Film Reviews by PV

This is a so-so horror beating a well-trodden path of hokum to nowhere.

The main actress has that permanently lost little puppy innocent face so you can see why she was cast. At first that worked -but it got irritating.

It all gets silly in the end though (no spoilers; nun here!). It passes the time, and has some shocks and gruesome scenes for those who like that sort of thing.

Make no mistake, this has B-movie or STRAIGHT TO VIDEO/DVD written all over it.

If you want to watch the classic of the same genre then watch THE OMEN (1976) which is a superb film with no flab on its 90 minutes, or I suppose the earlier THE EXORCIST.

Want priests and nuns? The found footage Irish horror film DEVIL'S DOORWAY (2018 ) is great.

2 stars; the first half maybe 3.

This is one of those publicly-funded arty films made from a novel which has been praised to the skies and won literary prizes, partly at least for ticking a lot of boxes, as most hit novels in that literary scene.

The story is entirely female-focused, which is almost a cliche now, so many movies like that since #metoo. ALL male characters are 2-D cartoons, baddies, drunks, abusers - almost a feminist fantasy there. Seen that a lot lately too. BUT the female characters are also flimsy 2-dimenional not well-rounded at all - they seem so unrealistic and I do not believe their character arcs or the entire story arc.

The author of the novel, Ottessa Moshfegh, bafflingly claimed to be a major author by the literati, with a bestseller hit (no doubt with a certain kind of female reader), had a reputation for gruesome scenes from her first novella and that continues here. Not a book of film for me.

The most interesting character is the boy in prison and we never hear a word from him! Honestly, watch a decent prison drama instead if you want a good story. This is just a long drawn-out manblaming feminist pity party. And it is boring. With a totally unbelievable ending (no spoilers).

Predictable plot points and the usual backstory of characters which could be from any soap or melodrama. It is basically a soap pretending to be a literary novel film.

1 star for the film; 1 star for the excellent soundtrack which has some wonderful rarely-heard blues songs from the 60s.

So-so soapy teen melodrama film with an uneven tone - comic coming-to-terms coming-of-age drama, with the usual teenage themes. But it is flimsy stuff.

Some darkness here but the ending (no spoilers) I felt did not fit with the character, I felt, or his story. It seems calculated. The gay themes in such a Catholic country also lacked credibility, especially the sportsman theme. Again, it feels calculated BUT then a writer needs a plot and obstacles and jeopardy in his story.

And remember this focused on Argentina's upper class really, not those in the slums, and not black Argentinians at all (for them, watch football).

Based on a book as the cover of the DVD says - no doubt a hit in Argentina. True story? Hmmm. There were a lot of books like this a few years back - I read two, 1 from an Italian writer and 1 French. Each looked back on teenage years. Each was written by a privileged son of someone who worked in publishing in their countries.

Maybe this will resonate more with a teen audience, 15+?

3 stars

This is a brilliant political satire, 1949 and won Oscars in 1950 and no wonder.

The writing is sharp as is the characterisation.

I am sure this influenced the later Warren Beatty satire BULWORTH.

Broderick Crawford won the best actor Oscar for his barnstorming portrayal of an honest well-meaning working class man corrupted by power and money - as so often happens. Revolutions happen for good reasons then are corrupted French, Russian, Iranian and in Britain under Cromwell in 1650s too.

Amazingly, based on a true story, of Huey Long in 1930s.

4 stars - a must-watch political film, though some parts are romanticised a tad too much.

I thought this film was 1950s so surprised find it is from 1946. It has dated well really. It's a romantic melodrama with a thriller plots too, so ticks a lot of boxes.

It's really a vehicle for Rita Hayworth who does not sing her or ever, she was dubbed. The song PUT THE BLAME ON MAME was written for this film. Hayworth is forgotten now, but it is easy to see why she was a pin-up for many GIs!

Filmed in Hollywood no doubt, standing in for Argentina. Snappy dialogue of the time, 'wise guy' lines and some funny characters too. Well-written by some of the best screenwriters of the time. Some great dialogue, romantic, love-hate lines, very sultry sex symbol Rita Hayworth lines in this!

The casino owner is placed by George Macready, American actor doing an accent; his facial scar acquired in a car crash meant he played a lot of these sorts of roles in his career.

Surprisingly, despite this being made just after WWII and set in Argentina, with German characters, there is no mention of the war or Nazis, no ratline fleeing SS plot at all, not even any mention that the very hard metal tungsten (wolfram; W on periodic table) is used a lot in missiles, at the pointy end! Tungsten is unique amongst the elements in that it has been the subject of patent proceedings. In 1928, a US court rejected General Electric's attempt to patent it, overturning their U.S. patent.

This stands up well for a movie that is almost 80 years old! Worth a watch.

I am baffled as to why this movie is getting such praise and plaudits; I suspect the reasons are mostly political.

SO there is a Trump-like figure in the Whitehouse; meanwhile. Highly unlikely that Texas and California would secede from the USA and join together though; more likely that the 'flyover' states and the south would, as east/west coast 'liberals' socalled hijack the whitehouse for evermore with minorities of colour support. Actors are fine - I shall watch Wagner Maura in anything after his definitive role as Pablo Escobar in classic TV drama NARCOS.

If you want to watch a great film about the morality of photojournalism in a war then watch THE KILLING FIELDS.

This meandering mess of a movie is a road trip on a quest to get to Washington, and that is it. No real story here, all so woolly and flabby in screenplay terms. Pure SciFi fantasy really, though not quite as bad as Garland's last movie 'MEN' which also had that #metoo agenda. OF COURSE the main character and heroes are female here, or men of colour. Fact is, however, the vast majority of war photographers are male. The odd exception prove the rule, and the few famous ones gets perhaps more attention than they deserve just for being female.

Alex Garland is white male privilege personified - privately educated in poshest London area of all Hampstead, with a famous political cartoonist father, and upper class grandparents, incl a Sir. And, like many privileged liberal white male 'silverbacks' (Jon Snow off Channel 4 News is another), he seems to promote an intense dislike, even hatred, against white males. There is NOT ONE in the main cast, those on the roadtrip, if you count the Maura character as Hispanic - there are 2 east Asians, Hong Kong gets a mention and China - and there is one scene here hammers that point home. All baddies in it and the whole movies are white American males. All of them; all heroes and goodies are female or non-white. It is real tick-box 2-dimensional stuff, a bitter diversity worship which some viewers no doubt adore. I call it out for the racism/sexism against white males it is - very common these days in publishing too, esp kids' books. Depressing BUT we still have the archive, thankfully.

I give it 2 not 1 star as it is watchable, with impressive shooting/war scenes (but if you want that, watch brilliant German TV series GENERATION WAR about a REAL war). BUT make no mistake, this is pure wish fulfilment fantasy film-making for socalled progressives in the USA - no doubt they'll show it at the Democrat convention. Make no mistake - this is political propaganda, a scare story, and anti-Trump, and probably quite deliberately released this US election year.

Nice to see (Viet Nam gay American man) Andy Ngo get a credit at the end - the footage f ANTIFA (socalled) demonstrations and violence intercut with the fiction are taken by him - in real life, he was violently attacked by the fascists who claim they are anti fascist.

And the music is well-chosen. So 2 stars, JUST.

This is an odd little film. German and set in the police force. Hard for many to sympathise with ANY police, so that is one barrier to the audience experience for some.

Many films like this from all over the world, about men in the closet - and often in a macho manly context too. Better films are MOFFIE a 2019 South African film set in the army in 1981, and the Israeli film MOSHIE AND JAGGER from 2002. I am sure there are more,. The classic VICTIM (1961) with Dirk Bogarde.

This film is oddly coy sometimes; and maybe a bit outdated even for 2013 - as police in the UK and western Europe no doubt bend over backwards to promote diversity and equality, sometimes too much if recent dancing round rainbows is anything to go by (when criminals like shoplifters and muggers get ignored). Oh well, and one does have to say, these fields do have a significant % of gay women, police, army, sport etc. Just the way it is BUT no laws against lesbianism ever and not the pressure men are under, arguably, or the threat of violent attacks for being a gay man.

Anyway, despite its flaws, it shows the typical traditional very German modern suburbs, which is accurate.

A minor film, and worth a watch. 3 stars

This is a watchable drama with strengths and weaknesses.

First, the history. Aden is a port city in Yemen which the British had visited since 1609. The Ottoman empire ruled Yemen then and the tribes who lived in and ran the port city did not want to be ruled by them or the imams/Sultans who replaced them. The British signed a treaty in 1802 and the Aden Peninsula was ceded to Britain in 1838. In 1839, Royal Marines landed at Aden to secure the territory and stop attacks by pirates against British shipping to India. The position of Aden mattered and matters, as with the recent Yemeni attacks on ships by the Houthi - the Red Sea is a shipping route to the Suez Canal. Aden was part of British India until 1937, then became a Crown Colony for 30 years. The British created the State of Aden post WWII to prepare it for independence. Remember, the British gave away their empire, did not fight for it like the French for example in Algeria or Viet Nam. In 1964, Britain announced its intention to grant independence to the FSA in 1968, but that the British military would remain in Aden.

Despite this, there were brutal terrorist attacks by the NLF who were communists - in the Cold War - allied with USSR, which is never mentioned in this drama which rather sympathises too much with them. They socalled Aden emergency when these terrorists massacred scores of British soldiers in ambushes meant the UK evacuated women and children, all military families. No need for it, as the Brits had planned to leave in 1968 and grant independence - just revenge, racist maybe, anti-White maybe anti-Christian. Yemen also used to have a population of Jews - not any more. Like most countries in the region, the Jews were attacked and expelled from their ancient homelands.

To judge an empire, just look what came before and after it. Well, look at Aden and Yemen now... Civil war, Islamists trying to make it an Islamic state, tens of thousands dead, chaos...

Honestly, only the BBC and British TV could make a TV drama which blames the British for everything. Sadly, this is the perpetual pose of those desperate to be seen as liberal and progressive, and it is woefully misguided.

But as a drama it works, but is overlong, with way too much time dedicated to some rather irritating wives on the base and issues with babies and romances. Expected from TV drama these days of course. But rather eye-rollingly irritating and dare I say it, boring.

Tom Glynn-Carney is excellent as Armstrong though the relationship shown is beyond unlikely, as is the female photojournalist WHO NEVER EXISTED. TV dramas and films always do that these days, make up female characters and parachute them into real stories. I find that morally wrong really, with true stories, as they did with the Kim Philby ITV drama recently. With fiction, well, inventing a female character for the new Name of the Rose made it woke and metoo pc BUT the initial film without her is way superior.

Filmed in South Africa, and the short BONUS films are interesting. It all looks authentically sandy and hot, with the usual desert moonscapes (well Yemen is next door to Saudi Arabia). Enjoyable to a point.

3.5 stars rounded up. I dare say a version made now would be even more pc and woke, so...

This is way too long, at over 2 hours, which was a shame really. I am no petrolhead and have no interest in car racing BUT good to see films like this and RUSH too, which appeal to men and boys as so many Hollywood films now have woke/metoo quotas and are made for a female audience, it seems.

The slush and cheese is added here a bit, though no female characters invented to make the story fit the tickbox gender agenda as in some other movies of real life events. That is a relief. So many films now ruined in that way (invented female characters in TV drama, new version of Name of the Rose, some dramas made into female-focused romances like Operation Mincemeat).

Look up KEN MILES - a real man born 1918, see the end of the film which shows what really happened too, his son (born 1950) watching (Noah Jupe age 12/13 here so younger than Peter in real life - the son followed the father into motor racing mechanics).

With a very pronounced Brummie accent & sardonic sense of humour, Ken Miles was affectionately known by his US racing crew as "Teddy Teabag" (for his tea drinking) or "Sidebite" (as he talked out of the side of his mouth). I think Christian Bale captures him well.

Sporting films always have to decide what they are, so usually are a romance, or a comedy, or little man succeeding against the system which this is, as well as a fish out of water tale. Sport is so immediate and dated by a year later, the sporting drama is instant. So films which feature sport need to be NOT about sport, ironically.

The racing scenes are very well done technically, and of course the conflict is needed for the drama, hence the alternative US title FORD V FERRARI. Though there is no mention of Henry Ford I being a friend of Hitler and deciding to build his ford factories in Germany in 1935 (they were bombed by the allies and form got compo for that, millions, late 1960s).

One for the boys. 3 stars.

I loved this. Yes, it is a long film at 2 hours 40 minutes BUT an hour before the end there is an INTERMISSION, or ' un pissoir break' for 2 minutes which is a first!

I HATE the dubbing though, really. No option to have the original French and German with subtitles though which is a real shame.

There is actual footage of the liberation mixed in with the fiction, and at the end of the black and white film we are treated to a full colour aerial tour of Paris which was almost blown up - they were Hitler;s orders, but the general in charge of Paris disobeyed them (he'd have a statue and a rue named after him were it not for the bad stuff he did in WWII too, in Ukraine and in Paris, sending resistance fighters to concentration camps Buchenwald which most did not survive).

I found it all fascinating. The 2014 film DIPLOMACY uses the same lines and often identical dramatic shots to this film, and is based on a play and this film, which is based on a book - a true account of what happened. hence the identical word-for-word lines.

Kirk Douglas as General Patton; Orson Welles as a Swedish diplomat (in real life he met the German general again in the mid 50s), the Bond Goldfinger actor Gert Frobe as the German general in charge; Psycho star Anthony Perkins, Bruno Cremer (Maigret in the 2001 drama series), Alain Delon, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Belmondo, loads of talent here.

Such a film is due a remake really, though I dread to think what a woke agenda would do to it, colourblind casting etc, the usual demand for 50% female roles.

4 stars.

This a superb film. I have read the novel and the film necessarily leaves a lot out. Graham Greene we a Catholic convert hence the fixation on faith, hell, heaven, redemption, whether people change, forgiveness etc. WENT THE DAY WELL (1942/3) is also based on a short story by the author and also one of the best films ever made.

The deeply sinister Pinkie Brown, meant to be 17 though Richard Attenborough does look older to be fair, is superbly played - still, sinister, psychopathic and disturbed by a childhood in which he has 'seen love' (ie witness his parents having sex, no doubt all living in 1 room in poverty in a slum). He has a horror of sex and closeness.

The plot merits 2 or 3 viewings - it is neat and makes sense, lots of little clues as one goes along.

The women acting are great - and Rose can only play the innocent which Pinkie corrupts, and is just eye candy. The older character Ida steals the show as the old trooper who will not let go. The drunken old soak lawyer is wonderful too.

William Hartnell future Dr Who has a main role here.

Great locations, The Palace Pier now called Brighton pier, and the other one,the West Pier, sadly derelict and torched in 2002 (deliberate? Who knows).

Brighton has the look of a town helping police with their enquiries, so they say. Some bits still are, and I lived there 2 years so know it. Close London connection. But these days on-trend and full of commuters who work in the capital.

5 stars. Of its time, but of course it is, as are we all, and this was made 1947/8 when marriage mattered as did virginity for girls.

One of the MUST-SEE films of all time, in the top 50 of films ever made.

So this is a short film and very wordy - it is stagey, as befits a theatre play. Most action happens in one room!

A minor film but interesting, esp for those who want to know about WWII.

The German general here replaced another who was executed for being involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler.

How true it all is, I do not know; and at least the film acknowledges that this general was implicated in war crimes, massacres of Jews and more in Ukraine AND he had French Resistance prisoners transferred to concentration camps in 1944 from which very few returned. Some may say he dodged a noose but so did Speer and SO many more - 97% in fact of SS war criminals walked free. The Paris head of the gestapo only arrested in Germany in 1980, jailed for 5 years.

Wait till the end for details of the history on screen.

I am not at all sure of the truth of all of this. And do remember that the Swedish diplomat is there because Sweden was neutral in WWII and WWI and got rich from both, selling iron ore to the Germans. One reason Sweden was rich post WWII. They let 2 million German soldiers march through Sweden to invade Norway too.

BUT it is true Paris was saved, and this General COULD have obeys Hitler;s orders to destroy it, detonate bombs in all the famous buildings. Others disobeyed orders too - Speer did not destroy infrastructure in Germany as Hitler ordered, and Florence in Italy, esp the Ponte Vecchio, old bridge with shops on, was saved because again a German general ignored Hitler's orders. Of course, Germany SHOULD have surrendered in 1943 when it was obvious they'd lose the war, but such as the fixation and obsession with Hitler who mesmerised the nation, they kept on fighting with disastrous results.

A solid if unspectacular little film about how Paris was saved from destruction and the end of Nazi rule there in 1944. So 3 stars.

Hmmm well, this went on and on and on, over 8 parts, 43 minutes each. Probably could have told the same tale in 4 parts.

It dragged badly, and the ghosty, eerie stuff failed to convince. As in the first Black Lake (not sure how the lead in that can be the lead here unless it is a prequel?)

So many plot holes here. WHY didn't they do XYZ? I asked myself as I watched.

Just a long WHO DUNNIT really with added spooky haunted house themes.

By the end I was weary of it, eyerolling away. No fault of actors, they did well. The writing is flabby - an editor needed badly.

I hope there are no more Black Lakes.

3 stars. Just

This German film was an excellent watch.

Suspend your disbelief (pretend DNA and CCT does not exist in 2004) esp with plot holes, unlikely events, and random coincidences and roll with it.

The leftwing revolution theme and throwback to 1968 and 1970s activism is VERY German, as is the alpine snowy scenery. In Britain we lack snowy mountain ranges and back in the 1970s we were all Wombles and Wurzels rather than Baader Meinhof and Karl Marx...

Very well acted by all the leads, Daniel Bruhl has done loads since, DAS BOOT series and more.

Decent music too. My only criticism is it is a tad too long, sags in the middle and too many romance scenes which are flab - could be reduced by 20 minutes probably if the unnecessary love-gushing is dispensed with.

The ending twist (no spoilers) is fun, however unlikely.

4 stars overall

What to say about this film? Well it's a mess and the French actor who directed it never directed again, though the writer Buck Henry wrote TO DIE FOR, though this is from a novel, which is no doubt also of its time.

I've never seen this on TV listing - it may be seen too outdated re sex comedy, complete with former MISS TEEN SWEDEN Ewa Aulin who retired a couple of years later. I suppose it is like THERE'S A GIRL IN MY SOUP and THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS and NO SEX PLEASE WE'RE BRITISH and a bit of THE PRODUCERS. The American madcap humour is a bit like that in the movie and TV series MASH and films like AIRPLANE!.

This really does not work, however. BUT where else will you see Ringo Starr playing a Mexican gardener complete with very dodgy accent and Marlon Brando playing an Indian guru - all would be banned not for WAYCISM of course... Maybe why it has never been shown.

A curio. 2 stars