Film Reviews by PV

Anyone who has watched IRON SKY, the original, made by fanatical scifi gamers in Finland, who started making graphic novels, computer games and cheapo films in their bedroom and basements ('Star Wreck'), will know what to expect.

It is all utterly absurd. BUT so bad it's good in a way, and with better than usual CGI effects, eg the T-Rex which is of course ridden by Adolf Hitler...

Mrs Thatcher is there as an alien as is Steve Jobs as is Mark Zuckerberg, Stalin, most dictators from history, Osama Bin Laden, a pope et al.

Some funny gags about the old Nokia phones (I STILL HAVE ONE!) and more. Some funny, some not.

What amazes me is how so many people, fans, online gamers etc can put up so much money to make a sequel - the first Iron Sky was enough.

Watch BLOODSTORM (Nazis at the Centre of the Earth) to see Adolf Hitler (again, this time as a robot), and the conspiracy theory of the HOLLOW EARTH - all utter nonsense., The Germans explored Antarctica in 1938-39, the mountainous area Queen Maud Land between British and Norwegian claimed areas, because they wanted a base from which to get whale blubber to make the margerine the Germans ate loads of apparently. It was a total failure BUT from that, a conspiracy theory grew...

By the way, I used the subtitles for this movie and I do not know who did the subs, but they were certainly not a native English speaker - they often bear no relation to what characters are actually saying!

2 stars

I watched this for fun, and the film is dated late 60s hippy horror fun - with a late 60s and jazz soundtrack, lingo of the time and dated echo sound effects. Hard to think this is only a decade after the truly great horror films such as Dracula and Frankenstein.

Peter Cushing was a brilliantly expressive actor who, in our days of mumbling naturalism, probably would not even have a career (and not as an older white man with a posh English accent)> Shame.

Hilarious scenes in this., It's all pre-meetoo etc - thankfully! Reminds me in a weird way of much later film UNDER THE SKIN - maybe the beach scene?? - or AMERICAN MARY re Cosmetic Surgery.

The title is bad though - who came up with 'Corruption'.? The alternative title 'Carnage' is better. I'd prefer FACE ACHE... or NOT THE FACE.

See Tony Blair's father-in-law Tony Booth as an exploitative glamour photographer grappling with Peter Cushing.

Oh how all these plots would fall apart with DNA testing, CCTV and mobile phones...

Btw the director of this was a 50s TV director who then make lots of hippy-chick films in the 60s. Nothing from 1974 then died in his mid-50s in 1977.

3 stars

I loved this film. It's not only highly entertaining, but educational - though not in the woke pc preachy lecturing way of so much BBC/ITV Television drama now. I did not know about Marcel Marceau's WWII resistance story, so that was fascinating - and true.

There is a rather random scene in this film of a gay nightclub/bar in Berlin full of SS and German army and Hitler Youth - that could be a whole other film in itself, but seems shoehorned in here, and clunky.

Most of the film takes place in Strasburg, or Lyons, the latter being in French-ruled Vichy France until that ended in 1942 and Germany took all of France. The French police/gendarmes there happily rounded up many jews to deport them to death camps.

The film is also about the 'Butcher of Lyons', Klaus Barbie, who was finally convicted in France in 1983 and spent his last years in prison there.

Before that, the USA helped him escape justice after the war, because he helped their anti-communist effort and knew all about torture. That is US history most do not know. They also recruited von Braun for the space programme - he who has designed the V1 and V2 rockets that killed 12000+ in London.

They were 2 of many who escaped justice after the war, often helped to escape by the catholic church via Genoa then Spain/Portugal (fascist dictatorships at the time). A few were captured and brought back, such as Adolf Eichmann. Some killed in situ. Most survived - like Dr Mengele. In total, 97% SS members and those who committed war crimes evaded justice, often going on to work for the German state after the war, or at universities, or in business, or in politics, media etc. Shameful. Watch GENERATION WAR the great German TV series (2013) to see that and more.

I did wonder in this film if the French resistance had black members. I have found accounts of 2 black women operating in Vichy. No black men. So no idea how accurate this is or how boxticker the film is being to nod to the diversity quotas. Certainly, there were many Africans, black (eg from Senegal) and moorish from Algeria/Morocco, in the French military. Those the Germans captured in 1940 were shot, as an 'inferior race'. But the south of France landings in 1944 had many Free French black colonial battalions.

Sadly, no subtitles available. They would have been useful what with various accents being mumbled.

It's occasionally a bit disjointed as a film, but an excellent watch nonetheless. The acting is great, from Jesse Eisenberg and especially Matthias Schweighofer who plays the monstrous anti-semite Barbie with a cold dark menace, though as a three dimensional character with a wife and baby.

4 stars

This is not a bad film, but it is not a good one either.

The main problem is the script, which has obviously been written by someone Norwegian/Danish and not checked with a native English speaker.

The stereotyped upper class Englishman speaks like a cartoon version of one - I almost expected him to say 'I say' and 'by Jove' and 'Toodle-pip'!; though Rupert Grint's Scouse accent is OK but what he says is not - ANY working class lad like him from the 1920s/30s would have known poverty and used newspaper toilet paper, for example.

This is 1940 when the Nazis slyly invade Norway in April NOT to get Norway's raw materials BUT to enable Norway's ports to be in Nazi hands as during winter that was the only way Germany could get the iron ore from 'neutral' Sweden (which made a fortune from selling Germany that in 2 world wars while 'neutral') during winter when the Swedish ports were closed by ice.

The Nazis are not believable either - this is 1940. Not 1944. Germany had invaded Czechslovakia and Poland and now Norway and soon France, Belgium and Holland - it was on the rise, marching acorss Europe. I very much doubt any German soldiers would have been disloyal and anti-Nazi. Esp re certain book burning.

The acting is decent - and if you ignore the absurd dialogue which is SO bad, the film has enough events and tension to keep breathing - just. The young actor David Kross was excellent in the film about a German footballer goalkeeper in the UK - THE KEEPER.

There is a 1942 film about that invasion of Norway - THE DAY WILL DAWN. Watch that, not this.

This has been promoted as the Russian 'Titanic'? Seriously? Maybe a Poundland Titanic, I suppose...

This is a confused and confusing very unfocused and amateurish film indeed and with cardboard cutout characters - and if you cannot feel for the characters then why care what happens to them?

Some of this is German Nazis versus Russian soldiers on land. Then it is all about Leningrad women and children escaping the besieged city via leaky rafts which are then attacked by German planes. Lots of bangs and explosions does not a decent film make.

And when we have Germans on the screen, there are subtitles in English - but Russian viewers do not get subtitles or even dubbing. Nope, just some bloke in a studio speaking what various Nazis say into a microphone. This is he cheapo option - I saw in in the 90s on Polish and Czech TV, where a Czech bloke in a studio translated the English words of David Attenborough or whoever whose voice i could just hear in the background with animal noises. It is the low budget options; subtitles next; and dubbing the most expensive. It really does not work.

There are better films about the awful siege of Leningrad which causes mass starvation. Watch them - not this.

2 stars for the effort and decent war scenes.

What to say about this film? Well firstly, its title is actually NAZIS AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH. For some reason it is called BLOODSTORM outside the USA.

The first-time director made 2 filmes the next year 2013, Age of the Dinosaurs and Bone Alone a kids' film about a dog. That says it all really..

I actually laughed out loud more than once watching this. Btw The amateur actor who played Dr Mengele, James Maxwell Young died in June 2012 aged 61.

I have seen Adolf Hitler portrayed by a multitude of actors (maybe a black woman soon thanks to colourblind genderblind casting eh?) but never like this. The CGI and effects are OK.

BUT on the plus side, it is coherent in its plot (however absurd - only Iron Sky the Finnish Nazis on the moon movie as as bonkers and that is less entertaining than this). I admire anyone who makes a low-budget film and has a go!

Well filmed, with green screen stuff for the ice of Antarctica etc.

Think Sharknado - so bad it's good! Watch it and laugh. Enjoy the ride.

2 stars.,

This is a so-so low-budget Welsh film, one of the very few supported by Film Cymru (the likes of Canaries are not!). No doubt the producers had the right Cymru contacts...

Despite the acting talent here, it is overblown, cartoon character stuff, unbelievable plot, homage to Tarantino or even Sam Pekinpah, and all very silly.

Michael Smiley is one of Britain's best character actors, and watchable in anything he does.

The Elvis subplot is just plain silly, and the cartoon character English cafe owner played by Paul Kaye is borderline racist. The usual anti-Brexit stereotype.

Darren Evans - a great Welsh actor great in all he is in - is sadly underused here.

3 stars.

This is a confused film - with a lot of mumbling dialogue so use subtitles maybe.

It starts as a thriller, then morphs into an occult horror. Much is unexplained which annoyed me. I notice a lot of more recent horror films do this esp British ones - no doubt film schools tell students not to show the viewer too much as they can work it out., Well, you need to give the viewer ENOUGH to make sense of it and understand why, for example, a character is thanked by those on the Kill List, and why he seems to be worshipped by them.

I think it just aims to shock esp the final segment. Fine. But you can shock without baffling the viewer.

Decent acting. Many scenes and aspects should be cut - the Swedish wife background, no doubt to explain that she knows how to use a gun... And why is domestic violence when this wife hits her husband - on 2 separate occasions - acceptable? Imagine it the other way round.

Reminds me a bit of THE RITUAL - which is the better film, with Rafe Spall.

3 stars. JUST.

I was on the edge of my seat watching this film. It is genuinely spooky with lots of shocks.

The main actor Davis is superb, as are others. A refreshing change after all those predictable haunted bouse movies.

Interesting to see a film partly in English and partly in Yiddish and featuring Hasidic Jews, a community the main character has left after a tragedy (no spoilers).

Reminds me bit of the Golam legend. No idea if this malevolent entity has its roots in real Jewish legend and myth, but all faiths have demons etc as does pagan faiths and folklore, especially in pre-industrial pre-Enlightenment societies.

The best horror film I have seen for quite some time. I'd have ideally liked a bit more backstory re WWII and clarity, but the fog of horror makes it more intense maybe (watch to the very end).

Cleverly horrific stuff.

4.5 stars rounded up.

When I saw this was an Italian film about German Nazi spies in Britain 1940, I feared the worst.

However, despite some dodgy dubbing, it is all in wonderful technicolour, with some decent action scenes and explosions, and a plot which makes sense though it is fiction - all based on spies trying to sabotage RADAR during after after the 1940 Battle of Britain.

Real footage of WWII is intercut Ed-Wood-Style with newer flying scenes - some obviously filmed in a studio and some featuring model planes crashing into the see. Some showroom dummies are also blown up! Italian special effects but not bad for 1969.

I enjoyed it. The context of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz work, though maybe the 2 main characters look too alike and some 'British' and 'German' soldiers look rather too Italian...

So 4 stars.

This is a superb drama-documentary. It says it is a drama on the DVD and on the Cinema Paradiso listing I saw - but this is one of those drama-documentaries one often sees on TV with real-life people, now in old age, are interviewed re their experience of WWII.

A fascinating and overlooked area, the Jews who hid in Berlin, even though Goebbels stated in 1943 that Berlin was Jew-free. Most were found of course or betrayed; but some survived and four relate their experience here. Watch to the end to see where they went after the war.

I wanted to know more about those who helped them and how many Germans did. Anti-Semitism was rife in Germany as in the USSR in early 20th C and Hitler was massively popular amongst Germans - at least when they were winning the war (until Stalingrad early 1943, which had been on the cards since Britain successfully resisted invasion because no army can win a war on 2 fronts, as Goring himself said and knew, and yet he went along with Adolf).

A tragic period in European history. Oh to have all the Jews back - instead of more troublesome communities...

5 stars. Should be shown in schools, this.

What to make of this film?

Well, watch the EXTRA doc to see it grew from a bunch of scifi geeks who made computer animations then Star trek parody films in their bedrooms and basements, It grew from that computer game and graphic novel culture, which is not mine...

I love a good comedy esp with Nazis like the wonderful THE PRODUCERS musical. Or Chaplin's The Great Dictator which is referenced here. Or even the short-lived Channel 4 sitcom Heil honey, I'm Home (yes, really). But this? I think I cracked a smile once. Maybe twice.

The African-American character bounces around the absurd and often confused scifi plot - it is clear what matters most to this film's producers and director is the special effects and how to make this look like a $100 million movie (as it states in the EXTRA doc). Very odd that an unnamed Einstein character is in this - as Albert escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930s...

Interesting this black character, as he does #whiteface in the manner of the movie White Chicks (heavily influenced by some Like it Hot). One to cite when people get hysterical about white actors wearing make-up (socalled #blackface).

Bizarrely, made in Australia a lot, prob top get the tax breaks...

One for the computer game nerds really. Apparently it is also a computer game and comic. Fine. not for me. 2 stars. JUST.

More interesting than entertaining, this is the later-made prequel to the absolute classic Zulu, Stanley Baker's utterly brilliant 1964 film, made from the days when the British were proud to be British - and thankfully before the diverse nonsense of colourblind casting. I shudder to think how they'd make Zulu now. This film depicts a big defeact of the British by the Zulus - something they paid for later.

In both films, real Zulus are cast thanks for Chief Butalezi and others (The Zulus opposed the ANC and dealt with the South African Apartheid govt which left them alone in their lands). The Zulu slave empire (like the Nigerian Benin empire) were more or less destroyed by the British by the end of the 19th century. No bad thing, as they were brutal slave-catching slave-trading empires. ALL of the native African empires and kingdoms were. The racist romanticism of them - the 'noble savage' trope - on TV docs is a disgrace. The British empire mostly did good - it was of its age and time. But compare to what came before or other empires of the time (German, USSR, Japanese, Arab/Asian). It was the most benevolent empire in history (of 85 major empires) and the ONLY one to ban slavery.

I want to watch Zulu now - a 5 star film and then some.

A all-star cast does not save this rather plodding and flat film - see Bob Hoskins here pre-fame and a very young Phil Daniels.

3 stars

I was not aware of William Shirer - maybe because he was a US journalist in Germany of 1930s until early 40s. Remember, he was in Germany AFTER Britain went to war with Germany as the USA was neutral (the US eventually joined in after japan attacked them late 1941, 2 years late as with 1917 when they joined in WWI).

Anyway, all fascinating. Not sure I believe the actor cast as Goebbels is the best version I have seen though.

4 x 90 parts here and quite a bit of padding re personal lives and romances. However the historical bits are fascinating - esp the end re the possibility (or not) of German invasion of Britain and the fake news of the time.

Well worth a watch for anyone interested in WWII. Based on the book of the same name - Shirer has writtten a few, all from a very American perspective of course, and brits need to remember that (US finally joined the war over 2 years after Britain had stood alone against Hitler).

4.5 stars rounded up.

Makes me want to read the famous BERLIN DIARIES book Shirer published in 1940s. Wiki helps with researching some characters here, some of whom have featured in other films, such as Ernst Hanfstaengl, US-German art dealer friends of Hitler who fell out with him and escaped to the USA.

I was hoping this film wold be better. Instead, it seems to think creating some exotic Japanese backstory of a couple of characters will compensate for the two-dimensional cartoon characters which proliferate. It doesn't.

Sure, some tense nail-biting moments - the usual really for a shark movie.

Jaws is still the bar to reach re Shark films though The Reef (2010) covers the same territory as Great White with more believable characters and events (and based on a true story). Open Water is also great. The Shallows is passable and 47 Metres Down forgettable nonsense.

Disappointing, so 2 stars.