Film Reviews by PV

OK so this film is about football and coming of age - as is the wonderful Britflick SIXTYSIX which is funnier and better.

However, this is worth a watch and I enjoyed it - a brilliant visual gag at around 30 mins in is worth watching the whole film for.

At the end we see the REAL people who the characters are based on, and what happened to them.

All a bit silly, but captured the 1970s well - early 70s from 1970-74 or so, when Leeds United were the top club in the UK.

This movie captures the tedium of growing up in the northern Kent suburbs well too.

Not so sure about Alan Davies and his voice over - but 3 stars.

I would recommend the movie FRANK - a truly weird drama set in the music business and supposedly based on Jon Ronson's time in Frank Sidebottom's (Chris Sievey's) band.

I must admit, I find Frank Sidebottom about as funny as piles, and when I first saw him on The Tube, I think, in the late 80s, I thought he was totally unfunny too.

I notice all commentators here are northern and often from Manchester, so maybe if you're from there, you'll get it - I don't. Same as with Coronation St and so many other things northerners seem to find funny (eg Vic and Bob).

I find 'professional northerners' such as Mark Radcliffe (who speaks here) and Andrew Collins totally tedious. But I agree with Johnny Vegas that it's great when artists have a go, don't aim for X factor stardom, but JUST DO IT and make music, art etc. Though that may come at a cost, personal as well as financial.

Funded by BFI and other state funders - and much like the film doc on perpetual failure John Otway, it's all about the sad life of an attention-seeker.

Fact is, the man who played Frank Sidebottom - Chris Sievey - was not funny and not a particularly good songwriter., yet he kept going. For that he ended up a bankrupt alcoholic dead in his 50s from cancer with a broken family behind him. This is a film about obsession, really.

Sad to see at the end that 2 contributors died since filming - incl Sievey's youngest son Harrison who died aged 24 on his bike in a road accident in 2017.

OK so this film can be hard work and a bit slow at first BUT it's the first Arab/Palestinian film to show real life like this, and got the director/writer condemned massively and even got her a fatwa from imams! That means it's worth watching.

If this were made in Britain, the assault scene would be used as a stick to beat all men with and the woman who suffered it would be destroyed; here in this society, she moves on. Says it all really.

Islam and preachers come out of this badly, and both women and gay people are shown living their lives in a place where characters say to each other 'Where do you think this is - Europe?'

However, this is not male attitude to women but MUSLIM attitudes - which include often very conservative and devout Muslim women who are the ones who organise forced marriage, oppression of wives and FGM.

Worth remembering that 10% of Israel's population is Arab and they enjoy the SAME rights as anyone else in law - and work in professions there too. It must be liberating for them, as is shown here.

Not great but interesting to watch at least.

First of all I would say I am no fan of Lady Gaga - she's derivative in the extreme, all style and no substance. Just gimmick. Yes, she can sing, but so can loads of other girls. No idea why gay men want to worship her.

Secondly, I know of this story filmed first in the 1930s, then the 1950s with James Mason then 1970s with Barbra Streisand and Chris Christofferson and I don't think I have seen any of them though suspect I'd probably prefer the 1970s version.

I just found this all so predictable and boring. Maybe more of a women's movie? It's basically a fairy tale.

I did like the main song and it deservedly won an Oscar.

2 stars - 1 star for the song!

One thing I shall say for the Sharknado films: they're mercifully short at 80 minutes usually.

The other thing I'd say is they are entertainingly silly movies - so bad they're good.

Lots of laughs, esp references to other films like ET and the Wizard of Oz and more.

The end promises a 6th outing for the sharks - which will seemingly be like Back to the Future with time travel, Yikes!

This Sharknado manages to travel the world (on film sets at least), starting in a very fake Stonehenge where its absurd plot starts, then London which is fun to watch as well - though the actor playing the Prime Minister has perhaps the worst British accent ever, and as for the Queen...

Then we go to Switzerland, Paris, Germany, Australia, Kansas, LA, Japan...

Total nonsense - but then so are so many Hollywood films which have no self-awareness.

Sharknado knows it's absurd - so bad that it's good - and that makes it fun.

It's often hard to think that the oppressive communism of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European empire lasted until 1989, though Gorbachev's Glasnost and Perestroika meant things liberalised after 1985 - I think Nureyev visited his homeland again in 1987/8, and then sadly died of AIDS not long after.

The monitoring and spying of the KGB was truly scary, and yet the suspicion of foreigners was always there in Russia and still is now. I visited Communist Russia in 1979 and saw it all first hand. Many problems later in Russia and still are, in what is really a dictatorship ruled by oligarch thieves BUT it could never be as bad as the Cold War days.

Some interesting back story here and well-played characters, though oddly, even though this may be more accurate, the version of the airport defection scene shown here is less effective than the one I saw in a TV drama documentary earlier this year.

But it's all enjoyable - and worth seeing how people like this dancer can shout #metoo too after abuse from powerful older women.

I am not a huge fan of dancing but the scenes here are truly spectacular.

Not perfect but 4 stars. I enjoyed it. Probably not for kids with the attention spans of puppies though!

I have no idea why people are praising this animation to the skies. YES the animation is top notch BUT the story and execution are not, and are often confusing - added to which, the frankly tedious 'floating' martial arts battle scenes which I find totally tiresome.

It's basic good versus evil fare BUT if you want to watch a really superior version of that then watch Sleeping Beauty, not this.

It's all set in Japan so tick the diversity boxes though with its giant set pieces is obviously meant to appeal to the Chinese market too, as that is what they love (and what has totally ruined James Bond movies!)

It's so-so but I found it ultimately boring and overlong - and I cannot see many kids having the patience with a lot of it, or understanding the confusing spirit-world plot.

2 stars for the animation

This is a fascinating and unusual film. Based on the diaries of the 2 German explorers featured - which describe some tribes now vanished forever. There's plenty of rainforest here, rubber barons, warring tribes and also tribal traditions, a 'Heart of Darkness' moment of 'Apocalypse Now' proportions.

This can be paired with APOCALYTO maybe. Also the true story THE LOST CITY OF Z.

One issue with these sorts of films is they often idealise native cultures as being Utopian and ideal in harmony with nature and peaceful, when they were anything but - as scenes in this movie make clear.

This maybe too slow for some but I enjoyed it and the black and white photography.

I enjoyed this, though it was really like a TV soap or drama. Canadian film.

The talking hamster technique works, oddly, and I thought that was fun.

It's fairly forgettable but also rather pleasant and fun, though tries to hide to push the trauma element - it's stronger when just having fun.

3 stars

This is an odd film - it starts as though it'll be a thriller, a search for a killer, then morphs into a study of mental illness and fantasy really. I get tired of these post-modern tricksy scripts. Ditto with SHUTTER ISLAND etc and JACOB'S LADDER. Post-modern muppetry bores me and is not nearly as clever or original as it thinks it is (read TRSITRAM SHANDY or SWIFT).

The older man playing the shrink steals the show. Can't remember his name.

Alice Lowe (who wrote, directed and stars in the weirdly funny PREVENGE) has cornered the market in playing nutty psycho women, but here plays relatively normal.

It's interesting, to a point, but does get very slow and lacking in action - there's only so much of watching a man sit on a bed with his head in his hands that one can take.

Maybe 2 stars therefore. It's just not cinematic enough and after grabbing the attention in the opening scene, fails to maintain its grip.

I always thought the original film, TRAINSPOTTING, massively over-rated, often by Scots who felt a patriotic duty to overpraise it. I always disliked the glamour shown connected with hard drug addiction too - which is certainly not funny if you've ever seen addicts, alive or dead, as I have. It all stops being funny then.

This movie I enjoyed far more and Danny Boyle can, as ever, turn a slim idea into a cinematic experience via some clever pop-video type techniques (using real CCTV shoplifting footage, for example) and a kicking soundtrack used well (most film directors are very weak at using music and just tag it on, thinking film is a visual medium and forgetting it is half a SOUND medium, not merely visual, and always was, even in the socalled 'silent' era).

Anyway, I dislike McGregror but he's well cast here as are other actors. The flashbacks will be nostalgic for some, but not me.

Funnily enough the 'Welsh trainspotting' TWIN TOWN also has a sequel soon, to be called 'TIN TOWN', I think.

Most sequels are rubbish; this isn't. I enjoyed it and the soundtrack is unusual and brilliant - I am always glad to be introduced to new music, even if not precisely to my taste.

4 stars

Slugs and snails puppy dog tails - what boys are made of, according to the sexist nursery rhyme (which feminists fail to complain about lol).

Here, however, girls are made of boys, or rather become them after they find some magic beans (yes this needs massive suspension of disbelief) and grow a magic boy-making sex-change plant overnight.

The first act is the strongest here - it's all based on a book so I presume the rest of the film is loyal to it, but it sags badly at times later on.

The casting is perfect - the boy versions of the girls really do look like them.

I suspect teens would love this film, though the ending fizzles out and the transgender propaganda will not be to all tastes.

But I enjoyed it. 3 stars.

When I read the blurb about this movie, my heart sank - it seemed like a usual Brit flick state-subsidised bore-fest or maybe a manhating mob free-for-all.

But no, it's genuinely funny, esp if you like dark humour as I do.

Sure, it feels more like a TV sitcom at times, along the lines of NIGHTY NIGHT by Julia Davies.

And the baby voice takes some getting used to - though is it all in the mad murderess's head?

It loses some momentum as it goes on, but the early scenes are highly entertaining. It did fizzle out, rather, at the end - but I enjoyed most of it anyway, which is more than I can say for most British films funded by the BFI and lottery.

One criticism: it was a tad confusing at times, esp re 2 bearded men who look similar, and still not quite sure re that BUT plenty of Hollywood movies are confusing too.

4 stars.

Why must they make such long movies? This was fine at 2 hours - the last 20 minutes and the silly plot developments there really annoyed me as they were just not necessary and make a ludicrous thriller way too worthy.

This is based on a feminist fantasy novel, so maybe the fault lies with the author - but cuts are good! Kill your darlings and make a neat efficient thriller, not one that overstays its welcome!

This starts off really well - the first act is great as is the first half of act 2, and then, right on the button half way through the movie there is an 180 degree turn (which tells, doesn't show) the true nature of the characters (no spoilers here!).

Yes, it's all absurd and silly - but so are most movies and novels too, when you think about it. Just enjoy the ride - it's the best bunny boiler movie for years.

Some genuinely funny scenes, though the plot is so full of holes it could be a Swiss cheese.

Good to compare with another study of female as disease evil, in the recent Brit flick LADY MACBETH (based on a Russian novella).

Just a shame about that unnecessary final 20 minutes - the movie would have been far better if the edit had dispensed of the loose-ends tie-up then. Better perhaps even to change the ending totally from that in the novel, as is usual in movies from GREAT EXPECTATIONS to many MANY more. There were opportunities to end at the 100 minute mark - and the plot does 'jump the shark, rather in the final act.

SO 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I've been watching a lot of British films lately - many from 2016 or thereabouts and all utterly uncinematic (they'd be better as TV dramas or even radio plays) and all totally state-funded by BBC films (which our licence fees pay for), the Film council (ditto) and the lottery (funded by poor people's wishful thinking).

As Alan Parker rightly said when commenting on RATCATCHER, this is the kind of film that can only be made with state subsidy coz no-one wants to watch such stuff, except luvvies in film schools. Utterly uncommercial, utterly uncinematic.

Plot is SO predictable - you just KNOW what the old drunk farmer and guns will come together. Lots of cows and an opening scene with near-nakedness (ooooooo Missus!) and a daft splatter shot too to show the director is arty, probably. Yawn.

I didn't believe the main character - a seeming cipher for all female hurt, and two-dimensional in that feminist role.

Some deeply pretentious shots of animals in water add padding to fill out a flimsy story to just over 80 minutes; but really it should be a 40 minute TV drama on PBS or a radio drama. There is NOTHING whatsoever cinematic about this dross, so why waste scarce movie-fund money on it? Time for a cull at BBC Films, the BFI and lottery funding committee methinks.

It's all like The Archers but much MUCH more boring - but hey it's diverse with lots of women making films so it must be good. No, luvvies - talent does not work like that. I cannot help wondering how man really talents white men with decent movie ideas have been kept down to overpromote mediocrities like the ones who made this borefest. No stars.

Watch APOCALYTO to see how movies set in the natural world can be done. You need a plot and tension, and more than a weepy victim feminist character whingeing at how unfair life is, and a 2 dimensional bad father to ram home the point about how useless men are.

If this is the future of British cinema, I suggest putting it out of its misery asap.