Film Reviews by PV

I heard about this on a David Bowie documentary - he loved it as a 12/13 year old in Bromley in 1960/61 and based himself on Anthony Newley in so many ways, copying his accent and style (see the way he introduces THE SNOWMAN from 1982).

This is all very surreal - a prototype TRUMAN SHOW in a way.

And part 4 of 6 is very risque too - I can only assume the pofaced censors were unaware of the double entendre.

Una Stubbs is here and Bernie Winters and a young Geoffrey Palmer in part 1.

I loved it - it only feels dated with some comments and attitudes that our pofaced judgemental feminist puritan metoo age would consider sexist. Maybe 1960 was a more intelligent age! AND of course, the computers shown back then look hilariously dated because NOTHING DATES AS FAST AS A VISION OF THE FUTURE> Watch Westworld (1973) to see that. I could not help a smile when two men ballroom dance and we are informed that dancing should be with people of the opposite sex. Not now, Newley!

Anthony NEwley died in 1999 and seems forgotten BUT cowrote the song FEELING GOOD made famous by Nina Simone and the score of the early 70s US Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film incl the famous IMAGINATION song - I suspect Anthony Newley wrote the lyrics. Multi-talented.

I loved it anyway. More entertaining than most drama on TV now. I see it was on ITV then as there are ad breaks minus the ads - shows how far TV has gone downhill, NO WAY would any TV channel risk something like this now - not terrestrial anyway.

This is a gem. really. 5 stars

Not the first time a Nazi invasion had been imagines - that honour goes to WENT THE DAY WELL from 1942, the much better film, to be honest.

However, one has to admire the 2 students who spent 8 years getting this together, albeit with a plot thin as parachute silk and possibly the worst sound I have heard in any film - ever.

The SILLY remarks, offensive and ignorant, that somehow this film has 'relevance to today' in an age of Brexit shame those who speak such drivel. No Brexit was not Nazi - IN FACT the UNITED EUROPE the Nazis praise is rather like the EU who grew of course from the Franco-German Vichy-Nazi pact. Shameful lies and fake news from Remainiacs fabricating racism when none exists (JUST like the media during the run-up to the Brexit referendum). The EU is the United Europe Hitler dreamed of actually.

I enjoyed this especially some scenes - the social realism when people give their views is rather talky and probably improvised but utterly believable. These days one would expect a more diverse ethnic mix and maybe then anti-semitism from those groups (after all the Grand Mufti and Hitler got on like a house on fie and shared views on the Jews and what to do with them). Though interesting, one SS officer shown here is non-white.

Good to remember too that Hitler and Nazi-ism were both especially popular with women who adored Adolf - something that needs to be flagged as does the connection of the Nazis to the green movement. The views of Himmler are almost identical to modern green activists. Yes, they are. Read them.

A must-see for any film student BUT watch WENT THE DAY WELL first and then FATHERLAND from 1994 and SS_GB miniseries and all the other alternative reality Nazis in Britain stories.

Heard a dreadful review for this on BBC radio 4 from arch Bowie Fan Mark Commode and it's his usual full of it approach (well there's a man who actually states the absurdity that old films were 'made before their could benefit from colourblind casting' Yeah right, so maybe he wanted Idris Elba to play Bowie? Or Miss Lenny Henry? Or Cush Jumbo?)

SO glad I ignored the bad reviews and watched this. Yes, I am a Bowie fan since sealy 80s CHANGES ONE and CHANGES TWO best of compilations. ANd I saw him live 1996. BUT I am no Bowie obsessive so do not feel personally hurt if a film is not like one I would make of him.

Also I am too young to remember Ziggy Stardust - my first Bowie was 1980's Fashion, Ashes to Ashes and Scary Monsters, and prob his best album is Hunky Dory (his 4th - great critic reviews but did not take off). Hence I watch this as a short biopic of that time, not a hagiographic bowing tribute to Bowie.

I enjoyed the story, the character arcs, and the connection with Bowie/;s schizophrenic brother Terry (though I did know he killed himself by throwing himself in front of a train in the mid 80s). I enjoyed all that. And the fantasy sequences - which was tied up with drugs at the time of course. Bowie was addicted for much of the 70s, cocaine and more.

I thought the main actor did well as Bowie - the final performance sections are superb. It is very unfair the way his performance gets trashed by Bowie fans who are so invested in the David myth that no actor could play him to thjeir satisfaction.

Some characters are a bit old perhaps - Tony Visconti (my favourite producer) is the same age as Bowie yet looks around 50 here. I did like the portrayal of Bowie's parents and his back story re mental illness in his mum's family. Good to hear Bromley get a mention too (Bowie's family like many white working class ones fled Brixton when he was 6 for more suburban whiter climes as waves of immigrants moved in).

Some fun parts here. OK it's the a major film but a slight one - and one which I enjoyed.

SO 4 stars.

I think I watched this on TV as a boy BUT I do not think it has been shown since, possibly because of its non-pc language regarding possibly gay German POWs. That is a shame as it is a really decent film.

Original, well-acted and not much dated since 1970. Based on a novel.

4 stars.

I watched this on TV when it first came out. Now watching it again I realise how brilliant it is - the writing, first of all. Then the acting and direction.

All schoolkids should watch this at school too.

Watch till the end to see what happened to some of the 15 men at the Wannsee conference which so casually, politely and legally talked of mass genocide. As always, only a couple brought to justice.

Many escaped it and lived to old age in the 80s - unlike their victims. Remember, only 3% of SS and Gestapo were ever brought to justice.

5 stars. Classic TV. A must-see.

Excellent if a little overlong an wordy film on Eichmann - though it is actually a movie about the law and lawyers really.

Best watched with other films such as Hitler's Circle of Evil or other documentaries like The Nazis - a Warning from History. Or even fiction such as The Boys from Brazil.

4 stars

I really enjoyed this movie - I had never ever heard of Axis Sally and found it fascinating on that level.

We Brits had our own Nazi propaganda broadcaster, William Joyce, Anglo-Irish traitor hanged after the war for treason, known as Lord Haw-Haw, a parody of an upper class Brit, which people here used to listen to during WWII - BUT Brits laughed AT him not WITH him. This film seems to suggest Axis Sally had some Americans and their soldiers on-side.

No idea if that is true BUT remember, the USA was very reluctant to enter the war at all to help Britain and only did when attacked by Japan. Many Americans wanted to stay out of it, including the 'Mothers for America' group who more or less supporters Hitler, as did Joe Kennedy father of JFK and US ambassador to Britain in 1930s who stated 'Britain is finished; we should deal with Hitler'. Yes, really.

This is well made and acted and I enjoyed it. It flips around back and forth from early 40s to the present day a bit too much for my liking. But the final summing up speech by the Al Pacino characters is superb - one of the best I have heard and no doubt taken from the court records.

Yes, it is a courtroom drama at the end - but so what? Plenty to interest an audience before then too though it maybe lays on the poor abused woman act stuff with a trowel. Axis Sally was a traitor for sure BUT an opportunity just wanting a break in showbiz - twas that ambition that was and is dangerous.

The end says what happened to her. Absolutely fascinating, 4 stars.

I watched this when it was on TV, but rewatched it again after reading the excellent Len Deighton novel. I enjoyed it better the second time when I watched it more closely - this drama demands that. It is no action movie.

The atmosphere, decor and design of London in 1941 after the Nazi invasion of 1940 is expertly and exquisitely done, as it is in the novel - the Nazis had detailed plans for what they would do after invading Britain, so the novelist based his London and UK on that.

It's a clever and intricate plot, for of double bluffs and slippery characters - the German actors playing SS chief Kellerman and senior SS officer Huth are superb and spot-on. The character arcs make sense and are tight.

The ending was changed from that in the novel as so often happens in films. Also, our pc age demands main female characters in the middle of the action with agency, so one survives to do that - in the TV drama., The novel is different there., But be grateful for small mercies - they could have done colourblind casting! No doubt in 2021 they would. Absurd.

Watch with the FATHERLAND TV movie maybe (or read the classic novel) and also GENERATION WAR by the same director which is real history fictionalised, not an alternative history, a real history .

Then there is the 1942 British film WENT THE DAY WELL, the first example of an imagined Nazi takeover of Britain, There have been many more 'alternative histories' with the Nazis winning the war - the US-set The Man in the High Castle written 1961 on Netflix recently. The 1964 film IT HAPPENED HERE Is low-budget student film but good nonetheless. Other WHAT IF films include the recent TV series tHE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA.

Some reviews criticise the expressionless main actor - I do not. He has to hide his feelings to negotiate a role as a British policeman in Nazi London, suspected by both dies, so that acting is perfect as is that of others - though the character of Harry Woods is way too old here really - he is younger in the book, fat and mid-late 40s maybe. Not 70 as James Cosmo., Coppers retire aged 50, remember. Miscast there maybe.

Fascinating and watchable - but attention needed by the audience to understand the plot.

4.5 stars rounded up

I was going to give this utter tosh 1 star but decided for 1.5 rounded up, simply because it reaches Sharknado-levels of badness. It is so awful in places.

The acting is so wooden on occasion it could be made into a table and chairs - but it seems the director got his mum and other family members parts in it, so that may be te reason. The crony casting does not stop there either. The elf is the son of the film studio doctor, for example.

The plot is so full of holes it could be a sieve - the little girl saying she saw something she cold not possibly have seen, just one example. But one suspects the makers really do not care! Some random Japanese stuff chucked in. Some nonsense re a magnet. I'd love to see the back of a cigarette (or vegan vitamin pill) packet where the original script idea was written!

Utter nonsense from start to finish with some bad songs in musical interludes.

Very odd and the green issues shoe-horned in the final act are toe-curlingly greenie-weenie bandwagon bad.

Occasionally fun and so bad it ls good, in an Ed Wood or Sharknado sot of way.

This is what TV drama used to be like, before it decided that woke polemic and preachy pc sermonising was more important that telling a good story well, with an exploration of ideas and solid characterisation.

This `1972 TV film is from the golden age of such drama, especially children's TV drama which is now unwatchable, if it exists at all (most kids' TV is cheap digital Korean import cartoons, it seems).

Based on a children's book called The Ghosts, this is s genuinely entertaining film which had me hooked - far more so than the over-rated Railway Children from the same era (too soppy girly for my tastes). These days, the critics would call it old-fashioned and derivative - but that is precisely why it is so good.

Set in 1918 just after WWI and a century before. Yes, sentimental - but so what? Dickensian really. Think Oliver Twist's end.

Genuinely full of surprises and I had no idea how it would end (unlike most TV drama now). My favourite character has to be the hideous cook Mrs Wickens, played brilliantly by DIana Dors, no less. Some rather risque scenes, hints of a child brothel run by her, and some swearing mean it would probably not be made today - not like this anyway. No doubt they'd diversity-quota the cast too, I would not watch any remake. I detest socalled colourblind casting as in David Copperfield, a movie ruined by it., Charles Dickens was NOT Asian! And yes, it matters.

Anyway, I bet kids today would love this film too IF they could sit still long enough. It is worrying that many children now have never watched a film all the way through, as they just watch snippets, so goldfish-tiny is their attention span.

A brilliant film to watch at any time of year, especially Christmas (though no seasonal themes in it). Ghost stories are always fun at Christmas, I find, for some reason - maybe the winter dark and cold and candle light? Like A CHRISTMAS CAROL itself of course, the subheading of which is 'A CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY'.

5 stars. I loved it., All of it.

I watched the end credits to try and find out where the film was made, which country house. But it just said made at Pinewood Studios. Hmmm... Looks like a real house to me though...

I really enjoyed this. It's a thriller-cum-horror with OTT and crasy Santa and Mrs Claus. Real panto stuff!

Clearly influenced by 'Silence of the Lambs' in parts, this film never gets boring - it keeps up the pace and craziness throughout.

4 stars

Typical Mike Leigh film in many ways - cartoon character working class and underclass characters with snappy lippy dialogues, and of course the middle class characters all mocked and demeaned and even more cartoon characters.

Leigh has been doing the exact same thing since Abigail's Party - a well-off middle-class socialist like him living in a million pound house in north London cannot stand aspirational working class people who want to be middle class.

Here it's embarrassing and reverse classism really - the stereotype posh southerner predictably called Jeremy pitted against salt of the earth northern folk. Cartoon film really. Just imagine a film portraying a black character to tat level of stereotype. If the middle class were a race then Leigh would be a racist lol.

Deeply unpleasant, meandering and pointless film really and SO long and goes nowhere. Really - there is no plot or structure at all., It just meanders around aimlessly much like its characters - none of whom I'd want to know.

But this is one man's film - David Thewlis who steals every scene he is in with his sharp sarcastic sardonic dialogue, so an anti-hero of the underclass really. Watch him in the 3rd series of Fargo now to see him steal that too, and how he has aged!

If not for that tis would be 1 star max. I only watched it as I felt guilty I never head. Glad I did - but not in a good way, I got it out the way like a visit to the dentist. It's over now...

This 3rd series is a return to form for True Detective though it's not as good as series 1; anything is better than the mess of series 2 though.

Set in 1980, 1990 and 2015, the first DVD has a features section which shows how they differentiated those parts - fascinating stuff, all to do with colour schemes and lighting.

The acting is fine, though no actor can ever really pull off playing old. I've seen worse though! Much!

The final act and part becomes rather Midomer Murders - it is so calculated and frankly not believable, But hey ho... Best not to count the plot holes or you'll run out of fingers...

3.5 stars rounded up.

As a fan of both movies set in WWII and many German film, such as the sublime TV drama GENERATION WAR, I loved this.

Yes, it drags and sags a bit in the middle. And the boys look too old - they are meant to be born 1929 so 15.

Anyway, I enjoyed it all - and rate it as one of the better WWII films.

Nice visuals and music.

4 stars.

Tedious film -very pretentious, woke, right-on with female leads and same-sex relationships etc. However ticking such pc boxes does not a decent film make.

This is slow. pretentious, with pretty lame limp mediocre music too - as written by one of the female leads. Rather unsurprisingly, no song penned or sung by her has been a hit...

One wonders how such films get funding but then so may have in the post MeToo era.

Do yourselves a favour and rewatch American Werewolf in London or perhaps Severance for a good horror ride with werewolves etc.

Lame special effects too. Was gonna be 2 stars but the final act made that 1 star. Avoid.