Film Reviews by PV

This is a fascinating true story, and to ram home that point, occasionally the real-life characters (the 4 young men who did the heist and their parents, and the librarian) give interviews to camera.

I'd never heard of this story so found it interesting, especially the psychology involved.

But those who like shoot-up-up movies won't like this - it's all about the theft of rare books from a library. No shots fired.

I don't always like Stephen King adaptations, but loved this. The interplay between the characters was utterly believable and full of twists and turns, not all 100% believable, but then this is fiction!

Of course, there have been many cases of former Nazis being extradited from the USA or Latin America to face trial, so King had a mountain of real information to base this on.

Ian McKellen is superb as the main character, with a spot-on accent. I suspect that comes from his decades working in theatre.

OK, the ending my stretch coincidence too far (no spoilers!) but then this is fiction!

4.5 stars rounded up.

I cannot believe one review here claims THE MEG is superior to Jaws because the latter takes too long to get to the action whereas this hokum monster movie gets to it quicker. If that is how you judge the quality of a movie, I'd suggest your opinion's not worth taking on board really.

JAWS was and is a classic movie - unlike the dross Spielberg makes now. This is like a Poundland Jaws - a forgettable, silly, CGI-created mash-up of ideas nicked from Jaws and many other movies too. ALL pandering and kowtowing to the great Chinese empire with Chinese characters and settings - all with an eye on many more dollar, quick quick!

ALL very ironic as demand from China for shark fins to put in soup (the fins have no flavour so it is flavoured with chicken stock - all a status symbol of that backwards superstitious dictatorship society) have resulted in 90% of large sharks in OUR oceans being killed in the last 20 years. Similar levels of devastation of large mammals thanks to Chinese demand for fake medicine cures and trinkets - in Africa, 50 years ago, there were 500,000 lions; now there are estimated to be 40,000 or even 20,000. Ditto for elephants. Rhino and tigers almost extinct in the wild. Thanks, China.

And as per usual, we have a pc diverse tick-boxy cast with ethnic characters aplenty and, predictably, women in charge of piloting a submarine (HOW many female sub captains are there in the world? Even one? I doubt it), and the person who designed the entire IT system of the marine base is a tattooed metoo smug arrogant 'girl power' woman too. Yawn. So unrealistic and silly, MOST IT systems designed are fat balding men, usually white but some Asian, and very few women!

BUT there were some funny bits and some tense action - with the gore as predictable as the plot.

Both JAWS and THE MEG were based on popular novels, apparently. JAWS is a classic movie; this is B-movie popcorn trash and as long as you don't expect more, it's fun enough for a Friday night watch.

I actually own a fossilised megadon shark tooth and it is pretty big though they get MUCH bigger than the one I own. Massive monsters.

Makes me giggle too that THE MEG is apparently the nickname palace staff give to bossy pushy Meghan Markle lol.

3 stars for the fun and action.

Well like the previous film by this director which won the Oscar, I believe, my reaction to this film is 'MEH'.

It's moderately interesting - about the awful time when the Soviets and Communism were in charge of Poland and Eastern Europe, and oppressed and bullied people just as badly as the Nazis.

Funded by lottery grants, Film4 and other state funding - it's all watchable though hardly exciting.

Basically a thwarted love story - and I hated the ending (no spoilers).

Well-filmed and that's why it gets 3 stars.

I really enjoyed this film - way more than most modern Christmas movies.

It's basically a forerunner of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and based on a novel - so an angel comes to earth, this time in the form of Brit Archie Leach AKA Cary Grant, who proceeds to transforms people's lives. Real star quality. David Niven plays the depressed bishop. Some wonderful old trouts on display too!

Some fun special effects on display - from 1947 - esp the sherry bottle gag.

OK so it's a bit dated BUT no worse for that - it's a relief to escape from pc diversity worship and aggressive mouthy women, to see feminine women who like hats and traditional men who aren't all branded perverts by the #MeToo mob.

Some fan skating scenes with doubles, and Cary Grant pretending to pay a harp - in a nice little twist. Very nicely done.

I didn't like the preachy bit re the old atheists professor at the end BUT I am prepared to forgive it that (imho Christmas is an inclusive festival not just a Christian one and can be whatever you want it to be - which makes it all the more wonderful).

4 stars.

I liked some parts of this film.

If you can get past the nonsense - such as Stone Age people wearing clothes that look fit for a catwalk, all fur parkas and even a skimpy swimming costume (what's he hiding his modesty from - a dog? lol); and their perfect teeth (not a one missing) and clear moisturised skin.

This is basically mostly an animation with CGI effects so all-consuming this is more CGI than live action.

An utterly unbelievable plot, to be honest - the cavemen seem to find perfectly round stones in abundance wherever they go, in a barren landscape.

There are better Stone Age films - even oldies like the Carry On film or The Land/People that Time Forgot. A short novel called THE GIFT OF STONES by Jim Crace is a great read too - way better than this.

No spoilers but the ending if so pc tick-boxy sentimental - even for Disney. And bizarrely, I note on the credits that dog playing ALPHA is called CHUCK - hardly a girl dog name. But maybe he's transgender eh?

A dreadful icky silly Morgan Freeman voiceover for the prologue and epilogue is, for me, unnecessary - and is packed with purple prose and clichés - all puppies and flowers and rainbows, the usual cod-religious cant about being friends and believing in yourself etc. Really vomit-inducing, as is the use of the pc word 'humankind' - fyi 'man' refers to people NOT just non-women! So MANKIND is fine.

When Hitler was ever asked about his persecution of the Jews and sending many millions to death camps, he responded "Who now remembers the Armenians?" And he's right. This vile genocide by Muslim Turks of Armenian Christians, in the name of nationalism and religion, is an ugly stain on the reputation of Turkey, especially as it does not even acknowledge it took place.

I found the film really interesting, if a bit plodding - and of course there's the love interest etc which takes up too much time.

I look forward to more movies being made which tell the stories of those who perished in the anti-Christian massacres by Muslim Turks in 1915 - though seeing as the USA is cosying up to Turkey as a bridge between east and west, don't expect any criticism by presidents or politicians.

This is FAR too important to ignore - unlike all the silly #metoo moaning movies, this film shows REAL abuse that people are right to call out and remember.

Well always a pleasure to see great old actors still working - especially male ones in this #metoo manhating age. Though sadly, that has infected even this movie, with 2 or the 3 old men having daughters with one grand daughter (one should have been a son at least!).

Some laugh-out-loud lines in this though, occasionally.

Kirk Douglas and Burt Reynolds (I think) did a similar old men fight back film in the 80s/90s. There have been a few.

Some massive plot holes. The FBI here seem not to know how to access mobile phone records, and DNA testing (first done in England in 1986) doesn't seem to have reached Brooklyn yet! The idea 3 old men could rob a bank like that is absurd anyway - there is SUCH security now that shutters would fall at the first sign of a robbery, plus ink spray on notes which all have individual serial numbers as new notes (so couldn't be even given away).

All very silly and unrealistic - a total wish fulfillment fantasy, getting back at the banks for the financial crisis.

SO maybe watch this together with the great drama about the 2008 crash MARGIN CALL, or other similar movies showing the more serious side of repossession and mortgages given by banks up till 2008.

This is all good fun, a contrived comedy with no serious injury of bad things - a fluffy cuddly Friday night popcorn movie.

So 3 stars.

I enjoyed this DESPITE some things such as the AWFUL music - dreadful new R&B versions of carols (YUCK!) and slushy Christian songs.

All a bit preachy too, and as is usual in modern animations, there just has to be the African American characters, ALWAYS witty, sassy etc which is now a stereotype in itself.

BUT the animation is good as is the story structure. SO I did enjoy it despite its faults. But those faults made me cringe and wince.

3 stars - but only JUST!

This film is useful for statistics - which I made a note of to use in future writing.

However, it really is just a smug self-indulgent rant by Remain voters who, like a spoilt little madam toddler stamping her foot and flapping her party dress when mummy says NO, just cannot accept democracy and the will of the people.

The usual fake arguments, spurious analogies, project fear predictions from the usual suspects almost all of whom are rich, privileged, metropolitan elite types who have made millions, thank you, from uncontrolled mass immigration via soaring house prices, which have hurt SO many natives of Britain, but hey, they get cheap foreign servants to clean their homes and care for their children while they prance around in their smug pretentious up-themselves lives lecturing others about what is good for them.

AND they cannot even spell: its "reverend" NOT "reverend" - how UTTERLY amateurish!

Basically this is just a vanity project preaching to the choir in an echo chamber. Really quite funny actually.

LOADS of lies here but the worst is the false claim that the EU (which we joined when it was ONLY the Common Market and NOT an EU empire wanting to rule us) is responsible for ensuring peace in Europe since 1945. WHAT ROT!

Prosperity and a BRITISH victory in 1940 is why Hitler isn't on the back of EU empire coins - and NO-ONE is loyal to the EU flag but nation states which the EU stupidly tried to destroy thus creating extremism and nationalism. Just watch the football to see what makes people's hearts flutter and beat - or if you must, Eurovision!

Also, there is NO SUCH THING as EU money - it is ALL ours., For every pound we put in we get 50p back in EU funding - not a great deal, eh?

Moreover, of 650 UK constituencies over 400 voted LEAVE and many regions of Scotland too - the large cities of SNP loyalists meant that overall that heavily subsidised nation (which lives off English taxes) voted remain overall.

It's very sad that so many reject democracy BUT when the EU and Euro crash and implode, they'll be glad we left.

My favourite bit of this film is the start - the scene with the Santa Clauses is great, all bendy lenses etc.

All goes downhill after that - and one also wonders if, in France, in 1995, it was acceptable for film makers to terrify tiny children for the purposes of cinema.

2 stars for the style and imagery - otherwise, no stars.

I have only just watched this film and am a bit baffled at how I managed not to see it over the last 15 years since it was made!

Anyway, I did really enjoy it - especially the first half. The second half gets predictably silly and schmaltzy and slushy like almost all Hollywood movies and comedies. However, the first half has some classic moments and lines, so 4 stars because of that.

It's basically a classic FISH OUT OF WATER comedy - like SPLASH or BIG or the rest - an old trope, but an effective one. Basically, the Elf character is stuck at toddler age in an adult's body with the added elf issues he has!

I love some of the lines such as: "You sit on a throne of lies!" - lots of visual comedy too, like a snowball fight and other scenes.

Love the way they sing BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE which the snowflake metoo mob want to ban for supposedly promoting date rape. What a bunch of McCarthyist witch hunters those extremist feminuts are!

I also liked this as I know the mad world of publishing and some of the real cases you get working in it, and that includes agents - they ALL know nothing: this is what I have learnt.

Would have been 5 stars if the 2nd half hadn't gone OTT (and I think the boy is miscast really) - but the 1sy half gets 5 stars, the 2nd half 4 stars, so 4 stars overall.

AND I liked the animated parts - esp when I saw in the credits that the legendary animator (SINBAD, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS) Ray Harryhausen did the voice for the seal pup! Wow! Just WOW!

Ultimately, this is a vehicle for Harry Dean Stanton - an actor who's passed me by really, probably like so many character actors whose names one never knows.

It's not awful, by any means, though it is terribly slow and talky, with lots of bar scenes etc.

As studies of old age go, it's a sight character study. I'd recommend the Scandinavian film OVE for a better study of that, or the animated ETHEL AND ERNEST which is so poignant.

No idea why David Lynch is in it though thankfully he is no relation to the director, apparently, who was incidentally the big hulking Norm character in Fargo!

Only watch with low expectations - a nice gentle affair in general, but ultimately forgettable!

I enjoyed this gore-fest but not as much as SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT from the mid-80s.

I think this 2006 Black Christmas is a remake of a 1970s original which I haven't seen so can't compare. Not sure if the 1970s film was so female-dominated or if that is a pc modern angle.

It's all the usual psycho stuff - with lots of 'grand guignol' gore to satisfy the kids - and a couple of real jumps too. I find this sort of thing funny actually - these movies must be fun to make.

Predictable plot and a rather damp squib fizzled out ending (no spoilers).

Worth a watch, certainly, if you're into horror at Christmas.

BUT what is wrong is how they get the song credits wrong at the end - traditional Christmas carols were NOT written by anyone we know usually. DECK THE HALL is based on a traditional Welsh carol. Modern musicians may arrange traditional songs BUT they do not write them.

Well The Inbetweeners was funny - the series more than the movie, though that had a chemistry and was funny.

This is not even a Poundland Inbetweeners. It's way worse than that.

I think I laughed once. And I though Joe Thomas (who.s actually over 30) was great in The Inbetweeners. Watch that, NOT this.

Gross-out 'jokes' re poo and bodily fluids are unfunny. Usually childish cartoony capers and laughs about drugs. Even cartoon cops in here.

You sort of know when a drama or movie is desperate when they deliberately try to tick the diversity boxes to pander to pc critics. But the fact is, and I have been to Glasters and Reading, it's a mostly white person thing. Very few black faces, so the sidekick is miscast utterly. Just like in Bohemian Rhapsody when they CGI-ed in 20% black faces in the crowd when in reality at Live Aid 1985 there were practically none.

Avoid unless you are very VERY desperate. BUT far better to watch sets from festivals on YouTube (the Stones and Shirley Bassey at Glasters, for example).