Film Reviews by PV

I am not a jazz fan really and can take or leave trumpet playing especially.

However, this was an OK film, though hardcore fans will probably be annoyed with it. But I don't mind at all that the actors are not exact lookalikes of the real people - acting in movies cannot be judged entirely on that. It's not Madame Tussaud's!

To be honest, all I knew about Chet Baker was that he played jazz trumpet, was a heroin addict, and died after a fall from a hotel room in Amsterdam in 1988 (probably suicide) - this last chapter is not portrayed in this movie, sadly.

He also played the BRILLIANT trumpet solo of Elvis Costello's shipbuilding.

A watchable biopic for a general audience.

3 stars.

This movie is SO reliant on CGI effects - it's almost a computer game.

Like so many movies drenched in CGI, this is a strangely cold affair, and I felt no emotional connection at all with any of the characters. I didn't care what happened to them. I saw the blatant attempt to engineer that with a man writing letters to his wife and new born son all the time. But it didn't work.

It's all silly and preposterous, of course.

And even Kong is unsympathetic - and the underground creatures just computer game monsters.

Watch the 1933 Kong to see how it should be done - now THAT Kong was human, if you see what I mean. You cared about him and Fay Wray and the rest. You won't care about this lot.

Watch till the end of the credits to see possible sequels featuring Japanese Monster Movie creatures in future.

3 stars. JUST.

This is a TYPICAL UK state-funded film (money from the taxpayer, the BFI, Film4, the lottery). It focuses on a supposed ethnic minority, the gypsies or travellers or Romany if you prefer (interesting to hear the dialect and even the Romany language sometimes in this film).

Now, it's all well-acted with a class cast, esp Rory Kinnear as a copper, and the story has pace (though the ending disappointing).

However, the behaviour of the 'travellers' made me hate them.

And I suppose that is the crux here: if you're a Gorgie (non-gypsy) then your feeling about this film will depend on your experience with these people in your life.

Now, as a kid there were gypsies around sometimes, ripping homeowners in the suburbs off by tarmacking their drives badly, stealing lead from roofs as scrap, and their gypsy kids would chase local boys and push them off their bikes - steal the bikes and resell em, keep em or sell em for scrap. I was chased once. I always avoided gypsy camps and their rough criminal kids.

Now, if your image of gypsies is that they're a quaint ethnic minority (as if) selling lucky heather, then fine. But watch this film to realise the days of painted caravans are long gone.

Watchable anyway. 2.5 stars rounded up.

But be warned, dogs so get hurt in this film (not really - but in the story - and some may find that hard to watch).

I must admit I am not a fan of all these weepy, pschobabbly, US dramas - they're way too self-indulgent for my tastes, as is the entire psychobabble, self-esteem, therapy industry.

But for its genre, this film is an OK watch and not overlong, thank goodness.

Not sure it's believable though. I had a lot of niggles like that.

And some of the dream sequences are absurd and add nothing but padding. As was the war photography shtick.

But Jesse E and Gabriel B are always watchable.

3 stars. JUST.

OK so this film is ludicrous, full of plot holes - but just don't think too hard about that.

Instead, enjoy the atmosphere, the gore, the great sound effects of the cannibal Indians (or native Americans, or whatever). No doubt some will object that these people are shown as cannibals BUT they should get over themselves. THIS IS FICTION not a documentary!

Silly and unrealistic, yes. And of course there has to be a pretty blonde-haired woman in distress to rescue - who remains amazingly unmolested by brutal cannibal Indians who otherwise seem to keen to imprison women and get them pregnant.

But as I said, don't think too hard or ask too many questions! It'll give you a headache.

Just enjoy it for the period gore fest that it is. And the costumes, acting and sound effects are fab - loved the Indian screaming calls, though couldn't quite see how they'd manage to conduct the surgical operations needed to insert their whistles. See, now I'm thinking too hard again! Try not to or you'll see more plot holes than in a Swiss cheese!

Like WRONG TURN with Red Indians. 3.5 stars

OK, just to say this whole series is one of the best things I have ever seen on TV. However, it is also fair to say the law of diminishing returns came into play.

The early series are sublime - the 1st and 2nd especially. And the first episode is probably the best TV pilot I have ever seen. It's just PERFECT.

The later series, however, tended to get a bit soapy - with family issues and wives taking to the fore.

That is true of this last series which involves a baby prominently and the denoument.

Having said that, I was transfixed watching this so give it 4.5 stars rounded up.

I also think BADFINGER'S Baby Blue is played in here somewhere!

Just a great series - I feel like watching it all over again from series one now.

There were a couple of teasers in here with Walt at some unspecified later date returning to his old run down house with skateboarders in the empty derelict swimming pool. So I wonder if there'll be a series 6 ever?

To know what this movie is about just remember it is adapted from a novel - the sort of literary, character-based American novel which loves to wallow in the poverty porn of the Deep South.

I found this an interesting watch to be honest BUT do wich there'd been a subtitle option as some of those broad southern drawls are incomprehensible.

I also suspect any racial issues have been brushed over - I would expect blacks and whites to live in less harmony in their forestry jobs AND would expect an old drunk redneck white to racially abuse a black manager who sacked him. But I suspect Hollywood hasn't got the guts to use the N word any more.

So, ho-hum - and interesting not an exciting watch.

I often like films with subtitles. What I do not like is over-rated salacious trash dressed up as meaningful euro arthouse posturing.

This director Pedro Almodovar is massively over-rated - I suspect because he gets lots of Hispanic votes from the Oscar academy.

This film is basically an old male directors sexual fantasy - all about a sex change basically. Watch Victor Victoria instead to get all about gender roles or the brilliant Argentinian film THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES. Now THAT is a great movie - and one Pedro Almodovar almost certainly ripped off to make this B movie.

And that's what it is - a sci-fi B movie fantasy, suitable maybe for an episode of the Twilight Zone if cut down to 30 minutes mas. 2 hours of this bored me and fellow viewers to distraction.

But oh my it's boring, unnecessarily nasty, and nowhere near as clever as it - or its fans - thinks it is.

A literally incredible plot that just does not hang together too.

Pretentious drivel with a Spanish accent.

This is a nice but slight feelgood romantic movie - and nothing more. It has pretty scenery and is undemanding.

Morgan Freeman is great as usual - but I simply did not believe a 60+ black man would have spent his life writing Western cowboy novels. I suspect it was written for a white actor.

Also, like most movies where characters are serious alcoholics, Freeman seems to drink bottle after bottle of whisky with no ill effects - no hangover, no shakes, no puking, no illness. Ridiculous. Watch Leaving Las Vegas to see the reality.

But it's all so-so and smug upper middle class wealth New Yorker holiday style, so it is what it is.

3 stars. Just.

This movie is exciting to watch - it's one of those films with a thumping soundtrack all the way through, like RUN LOLA RUN, and clearly aimed at the attention-deficit audience (AKA teenagers).

Having said that, it is watchable and fun - though the whole plot basis is laughable.

Also, as per usual in many Hollywood movies, they actually have the nerve to blame the British (and flawed intelligence) for everthing going wrong! But hey, at least it's not fake news history like ARGO or U571.

3.5 stars rounded up.

This is worth a watch for the curiosity value - it stars loads of British character actors, incl Bruce Forsyth.

I doubt it'll ever be shown on TV again - if it has already - because some parts would now get you arrested by the 'pc police' for sexism and racism. Well, it is nearly 50 years old!

3 stars. Just. It'd be 2 if the acting talent wasn't so good.

I remember first watching this on Christmas Day 1976 - and loving it then. So I thought I'd watch it again, if only to see the brilliant effects by Ray Harryhausen.

This dates from 1969 but seems older - 1950s-style. Hard to imagine it was only just over 20 years later that Jurassic Park set the standard for dino movies. This clearly influenced Spielberg - the T-Rex scenes in the church is basically where he got the end of Jurassic Park from (that ending is not in the book and nor is the T-rex car chase). But hey, you can't copyright an idea...

But any dinosaur movie is fine with me, and it's all great fun. I think smaller kids would love it and the old-style stop-motion animation - though their attention may drift now and then (because they're so used to CGI and constant stimulation).

Breaking Bad is still GREAT classic TV drama - WAY better than ANYTHING on the 'diverse' and soapy BBC or UK TV. The characters, ideas, visual flair, script, music - when they get it right, BOY do they get it right!

However, even though I am enjoying series 4, it's all become too soapy for my tastes - that happened in series 3 too when the baby and divorce became central, and family issues.

So not AS good as the PERFECT first series or the near perfect second series - but wonderful nevertheless.

Why can't the BBC or UK TV channels make great exciting drama like this? Maybe coz their obsession is female-friendly dramas that get ratings or tick diversity boxes?

Well done to all involved in the Breaking Bad series. I came to it late but know classic TV when I see it.

So looking forward to the last series just to hear Swansea band BADFINGER sing BABY BLUE.

I didn't expect much from this light-hearted silly romcom and I wasn't disappointed.

It's all very silly - like a B movie Pink Panther.

Absurd plot - but then it's the romance from the leads which will get those older female viewers loving this.

I didn't love it. The movie was yawn-inducing and thankfully short.

The only reason it's not 1 star is because I laughed at a couple of the lines (though Emma Thompson's praise for France's social serices made me snort!).

All so twee and middle class. Ridiculous, like something invented by a 14 year old - about a stolen diamond, a sort of princess, a hedge fund banker, and a pension plan plundered.

2 stars. JUST.

I can see why people like films like this. They're tooth-rottingly sentimental - SO saccharine.

Basically, a dog gets reincarnated a few times, and some people have a love story going on. End of.

The thing is, if you are not spiritually-minded or religious, then all this stuff about reincarnation will make you groan as I groaned. It's just TWADDLE and HOKUM. I laughed at the way the dog was reincarnated from the 1950s to the 21st century ONLY in the US of A. How does that work then?

There's been a glut of what I call 'pity party' animal stories lately, where an animal helps people OR a reincarnated version of a pet comes back to help its previous family with various issues - health, family, homelessness, worries etc. It's almost a new genre actually. Most are WAY too sentimental for my sceptical tastes though! You pays your money...

What I really didn't like was the amateurish way that this dog's first person narrative was done - how can a dog know the names of his owners? Or that a vet is called a vet? Or much else besides. A dog would not know that or think like that - so I thought that was quite badly done, though probably best to blame the book (predictably a best seller because it appeals to all the very sentimental mostly female readers who map up this sort of drivel). A FAR better way is to see thins via smells - which this dog does sometimes.

This is better done in other animal books - for example, A Cat Called Dog, where the cats call the vets "the place of smell and pain". Now THAT is really getting into an animal's psyche and under its skin! In that book people are referred to as 'two-legs' NOT by their given names, again seeing the world the way a cat or dog would see it.

If you like soppy love stories, or see yourself as spiritual and believe in reincarnation, then you'll have a ball with this movie (I'd say 99% of its fans are female too).

For me it didn't merit more than 2 stars but it passed the time.