Film Reviews by PV

This is a good fun watch - lots of tricksy postmodernism here too. Lots of jokes about the Hollywood film industry and art imitating life.

Great performances by Gene Hackman and John Travolta who plays a 'Shylock' - a mobster calling in loans. Of course, in real life he'd have been shot dead within a week. But this is essentially fantasy - a romantic vision of the mob and Hollywood.

Some lovely in-jokes here.

4 stars

I felt I had to watch this and it's not a bad film BUT I would have much preferred it as a straight drama with no songs.

Why?

Well, for one thing, the songs are modern R&B and the setting is 1860s/70s USA - and that jars badly. Compare to the genius of the Sherman brothers who wrote in the style of the Edwardian musical hall for Mary Poppins because that story was set in Edwardian times.

I honestly did not expect to like this movie much. The concept sounded absurd - and it is!

However, this soon drew me in. With a brilliantly told story, strong characters, great acting and a wonderful soundtrack.

There are surprising moments and the ending satisfies.

For once the Oscar committee chose the right winner!

Brilliant stuff.

I did not expect to love this movie so much - having seen so many tired road movies - but I absolutely loved this.

Strong characters, great acting, a brilliant blues soundtrack - and unexpected scenes and plot points all make this a superb watch for thow who have some patience. 12 year olds can stick to superhero nonsense and explosions.

5 stars. 4 for the movie and an extra 1 for the lush blues soundtrack.

I enjoyed watching this - and remember watching the first film THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT in 1974 at the cinema.

All enjoyable hokum - ridiculous, yes, but it's not a documentary! If you want social realism, might I suggest you look elsewhere.

The dinosaurs are fine for their time (1970s) - a time before CGI which allowed Jurassic Park to be made just over 15 years later. But I enjoy puppets and stop-motion monsters, so that's fine with me.

This reminds me of those old Flash Gordon films - it's very old-fashioned but it works, because it's set around 1920.

Great fun solong as you can suspend your disbelief. But remember, this ain't Jurassic Park!

This is the sort of movie we are unlikely to see much more of, in these anti-male metoo days, where white men are the enemy and movies must have ethnic and female leads to get made. This is such a shame - but now Holloywood is racist and sexist against white men - as indeed is the BBC and UK TV drama. Shame.

Because this is just brilliant - with a performance by Colin Firth worthy of an Oscar.

This man's journey and descent into madness is played pitch-perfect and it is all too believable.

Many thanks to the casting director for NOYT ticking the diversity boxes and using black actors in Devon in the late 1960s! A shame other drama and movies (yes looking at YOU Endeavour, Midsomer Murders, all BBC drama set in the 20th C) cannot do the same. Watch DARNEST HOUR for the absurdity of token blacks at parliament in 1940!

5 stars. No faults at all. Just BRILLIANT. And I don't even like sailing!

This movie starts oh so brilliantly - the viewer is trying to work out what's going on with this video-watching young man and his parents.

Plot point 1 makes this clear, then leads to the less successful and saccharine acts 2 and 3.

But the first act, where Mark Hamill stars, is superb and may be the best opener to a movie I have seen in a decade.

I just hated the way it became a teen American love-in after that, and the way sentimentality and schmaltz are allowed to swamp the original premise. All completely unbelievable, however - it's a fantasy rather than a possible 'true story' esp when one sees how some police in in behave.

Anyway, worth watching - maybe 3.5 stars.

I found this film to be deeply dull. No idea why it won any Oscars - I suppose the feminism quota got it the gong.

I loved this movie. True, it was over-long and lost it a bit in the 3rd act.

But it genuinely amused me and made me think, and surprised me in its plot twists and characters.

I especially liked the way the writers/actors got the foreign accents absolutely correct - films and TV and esp the BBC always get this SO wrong.

I also think this film addresses a hugely important issue: over-population.

Almost 10 years ago I wrote a radio drama about a man who wanted to solve overpopulation by making himself shrink. It wasn't made BUT a radio play featuring a man who makes himself shrink was on BBC Radio 4 a year later. The BBC and its readers will happily steal ideas of scripts they read - and you can't copyright an idea!

The idea is not original anyway - Jonathan Swift was writing about little people almost 300 years ago in Gulliver's Travels.

Far better than those dumb action movie Mat Damon got famous for.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Together with MARGIN CALL, this film deals with the 2008 financial crisis and is a classic of now.

It's funny, jaw-dropping, intelligent, original and I loved it. The film was not a minute too long.

Great acting from many Brits in here too, from Christian Bale and others.

5 stars

I loved this film. I remember watching the match - Wimbledon 1980 men's single final - as a kid on our black and white TV, and it really was as nail-biting and exciting as it's shown here.

Most movies about sport just do not work - the awful 'Wimbledon' is an example, and who can ever forget 'Escape to Victory'?

But this works as a film about 2 huge characters and the psychological backstory of Bjorn Borg especially was fascinating - and I see he was involved in the movie's production, and McEnroe wasn't.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Gary Oldman's portrayal of Churchill superb and fully deserving of an Oscar (despite his disadvantage of being a white man in today's poc Hollywood) - however, I noticed in one dialogue he drifts into and out of Cockney when he says 'for our boys' in pure Sarf London. Most people won't notice that, but I am from near London so do!

I also doubt VERY much that Churchill would have said 'off of' rather than 'off' - he was very particular re the English language!

I also know King George VI would not have pronounced 'Adolf' in the American way - ade-olf - but would have said add-olf as we do over here.

The king's role and power is exaggerated because that is what Americans and an international audience is interested in - it was in fact Clement Atlee who as deputy PM of a national govt had far more power and say. The entire plot re Halifax, Chamberlain and the king planning peace tales is overstated massively too.

I do not believe for a minute scenes of Churchill chatting to people on a tube - especially as one is black Jamaican and no comment is made about that fact. It's a shame how pc tokenism can ruin a film.

So, 4 stars not 5. This is way better than the modern Dunkirk - I would recommend watching the 1950s film about that starring Kenneth Moore actually - and then the wonderful early 70s film Battle of Britain which begins where this film ends.

Anyway, enjoyable but occasionally annoying - and a towering performance by Gary Oldman who has been my favourite actor since Prick up your Ears in the late 80s! And no matter what your political affiliation (and Churchill was both Tory and Liberal in his time, and was MP for Dundee, somewhat improbably), you have to accept that he was the right man at the right time, and if it wasn't for him and the British people, Europe and the world would be a very different place.

And remember, in 1940, the USA was not in the war and wasn't actively helping us (quite the reverse - Joe Kennedy father of JFK said Britain is finished so the US should make peace with Hitler) and Stalin and the Soviets also had a deal with Hitler. So Britain and its colonies stood alone and saved the world. Never forget it.

I usually like Spielberg movies but I do have to admit I was really quite bored during this.

Maybe because the issue happened before I was around (and when Spielberg was a young man so it meant a lot to him obviously); maybe because it's so American-focused re Viet Nam - which I am sick of seeing films about. And thank goodness British PM Harold Wilson refused the US request for the UK to get involved in that mess (which had been created by Colonialist France).

So it's tough going - the jeopardy all hanging on whether a newspaper can print a story with official documents while Nixon is in power.

A curiosity really. 2 stars.

Written by the Coen Brothers, you'd expect weirdness. Directed by self-righteous Hollywood liberal, you'd expect smug political correctness themes. And that is precisely what we get.

In a quasi-mythical 1950s housing estate in the USA, everything is perfect until a black family arrives. Though this is the subplot of what a man with a disabled wife plans. We've seen the easy target of idealised small town 1950s American or versions of it many times before - eg Pleasantville - always mocked in Hollywood films One wonders why. In the 1950s most kids had 2 parents at home and were much happier and rarely obese. These days 10% of American kids are doped up on Ritalin and most come from broken homes. Hoorah!

Sadly, like most Hollywood films these days, this movie goes in for preaching that 'racism is bad' (no - really?) and hammers the point home with the subtly of a fatal bullet.

Now, what would have been REALLY original is if the film had portrayed a white family in an all black area - that has never been done. I await someone with the guts to show black people was racist in a Hollywood film.

And I just did not believe the later plot progressions of this film - which 'jumps the shark' as it goes OTT and a half.

Disappointingly predictable. 3 stars. Just.

I suspect those who actually believe In heaven or er afterlife will 'buy' the conceit of this film more than non-believers like me.

Also, just to add: South American cultures did NOT invent day or the dead celebrations. The ancient British festival of Halloween (Samhain) is at least 5000 years old, for example! So NO cultural appropriation here, as pc persons claim.

Hollywood is keen to pander to ethnic groups, and here it's the Hispanics' turn.

Anyway, the visuals here are superb - not so the mediocre songs.

It starts very twee and pc - and I'm afraid it thinks it's funnier and cleverer than it is - I did not crack a smile, to be honest. It lags badly in act 2. Total focus on impressive animation at the expense of story.

BUT then something happens when the character arcs intersect - NO spoilers, but just to say from this point, the film is sublime.

So a bit of a curate's egg really, Undoubtedly clever but probably confusing for kids - the plot is intricate and adult. Shame the songs are so rubbish!

Very impressive visuals BUT I still think FINDING VINCENT should have won the Oscar, and this film won primarily because in these pc days, it ticks the ethnic boxes. Shame the Oscars are now going to be awarded to less good films and actors JUST because they have dark skin or are female.