Film Reviews by PV

For me, this is a superb TV drama WAY superior to the unfunny posturing 'The Death of Stalin' (2017) by the endlessly over-rated and unfunny Armando Iannucci.

This dates from 1983 and is from a stage play, and that shows in its theatricality and farce tradition - which is maybe the best way to respond to the horror of Stalin. Comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same coin.

Some old British character actors pop up in this, which is fun (eg David Kelly, comedy Irishman from Fawlty Towers and Robin's Nest etc) and Dave the Wincester Club barman from Minder!

Yes, subtitles would be handy as a few lines are hard to understand, esp with all the accents.

To make Stalin and the vile rapist Beria Irish is supposed to mark them as outsiders as both were Georgian in charge of the USSR in Moscow. I would suggest this idea is a bit dated though.

And NOW WAY would the pc gestapo in charge of TV now allow non-Chinese people to play Chinese characters - sadly. Though they always have black actors playing white roles now!

I enjoyed this. I'd like to see it on stage too.

4 stars

This series is really interesting and enjoyable. Occasionally, one is brought to think how ridiculous it all is - set in modern day etc - and it is only through nifty plot twists and characters that keep the attention that this gigantic mash-up works.

Occasionally it annoys, as with some diverse ethnic casting, subplots re lung transplants and romance of the brother Dylan. and mental home mooching and wallowing.

But once it returns to the house and Norman, and Norma of course, the spark is reignited.

I cannot wait for series 5 - the last.

OK so series 2 of this does get a bit OC and soapy with all the teen romance etc, and a bit Weed or Breaking Bad with the dope gang theme.

But, having said that, I am also thoroughly enjoying all series of this mashed-up remake retake of Psycho.

Nobody can possibly trump the original movie (though Hitchcock in fact did not create the famous shower scene story board! He gets the credit always for something he did not create!) so this series wisely does not try it. Instead, it bizarrely creates a modern day version but mashed up with sort of retro Norman and his mum.

To be honest, they are maybe not weird enough, and I have known WAY more overbearing domineering mothers than Norman's mum here. The family is pretty normal actually.

Dylan the brother is sort of everyman - we see the story through him, in a way. He's our conscience.

Some of the younger female characters are dippy and annoying, but at least there is no box-ticking diversity nonsense. If the BBC had made this, Norman would probably be Asian with a black dad or something.

SO 4 stars - not profound but enjoyable, and better than any BBC made drama I have seen in years.

I loved this 3 parter. It first aired on BBC2 and typically the pc Radio Times constantly complained there were not enough strong female characters - well actually, the 'strong independent in charge' woman character is now its own cliche and stereotype and SO BORING.

I avoid TV drama painted by numbers like that to worship diversity and shoehorn such characters and pc issues into the plot; ditto re race.

This is the best drama I have seen on the BBC is 2 years - unlike most of their output in drama, it is not woke and broke.

It is just GREAT STORIES WELL TOLD which is what all drama SHOULD be - the BBC has seriously lost its way as its belief now is that the purpose of drama is to promote their diversity message. No wonder their ratings are plummeting so badly.

I enjoyed this hugely and could watch it all again - decent stories, interesting characters, the lot.

5 stars! More please but do not ruin it with pc characters parachuted inappropriately into early 20th C Vienna please - so NO Idris Elba or similar purlease and no 'strong independent women' detectives to tick the MeToo boxes. if that happens, I shall switch off.

This 2013 series passed me by so I am working my way through them now. I do expect later series to 'jump the shark'.

It all reminds me a tad of the TV series DEXTER for some reason.

All a bit silly at times, almost a fantasy movie, and tbh the characters do not seem weird enough - esp Norma Bates. But also Norman. The original movie has not equal in that - though the over-rated Hitchcock did not actually create the shower scene (storyboarded by an underling).

Freddie Highmore looks younger than the 21 years he is, which helps and reminds me of Nicholas Hoult. As a child actor for a well-off family of actors and mum was Daniel Radcliffe's agent, he had all the advantages BUT it's still hard for a child star to make the transition to adult acting. He does here with aplomb.

Best not to think to hard when watching this - let it wash over you. I particularly liked the way it all started.

4 stars

This is maybe the worst movie I have seen this year. Just awful. I actually flicked fast forward through it a lot.

So absurd in every way and the acting;s so wooden it could cause 'a fence' if I could be bothered!

It;'s just yawnsome and boring. Dreadful CGI special effects with a 6 headed shark who...

Oh I can't be bothered.

The people stand on a beach for ages waiting for the shark to attack - that is how bad this is.

Watch SHARKNADO for a laugh of THE SHALLOWS for a decent shark movie or the original JAWS. Or watch old Ray Harryhausen special effects to see how it's done. CGI has a lot to answer for.

Watch only when very drunk or not at all.

No stars

I have never been a particular fan of Stephen King (the only book by him I tried to read was as overlong and dull as this movie) so maybe I am not the target audience.

But anyway, by any standard's this movie is overlong with a daft silly drawn out plot (like the first one) and I yawned through a lot of it.

To horror audiences it is probably passable but so convoluted and non-sensical even to bore them.

2 stars - just.

I love old movies like this - they don;t make em like this any more and wouldn't. Not diverse enough racially and the women are passive which is now verboten - all women MUST be strong and independent and in charge now. That is a new cliche, a new stereotype, of our metoo woke age.

SO I enjoy the lack of pc preaching in these old movies even more.

A decent story from a book - all dark love story and death and guilt. Very Tennessee Williams except it isn't.

I enjoyed it anyway - a long film by the standards of its day at almost 2 hours.

Kirk Douglas cast against macho man type too.

4 stars.

This is based on a novel which though a best seller has very mixed reviews.

The over-rated director claims this "a new way of telling the story of WWII to a young audience". WHAT ROT! The story does not change and you do not have to add pop music and infantile slapstick 'jokes' to appeal to youngsters who can easily watch SWING KIDS, DOWNFALL, GENERATION WAR, FATHERLAND, and THE PRODUCERS (1968) instead of this tosh which is nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is. Less funny than pilot for sitcom HEIL HONEY I'M HOME even.

It is basically panto, slapstick, cartoon characters, cheesy slushy schmaltz, too cutesy by half.

AND 10 year old boys do not have imaginary friends - maybe 3,4,5 year olds - and they certainly do not hug each other - this is an adult';s view of childhood and it is cringe-worthy. Especially when the 10 year old shows an love interest in a girl. Aged 10. Yeah right!

A complete misfire take on childhood - not sure if the director or author of the original novel is to blame. The taste is so bad it;s criminal. As are the jokes (German shepherds anyone?). Americanese from 2020 like 'overthinking' and use of the word 'goddam' in people speaking with German (actually Austrian) accents jars too.

And from this anyone would think WWII was Americans + Russians versus the Nazis. No reference to the British - just the English later on, which is so ignorant. So pc though so has to mention India and China (the former had people also supporting the Japanese actually).

The most hilarious thing here is imaginary friend Hitler having a New Zealand accent. Nothing else made me smile, let along laugh.

The best bit is the start and the linking of Hitler with other mass hysteria with pop acts. Otherwise, avoid this. I wish I had.

Loved this film. Yes, it's a bit too long and too many Swing dance scenes - though some will like that. Personally.,I'd cut some out to make the film shorter, but...

But the whole story is one I knew - the Swing Boys who grew hair long and listened to Swing in late 30s, against the wishes of the Nazis. Some were hanged, I know.

The detail is authentic. Some may dislike the American accents and the background music is often too imposing. Whether it is too simplistic re the Nazification of kids in 1930s Germany, I do not know - but the betrayals and changing loyalties are shown well.

Early performances by Martin Clunes, Sean Pertwee and of course Welsh actor Christian Bale aged 18 or so, maybe his first adult role after he starred in Empire of the Sun (1988) aged 13.

A movie from 1993 I have somehow missed. Well worth a watch, maybe with the TV documentary RISE OF THE NAZIS.

This is basically a movie about teenagers before the word was invented (in 1948, US ad agency) though 'teen-age' was a word from early 20th C at least.

4 stars.

There have been 2 recent movies of this event - the assassination of Heydrich, the architect of the Final Solution in 1942. The only top-ranking Nazi to be so killed and a great morale boost despite the dreadful repercussions (a black and white film on Lidice the village razed to the ground where all men were murdered in revenge by the Nazis). The other film is Operation Anthropoid. Both of these movies are OK. This one focuses on Heydrich's background and youth in the first half anyway.

However, the best version is OPERATION DAYBREAK from 1975, written by Ronald Harewood, veteran screen writer who much much later won an Oscar. Stars Anthony Andrews, Martin Shore and others. THAT is the film to watch.

This one needs more editing - too much flab on it and too long. Maybe because it's loyal to the original French/Belgian novel? Not always a good thing, that. Films are not novels.

It always amazes me that these older films are often so much better, despite the special effects these days - or maybe because of them? Too much CGI is a warning sign maybe...

I have visited the church in whose crypt they end up - the pill box hole in there and the stone around it pockmarked with bullet holes, and flowers and Czech flags always there. These men were heroes.

This was filed at the famous Barrandov Studios in Prague which thrived in 1930s before WWII and then communist dictatorship by the USSR (which changed street name, BLM style as all invaders do).

3.5 stars rounded up

I really enjoyed this film. I know Nico's Velvet Underground tracks which no doubt paid for her awful heroin habit in later years of decline - a cautionary tale about drug abuse really.

Watch this with that OSLO AUGUST 31st film to see what heroin does. Not glamorous at all - just tawdry, sad and pathetic - it really ruins lives.

It visits some great locations when she goes on tour. Berlin Olympic stadium, Prague in 1986 under communism.

I can take or leave the pretentious music, ditto with John Cale - not tuneful or great songwriting, but the mercurial Nico seems to have influenced Bjork maybe rather a lot.

A shame it does not say how other characters in the story end up, eg her son. It says Nico died in Majorca - it does not state she had a stroke aged 49 while riding her bike (vigorous exercise is not good if you have high blood pressure and a history of drug abuse!)

Interesting film-making.

4 stars

I could only stand 26 minutes of this then ejected.

I utterly despise the inner city criminal gangsta rap culture. I despise it. This is not British culture in our capital city - it is a vile alien imported street culture with silly little boys (and some girls) role-playing US gangsta rappers even talking about 'the Feds' for the police. It is kids play-acting. BUT with real knives and guns and mugging. I HATE it - everything about it. The socaled music, the violence, the attitude.

Now some claim this all exists because of 'racism' that great red herring. What rot! This is a cultural thing - taking a lead from US/Jamaican gang/street crime 'culture'. Not many Asians or Chinese or aspirational African black people (the majority of the UK's 3% black population of 14% total BAME).

This is from the director of the awful yet inexplicably overpraised prize-winning film THE GREAT BEAUTY. It is equally bloated and pompous, overlong and often pointless. But then, it is Italians and they like it like that maybe (as do the French and Spanish), and also very VERY Catholic.

If you are not Catholic and do not believe in miracles and magic or that some old man - usually Italian - who gets made Pope every now and then is chosen by God to lead the church and humanity, you probably won't like this TV drama series much. Of course, we now have an Argentinian Pope and before that a German and before him a Pole, and one English pope Adrian IV for 5 years in the middle of the 12th century. Apart from that, all Italians and often very abusive, brutal and corrupt - often had kids too who they called nephews (where our word nepotism comes from).

It is pleasant enough BUT oh SO unbelievable that I could not really suspend my disbelief. I just do not believe a word of it, or the miracles, or the magic etc though Vatican intrigue is well known - that place is stashed with treasures stolen over centuries (incl the solid gold menorah nicked from the main synagogue in the siege of Jerusalem over a millennium. The Catholic church is ALL about wealth and power, now an always.

I enjoyed some parts and characters. The nuns were funny; the references to gay priests too. But cynical sceptical non-believers like me not the target audience maybe.

I just cannot believe the story esp the 3rd act. It's really an attempted fairytale. I enjoyed seeing Rome as I have been there twice - CGI in many places though. Try watching THE TUDORS for more Papal intrigue.

Jude Law was good in the role as were other actors.

2 stars. Thankfully there is no series 2.

The first thing to say is that this is possibly Robin Williams final film as an actor, which is maybe the cause of the nannying unnecessary sign on the screen before the film saying some scenes are upsetting. I hate that as I hate it when TV announcers do the same, even at 9pm. we're ADULTS for goodness sake - we can cope!

This film is a remake of an Israel film called Mr Baum though not sure how loyal it is to that.

This misfires on several levels - the central conceit is unbelievable, though many movie concepts and plots are. No doctor would do this - so it slips into fantasy territory from the start.

To see a masterpiece with the same theme watch IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE with James Stewart. Classic.

And so it goes on with Robin Williams doing his sentimental schmaltzy act which I have never liked - those maudlin emotional movies he stars in are ones to avoid for me; I am selective re his movies. The schmaltz is just trowelled on.

Many great movies about breakdowns - this is not one of them.

Some bits are seriously objectionable - crude, unnecessary, and mocking people who stutter is just wrong and not funny, whatever the punchline. The excuse that this is 'Jewish' humour won;t work.

The plot is confused and too busy - just too much going on, The focus should be on the Williams character not the young female doctor. AND the medicine is fake - having had to see people have strokes and die later. It is not like this.

This movie also ticks so many boxes re diversity casting (a common woke thing now) it could be Tescos.

So it passes the time. Would have been 3 stars if not for the crudeness.

Poignant of course, considering how it ended for Williams soon after. Watch GOOD MORNING VIET NAM instead.