Film Reviews by PV

This movie is so-so. An old idea about a man whose sperm donations means he has hundreds of kids (I have heard a radio play on the same issue, read Roald Dahl's only adult novel UNCLE OSWALD about this issue too).

Loads of plot holes in this - legal loopholes. And ultimately I do not believe the story.

But the characters are well-drawn and it's watchable.

Interesting too that the UK now has a law that gives kids conceived by sperm donation the right to try and contact their real biological fathers. OMG! So insane it could lead to this OR a tragic outcome.

Pleasant enough so 3 stars.

Breaking Bad is one of the best dramas I have watched on TV for years - way superior than the soapy girly diversity-token trash on UK TV.

The scenes are so original and visually striking - the twists genuinely unexpected. The writing and dialogue razor-sharp.

I am less keen on the soapy family drama subplots BUT thankfully they take up a small minority of time. Probably my favourite Breaking Bad series of the three I have watched is the first one - when episodes were an hour. But series 2 and 3 are still 5 star TV dramas! The first was sublime, however, and should have won every award going.

Something in part 3 really annoyed me (misinformation maybe or historical inaccuracy) but I can't remember what it is now.

I recommend watching the extra features too, esp the one about the pizza!

Hugely enjoyable TV drama. Better than anything made by the BBC (the only decent exciting drama on the BBC is produced by private production companies and bought in, like Peaky Blinders or The Night Manager.

Great, classic TV. Watch it.

Much has been made of the race issue in this movie - but honestly, this film could have been made with an entire white cast and still be effective. In fact, the whole race thing seems tagged on. Because as one character in the film says: 'black is fashionable'. The movie has nothing to do with gender (plenty of male victims in horror films throughout the 20th century!)

Well-written, filmed and acted, though utter hokum from start to finish - and an unnecessary subplot re a deer. Sometimes just TOO much sub-Twilight-Zone hokum for my tastes because I became unwilling to suspend disbelief - it's so OTT it would read like a story written by a 14 year old boy if written down.

Couldn't believe in these people or characters really at the end of the day - and THAT would have made it all so much more scary.

It's like The Stepford Wives meets Roots meets Psycho maybe. Watchable nonsense!

Ultimately, it's quite funny - like so many horror movies.

The ending surprised me - I think the one I was expecting would have been better.

4 stars.

This film is based on a novel (called THEIR FINEST HOUR AND A HALF) - which is by a female author giving the issue of WWII and Dunkirk a very female slant.

And so it is here, as we follow unlikely screenwriter who's writing an even more unlikely female-led movie (two twin sisters to star indeed!), to try and get the USA into the war.

Well, the first half of the film is fine - obviously low budget, and the sort of film that relies on state funding (wait till the end to see the BBC and EU subsidy flags).

The second half drags terribly with silly, unnecessary a d unbelievable plot twists. These may be the original novel's fault BUT an adaptation of a novel does NOT have to be faithful. You can cut out what you want when adapting it for film.

My favourite bits were the hammy wooden film acting scenes which reminded me of the much classier movie ED WOOD.

I also liked location spotting - it's filmed largely in Swansea's Guidhall.

3 stars. JUST. It'd have been 2 stars without Bill Nighy!

Like most who have reviewed this film, I think it's a fairly good watch.

The scenery is stunning, for sure.

The main problem is too many poorly-sketched characters, some of whom look alike - and often shown in blizzards in Everest, so it's really a case of the man with the red jacket dying and the man in the blue jacket surviving.

Still, it's based on a true 1996 story, so I suppose it had to get in all the characters.

Co-written, I see, by Simon Beaufoy (who wrote the Full Monty and many films after that).

3 stars. Not bad, but not great. Want a great mountain film? Then watch TOUCHING THE VOID.

This film is 3 major flaws: 1) it strives to preach 'political correctness' with lecturing through various characters - the wife, and various types lecturing about how natives are the equal of whites - and as usual via the method of having cartoony stereotyped idiot buffoon upper class white British men spouting tosh. This should all have been cut from the film because 2) it's overlong - half an hour or more - and it drags. 3) the sound is awful - the soundtrack is too loud and the dialogue sounds muffled. I used subtitles.

Watch the movie 'Gold' to see how it's done. That is a superb adventure tale.

Forget the feminist posturing, forget the pc race and diversity lecture, just TELL A STORY.

Fact is, Europeans already knew about South American cultures before this story which is early 20th C - and we've known about the Aztecs and Inca for 400 years.

This is so-so as a film but it could have been so much better. The end is made up for cinematic reasons btw - I heard a radio doc about this story last year.

But it passes the time. And it's interesting to watch a movie set in South America - but do watch the great APOCAPLYTO if you haven't to see how it could have been!

2.4 stars rounded down.

I was late coming to Breaking Bad but I am SO glad I got out the DVDs.

I have to say that probably the first series is my favourite - I prefer the longer episodes and not 13 x 45 minute segments.

Having said that, this 2nd series is also good.

Not sure how long the series can keep this up without 'jumping the shark'.

But better than ANY drama on British TV especially the BBC who churns out lazy remakes and soapy drama to appeal to older women and therefore get ratings.

Good stuff.

This film angered me. Why? Well, it tries to convince us all that:

1) women didn't get the vote till 1918 (not true - women had a vote in local elections from the same time as men in the 1800s in Britain);

2) that all men were privileged and had always had the vote (not so - most men lived lives of dire poverty and 1 million nearly were about to die in World War I and working men only got a vote in general elections in 1888); 3) That suffragettes were all jolly Cockney working class women - NOT TRUE! Most were upper class women who ALL had badly paid servants, never worked a day in their lives and moreover did NOT want ordinary working class people to have a vote or better working and living conditions.

4) The woman who threw herself under the King's horse in 1912 was utterly selfish as she killed a horse and severely injured a jockey and achieved NOTHING - and historical research has shown her to be a psychotic and mentally ill woman.

5) this film piles on the issues - bad working conditions (mostly endured by MEN in mines etc let's not forget - for women it as an aspiration NOT to work as that made you middle class!), even child abuse (of a nasty cartoon character male villain against a girl of course. That is pure manipulation by the writer - Abi Morgan who has a record of faking history and siding with any woman over men, as in her Thatcher movie. The campaign for votes for women - supported by MANY MILLIONS of men actually! incl churches nationwide - had NOTHING to do with campaigning for better working conditions or against child abuse. This movie disgracefully aims to fold all those issues into each other in a way I found deeply distastefully and wrong.

Now, most people won't know all that. They'll think this film is pure fact and that is dangerous because that makes it PROPGANDA as bad as anything spread by dictatorships.

A good movie is yet to be made about this issue.

No stars.

This is a decent biopic and worth watching for anyone who has ever eaten in MacDonalds.

Real sadness and meaning here too.

4.5 stars.

I am a bit behind the times - I realise series 1 of this is dated 2008!

However, having loved all series of The Wire, and enjoyed other US series like The Sopranos and to an extent, Dexter, I know how good USA TV drama van be when it's good - which is much MUCH better than most UK TV drama, which is soapy, boring, girly, aimed at a middle aged female audience to get easy meat ratings, and just not very sharply written or funny (if you don't believe me watch FAT FRIENDS and any Kay Mellor drivel).

Well, this series is superb (and I am only halfway through series 1 so have a lot of series to come!).

The first episode - the pilot - is not perfect. It's funny and dark AND believable. It starts with a bang and never lets up. No flab on this script - not a single ounce.

Bryan Cranston is a revelation as the oh-so-believable main character. Other characters are as sharply drawn too.

For me, this is a comedy - a pitch black comedy, yes, but a comedy none the less. Also a critique on US healthcare maybe.

Watching this series is a really satisfying experience - so glad a friend recommended this. 5 stars with bells on!

I really enjoyed this film. It's unusual, has a great lead performance (better than Michael M's Oscar-winning one), and is genuinely fascinating and entertaining. With a nice twist though I doubt that is part of the true story this is supposedly based on.

Basically it's a great character study of a flawed hero, and his dream.

Someone watching this with me said afterwards "the reason why I liked this so much is that there are so few women in the film and no silly love stories". And she's a woman! I see what she means - so many movies these days are so pc and wallow in love interest, or over-promote women to hero roles because of 'political correctness' (and the BBC has an absurd target to get 50% of main acting roles in BBC drama going to women by 2020! Good luck with that remake of Saving Private Ryan and Lawrence of Arabia then LOL!

This is a Boys Own adventure and the love affair is with gold.

Maybe a bit long but 4.5 out of 5. A great fun watch. Really enjoyed it.

Expect more movies like this now that the Chinese own Hollywood and have the cash to make these spectacular blockbusters.

Typical Chinese film (despite being written by white Hollywood writers): 1) nationalist and glorying in China's great past as all Chinese films, even if the past is fabricated; 2) loads of set piece scenes; 3) loads of stylisation;4) loads and loads and loads of CGI.

This is well into the realm of fantasy - the CGI makes it all look like a computer game.

Mat Damon and Willem Dafoe clearly did it for the pay cheque, and why not? But best forgotten after spending that really.

Silly, with unbelievable characters (esp the wee women in their blue suits of armour). And typically the Chinese seem to be claiming that they invented the hot air balloon and flying! Just like they claim to have invented football and pizza. Chinese nationalism will haunt the 21st century - mark my words.

All surface, no substance. Just BORING. But I stayed until the end - just.

1.5 stars for the impressive (at times) CGI.

I hadn't seen this movie before, even on TV - I've seen the 1970s version of the same Jules Verne book though which is totally different. I expect neither version sticks to the original book though.

It's basically an old-fashioned adventure story which, unlike any other film I have seen, manages to go to Iceland - filmed in a US national park - where a volcano will lead to the centre of the earth.

Of course, there's a baddie or two - antagonist to the protagonist - and some supposedly scary bits.

I have seen clips from this movie before - the scenes of the dinosaurs. Or lizards with stuck-on fins (hope the glue came off). At the same time this was being made, Ray Harryhausen was experimenting with his stop-motion, which has much more charm that slowed down footage of abused lizards really.

A real curiosity piece and with singer Pat Boone starring too.

Worth remembering it's now over 60 years old as well. The 1970s version had more exciting bits and no doubt the recet TV adaptation was chock full of CGI monsters BUT oldies like this have all the more charm when compared to the CGI-fests today.

I enjoyed it anyway! It's well-paced, well-written and a real story. 4 stars.

Well the Oscars often get it wrong and will do so more and more now they have gender and race quotas (unofficial). So this neat the dreadful LaLa Land to the best picture Oscar - GREAT! But it really is not that great. It's different because it has an entirely black cast with not a single white face anywhere in the movie - yet that really is the way some areas in the USA are. However, it's not a patch on HBO TV series The Wire in exploring that location and African-American culture.

All set in Miami's black areas, it starts on the street where drug dealing is happening - this is an areas where a white face should never go really and neither should anyone looking gay. The main character is bullied supposedly because he looks gay but I did not notice this at all - he wasn't effeminate in any obvious way which is what characters seemed to notice!

Anyway, the way repressed gay men often macho-up to 'prove' they are not gay is explored here - and that is the most effective part of the film, which starts strongly then sags a bit. Black communities are well-known for their often angry and violent homophobia - I think in the USA, in a poll a majority of African Americans would make homosexuality illegal, and the figure may well be the same in socially conservative ethnic groups in the UK (though we have 4% black population and total ethnic minority of 16%; the USA has 12 or 13 % black with whole areas 100% black and has had these for years - centuries even).

Watchable BUT turn on the subtitles would be my advice (the same with The Wire) because Afro-American is a dialect which is mumbled at best so hard to understand!

I didn't dislike this film, and it's theme is unusual and therefore interesting (I have come to loathe Hollywood movies whether action-based or emotional dramas). But feel it's over-rated, and it clearly won the Oscar because it was an all-black movie which matters in race-obsessed affirmative-action America. But at least it beat the utterly dreadful LaLa Land so well done for that! Anything that stopped that mediocre mess winning anything is fine with me!

3 stars. Meh...

This is almost 65 years old but is still a charming, funny movie.

Great actors in this fairytale - a spin on the old story of a royal living amongst ordinary people. Supposedly based on a story by soon-to-be-blacklisted screenwriter Trumbo, but a VERY old story actually.

For those who know Rome, this is a joy - you can see Rome in the early 1950s, before all the cars, graffiti, African immigrants. A lost world really - in a time they allowed kids to clamber all over the Trevi Fountain!

Silly, fun and charming - this is a fairy tale film to warm the cynical heart.