake-Waterfield left his job at EDF Energy to create low-budget horror films & produced 36 feature films in two years. It seems Peter Pan and Bambi (also out of copyright - the stories not the Disney images) hexyt., Oh yippee doo,

The story here relies on an animated prologue explaining what has happened. So far, so B-movie. Then we get cartoon character horror and gore, which is what the target DVD horror fan audience want. Oddly, we just see Pooh and Piglet (who is more boar/pig than piglet). No Roo, and Eyeore's fate is explained in the prologue. SO only 2 masks and costumes to come off the film budget then! It's all very WRONG BTURN esp with the hick dungarees Pooh wears and the unexplained longhaired hippies and Americans who appear for no reason later on in the film.

Sadly, the story is incoherent and goes nowhere - there is a real lack of tension. It's a series of vignettes really and no doubt feminists will complain about the young-women-getting-hunted/slaughtered trope. The lack of diversity worship quotas which is refreshing. There is no feisty young woman, cleverer than all the men, as in ALL BBC/ITV drama and most modern Hollywood movies, or race/gender themes rammed down the viewers' throats in a finger-wagging preachy way. One star for that.

A good job it all takes place in a forest as the acting is so wooden it could pass for a tree. I think the director/writer/editor got an old schoolmate in to play Christopher Robin. He is so wooden he may need Ronseal, as are many of the screamy girls.

But, you know what to expect from the description and it serves that up so why complain? Roll with it. Just do not expect much. 2 stars.

There is a certain breed of British film director who has started often as an actor for the BBC and gone on to direct (back when white males were allowed on BBC training schemes) and then who make these sort of low-budget twee British films often with BBC/BFI/Lottery money. Like SWIMMING WITH MEN, MADE IN DAGENHAM and more, made by some of the same team.

The films that result are fine for what they are - TV-drama-style films, heart-warming of course, family viewing, mildly amusing, often with a heartwarming MESSAGE rammed home throughout, with some huggy teary lovey-dovey happy-sad poignant ending - but these days sadly distracted from the story by an obsession to tick the diversity boxes (as demanded by BAFTA diversity worship quotas - which I am SO against, ALL such race quotas are racist, The end).

So what is the film like? Predictable, safe, twee - does what it says on the tin. Michael Caine is a great actor and steals every scene. I've never been a fan of Glenda Jackson BUT fans will enjoy what may have been her last film. Nothing wrong with it. Based on a true story, embellished of course. SO there we are. MAYBE good for educating kids re the Second World War.

One thing annoyed me. In the last 15 years I have visited many hospitals and care homes thanks to family illness/age. I have never ever met a black British care worker, Not once, African immigrant nurses and care workers, yes. Many Asian ones, loads from Thailand and the Philippines. Some East Europeans. No black British. But the BAFTA diversity standards mean of course they cast a black British woman as care worker.

And the disabled solider helping the veterans is a black British guy too - and there were a SMALL number in Afghanistan but they are a small % in the army, so maybe do some research, film makers, and be more realistic. Sadly, this diversity worship parachuted tickbox casting is standard now. Just watch TV, the adverts and drama. Sigh. BUT at least they did not go full woke and cast BAME actors on the beaches of Normandy in 1944 (though they sneak one into a Swing dance. Hmm. Just about possible, if a GI, maybe, though US army units had segregation...BUT only 6000 blacks in the UK in 1939 out of 44 million population, so not many British blacks in UK armed forces, though of course there were separate West Indian battalions and in Asia, the Indian ones, Muslim-only or Hindu-only or Sikh-only, I think. DO THE MATH, as the Americans might say). It COULD have been much worse though...and is, in other films.

So watchable but all everso smug and dare I say it, lazy - take a true story and write it up for a state-funded low profile British film.

Michael Caine is great though, age 90. This may well be his last film.

Sad to think that the breaks he got in his day would now not be open to him as a white British working class boy, HOW MANY who look and sound like him are on TV drama or adverts or British films? Equality and diversity in action means racism/sexism against working class white boys. Such racist sexist hypocrisy, BAFTA-sanctioned, using public money, Shameful.

3 stars. Lost one for diversity worship but gained it back for the cyclist scenes with Caine - no spoilers but that was GREAT!

This starts off really well - the first 4 episodes on disc one are great, and the drama builds really sinister mysterious atmosphere, with a focus on character in the unfolding story. However, then it meanders, with way too much focus on characters' home lives and relationships. Probably as a 6 parter, this crime thriller would have been tighter and tender, so more effective as a drama.

And HOW MANY MORE TIMES are we going to see a 'strong woman' police officer who has a relationship then feels sick and throws up in a toilet (OH I DO WONDER WHAT THAT CAN POSSIBLY MEAN...) Just stop it. This yawnsome new cliche is beyond annoying, used as a device to pile pressure on female characters. It is trite and lazy.

I liked the unlikeable main character washed-out old cynical cop BUT not sure I really believed his backstory etc. It was pushing it, for me.

Interesting the German and Austrians working together though. A bit like 1938. The BRIDGE is credited at the end credits so maybe the cross-border thing came from there (hardly copyright idea though).

Loved the snowy December landscapes and the whole Krampus thing, from a part of Germany not usually shown on TV/film drama. Some visually striking scenes here, the VERY German focus on the forest was great - it is a real, deep part of the Germanic Psyche, that.

Just a shame this drama meandered badly in the last 4 episodes and ratcheted up the jeopardy by numbers when there was no need for it.

So 4 stars. I shall watch series 2 of it.

I was not sure what to make of this. It takes a VERY old and trite horror trope - that of summoning spirits, this time with a hand (The Monkey's Paw MR Bates short story comes to mind). And then of course the Pandora's Box is opened.

Fine, an attempt to update and modernise an old trope with the usual archetypes. Reminded me of the funny horro FREAKY (2020) in that, though that is classier.

A rather obvious attempt to appeal to US audiences with a black female main character who has an American dad (never explained) - in south Australia, Adelaide, I think, according to end production credits. This woke stuff can be eyerollingly irritating and distracting BUT here they JUST about get away with it, esp as it is balanced by focus on a white Aussie young teen boy (acted very well, whoever that is).

Directed by 2 newcomers with Greek names - a nob to that at the end (no spoilers) and no doubt family and friends got a favour returned to get in a movie as extras LOL. Lots of newcomers here, actors too, and I hope this calling card enables their careers.

Scary? Not for me. Maybe for those who believe in the world of spirit etc.

BUT entertaining and a great Friday night horror movies to watch with friends in the dark - though it does drag a wee bit in the middle.

It also features the first kangaroo in a horror film, Maybe...

3 stars

Ray Milland stars and directs here - he was born in 1907 in Neath, South Wales and was the first Welsh actor to win an Oscar for THE LOST WEEKEND (1945). After that he became a character actor in many B movies and on TV in the USA.

This is from 1962 and very much of the period in all ways though none the worse for that. No preachy woke sermons and lectures here! Often quaint gender roles and no colourblind casting. What a relief!

It is an early post-apocalypse story really, like 28 DAYS LATER many years later. Remember it was made in 1962 at a time of the bay of Pigs and Cuba Missile Crisis. How people would survive after a nuclear war was very much on people's minds.

I enjoyed it. Yes, it is very cartoon character and easy to mock BUT this was to my knowledge the first nuclear war film, about what happens after an attack by nuclear bombs in the USA in 1962. Low budget, but it all works.

Teen idol singer and actor Frankie Avalon (still alive in 2024 aged 84 is cast as teen idol heart-throb to get the teen audience no doubt.

4 stars. And a funky jazzy pre-Beatles soundtrack too!

This was great fun to watch - and will appeal especially to those of a certain age who remember the 1970s and 80s and 90s.

It is all a time-slip drama really and in that genre - SCROOGE/S Christmas Carol was an early timeslip drama of course and the ultimate Christmas timeslip experience.

It is all very cleverly handled re the times/eras (NO SPOILERS) and the changes in fashion/music are great fun. It works best on that level. People may compare it to SLIDING DOORS which I found annoying. I much prefer THE TIME MACHINE (1961). Or early DR Who from 1970s.

I do not always like local south Walian boy Michael Sheen but he shines here (see what I did there?) LOL. Who'd have thunk all this was mostly filmed in fake trains in the Bay Studios shed in Swansea? After its time as a Nightingale hospital in the 2020 pandemic, that is. Caricatures of buffoon men from the era are not new - a recent TV sitcom about an electronics shop owner in 1980s northern England ploughed the same furrow. And middle-aged white males are SUCH an EASY target. But Sheen does well to convince with what could have been a 2-D cartoon character. He makes it more than that, as does the writer 9also director).

Eton-educated Cary Elwes amazes as the brother with a decent Nottingham accent (he's known now for the SAW movies but starred in Another Country as Rupert Everett's lover in ANOTHER COUNTRY based on the schooldays of spy Guy Burgess and based on Julian Mitchell's play; Colin Firth stars in that too and the whole dreamy Eton English schooldays shtick inspired the Style Council's LONG HOT SUMMER song and video and Paul Weller got all Eton-esque, for a while anyway...)

The weak point is the ending which, even though it means to be 'progressive', ends up being really rather pofaced and puritanical, making HUGE assumptions about what is best for a child BUT... I suppose it had to end somewhere, but the fingerwagging moralising annoys.. THE MESSAGE is rammed home with tears. My eyes rolled...

This works best as pure time-slip fun. 4 stars

The end credits promise a sequel I think... or similar, YESTERDAY TOMORROW or something...

I liked this, some great one-liners and an interesting story - all a bit of a caper or chase movie really. It is a QUEST story basically.

what I disliked was an over-reliance on CGI Just too much of it and looked like a computer game at times, Bright colours, flashing lights and noise are popular with smaller kids but older viewers need more. No doubt the usual types would demand trigger warnings for this film as it is full of violent scenes.

I liked the cat/dog jokes though fail to see why a southern African-American cat lady features in the land faraway - though it seems EVERY single film now must tick the boxes like this. Eyerollingly annoying. I cannot see what it adds. Just have a cat lady.

Lots of fun with cats having 9 lives - which has been done before, in books such as THE NINE LIVES OF SUMMER and others. It is done well here and in an original funny way. I liked the way the story touched on philosophy and mortality - ALL great stories esp those for kids need threat, death and danger (no matter what the crybabies of today claim). Just read some fairytales. Blood and guts and galore galore in them! And all the better for it. The kids can cope. YES THEY CAN!

Some fun with Goldi and the 3 bears, with Florence Pugh and the great Ray Winstone doing voiceovers.

A perfect Christmas film really, just let it waft over you after lunch... do not take too seriously.

I did not like the song much - too modern R&B.

No spoilers but the end hints at a sequel. However, this would be a good place for the series to stop IMHO.

3.5 stars.

I rarely fail to finish watching a film to the end but, after 40 minutes, I could stand it no more - and I rather like moody slow atmospheric arty French films!

This is just boring, pretentious and pointless. So slow and dull - why should we care about these characters? I did not believe the relationships either and the central artistic actress mum character especially. Token American Ethan Hawke looks suitably gormless as he cannot understand basic French,, despite his French wife. Almost racism against Americans, that...

I am sure this movie thinks it matters but it really does not.

Yet another 4th rate tedium metoo preachy machine bandwagon movie, I think - all about FEMALE relationships, Got that? FEMALE and WOMEN and GIRLS.

Sorry, love - ticking femi-boxes is not enough to carry a movie. Of course, the metoo fanatics may disagree. Fine, they can watch this dross. I shall pass.

2 stars. Not cruel enough to give it 1 star as it looks lovely and I like hearing French spoken to improve my own.

I enjoyed this, especially the first half or so of the film. Later on it goes too far I think, but just my opinion, and drags rather. And not sure re the very end )no spoilers but watch to the end) and the TV evangelist theme.

But the first half or two thirds is great, original, and loved the 1979 timeline. Great music too and film references.

All very silly and unlikely when one thinks about it, but so wht really?

Maybe a tad ageist if one thinks about it. But anyway, 3.5-4 stars.

This is VERY loosely based on Agatha Christie's HALLOWEEN PARTY - there is a more authentic version with David Suchet as Poirot from the 1990s.

I do not mind such loose adaptations but the shoehorning of ISHOOS into plots and colourblind casting annoys me a lot. This is set in 1947, remember.. There WAS a woman convicted of witchcraft in the UK during WWII; and no, she was not OF COLOUR because at that time there were only 6000 black people in the UK of a population of 44 million and hardly any Chinese people (so few in fact that 1950s film THE INN OF THE SIXTH HAPPINESS had to cast the children of Chinese diplomats as they could not find any native Brit ones).

Honestly, TV drama and the film industry needs to GET A GRIP and DEWOKE itself. Would that cast a white guy as a Zulu warrior? No, and nor should they. SO why the reverse then? I tend to turn off or over when I smell the wokey stench of colourblind casting or pc/metoo sermonising/preaching in drama and films. BUT we still have the archive to enjoy, thank goodness.

Venice looks lovely. Not sure I buy the spiritual guff - my eyes roll out of my skull at such stuff, frankly.

It is all a bit silly but watchable. I do prefer the old TV Poirot from 1990s on though (see now often on ITV3). David Suchet IS Poirot.

3/5

Awful. Just awful. Boring, pointless, self-indulgent nonsense - a bit like the same director's awful TINY FURNITURE, so i should have known really.

I was hoping for a funny Christmas film or something interesting. I did not find it here.

Is it a comedy? No. Is it a murder mystery police procedural? No. What is it? Boring and messy and so uneven and unedited it is baffling how it ever got funded and made. There is no story here really. So I suppose it is a character study of a self-indulgent young woman, and VERY boring with it.

MAYBE younger women of Gen Z will love it though. They're welcome to it.

my only regret is I stayed with this, after the first half hour, and wasted another hour of my life I am never getting back.

I am no prude but this is crude, silly, almost old-fashioned in thinking it is oh-so-shocking. It is not, It is purile (or the girly equivalent) and silly and very VERY boring.

1 star

This starts brilliantly - the way they de-age the 79-year old Harrison Ford and other characters is amazing really. The great Mads Mikkelsen is much younger of course.

This is a return to form for the final film after the dreadful Crystal Skull. The only one with no direct Spielberg involvement though the first script was written by David Koepp who adapted Jurassic Park for the screen in 1993, then British Butterworths and the US director reviewed/rewrote it. And it is well-written - with some great gags.

Some class British actors here, Toby Jones and John Rhys-David - Welsh-born English-raised Brit who plays an Egyptian as in the first Indian films - so glad they ignored the usual woke squealing demands for 'authentic casting. Glad they TRIED ACTING instead. These Indians films are full of British talent always. Alexei Sayle is in The LAst Crusade as is Mr Bronson from 1980s TV kids show Grange Hill, as Adolf Hitler (Michael Sheard).

The weak point is Phoebe WB whose face and manner just makes me cringe always - thanks to a very posh privileged background and no doubt top connections, she's managed to use a mediocre sitcom (i watched 10 minutes then switched off) into a launching pad to cowrite the last (dreadful) Bond movie and now a starring role in this. Metoo has a lot to answer for...

It is all exciting, fast-paced - sometimes too much, I had to rewind and watch again to catch dialogue (even with subtitles on).

And to be honest, I yearn for the pre-CGI days when movies were made with REAL things, not in digital - some scenes here are pure computer game, which is shame, BUT at least they do film on location, with Glasgow standing in for New York...

The story if riddled with of plot holes and unlikely coincidences BUT so was The Third Man - and so what? It is utter hokum and knows it!

The Archimedes thing is pure fiction too BUT now the artefact - one was found in a shipwreck around 1901 off Greece. "The Antikythera mechanism is an Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery (model of the Solar System), described as the oldest known example of an analogue computer[1][2][3] used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance." HOWEVER, in real life it does not offer a time slip feature...

I enjoyed this and sort of wish I'd seen in in the cinema on a big screen - it is that kind of ride. And I loved the nasty Nazis!

SO 4 stars, despite the down sides - better than I thought after seeing some negative sniffy reviews, and Harrison Ford does FINE even at almost 80!

I have this novel and it is HUGE, maybe 600+ pages - have not read it yet. Not sure if I shall based on this despite the massive puff & hype about the novel which won awards I think and got loads of praise in the press.

I found this, in a word, dull. All about magic with spells and CGI effects - it all came over very Harry Potter to me.

maybe it would appeal more to those who like fantasy films/books? Lord of the Rings, Potter etc. I found it tedious.

Great cast and some top actors but... I did not believe a word of it, and sort of did not see the point of it all. I actually laughed out loud in places, it was so absurd - what with magic spells, lifted motifs from any hammer Horror and fairytale you can think of. i almost expected fairies and pixies and gnomes and elves to appear... Why not? everything else does.

Some may enjoy it. I did not and found it pointless, meandering, overlong with silly plot development and character arcs.

I hated the occasional woke lectures and preaching about slavery - though this was made 2015. These days this wokery would be FAR worse.

7 hour-long episodes of it too! That is long.

So for me personally 1 star but I award 3 stars as many who are a match for this genre may like it more than me or even love it. A mismatch for me.

I was massively disappointed in this - a great cast, largely British like the director - I actually find a lot of Christopher Nolan's films tedious and overlong too. I have never warmed to courtroom dramas and that is what this is (watch CHAPLIN instead to see McCarthyism, or The CRUCIBLE maybe as a metaphor).

Not sure how this compares to the 1980 TV miniseries BUT that is probably better - special effects, CGI, big budget and the rest only go so far.

Watch HIROSHIMA - DROPPING THE BOMB a BBC drama-documentary or other documentaries on it, WORLD AT WAR documentary classic, early 70s.

Interesting fact: the test bomb in New Mexico would not have worked without a tiny microscopic wire manufactured in the UK, in Wales, by the MOND factory (Mond was a family of Austrian Jews).

I was annoyed by some modern language used for scenes in 1920s/30s and the usual modern need to focus on women characters and relationships - but some stories are just more male, war stories and this. The lovelife stuff bored me.

2.5 stars rounded down.