Film Reviews by PV

OK so, this is from a 2016 novel - which has some pretty atrocious reviews on Amazon. Most seem to call the story a mess and a children's story, and I can confirm that the film is not really one for grown-ups,. despite the grand guignol gore. I think the race of the book's main character was also changed for the movie which, if true, is awful.

It starts OK - I liked the mystery and the inciting incident. After that, it's downhill all the way. Just gets silly, boring, pointless and sags as badly as any disembowelling. It is all basically a slushy teen romance with added cannibal! Childish, adolescent nonsense. And Mark Rylance seems miscast too.

Watch Shaun of the Dead for cannibalism laughs; watch Mr Jones, 2019 film, for REAL cannibalism in 1930s famine in Ukraine; watch TV drama Des for mundane prosaic suburban cannibal horror. Modern movies like Green Inferno or Ravenous are better. or 1980's found footage Cannibal Holocaust.

One for the teen girls who like vampire movies. The Twilight Saga etc.

2 stars. Just. 1 is for the decent music though I could not work out when it was set - mid 80s?

As the new German language version of the German language novel ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is out now and winning awards, I thought I'd watch this overlooked 1979 TV Movie version. The 1930 version won Academy Awards.

This is well worth a watch, despite the broad American accents jarring a little - but it was made for a domestic US audience, I suppose. All filmed in what was then the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia, no doubt to keep costs down as because the hardline communist regime there approved of the film's anti-war anti-imperialist message. Filing in central/eastern Europe was unusual back then - very common now.

This version features some famous actors: Richard Thomas, John-boy from The Waltons, probably most famous 1970s TV show (he is also great in the recent top TV drama THE AMERICANS); veteran character actor Ernest Borgnine (who won the 1955 acting Oscar for MARTY); great British actor, Donald Pleasence as a schoolteacher; fellow British actor Ian Holm, Patricia Neal (American actress wife of Roald Dahl).

All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen nichts Neues, lit.?'Nothing New in the West') is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German World War I veteran. It describes the German soldiers' extreme trauma during the war & the detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home from the war. BUT the films tend to ignore most of the latter part, focusing on the war scenes and the build-up to them instead - as this one does.

A decent, solid watch,. 4 stars

The more I watched this movie the more annoyed I got.

I think this is one of those scripts and films which to be honest would not have been made pre the Metoo movement. Somehow, that has allowed any of rubbish to get made so long is it features lots of 'strong independent' women suffering because of men and manblaming away all day long. The BLM movement did the same for race. This is NOT progress. It's just 'reverse' sexism (or racism), is just plain sexism. Misandry.

I always do the 'equal and opposite' test - I imagine the females here were male and the males were female, and the same plot develops. If such a film were made it would be called sexist and misogyny. Here it is sexist and misandry.

One flimsy 'good male' character exists to allegedly give balance but I am not buying it. Manblaming in every scene then parachuting in one nice male will not hide your true intention. Though I see the writer/director has no other films to his/her/its credit. I have seriously no idea how this film could have been greenlighted, other than the way it ticks on trend tickboxes.

The story if sub Hammer House of Horror on a bad day. No doubt fans will think it a profound character study of a 'stunning and brave' woman survivor suffering a breakdown. Quite frankly, the main character is so selfish and unpleasant, I did not care what happened to her.

Tim Roth is a great actor - he is wasted here playing a man monster, to tick the metoo manblaming box.

Don't waste your time with this B movie, or C movie, or D or Z movie maybe. It's absurd, silly, annoying and, frankly, boring.

1 star

I have watched this film several times and never get bored. It is so well-written and memorable.

The screenwriter Barrie Keefe seems not to have written much more for film, which is a shame - the script sizzles. It is also deeply authentic, for the Cockney gangsters at the time late 70s, the gay scene, the slippery politics of northern Ireland (still going...), the slick USA mafia as hard drugs took over from simple villain ways for organised crime to make an income.

Bob Hoskins inhabits his role totally as a middle-aged Cockney gangster yearning for the old days and trying to build new life into his beloved East End and Docklands. Great to see that place as it was too - the empty wharfs, quays, docks and huge still cranes in a dead people-less landscape. Now all under Canary Wharf which is sort of what the main character wants to build.

See Pierce Brosnan in an early role (he's also a bit part in The Professionals) and Derek Thompson AKA Charlie from Casualty made his screen debut here too. Helen Mirren plays the gangster's mill, in effect, and is thus cast as ''hot totty' here.

Social class, generation difference, nationality, race, gender, sexuality - it is ALL here but not stuffed down the viewers' throat like the woke lectures and self-righteous sermonising of so many movies and TV dramas now.

Authentic language for the time, which 'some may find offensive'. Good, It is authentic and would be how corrupt London coppers spoke. Watch The Chinese Detective 1980 TV series to hear more. NOTHING is gratuitous - not the violence, and there is plenty, the sex, the gay sex, the language. THIS is how to make an AUTHENTIC film. Chuck away the diversity department booklet and just watch this on a loop.

One of the best thrillers EVER. 5 stars every day of the week.

I loved this short little film, I suppose a Britflick B-movies in 1954. Nice and short too. Not the false endings and 2 and a half hours' running time of modern movies, This come sin at just over an hour and 10 minutes.

I suppose it may have been influenced by the 1951 A-Movie The Lavender Hill Mob.

But there is much to enjoy here, the deception of a man on the run, and irony of other guest's comments at the Eastbourne guesthouse - back in the days when people lived in such places, British people not asylum seekers as is the case often now in such places.

Yes, it's old and so old-fashioned and creaky BUT stuff made now will seem the same in 65 years!

The main actor Charles Victor played supporting roles for decades so this is a rare starring role for him. Perfectly cast.

No spoilers but a rather shocking ending, one which would be seen as perhaps too shocking for TV now.

I enjoyed it. 4 stars. Always fun to see empty carless roads of the 1950s too.

Personally I found the 2 parallel narratives in this film confusing - I know it's the filmic fashion to do this, but WHAT IS WRONG with signposting? Stating a year date on scenes which one finds out later are a decade apart? Being deliberately obtuse and confusing is not a plus.

Some great scenes in this and the main actor playing Bull is brilliant, One word; AUTHENTIC. Unlike the Asian actor playing a police officer which was really stretching credibility for me. The diversity police must've checked the script...

Fantastic to see MADE ON LOCATION IN DARTFORD at the end - the Working Men's Club which I know (near Spital St in the centre of that town) and St Vincent's Church up on Temple Hill which is not an area I ever knew well. REALLY authentic accents which was great.

The funfair filmed in Wales, Barry Island.

I think the Long Good Friday may have been an influence here....

NO SPOILERS but I did not enjoy the reveal ending or any metaphysical aspects. Some may like that sort of thing...

Gruesome scenes too in this, which is fine as it is justified not gratuitous - they are amoral gangsters after all. Lots of chopping is all I shall say.

SO a flawed film BUT very authentic and I have seen much worse.

4 stars

This film has been compared to both the Exorcist and the famous 'found footage' movie The Blair Witch Project. I liked this better than either of those.

I thought it was all SO effective and believable, also scary - I found myself peeping round corners on the screen.

The actors are great. The plots does get a tad woolly later on, to be honest. Enough horror here without that.

maybe watch together with PHILOMENA.

So the ending is a tad disappointing for me (NO SPOILERS) but the first two acts are 5 star.

Overall, 4 stars.

I loved this. Great to see Yul Brynner and Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard together. The lack of wokery and tickbox diversity casting is SO refreshing.

Spans the world from Japan to India to Britain. I am not usual a fan of Brando but like him here - his character is interestingly ambiguous.

An unusual film which some may think lacks pace - I liked it though. Interesting and complex characters. It's basically a spy movie, I suppose.

This is an excellent film for those interested in WWII.

In colour originally but colour looked colorised sometimes - no idea why! A bit gaudy.

Anyway, see Christopher Lee JUST before he hit the big time in Dracula - he plays an SS officer here.

I was unaware of the Polish involvement in giving the Brits V1 footage and secrets. From Poland itself, camps and spies there.

No mention of Albert Speer who dodged the noose at Nuremburg 1946 BUT was in charge of slave labour for V1 and V2 'revenge weapon' building sites underground - in Belgium, Holland and France, and Poland.

I loved seeing the authentic WWII footage of V1s.

A bit dated and overlong but, if WWII is your interest, watch it, 4 stars

This is a pet project by son of Martin Sheen and brother of Charlie, Emilio Estevez who stars, produces, directs, maybe even calls out for pizza. Who knows?

It starts very well. Michael K Williams is brilliant as ever - he died of a mixed drug overdone in 2021.

Also Jeffrey Williams from Westworld is here. So many stars otherwise, thanks to the Emilio's connections, no doubt.

It all gets VERY silly and unbelievable, and is sometimes so slushy it';s a wonder the actors do not slip over on the script...

AND one details missed which is SO absurd, for a film with a decent budget as this: despite the claimed sub-zero temperature, when people speak outside, you cannot see their breath - there is NO condensation. The air in your lungs is warm, but the air outside is very cold, so there will be condensation UNLESS the air is not cold, as here. I thought that was very sloppy and amateurish, from such a big budget starry movie. It was quite possibly filmed in the summer.

But despite that sentimental saccharine layer of schmaltz trowelled on, it still works - and it is not the only Hollywood movie to OD on schmaltz.

Would have been 4 stars but from the mid-way point, the sentimentality and coincidences are just too much, so 3 stars.

It is overlong so that last act can be cut down. oh well...

Worth a watch if you're in the mood though. A worthy cause. 3 stars.

I was amused the USA still has such big libraries open all day. many small ones in the UK have closed or are part-time. And, that US library has 5 or 6 permanent secuirty staff! I think in the UK, we have a part-time cleaner with a mop to defendour libraries!

This bloated overlong silly movie is evidence that 'authentic casting' etc does not guarantee quality - it does not matter how many Icelandic and Scandinavian actors/writers and crew you hire, if the script is dire and messy, then the movie will be too.

Watch the TV Drama Series VIKINGS instead - a Canadian-Ireland coproduction. That is class.

This is just silly, with absurd magical tableaux and interludes, which add nothing but yawn time. Mystical silliness abounds.

More like a graphic novel cartoon than a proper Viking movie. Tbh, I have forgotten it already and I watched it 12 hours ago!

2 stars. JUST - because it starts well. But the last half? I'd be tempted to give that a minus number.

OK so all series of Better Call Saul have been a great watch, better than UK TV crime drama which is so lame and pc woke (Happy Valley Line of DUty, The Bodyguard, Broadchurch - all dull for me, . Each series declined as it went on though SO I was glad when they ended.

This is good in parts THOUGH one issue with Better Call Saul is that there are so many flashbacks and flashforwards, you have to keep your wits about you regarding what happened when. The writers must have one huge character arc wall so as not to forget what has happened, who is dead and alive at any given point etc.

It had been a while wince I watched series 5 so I was a bit lost at the start; In fact, a rented series 5 again. That is fine - I could watch all Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul series again over and over, they are so sublimely watchable and thrilling, with great characters and stories.

The worst episode ever of Better Call Saul is the last one - NO SPOILERS. Why? I just did not believe it, did not believe the characters - Jimmy/Saul or Kim - would have done what they did.

But anyway, 4 stars for the last series of a superb TV drama. . I am, however, now glad it is all over.

I had no expectations of this movie and the title is not a great one, to be honest. However, I was transfixed by this tale of drug addiction, crack/heroin, and more especially the hugely profitable therapy industry racket.

That industry has literally made billions from taxpayer-funded recovery schemes - in the USA but the UK is the same. As the movie points out, the 12-step AA and NA programs are FREE. And work a lot. Whereas expensive drug therapy has a 90% failure rate.

I really appreciated the voiceovers and graphics showing the numbers and stated - narrated by 'body broker' Wood played by the great Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar from The Wire) in his last film (to be released before he ironically died of a drugs overdose age 54).

The main actor Jack Kilmer is superb and a future star and Oscar winner, I am sure.

The best film on drug addiction is probably OSLO 31st August from Norway, but Body Brokers focuses on the recovery/therapy industry and its profits far more.

US TV series such as The Wire, Breaking Bad etc are excellent portrayals of drug addiction in the USA which, this movie tells us, has cost 900,000 lives there in the last 20 years. More than the American dead of all 20th and 21st century wars put together.

5 stars. Just brilliant, WATCH IT!

My advice, watch the biopic STARDUST 92020) instead.

This is a trippy 'immersive multimedia experience' (YAWN!) and so only for hardcore fans.

It is interesting in bits. Nowhere NEAR enough about Bowie's parents, brother, childhood which was only spent in then white working class Brixton until he was 6 when the Jones family left (many working class white families moved at the time due to an influx of Jamaicans, which is never mentioned). From 1953 Bowie moved with his family to Bickley and then Bromley Common, before settling in Sundridge Park in 1955 where he attended Burnt Ash Junior School. In his early 20s the by-then Bowie lived in the London suburb of Beckenham for 5 years. BUT Brixton sounds cooler so...

I am glad I watched it but would say over half the film is tedious and a waste of time.

I liked the bit in Berlin. I wanted more of that!

3 stars. JUST. Watch STARDUST instead.

This film starts OK, and interesting to see a young Evan Bird who later acted so well in MAPS TO THE STARS - the only Cronenberg film I rate. His acting is fine here (he has vanished since 2014 though).

However, I started to wonder what exactly was the point of this movie. IF a man had written and directed it, no doubt critics would complain about its lingering on the grusome rapes and murders of young women.

But no, it was directed by the rich, posh, well-connected daughter of David Lynch.

The ending is preposterous. It's all clearly influenced by ROOM and similar films,. but the main word I think when considering this film is WHY? the world would not be a poorer place without it,. Maybe the female director is just trying to shock. I doubt anyone else could have got it made.

2 stars. Almost 1.