Film Reviews by PV

Anyone interested in where cinematic ideas come from needs to watch this.

Not only do we have an alien landing on earth, but he is befriended by ELIOT - in this case an old man professor not the boy of ET.

The alien can communicate only using muted musical sounds - an idea lifted by Spielberg for Close Encounters of the Third Kind,

A 1951 independent film, shot from an original screenplay in 6 days in December 1950, low budget, all studio sets, and I think decent ones and spaceship models - and the alien man's face is impressively scary. Even now!

This is great to watch with THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL which was based on a 1944 short story and finished filming 56 months earier.

It was a time of cold war fear mutating into fear of aliens, though the over-hyped War of the Worlds radio play was late 1930s by Orson Welles.

This is a classic of the genre and so influential AND just shows what an independent film shot on a budget of pennies with some old cardboard and string can do!

5 stars.

The fine actor Anders Denielsen Lie (from a very privileged Norwegian family) who often plays troubled men is in this (and he was great in the BEST drugs movie ever made, OSLO AUGUST 31st, a 2011 film) . BUT he does not have much to do, except mooch about alone in an apartment block for minutes.

This is in English but very much a French film in that it is bloated, pompous, pretentious and SLOW. And boy we can do without the drums.

I believe this is based on a French graphic novel - and it probably works better as a story in that form.

For a truly great zombie movie watch 28 DAYS LATER or the bafflingly-ignored THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS. or for comedy SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

This could all fit into a half hour TV drama, frankly. In a word, it is boring. Paris is pretty though.

2 stars

OK so at first I thought this would be SNAKES ON A PLANE or SHARKNADO territory - though bizarrely this tale is (VERY VERY VERY loosely) based on a true story.

However, what makes this movie is a decent script. It is truly amazing how many socalled professional persons in TV and film think you can get away with a duff boxticking script and make decent movies and TV drama. Just watch the pc woke tickbox dross presently embarrassing the screen of BBC and ITV to see how that works out.

The script saves this film - the pace is great, the characters quirky and arch, the character arcs make sense even with cartoon character elements, with some killer lines and dialogue. AND then the CGI bear special effects are something only possible now - amazing how far CGI has come in 30 years and I usually dislike too much of it BUT well, they can't use a real coked up killer bear, now can they? I shall still avoid all Marvel superhero movies though.

if you let the movie run you get the extras automatically and then you hear the female director claim, with a straight face, that somehow she invented comedy horros movies by 'inserting comedy into a horror film'. Yes, dear. But you see, it's been done and a lot and for decades in a genre called COMEDY HORROR. Sigh...

THE AMERICANS was a truly great TV drama series so great to see 2 stars from it here esp Margo Martindale (and always nice when a decent actor gets success eventually in middle age, no doubt after decades of rejection by directors and producers).

The child actors are great, with Christian Convery especially like a mini Owen Wilson with that southern drawl (even though he is from Vancouver, Canada). One does worry re child stars, esp super-confident ones. See the life of late 1940s child star Bobby Driscoll to see the worst that can happen (his last gig was voicing Peter Pan in the 1953 movie).

Cocaine Bear is a PERFECT Friday night cinema movie or one to watch with friends. Do not take it too seriously, and you'll be fine.

Anyone po-faced and puritan about drugs can always watch NARCOS the great TV series straight after, also set in the muhc-missed 1980s like this.

4 stars

I really enjoyed this autobiographical 'faction' - the writer/director was lucky enough to get funding to write/direct this filme about his life. One of the better effects of the recent showering of film funding to various minority groups. It is a jewel sparkling in the overfunded dungheap.

It Reminds me of MOFFIE a South African film in a way. Also reminds of of the movie PRECIOUS maybe due to the desperate poverty and abuse of the main character's deprived background.

Yes, it is slim as a story, a character study about how an openly gay and effeminate man deals with US Marines training.. AND that is it really. The dates given do not really square with the true story with photos revealed right at the end. BUT then there is no such thing as a 'true story' on screen. real life has to fit the filmic screenplay structure.

The 3 act structure is imposed on the story, though no idea how realistic it is. The story is flimsy but very real. The sadistic black training leader is a great character - the easy option would usually be to cast a white actor in the role. The only N words here are from the black recruits too,. real life then.

3.5 stars rounded up

I really enjoyed this film.

A neat slick little idea, and as this is 1944 is is almost a premonition of It's a Wonderful Life, released 1946.

Clever little plot, copied a lot in future in Spielberg films I think re the old mysterious man with secrets and magic. though the idea is older than this film. The Time Machine by HG Wells started it I suppose.

Predictably focuses on betting when one can see tomorrow's newspaper. Though I do wonder about the ending - no spoilers but are people ever casual about losing money?

4 stars

This is a lots of style but not so much substance. The creator Gareth Evans is from a martial arts and action movie background, and it shows.

Shifting loyalties of various ethnic gangs over 8 episodes. Paper-thin characterisation apart from a couple of the gang leaders - the Georgian Koba, Asif, the Jamaican. It is true that London and the Uk is ruled by these foreign criminal gangs - Albanians, Russians, Kurds, Jamaicans, Turks as shown here, plus the old traditional British white gangs like the Richardsons, surely the model for this. Joe Cole is Joe Cole and stares well.

BUT it is rather glossy superficial, and the target audience is surely those who do not care much about that and just want lots of blood and guts and violence, shooting, stabbings, explosions etc. Well there is plenty here.

Not a patch on the real classics of TV drama about organised crime and drugs such as Peaky Blinders (early series), The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Narcos. Compared to them, this really is division 2, B-movie land.

I found it hard to suspend disbelief here esp re the supposed UK police guy, the black character who lost his family in series one (Cannot remember the name).

But it's watchable. 3 stars. Just

The same director made the BEST film about drug addiction ever made - OSLO, 31 AUGUST. Used the same actors too! Just watch that, and ignore this over-rated wordy pretentious self-absorbed character study of a very spoilt and demanding privileged young woman in Oslo, the (privileged posh well-off director's home city, though his dad and grandad were Danish film aristocracy).

A shame then that all his other films since then seem to be an attempt to ride the MeToo bandwagon, with main female characters, as no doubt he knows a trend when he sees one. It worked - for that reason the screenplay for this was nominated for an Oscar. The wordy, rambling, telling-not-showing, pretentious screenplay. Tsss.

I almost turned this off, as it is so achingly pc and ticks all the MeToo boxes. That often means like so many movies which do this, it massively stereotypes ALL men and boys, brands them as this and that as if all males were one being. Just sexism, and the usual misandry of professional feminists (as captured here in a radio interview scene).

There are some great scenes though, satire of the absurd way some think some DNA test which shows they are 3% African, think they are African (despite the fact DNA tests present populations AND Africa/Asia populations are full of white European ancestry due to the slave trade of white Europeans, and empires since Alexander in 300BC).

Some moving later scenes too. BUt a lots of self-obsessed self-absored flab here too, very wordy and obsessed with Metoo. The main cartoonist character guy is played by a great actor, Anders Danielsen Lie, also in OSLO, 31 AUGUST.

Always fun wit Scandinavian films though coz one sees the SAME actors again and again - it's the new Australia! Remember when the same Aussie actors popped up in all soaps and movies from Aus?

Anyway, not bad but not good, 3 stars, just.

2.5 rounded up - great music soundtrack though.

This film starts so well - the first hour is great.

Sadly then it gets very tricksy, meta, post-modern as SO many movies do these days. I just prefer straight horror takes - I liked MIDSOMMAR more than this, though themes are similar. It also reminded me of MR ROBOT a bit. And Stephen King's IT with the metaphysical element.

This is based on a graphic novel so may well be just following the source material.

This starts in Tibet or similar, and some hokum in what is a prologue lasting for the entire first act - then we are in the USA, before or after, I am not sure. The timelines are confusing here as is the story, BUT I just let it all wash over me.

VERY graphic violence too.

If the power of the first hour had continued, and this had not become all meta, then it';d be 4 stars. But it sags badly in the second half.

As it is, 3 stars.

Some may moan that this film is offensive in language and portrayal of native Africans and indeed women. They would. Those who require trigger warnings and grouphugs should maybe grow up and realise this was made in 1951. AND it is very progressive.

We have a main character, a former hunter who switches sides in a way to found a wildlife reserve in east Africa - people forget now it was white Brits there and whose families had been there for several generations often who we can thank for preserving the wildlife esp larger mammals,. elephants, rhino, lions, cheetah, leopards etc. The natives wanted to hunt them or food or to supply ivory traders. Compare the British empire to the amoral empire from the east, with Chinese demand for ivory and rhino horn etc meaning all these animals will be extinct in the world very soon.

Anyway, here, in 1951, set in 1946/7 we have an environmentalist Brit who dedicates himself to found a nature reserve (across Kenya, Tanganinka(Tanzania/Zambia) and Uganda. He is pitched against the baddie of course - whose racist views of natives are made explicit here. This film is not racist - the baddie it! The hero is not, and says 'Africa is changing' and the racist baddie is of the past, that there is no place in Africa for men like him now.

Watch it, all wokies and greenies, and peel the scales from your over-sensitive eyes. This is an important film, re wildlife in Africa.

Nice to see a happy family with a happy boy growing up like that too. Compare to now and weep.

4 stars

This is a brilliant film. There were two later films on the same event, in 2016 - THE MAN WITH THE IRON HEART (based on the novel HHhH) and ANTHROPOID. They were decent films too, esp the former, but this 1975 film is the best of the 3.

A great cast with Anthony Andrews, Martin Sheen. And a superbly sinister Anton Diffring as Heydrich.

I know Prague well from living there in the 1990s so it was interesting for me to see locations I knew - minus the commercial cafes and adverts etc. I used to pass by the church at the end all the time on Tram 22. The bullet holes are still there and fresh flowers are there all the time with the Czech colours. Prague 1975 looked a lot like Prague 1942 really, just as grey and funless and dour.

A superb synthesizer score makes this special too. I love that.

5 stars. I have watched this film 3 or 4 times and it never gets boring, Essential viewing and better than the late films of the same event.

I loved this film. Watch the great film LAND OF MINE (awful unfunny punny title) to see Denmark after the Germans leave. THE KING'S CHOICE too, though that is Norway - also invaded by Germans in April 1940 (important as German ships damaged in fighting with Brits and locals). also THE WINTER WAR a 1989 film about Finland's attempted occupation by the USSR.

Watch this right to the end to see real-life interviews with older men who were young soldiers in 1940.

Not many know this story, and in reality Denmark did not suffer much in the Second World War (only 3000 died). Denmark declared it was neutral in 1939, then it was occupied but very few Danes died in the war and some collaborated and fought for the Nazis, and 2000 died fighting for the Germans. Norway has similar collaborators and there were many pro-Nazi Free Corps in occupied states all over Europe. Sweden was neutral - again - and made a fortune supplying Nazi Germany with iron ore. happily the vast majority of Danish Jews were sent to neutral Sweden to avoid internment ordered by the Germans in 1943 .

Lars Mikkelsen has a slight role here as a senior officer. It is a slight film too, but fascinating.

4 stars

This is 3 episodes; it would fit will in 4 or maybe even 3 or 2.

It is SO slow, long and drawn-out.

Ultimately, it gets rather tiresome and boring, and one does not really care about the victim or what happens. It is all post-murder and procedural which does not help.

Watch THOSE WHO KILL, 2011 series and revived 2019 series. Great and exciting, unlike this.

Passable. Maybe 3 stars.

I watched it a week ago and can barely remember the characters or story. It is all so MEH. Why care?

2.5 stars maybe rounded up

I enjoyed so much of this - some great visual gags. Suspend disbelief and enjoy!

Un-pc on SO many levels and all the better for it (maybe not re the elephant tusks and hunter).

People these days need to grow up and realise comedy ALWAYS has victims - laughing at people is not immoral. it is comedy. Not necessarily nasty either.

The jokes there re the wheelchair and on leg are hilarious. No doubt people will call out sexism and misogyny too,. No black people so no racism...

Maybe not the best of their films (i loved A CHUMP AT OXFORD from 1940). But classic and better than any TV or film comedy now.

Knowing Carmarthen, Wales, well, and already knowing the true story, I SO wanted to like this film. Unfortunately, it reminded me of the sort of feelgood schmaltzy British TV dramas (such as NATIVITY) shown around Christmas. Why and how this got funding to be a feature film, I do not know. It would have worked far better as a TV drama, on ITV, like FAT FRIENDS and other Sally Wainwright drama of that ilk.

This film comes complete with unnecessary and unfunny manbashing, plus a TOTALLY invented chauvinist ethnic mayor who did not exist - Carmarthen has a mayor a year and the one before Richard Goodridge who sent a fax to Spielberg was a white woman called Mrs Sarah Mary Lorraine Maynard. There have been mayors in Carmarthen since 15th C so to woke this up is a disgrace, to tick boxes, no doubt to satisfy Ffilm Wales pc woke funders.

As I say, I know Carmarthen well - it is almost 100% white now, (Wales is 95% white) so would be in 1993 (the black female character is another invention) and there would not be an Asian kid in Amdram in 1964 in Carmarthen either!

The film is a mildly amusing farce, full of rent-a-Welsh-actor casting. Veteran Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce stars in a predictable and no doubt invented character role, created to rub in the schmaltz juice. Mostly cartoon characters, I have to say.

Wynne Evans is also a DJ on BBc Radio Wales, every weekday morning! And the GoCompare ('Over there!) TV advert man.

I was annoyed by the 21st C Americanese language like 'Can I get a coffee?' NO-ONE said that in 1993 in the UK,. not London let alone Wales. And as for the Americanese subtitles which seem to think 'stationary' is what stationer sells. Very sloppy.

It passed the time. BUT it is about as much related to real life and what happened (though the lock thing at the end is true, no spoilers) as Jurassic Park has to Biology O level. 2.5 stars rounded up, mainly coz I recognise the locations in Carmarthen.

THIS is actually the (public domain) letter sent by fax in 1993 which borders on emotional blackmail, and this is left out of the film, and Mr S did not speak direct to anyone on the phone in real life: “Dear Mr Spielberg,” he began. "I have just been informed that your latest film Jurassic Park will not be seen here at the Lyric Theatre, Carmarthen.“The Lyric Theatre has advertised extensively that the film is to be shown and indeed thousands now believe that the film will be shown here. However, many thousands are now going to be disappointed, not least to say, very angry that this has happened.

“People have postponed their holidays to see it. I am appealing to you to avert a crisis and look forward to an urgent response.”

There was NO direct phone conversation with Spielberg in person in real life, just with his people at Amblin.

This is a great series - 3 discs, each with 2 feature-length dramas of 80-90 minutes, so like 6 films with 6 separate crime stories. Some are stronger than others and some require massive suspension of disbelief BUT it is exciting stuff, danish Crime Drama at its best.

Serial killers abound in Denmark, clearly. Probably all that bacon... And the Grand Guignol state blood stuff is gory and gruesome here which may offend some (so don't watch then).

As ever, the strongest stories are at the start and the end, discs 1 and 3. I did also detect a plot hole or two. So 4 stars.

A shame there was no immediate 2nd series, and the actress Laura Bach is not in the revived series DARKNESS: THOSE WHO KILL, from 2020, and now one crime story with 45 minute episodes per series.

recommended. Not sure why I only discovered this 2010 series now!

The great Lars Mikkelsen,, brother of Mads, is the boss man here - he is also in the great House of Cards with the great Kevin Spacey, playing the Russian president.