Film Reviews by PV

This film is just awful. Beyond awful. It is a total mess - it makes Ed Wood's PLAN 9 FRO OUTER SPACE look well-structured and coherent.

Just a series of pointless scenes about - well,. nothing. It thinks it is clever but is not, it is pretentious, deliberately obtuse and inchoate, pointless, silly, boring but yes, expensive - who funds this trash? - and with a top notch cast.

Now I have always hated Wes Anderson movies and am genuinely baffled why anyone would like them or fund them. BUT I thought, look at the great cast - they can't all be wrong. But oh they are, this is SUCH A TURKEY.

Watch THE TRUMAN SHOW which makes the same points about reality and artifice I think this pretentious mess is trying to make but in an entertaining, well-written, coherent, funny and moving way. Or GROUNDHOG DAY (based on an old idea in old 20th C novels actually). Or the original STAR TREK series. want desert, watch CHINATOWN or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or LORDS OF WAR. or hum SANDY, from GREASE. Anything is better than suffering this.

Or just watcn the wall for hours in case a spider crawls up it - because that will be more exciting and be a better story than anything in here.

1 star. Avoid.

No idea why anyone gives this 5 stars - it is a film with NO STORY just a string of vignette comic sketches which are pure slapstick visual humour, Tatis does his funny walks a lot - no doubt what he did in the theatre and the circus.

barely raised a smile. I enjoyed the old-style holiday resort though.

But come on, Is this REALLY funny? How? Why?

It is very silly clowning visual humour. 3 stars max. And that is generous.

I enjoyed this, Pure 1986s shock shlock horror. Pre CGI which I prefer.

A later 1990s film SLITHER influenced by it. TREMORS was earlier. the BlOB much earlier.

I liked it anyway. Good fun Friday night fare,.

4 stars

I would say this - watch the brilliant movie MARGIN CALL. It does everything this first series and no doubt the followed 3 or 4 or 5 do in 2 hours.

Never been the biggest fan of Damian :Lewis and I am not fascinated by billionaires and the super-rich, I hated Succession - stopped watching halfway through series 1.

I dislike the way this is all dragged out, with the personal and unlikely sex lives or the main characters.

A baddie is always dun, the more amoral the better. But this does drag.

The writing is by numbers, all planned in detail on charts - I can almost smell them, The character arcs, the almost Marvel battle between goodie and baddie.

Watchable but forgettable and not great drama, try THE AMERICANS for that.

3 stars.

This reminds me of the best ventriloquist doll film ever DEAD OF NIGHT (1945) and an Anthony Hopkins film heavily influenced by it, MAGIC (1978). each deals with mental illness BUT the questions hangs there about whether the doll is actually alive.

The same here though it confused me to start with. Set in 1981 (with improbable scene set 15 years later) this started very well, and only later does one realise an anatomical doll used to teach is just that.

I am so glad I watched this superb spooky creepy movie - not sure how I missed it over the years.

Brilliant use of a digital bleeping watch in the plot too, no spoilers. VERY 1981! As are the big 80s hairdos.

What I especially like about this film compared to so many modern movies is that it is not all manblaming - the horrendous controlling mother and the aunt are truly monstrous, not just the father. These days, a similar film would manblame and show all males as bad and useless or monsters and all women as victim angels. Why I avoid them, esp the preachy metooboohoo woke ones, with stereotypical 'strong and independent women in control' as contrasted with the clueless useless men (who invented human civilisation of course but...), Bye bye Barbia - not bothering with you, doll! I have got PIN instead.

And Leon is a sympathetic character, despite everything. Not sure the law would have let the end happen (no spoilers) but anyway, it is Canada eh - not the USA.

4 stars.

OK so this won an Oscar probably to tick a box BUT THEN we have seen that a lot with black nominees undeservedly winning in recent years imho. Diversity destroyed the Oscars and BAFTAs - not based on merit alone any more. BUt were vthey ever? Very few comedies ever win; they loved movies when an actor tgransforms, diabled or ages or gets fat (the Whale which stol the Oscar from Elvis!_.

Anyhoo, this is a passable film. Not classic or stunning but covers new ground in the age of trans-activism. well acted and written. Each country has different laws though so who knows what would happen in the UK in this situation. And I dread to think what would happen in most Middle Eastern, Asian, African states - most cannot even tolerate gay people, and death sentences for that exist in so many countries there.

Like it or not, medical science and meds make it possible for people (who may be just confused, and most trans autistic I believe) to change gender BUT NOT sex. If you are born male then male you stay no matter what, like the man here. Society needs to address certain issues (toilets, changing rooms, prisons, sport) and work it all out - the radfem/terf wars against trans are not helpful at all. And this is not a men versus women war, MOST wanting to go trans are girls and women wanting to be male (goodness knows why in today's manblaming boybashing misandrist society). Issues re children being on meds and girls having breasts removed as teens are serious, 70%+ patients at Tavistock clinic (now closed) in London were female. Not male. Someone tell the terfs.

Anyhoo, I found it all illuminating. But oddly coy re full frontal nudity, unlike the Belgian film GIRL which has set the bar re trans issue films. Watch that.

So 3.5 stars rounded up, The man looks very old for 57 though...

I enjoyed this, esp the first half. The second half goes OTT (no spoilers).

I love timeslip time travel films and try to watch em all. This is silly but starts well, then sags and drags.

Some decent CGI 'Day AFter Tomorrow' type special effects if you like that sort of thing.

But maybe just watch CLOSE ENCOUNTERS instead.

Watchable and passes the time. 3 stars

I loved this. How can a 1936 film be better than any new film this year? But it is.

From a novel by Eric Hatch called '1101 Park Avenue,'.

GREAT characters, really memorable, esp the obese father - he is great and VERY patient. Some madcap characters too, some Italian who eats so much but stays thin and who thinks he is an artist, 2 spoilt rich daughters.

Social commentary within this, however romanticised (so is Oliver Twist though).

I LOVED it.

A great cast does not a great film make, but it can create a passable film which passes the time.

This is a timeslip story, way better than the awful ABOUT TIME by Richard Curtis.

Not sure I believe all the characters. and some real cartoon characters here esp the baddies, but also the black boy slave goodie which is pure shoe-horned in tickbox diversity quota. Very unlikely actually.

Reminds me of children;s film unit films they used to make in 1960s and 70s actually, searching for treasure, baddies etc. Like Scooby Doo really.

Meh, 3 stars.

I thought this was rather fun. Silly, a bit bonkers and focused on special effects which are good for 1960. Apparently the flashing sequences and strobes can cause seizures which reviews in 1960 stated.

A flimsy simple plot and loose ends left but what horror movie does not have a simple flimsy plot?

So I give it 3 stars. I enjoyed it for what it was. Do not overthink it.

I wonder what happened to the boy Buck in real life, played by Alec Roberts.

Gosh this is a slow boring film. Goes nowhere too. Pretty lakes and forests in Canada - Quebec. But that is it. Writer and director is female so maybe the focus on character alone as with many women's novels is to be expected.

I was waiting and waiting for something to happen. I did think it might be a horror at first. Sadly, not.

Some mild sex and envy - lasting 2 hours. Yawn.

Watch CLOSE by Lukas Dhont to see how a film (in French) about sex and sexuality and teenagers can be made.

The actors are decent esp the main teenage roles, but I was confused about the relationship between everyone, the Americans and French or Canadians. SO 1 star for them and 1 star for the pretty vast Canadian lake and forest landscape (which I have visited) so 2 stars.

This film would seem to have been made in the wake of the success of The Dirty Dozen. It is no worse for that, but not as memorable.

I think I saw it many MANY years ago as a child - vague memories of the two gay Arabs and the ending. The two Arabs are genuinely groundbreaking but realistic - despite its supposed illegality, homosexual relationships in homosocial societies are not unusual. Watch THE KITE RUNNER. Trainee Jihadi suicide bombers are expected to keep their older trainers warm at night in the isis tents...

I really enjoyed this. It has some brilliant fighting moments, realistic explosions and gunfire. I loved the scenes with mines and boobytraps.

I see Melvyn Bragg cowrote the screenplay, though based on another man's idea based on a true story of a WWII Commando unit in north Africa, so frankly any half-decent writer could so that easily. Bragg must have been very well connected, not the urchin he claims to have been. I'd be interested to hear his views about how the German nurse is treated here.

Michael Caine is great here aged 39. The South African commando charged with protecting him is played by Nigel Green, who died in 1972 aged 47 from a probable suicide, sleeping pill overdose. His athletic build meant he played many military roles and Hercules in Jason and the Argonauts.

4 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Series 1 of this was excellent - the last episode sagged and dragged a bit - the US version (THE NIGHT OF) cut all that flab out but it is generally a great drama with three-dimensional characters and so it works as a deeply moving drama.

This? Well it focuses on female issues and - OF COURSE - abusive monster men, as they are the only type allowed in most TV drama, that and useless buffoons.

I counted - every single man in this drama is shown as a sexist unfeeling brute who (women eye roll) do not get it. A token good man. ALL the women are angels except some cartoon characters in women prison (which looks well cushy compared to men's prison). I rolled my eyes so many times watching this as I mentally ticked off the ISHOO list.

We have become used to metoo drama, with 'strong women' and all men shown as weak and useless and violent monsters of course. I do not watch such movies.

I also dislike Maxine Peake and find her deeply irritating - and she plays a deeply irritating character here too with mental issues (which of course are all the man's fault).

Disappointing and just wrong. In fact, this is MISANDRY (look it up - it is the equal and opposite of MISOGYNY). One star.

This is the sort of film we need more of, especially in a see of manblaming metooboohoo movies (which are all massive flops at the cinema, it seems, and lose millions). I am rather sick of new films exploring what it means to be a woman and avoid most movies like that, but not female lead films like GRETA or THE BUTTERFLY ROOM which are great.

We need MANY MORE films like this focused on what MEN AND BOYS are.

This explores male friendship, the need (from evolution) for males to prove themselves and get status. It does that so well. And is true to life - many such groups, political or social, are homosocial at least. The Nazis always were from when they started in early 1920s, all about males together frolicking in forests in a state of Nature (as Himmler said). Worship of the muscular male form was very fascist and very communist too.

Ernst Rohm killed in 1934 Night of the Long Knives is mentioned here - he was openly homosexual and Hitler was no homophobe at all and did not seem to care at all (maybe because his great hero was Frederick the Great, openly homosexual). Adolf himself was more asexual BUT he had a very close brother/friend in WWI called Schmitt which has led to speculation. Rohm was murdered because he posed a threat to Hitler';s leadership - and Hitler wanted to make the Nazis respectable, so got rid of the stormtroopers Rohm led.

Not sure I believe the ending (no spoilers) but...

The Danish director went on to direct ACROSS THE WATERS with one of the same actors, about Jew escaping Denmark - that was great too. As is LAND OF MINE another top Danish film.

4 stars.

This was filmed on iphones - fine, that is the gimmick. BUT a film needs story and character - and dialogue to be understood (much is unintelligible here and there is no subtitles option).

The plot is wafer-thin. Interesting re the cab driver's story - WAY more than the trans prostitutes. I have actually known taxi drivers like him in the UK, Sheffield, Asian drivers married but...(NO SPOILERS).

I almost turned this off but endured. I am not a fan of Sean Baker really - I find his films boring. Just that. And he has some sort of obsession with donut shops.

But featuring poor people is a novelty in US films - not like British ones as we had kitchen sink plays and films from the 1950s on.

2 stars. JUST. Almost 1.