Film Reviews by PV

To be honest, I have never been a huge Star Trek movie fan. The original TV series is great as ever and repeated every weekday 6pm on the Horror Channel I think?

I am not Tarantino fan - I am amazed he (and others like Wes Anderson) even get the funding to make movies, let alone with awards, critical praise, even Oscars. 'Inglorious Basterds' was one of the most dreadful tedious pointless films I have ever endured - though bafflingly those in the Toronto cinema where I saw it were laughing away at it. This is perhaps even worse as it drags on for two and a half hours! It is, in a word, BORING. Tedious and turgid almost beyond belief.

Added to that the sheer bloated, overwritten flabby nature of it all - the plot utterly disjointed and episodic. Lazy flashbacks; scenes which add nothing to the momentum of plot or character development.

This is the sort of film that things it is clever and funny but isn't. Sam Pekinpah violence does not make it right and is not interesting or exciting - just boring.

And as for the rewritten history, as per the absurd 'Inglorious Basterd' - why do people tolerate this nonsense? Take a true story and change the ending. What is clever about that? I mean, WHAT is the point? There is none. That sums up this entire tedious movie from one of the worst film directors/writers ever.

Some hippy commune portrayals are spot on with the hippy hypocrisy and greedy, bullying, selfish nastiness - but you can see that in The Beach, for example. And many better pictures than this rambling visual drivel. As in the wonderful Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DC portrays a hardcore alcoholic who seems none the worse for wear for copious consumption of whisky. Seriously? Maybe research some real hardcore alcoholics on a bottle of whisky a day or watch Leaving Las Vegas then wipe the scales from your deluded Hollywood eyes.

How this was even nominated for Oscars I do not know. In fact I do: the entire system is corrupt with campaigns by certain actors bagging them the gongs. Or maybe there is an Italian-American contingent on the voting panel of the Academy who side with the Italian America. That is the way it works now with so many black Oscar winners who do not deserve it. And as for BAFTA. End result? All awards are ignored as we all know they are broken by woke.

Two and half hours of my life I am not getting back. You could halve that to make a less mediocre movie. Or, better still, not make it at all.

The costumes of the time (1969) and the music are both interesting and fun - but one could say the same for Butlins.

Dreadful rubbish.

I am not sure what to make of this British film about a school trip. It's like a big cartoon strip, very lewd and crude in places, aimed squarely at a teen audience who giggle at such things - and would play perfectly in a packed noisy cinema on a Friday evening.

For me at home, it was thankfully short (though sometimes felt longer...) and the absurdity and lewdness of it all was redeemed by some funny lines and scenes, esp visual gags, which almost date from the silent movies! I loved the German party of kid gag, and some scenes in the pub.

The Cornish nationalist stuff was funny and could apply equally to Welsh nationalists - and the castle featured is in Wales not Cornwall - Pembroke castle.

A bit like The Inbetweeners but less sophisticated. Silly that the teacher is called Alfie as no-one that age has that name - teens, yes. I did not like the usual 'fat kid eats pies all the time' gags - not wanting to be pc but it seems being offensive and insulting like that is OK, though inaccurate: fat kids do not eat more than anyone else. Not once fat!

Anyway, all a bit silly but if you're in the mood, it is watchable - just pretend it's a cartoon. I have not watched the Tv series which spawned it so had not idea what to expect. I did laugh at some gags - visual ones especially, and the non-pc ones - they were refreshing! The Amsterdam flashback scenes...

Of course, needless to say, any teacher doing a fraction of the stuff Aflie does would not only be suspended and banned from teaching for life but would probably be in prison.

I remember watching this series as a child, I think on Sunday evenings - it is that sort of gentle detective drama (like Hamish Macbeth or Heartbeat or Wild at Heart) where nothing really BAD happens - no serial killers or victims on the slab. Just mild investigations via the nifty though perhaps rather unbelievable conceit of a radio station 'private ear'.

Some scenes are hilariously dated - anything with computers for a start. Technology always ages a film or TV drama. Some great non-pc lines which I won't repeat here but which would never gest past the censor these days - which makes Shoestring all the more watchable. It is 40 years old., but refreshingly honest drama - which says a lot for the state of UK TV drama today really. There is no pc preachiness here or issues being forced down viewers' throats and the drama is all the better for it.

Only 2 series of Shoestring which is a shame. Great to see lots of actors who later turn up in Eastenders or The Bill in here. Celia Imrie is in it, and Pam St Clement (Pat from Eastenders) features in the same episode as a very young Daniel Day-Lewis. And more...

Eddie Shoetstring gets away with so much in this - which would never happen in real life as he seems to breaks the law as standard. Gets beaten up in almost every episode too it seems, yet survives.

They don;'t make em like this any more. I enjoyed both series of Shoestring, despite the creaks. It's made me want to rediscover other TV drama from the 80s and 70s actually.

Odd though as this is set and made in 1980 and they are all wearing flares!

Fun to hear some pop music of the day on the Radio West hitlist too!

This is a dreadful British alleged comedy horror. A silly pc box-ticker of a film. And deeply old-fashioned. It seems to run out of steam too, hence the tacked on ending (no spoilers). It thinks it is clever and fun. It isn't. It is painful.

The script is like a bad first draft by a disaffected sixth-former complete with preachy rants about Thatcher and how migrants and mass immigrations is simply marvellous for Britain. Often it is nonsensical and the jokes are not funny - they have have seemed so down the pub. It is that sort of film - the story you make up with mates when drunk down the pub. It should have stayed there.

Not funny, not scary, not anything - just a vanity project directed by a posh privileged ex-public schoolboy with excellent connections from his acting film career - why he persuaded so many British character actors who should know better to partake. He even got his mate Jamie Oliver to do the catering. Bless.

Welsh actresses Ruth Jones and Eva Myles are in it, looking very similar so like BEFORE and AFTER photos for some dieting club advert.

Dexter Fletcher also pops up - around the same time he took over directing Bohemian Rhapsody/. Well I suppose one good decision of two is OK.

Mackenzie Crook phones it in, barely bothering to act at all. And Anne Crosbie from One Foot in the Grave appears, plus some BAME actor box-tickers.

The director has a good contact book - far better than the truly dreadful derivative annoying boring nonsensical film he made then.

Watch only if you like turkey.

I have watched the first movie on DVD but have very little memory of it - how movies work these days, like the awful Marvel superhero sludge. All about data and stimulating the attention-deficient young audience, like modern EDM pop music.

Anyway, this was all fast-paced and had enough 'magic' in it to satisfy. Decent special effects. And acting incl old masters Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine who gets to keep the house he buys with the massive cheque again as he did for Jaws 2.

Loved the locations too - much of this was shot in Greenwich, the colonnade at the old royal naval college used in so many movies - from the Music Lovers early 70s to the King's Speech, to Master and Commander and literally hundreds more.

Clearly aimed at the Chinese market with big set pieces and in that just like modern Bond movies which are just Bourne templates really.

Likes the music too so 2.5 stars rounded up.

I remember watching this as a kid first time round though no specific episodes. I liked the complex dishevelled Eddie Shoestring character, created by a writer who'd been in TV drama since late 50s, and it does have that dated tone, even for 1979 and despite an ethnically mixed cast for the time.

Yes it is dated BUT not that much - funny how some jokes Shoestring males would definitely now be cut so as not to offend, esp jokes about women and gender - but all harmless actually. Just shows these days the world is too woke to take a joke! It adds to Eddie Shoestring's character and is true to it.

Great too to spot actors who found fame later - Peter Beale who got famous as Pete from Eastenders plays TWO characters in different episodes a copper and a wildlife park assistant keeper! Gordon Kaye aka Rene from Allo Allo rocks up in an episode as an unlikely ex-soldier. Harry S Corbett aka Steptoe obviously needed the cash to take a role in this.

Best of all is episode 9 which features TOYAH who plays a singer called TOOLA with her real band, who got famous in 1980 with IT'S A MYSTERY top 5 hit. Her manager is Christopher Biggins who does not quite convince as a violent womaniser drugdealing gangster. The same episode features Mick Jagger's brother Christopher. And also a bit part for Kevin WHitely - later Lewis in Morse after Auf -Pet - though the lack of continuity is hilarious. He plays a rich footballer and has 3 lines in a travel agent as a Geordie; later this character calls up the radio show and his accent has miraculously become pure London! Mad!

Great fun and I enjoyed it for the nostalgia and lack of woke pc nonsense of today's preachy box-ticking issue-laden TV drama which I have stopped watching. 4 stars.

This movie is a like a cross between ET, The Midwich Cuckoos (the original b + w film is the superior one), the Man who Fell to Earth and Superman (which gets referenced). Almost a messiah story metaphor really.

The title is awful - 'Midnight Special' sounds like another movie entirely. No idea why it was chosen. So unbelievably naff. Sounds like it should be a film about a jazz musician or some soft porn!

Anyway, the film starts so well - it does not give everything away so the viewer has to concentrate to work out what is going on, always a good sign. Act 2 keeps up the tension. The final act and ending however vanish into the usual swamp of cod-spiritual sci-fi sludge and CGI silliness common in Hollywood movies these days. Oh well.

Until then, I enjoyed it. Was 4 stars until then and the special effects are good if unintentionally funny at times. Never had swimming goggles seemed so glamorous!

However, the silly final act and ending reduced that to 3. I have seen worse scifi movies anyway, so worth a watch.

Watch this to see a stylised by highly entertaining history of the Tudors in England - though they were a Welsh royal family.

Glad to see this was made before the colourblind casting cult with Anne Boleyn played by a black actress in a Channel 5 drama which I shall not be watching.

All 4 series of The Tudors are wonderful - the only bad thing is they stopped at the end of Henry VIII's reign. I would have loved to see the reign of King Edward VI and the 9 days of Lady Jane Grey then Mary I's bloody reign.

The man who created and wrote this Michael Hirst went on to make the VIKINGS TV drama series, also so brilliant.

This is truly superb drama. Watch the extras on the final DVD to see the writer Michael Hirst talk of how he dealt with the end of King Henry VIII's reign - so wonderful the way that is done.

All 4 series of this are wonderful. Not 100% accurate but that is fine - 2 popes merged into one; Henry did not look exactly like the actor playing him etc. Lots of stuff made up.

But so what? There is no such thing as reality in historical fiction anyway. This series totally won me over though I sneered at it a bit in 2009 which is why I only saw one episode then.

I could watch it all again. I am sad they did not make more series after this about King Edward VI and Mary I - that could be 2-3 more series, before reaching Elizabeth I who has been overdone in movies to be fair.

Loved it. 5 stars - with bells on.

Things I liked about this film: 1) the impressive animation which we are used to from Pixar now. 2) The music, best original Oscar for a score by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails amongst others. 3). The cat, though it is rather an empty vessel (and miraculously lacks a bottom). 4) some of the script which is genuinely witty.

Things I dislike: 1) the lack of warmth in the animation (think back to the simpler Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio with Figaro the best animated cat ever!) and the way the piano playing scenes are so realistic they must be live action traced over digitally. The heaven/soul managers are pure 1950s animation too which is fun 2) the quasi-spiritual existential tricksy themes - common in many modern Hollywood films, all very self-focused and self-helpy; 3) the almost segregationist take on race with black only scenes and characters mostly (when no way would they were do white only). 4) the ending which drags on unnecessarily (no spoilers) as with so many overlong Hollywood movies now.

Some have claimed the themes are too adult for kids to enjoy and I can see younger kids being baffled at the fantasy soul segments. It is very like INSIDE OUT in many ways regarding that.

However, despite all this, I did enjoy the film, in part. Some scenes are beautifully especially when piano is being played. The moral and message is all self-helpy and icky as one has come to expect, of course.

The main character is winning too and I love the way they call him 'teach'.

Worth saying though that the black female sassy singer is a real stereotype - how many mor times are we going to see sassy black women in movies, and why is that stereotype NOT deemed offensive.

Maybe I am being too harsh - but I watched this yesterday evening and find that I have already forgotten most of the film, the contrived convoluted mock-heaven SOUL stuff especially which did make me roll my eyes.

Incredibly, the token white man in this is voiced by Graham Norton. Richard Ayoade also voices a character and there is a fun Kiwi manager too.

I love this whole series - brilliant acting and plots, which they say are based on real events, though of course all added together into this one family and couple.

Fascinating rather than factually believable, and always playing with the 'will anyone find them out and expose them as spies' tension, so effectively used in TV drama like Breaking Bad.

Very tense at times and violent. Class.

There has been a lot of hype about how wonderful this series is. Well they must be watching a different one from the series I watched which managed to be so dull, boring, predictable and uninteresting, I gave up after 2 DVDs. I so rarely do that.

My advice is watch THE AMERICANS instead or THE SOPRANOS.

Excellent and highly entertaining crime drama set against the backdrop of 1929 Berlin, and its famous nightlife (see the movie CABARET).

OK so there are some faults. The subtitles are clearly not written by a native English speaker as there are some really odd phrases included. Also, there is some padding to create more episodes, I suspected - I was not a fan of all the extended dance routines in nightclubs. And Bryan Ferry makes an appearance with his 1970s song done in the style of 1929 (the word WHY entered my head at that point).

And for me, and with such a complex plot meandering around with so many characters looking the same or similar, it was a tad hard to keep up with it all at times.

However, overall very watchable and with the same actors one can see in many other German TV series such as GENERATION WAR (the main actor plating Gereon in this played Winter in that).

4 stars

I missed this when it was shown on TV over a decade ago so am catching up now.

It is a brilliant drama, totally stylised and playing fast and loose with the facts all over the place (eg Henry VIII was red-haired and famous for it; forks were not used to eating at the time; guns were not used either; the Vatican's St Peter's Square and church had not even been built in the 1530s and 2 popes are merged into one character here). But hey, all history is bunk anyway and the impression and the style is what matters. The basic historical facts are right.

The writer who came up with The Tudors went on to create VIKINGS, another utterly brilliant TV drama - and thankfully both were made before the colourblind casting craze came along. I dread to think how this would all look if made now.

Great stuff! 5 stars