Film Reviews by PV

Film makers love making films about film makers. Maybe they think their lives are fascinating? Or just want to share in-jokes? Or get revenge against Hollywood enemies? Or just don't have the imagination to think outside of the Hollywood bubble (like writers always writing about writers)? Whichever is true (maybe they all are!), the results of this navel-gazing can be patchy, as they are here.

Probably best looked at a series of scenes and vignettes rather than a whole, there are certainly some funny moments and lines here - with unexpected turns and plot twists. And really some fantastic (and this expensive) sets which allows some wicked lampooning of 1950s movies, especially epics like Spartacus and those religious epics of the day. The film used and hammy acting is spot on.

An improbable plot about writers taking revenge against those who ripped them off will be funny and a wish fulfilment of many writers watching, I am sure.

Plenty of stars in this one, hamming it up - and some of the 1950s setting in a movie studio is spot-on too.

All in all, watchable but not nearly as funny as it thinks it is!

A footnote in the Coen Brothers collection really. 3 stars. Just.

OK, so I admit I knew nothing about 1864 and the disaster it was for Denmark (as its massive defeat by Prussia led to Denmark to abandon any ambition of empire and to turn inwards) until I recently watched a series on Scandinavian art. That made me rent this DVD out and I am glad I did.

Far better than most Hollywood war films, but gory and gruesome in a way even Sam Peckinpah would have loved on occasion, this film grips from the start.

Reminiscent of 1970s sages such as Italian film 1900, this drama tracks the course of the life of two brothers, from childhood to youth and then leaving as soldiers to go to war (it is indeed also reminiscent of GENERATION WAR, a classic German mini-series of recent years).

The class system in Denmark (yep, every country has one) is also shown and even Hans Christian Anderson (son of a washerwoman who played with the children of royalty when a boy) has a cameo!

I got a bit tired of the love triangle backdrop, to be honest. However, the way women respond to events is well done, and not the stereotypical 'all women are angels' shtick you get from British or American films. Got tired of the 'seer' subplot too, and the lark symbolism.

Some of the deaths were a little obvious - and I find myself shouting 'HE'S GONNA GET IT' at the screen more than once, but I think most audiences like a bit of drama in death!

In general, then, an original film about a little known catastrophe (it may be worth researching this a bit before watching - via Wiki or anything). There's gory blood-splatter aplenty for those who like that sort of thing, huge battle scenes, some love and sex, some sadness, some happiness etc. A veritable smorgasbord of human emotion and history then.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

The first thing to say to anyone who watches this: forget your prejudices against subtitled cinema (if you have any! I don't!) and rent out the original Argentinian film - from around 10 years ago. It is WAY superior to this Hollywood remake and is set against the backdrop of the dictatorship in Argentina which makes it way more fascinating than this bodged remake.

Also, in the original the classic twist at the end if better (NO SPOILERS HERE).

I resent the way this remake is riddled with 'political correctness' - it must have a black lead and 2 female characters in charge. The superior original does not faff around with such nonsense and is consequently MUCH more believable. It's about a husband-wife not as here a mother-daughter. This movie seems to be trying hard to tick the pc diversity boxes - and boy, is it trying...

And I for one just do not believe in the inter-racial romance storyline - not in the USA where both white and black people really don't go in for that much at all.

Some pointless and unbelievable subplots and back stories here as the plot flits back and forth between 2002 and 2015 like some social issues movie moth. This tries to be relevant by having a CT (counter terrorism) unit and a mosque and the rest of it - which never really gels at all. The movie plods and plods along with not much happening then thinks it has to make up for it so it has a big scene in a baseball stadium.

Predictably disappointing. 2 stars. The ORIGINAL film from Argentina is a 5 star classic though.

This is a great film. It's very tense and gripping, and so claustrophobic and sweaty you can almost feel the African heat oozing through the TV screen into your eyes.

OK, so the Tom Hanks movie Captain Philips was not bad - but as per usual for a Hollywood movie, it had to obey certain rules - use the tropes of an action movie.

This is much more refined and intelligent - all about the dreadful progress of strained negotiations (a Brit actor features here but do not know his name). It's really tense and one really does not know how it will end - well or badly.

This is highly recommended for all intelligent film fans. 5 stars.

I hated this - I mean I REALLY hated this. So much so I turned off half way through and it is so rare for me not to finish a film!

This is just salacious, manipulative and, frankly, dull - based on a massively over-rated novel which just wrote up a tragic true case.

Of course, the Oscars are always awarded to actors playing disabled or abused characters. And the Americans adore a pity party.

But this film is tripe.

No stars. Avoid.

Well, this is what happens when you get state funding (i.e. OUR tax money) given by committees of 'crachach' cronies from the Welsh Arts Council and Lottery Funding jobsworths.

This film is so amateurish it should have stayed in a film school class to be dissected and then rejected before it ever got to the stage of being made.

It is SO unfunny that calling it a comedy must be breaking the Trade Description Act.

It's about a teenager (and the actor who plays him also writes and directs - ALWAYS A bad sign!) who is miserable in Wales (what stereotypes!) and then the film has to do something so introduces an American character who moves in next door (this is never explained or justified anywhere in the script). This is a dire attempt to sell the film in the USA, I presume - but I really cannot imagine ANY US film distributor wanting to touch this 4th rate trash.

There is so much writing talent in Wales, yet our useless Arts Council constantly supports mediocre mess like this. This film is an embarrassment - confusing, confused, unfunny and amateurish.

One to watch to learn how NOT to make films. No stars.

I hated this film. So much so that I left just after half way through and returned just to see the ending - which, as per usual with Richard Curtis films, is wincingly sentimental and milks emotions for all they're worth. If you like that sort of thing, then fine, Me, I hated it. Maybe it's more a women's film?

So, typical Richard Curtis film: we have a main character who even LOOKS like Richard Curtis, an upper-middle-class Englishman who grew up in a house that has to be worth 2 or 3 million in a family that claims, as all Curtis characters, that they are not rich.

There are weddings, funerals, loads of bumbling upper-middle-class rich Englishmen and, of course, the obligatory American characters - always an American female love interest in Curtis films too.

The idea for this is an old time travel one, lifted quite shamelessly from many a science fiction film or book or play or whatever. Nothing whatsoever original about this film and I did not laugh or smile once - I winced a great deal though.

For me this is a one star mess of a movie; those who like treacly saccharine sentimental lovey-dovey stories - like Mills and Boon for those who own 5 million pound houses in Notting Hill then claim they're just ordinary and not rich at all - may enjoy it. You pays yer money. Me, I shall never be watching a Richard Curtis film again - the man is a menace with a constant drip drip drip of the same old sentimentalist love stories featuring Americans and bumbling Englishmen and very VERY few black people indeed (the London of Richard Curtis is not like the 40% ethnic city I cannot afford to live in any more!)

This film is clearly influenced by Mike Leigh's Nuts in May - it's shot in a naturalistic fashion and obviously improvised at parts (occasionally that means knowing glances between actors which remind me of stand-up and TV sketch-shows like French and Saunders).

But, after a patchy start when I thought the story would go nowhere, this develops into a study of female jealously really when a poet's on/off girlfriend arrives. The film has some great lines and scenes, and some funny parts, but is uneven. And can one ever believe 2 young women would live as con-women (or as they say 'con-persons') stealing cars etc?

This reminds me of why I avoid writers' retreats and don't get involved in the local Welshie poetry scene (dominated by the same elite - the 'crachach' in Welsh).

A silly ending (no spoilers), but that's OK.

The best thing about this film is the way it massively takes the mickey out of a pretentious poetry scene which fully deserves it. I really hate slam poetry evenings and performance poetry!

3.5 stars rounded down for the film's weak start and ending.

What is the point of this movie remake with modern actors doing impressions of the original TV cast? Cashing in and making money, of course - and making the film and characters available to an international audience who have sadly never experienced the joy of watching the original TV series (I own the box set and watch the classic episodes a lot).

So I won't be precious about it, despite my occasional winces at modern actors doing impressions of Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier, Clive Dunn, Arnold Ridley (plays Godfrey) who wrote the classic 1920s play The Ghost Train and who was also badly injured in World War I.

Toby Jones (same birthday as me but looks older!) is spot-on as Captain Mainwaring and has obviously studied his vocal ticks because he gets them spot-on.

Other well-known actors are well-cast too - and the dialogue is loyal to original TV series and even steals the plot of one episode to hang the whole movie on: the one where Captain Mainwaring stops wearing his glasses and bumps into things because he is trying to impress a female visitor.

Unfortunately, this film is ruined by political 'correctness'. There really is NO need to create an equivalent female home guard (ATS) to march alongside the men in order to shoehorn more women on screen. No need at all. No need for us to see Mainwaring's wife at all either, and she is no way what I would have expected.

Also, the word 'discombobulating' (which I hate) only entered British English from American English around the year 2001. So what is it doing in this script? Silly.

Catherine Zeta-Jones looking good and sounding spot-on as the love interest.

A silly plot, but that is fine - and it's always good to see what fools men make of themselves when trying to impress women (this movie shows why putting 2 or 3 female sailors on a navy ship with 300 men is a VERY bad idea indeed!)

Interestingly, in the original TV series, the writers Perry and Croft moulded all dialogue of the fictional characters to fit easily with the real-life characters of the old hand actors (many were over 60 or 70 at the time). That cannot be replicated.

So, not great, but no the cinematic car-crash it could have been - this is good in parts. 3 stars.

Far better is the BBC2 TV drama from last year about how Dad's Army came to be made. Can't remember the title but that is a must-see. This is passable but that's it. 3 stars.

This is a very workmanlike movie - all well written and directed and acted - but somehow a bit cold an efficient.

Anyway, the story is fascinating. It's about how the 'UnAmerican Activities Committee' of the late 40s and 50s (though it didn't end till 1975 officially) conducted a witch hunt against those whose views and thoughts and political opinions were of the left and particularly the Communist party.

Now, many were sympathetic to the Communists before, during and just after the war, as Russia and the butcher Stalin were our Allies. However, most saw how vile Stalin and Russian Communism were in the 50s, especially when the Soviets sent tanks into Hungary in 1956.

These days, we also have our witch hunts so no-one watching this film and shaking their heads should feel smug. We have witch hunts now - anyone who refuses to abide by the often absurd ideology of political correctness and diversity worship can find themselves the victim of a witch hunt. A TV producer saying Midsomer Murders is popular because it is not set in the modern inner city full of ethnic minorities finds himself the victim and loses him job. Harvard professor who suggests boys and girls may be innately different in their brain and behaviour and aptitudes loses his job after mobbing by witch hunting feminists. Anyone suggesting that 'affirmative action' or the UK version 'positive action' is racist, sexist and wrong is likely to lose their job. Anyone saying that we do NOT need the Oscars rigged to ensure more blacks win Oscars is sure to be blacklisted by Hollywood these days if they are an actor or a director.

Nothing has changed! We still have victims of witch hunts now. And any screenwriter now who dares write about certain topics will NOT get their screenplay made.

btw this movie makes it seem easy to be a screenwriter. Well, people say if you pack your bags and go to Hollywood it'll take you 15 years to get a script made on average. In the whole USA no more than 12000 people made alive writing for TV and film and that is 2000 in the UK.

But, despite the way this is a very worthy and smug film, it's also interesting - and the introduction of Kirk Douglas and Spartacus is great (though several people wrote that screenplay and several directors worked on that movie).

4 stars. Just.

This film is in German with subtitles - and it is one of the best films about the rise of the Nazis and Hitler I have ever seen.

A fascinating story that I had never heard of before.

Well written/acted/directed.

Maybe a bit heavy so not much comedy here and a bit grim.

But a clear 5 stars

This is a workmanlike retelling of the true story from 2010 about the 33 copper miners who were trapped deep in a mine for 10 weeks before being lifted to the surface.

It does what it says on the tin really. There is the build-up to the mine collapse; then the collapse itself; then the men trapped and waiting for help, and what's happening on the surface.

All fine and good. But I do have to say I found it oddly cold really and didn't find I cared much about any of the characters. Maybe because there are so many we can only know a few scant details of the lives of each of them.

Various subplots and backstories pad this out - alcoholism, affairs, a baby on the way etc. I particularly liked the way the film showed the Chileans being racist against a Bolivian immigrant. We often assume racists can only be white Europeans! Nope. Racists can be any colour and from any culture and country (Asia, Africa etc).

I did not like the movie largely ignored the fact Chile, like most Catholic South American societies, is deeply divided with a tiny elite (shown in the President and Mines Minister here) who own EVERYTHING, and the people who own next to nothing. Compare to a protestant property-owning democracy (from British culture) which exists in the USA.

I have a connection with this film. I live in the Welsh city which in the 19th century produced 80% of the world's copper. Ore from Chile was imported here - especially from Valparadiso. Trivia fans should know Catherine Zeta-Jones' great-grandfather captained a ship which sailed the Wales-Chile route. We also got ore from Cuba and elsewhere - but Chile has a particular connection to Swansea, Wales.

So, OK to watch. Maybe 3.5-4 stars then.

James Horner's last soundtrack too and the movie is dedicated to him.

OK, so this is not a bad film - per se. Based on a novel, with a screenplay by Nick Hornby (he no doubt liked the cheque), and some well-known actors (Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters...), it's watchable enough.

But it's really just a Oirish Mills and Boon affair, made to appeal to the American market. And my, how clean everyone was back in 1950/51/52. Even the tramps look freshly scrubbed with lovely teeth!

The best bits of this film are the comic vignettes - especially Julie Walters as the boarding house owner, keeping her spiteful, dizzy Irish girls in check.

Jim Broadbent does Jim Broadbent, playing a Catholic priest - and these days, it's unusual to see such a character in a film who isn't accused of molesting choirboys! So that was different.

But really, this is just a silly Oirish soap opera melodrama for women to weep at - and cynically made for the American Irish market. How about looking at English or Welsh immigrants to the USA for a change eh? Or Gernans or Swedes. I get so sick of all the Oirish plastic paddy piffle.

2 stars.

This is a highly enjoyable film and also disturbing - the massive abuse of children by the Catholic church and the way that institution covered it up for decades (centuries?) and just moved priests to other parishes to abuse again, is truly disgraceful and shocking.

It's an 'All the President's Men' for the 21st century.

Some may say it's a bit one-note but I can see no other way to tell this tale. There are enough subplots and extra characters (the devout grandmother Catholic; the abused now grown up after surviving drugs and drink; the deluded priests who thought the abuse was OK; the devious church leaders who resist the truth to protect the church; the dodgy lawyers; the population of very Catholic Boston who in effect knew what was happening but put loyalty to the church before protecting children. 'Good Germans' indeed.

Good acting; standard plot. Utterly believable. This movie well deserved its awards.

A bit too long, however, and so can lose momentum and drag a little in the middle. Hence 4 stars and not 5.

I would say, however, that all institutions can behave like this - the instinct of institutions and their loyal defenders is self-preservation. So we have seen similar patterns of corruption and cover up in the police, schools, councils, universities etc.

I am also convinced that there are similar abuse scandals in other religious institutions which also demand total unquestioning loyalty - from mosques, temples etc and that there is a huge hidden problem of abuse in Muslim, Hindu and Sikh institutions. I doubt anyone would dare to investigate that, though.

I enjoyed watching this movie. It's way better than the blockbuster Godzilla from a few years ago, but not as hilariously funny as the 1950s Japanese version.

The radiation issue was cleverly folded into the plot and backstory.

Anyone complaining that Godzilla wasn't on screen enough just does not realise the way a story needs to build tension; in Jurassic Park the dinosaurs were on screen for only 6 and a half minutes! OK, so this is not up there with that film, but it's a good effort and I had no issue with the MUTOS - mega moths who eat radiation. Godzilla needs an enemy! Mankind needs jeopardy (will the mutos breed?) All decent plotting actually.

Loads of CGI, of course, with hundreds of digital artists credited, but that's true of most movies these days.

The acting is fine - with 'nowhere boy' Aaron Johnson doing an American accent (as so many Brits have to do these days, coz Brits in these sort of films are always either the baddies or the boffins or the totty...)

The film was perhaps a tad overlong - and some subtitles need a serious edit by someone who is literate in English.

But for a good fun monster movie, this does the job. 4 stars.