Film Reviews by PV

This film is so-so, obviously a vehicle for US TV star Kelsey Grammer to do his bumbling Englishman act.

I note there is 'additional writing' credited, and that the producer is also the writer. The number of old jokes and lifted lines I heard was too many to count in the end - I suspect the writers used a book of quotes when cobbling this one together!

It's all a fantasy, utterly unrealistic, a wish fulfilment film really, as fantastical as Jurassic Park or Big.

And it has such stereotypes of English upper class people they could even be called racist. But then this movie was made for a US and international audience, NOT a British one, and foreign audiences love to think all Brits live in mansions and know the Queen!

The French director may also like to know that in Britain we have no 'Main Street' - as have the high street!

This movie is the definition of 'meh'. Not awful. Not dreadful. Just....well...MEH!

Wanna watch a great movie on the financial crisis? That's 'Margin Call'. Not this.

3 stars. JUST. It was going to be 2 but I liked the dog and the tramp, and also spotting places I know in London. There's also a joke about Nelson Mandela that made me laugh out loud!

Well, if this is a 'comedy', I'm a Greenland shark! Not one laugh from this little film about 2 squabbling brothers.

It's basically all set in irredeemably bleak Iceland (this is the 2nd Icelandic film I have seen - the first, 'Of Horses and Men' was equally dour and bleak, but better overall).

And it's all about sheep and scrapie, with flocks being destroyed etc.

I like little independent films and would like to give it more, but even at its short length, I was clock-watching after the half-way point. So 2 stars.

I was looking forward to this movie, but was so bored throughout as the whole thing was predictable and derivative of many other films and stories (The Village by M Night Shaylaman being one, and he nicks his stories from past books and films too).

No spoilers here. Just to say the CGI effects will impress young teens. Also, I believe the teen boy actor here is a favourite of teen girls, which is no doubt why the movie was made and that actor got the gig.

Probably best to avoid unless you're a teenage girl or a tweenager with a crush.

1 star.

The first thing for me to say is that this sort of freeform jazz is not my favourite sort of music. In fact, I tend to call it 'fire in a pet shop' music. I prefer a pleasant melody!

The second this is that this is a fascinating movie about Miles' retirement 1975-9 when he was high on cocaine and sex addiction (indeed after his death in 1991 it was revealed he was taking a drug used by HIV infected patients).

The ending is confusing - bearing in mind Miles Davis died on 28 September 1991. I knew little about Miles Davis except Some Kind of Blue from the late 50s, and the later jazz funk isn't really my thing.

But the film jobs along nicely enough, though I'd be surprised if this true story were not massively embellished.

I think Ewan McGregor is miscast though. I wonder if the Rolling Stone journalist was really Scottish at all!

Interesting too that Miles Davis came from a very prosperous and ranch-owning family, so not the oppressed African-American who made it at all! His dad was a rich dentist!

But still 3.5 stars rounded up.

The best thing to say about this film is that it looks good - like a pop music video, in fact. More vignettes than a proper story.

It's all rather confusing and vague, maybe meant to be ambiguous.

No idea if this is based on a novel, but if so, I'd love to know which one so I can look up what it's meant to be about!

Some strange volcanic island populated by mutant women who make boys pregnant - or something. Why is never explained. Your guess is as good as mine.

Baffling gallic fantasy.

It's great to see a film like this made, though no idea if it was actually filmed in Afghanistan (and at the end the film is in tribute to a girl who took part in an Afghan 'Pop Idol'-style TV show, who I suspect was murdered for it).

The idea seems too odd to be true, but it is - though like all 'true' stories it has embellishment (Titanic, anyone?)

The desperation of a has-been (or never was) manager in the amoral cut-throat music business is shown in all its gory details (this could actually be watched together with the UK film 'Kill Your Friends').

Then the desperation of life in a wartorn Afghanistan with all the spivs is realistic - this is what happens in chaotic wartorn places.

OK so the ending and some parts may well be unrealistic, but it's a film and a comedy to boot, NOT a documentary. I do wish people would learn the difference.

For being original and funny too I give this five stars. It was going to be four BUT the music is ace and gets an extra star, and a lot by Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam after converting to Islam in 1977 - after all this great songs were written, of course!) The first song by him is 'Pop Star' - one I have never heard before.

Far better than the last few tedious Hollywood romantic comedies I've watched.

This is one of those films that would never be made if it didn't get state funding (from Irish govt this time).

It's a deeply twee and sentimental romantic story - like one of those wish fulfilment photo stories from Jackie magazine in the 80s!

The plot (let's put a band together) is pure 'Commitments' - a sort of junior 1980s version. The minor characters derivative (the oddball musical guy with rabbits is a copy of the guy in the 1970s Liver Birds). Of course there is the token black too - but lovely to see him playing a Roland Juno 6 (like the one I bought in 1985 + sold 5 years ago for more than I bought it for as they're still a classic and popular).

Knowing 80s music SO well, I also found myself constantly annoyed by this movie. The Top of the Pops clips (eg Duran Duran) are 1980/3. At the time, they were a girls' band and no boys liked them, by the way (so why the elder brother music expert here does is a mystery).

Then the main character sings A-Ha's Take on Me (from 1985/6), and we have music from the late 70s too (M) and reference to Adam and the Ants (1981), plus Hall and Oates (1985). As a teenager at the time I notice these errors as I did in TV series Ashes to Ashes. Though I understand it - to limit oneself to 1983 and before means missing out A-Ha and others!

Which brings us to the music - as in, the original music the ever-changing fashion-influenced band of kids (which is way too good but I suppose has to be). It's so derivative and mediocre too - always an issue with films that feature pretend pop stars and pretend bands (the music is never good enough).

The Christian Brothers subplot is clumsy in this; the school bully one works much better. Various social issues plots are two-dimensional and simplistic JUST as they would be in one of those photo-stories from Jackie magazine which is what this really is (and the ending is absurd too).

This is pure romantic fantasy. Mills and Boon for teenage Irish girls, I suppose. Can't see many teen boys liking this soppy tale much.

So all in all, maybe one strictly for teen girls only? 2 stars. No more.

The best thing about this film is the cinematography - and the snowy American mountain landscapes are wonderful and gloriously framed. This does for snow what Laurence of Arabia did for sand!

The worst thing is the length - this really does go on and on. Two and a half hours of it. Less waffle + self-indulgence would have cut 30 minutes AT LEAST off that.

The acting is fine, and I think Leonardo diCaprio won an Oscar for it (the Oscars ALWAYS go to actors playing the roles of disabled, injured or ill people!) - but his performance in The Wolf of Wall Street is the one that should have won all the awards. Not this.

Fur is the great motivator here - and the greed for that and money is behind all bad things that happen. The interplay between the French, the Americans + the warring Indians is well-explored. With the usual 'politically correct' scenes and dialogue one expects from such films these days.

But there is nothing new here. Plenty of similar 'man surviving in wilderness' films from the 1970s especially. The plot could be from a 19th century Wild West Cowboys and Indians comic really.

The music is great with Ruichi Sakamoto involved.

I'd give this 3 stars but another star for the wonderful landscapes and soundtrack.

This film makes me realise why my father used to groan and turn over the TV channel whenever the announcer said 'and now, a drama set in Northern Ireland'.

The religious conflict there (Catholics versus Protestants) is backwards even by modern European standards. They make former Yugoslavians look civilised. The place really is a dump - I could never ever live in such a place, because the same hatreds exist now, bubbling under the surface. The UK has poured money into Northern Ireland but it'll never erase that sectarian hatred.

Having said all that, this is an interesting film about a solider stuck behind enemy lines. Most credit should go to the writer Gregory Burke rather than the Director (brought up in London; born in France to French parents). The writing is spot-on - and the writer uses silence so well. The director directs this with hand-held cameras as though he's directing a Zombie film or one about black youth on an inner city council estate (his previous TV series). It doesn't always work.

The characters are all too believable - the treachery, the shifting sands of loyalty, the abuses on both sides, the horror of Northern Ireland's Troubles which, frankly, achieved nothing for the hotheaded youth of the IRA. Not sure I actually believe some of the plot - no spoilers here though but I have never heard of British undercover soldiers trying to do what they try to do to the soldier here.

Worth a watch. But lacking any comic relief whatsoever so very grim. 4 stars.

I enjoyed this film. So yes, I know how film makers will exaggerate things to fit the story - in this case that make out Eddie the Eagle to be utterly useless (when in fact he was in the UK ski team before he became a ski jumper - as he said himself on a recent radio show plugging his book).

But film makers will always do this to make the eventual success all the more wonderfully improbable (think ONE CHANCE about Paul Potts which also played fast and loose with the facts). Films lie. That's why they work. They're fantasy.

One does wonder if the barriers from the UK Olympic committee were put up as shown here - but the blueprint if to keep adding obstacles that the hero overcomes and so he does. I remember 1988 and how Eddie the Eagle was front page news.

Some good jokes and acting - Hugh Jackman impresses as a hard-drinking old lag ski jumper, and there's a brief role for Christopher Walken too. UK actors include Keith Allen as the Eagle's dad and Jim Broadbent as the BBC commentator. Directed by Dexter Fletcher (the boy in The Elephant Man + much else besides).

Fun to see the 1970s on screen in the scenes of Eddie's childhood.

An enjoyable and snowy fantasy - 4 stars.

I found this film deeply irritating. Why? Well maybe it's the way it is clearly aimed at the American market so lays on thick the English and French stereotypes (it panders to the USA so much it even used the US version of 'For here's a jolly good fellow' whish in the UK has 'and so say all of us' and NOT 'which nobody can deny as used here).

Like most US films, English people are portrayed as all upper class and rich - this panders to what Americans want to see (as mercilessly milked by High Grant and directors/writers like Richard Curtis. Personally, I find it all vomit-inducing in its twee dishonesty.

It's based on the best-selling (and unashamedly elitist) books of Peter Mayle (author of A Year in Provence). So all tickety-boo middle class fantasy, basically.

France is as appallingly stereotyped as the English characters too AND OF COURSE there needs to be an American character to appeal to that market.

The central character is entirely unsympathetic - and this is laid on thick so as to make his 'redemption' more right-on and perfect in character development terms BUT it is 100% unbelievable too. I have heard of bankers changing careers like this after battles with booze or after losing money/jobs/careers/ homes BUT successful greedy pig bankers do not change their spots so easily!

Acting is fine, and one or two jokes made me laugh. Some pretty French scenery too. Best I can say of this emo-porn fantasy.

But really, only one for the hardcore fans of Ridley Scott or Russell Crowe. 1/5 stars rounded up.

This really is a depressing movie. From Hungary. But there is so little dialogue in the whole film, it is almost mimed and coulod be in any language.

It's filmed in hand-held camera style - like Blair Witch Project or other movies which aim to create Cinama Verite and that LIVE feel which puts the audience in the midst of the action - or, as here, the horror.

What really makes this movies, though, is the way it shows the workaday reality of life at a concentration camp - it's all scrubbing, cleaning, sorting, obeying orders, as at an abattoir. That is quite unlike glossy Holocaust Hollywood movies. This is all the more horrible for its minimalism.

There is also interesting ambiguity: is the body the man's son, or merely a symbol of innocence?

It's all relentlessly gloomy and sad, but a must-see movie and possibly the best Hungarian film I have ever seen.

4 stars.

The first thing to say is that this film is laugh-out-loud funny at times - some clever gags and lines, and some strong characters, all help the well-designed plot move along at a good pave to a satisfying conclusion.

What works far less well is the constant worthy moralising - it's all about being a better person (or animal) and building self-esteem in the face of thinly-veiled analogies of racism and sexism. This movie clearly thinks it's being very clever indeed. But it isn't. That's where the movie become wince-inducing at times.

Of course this being diversity-worshipping 2016, the main character has to be female - just like another princess in Frozen winning against the odds. Happily, the character is strong and the fox sidekick a very strong and more interesting character to balance things.

But the mystery plot is interesting and strong, and most characters too - I loved the sloths!

The ubiquitous Idris Elba is madly miscast as a water buffalo police chief though - doing some weird US-mash-up of a cockney accent.

The world of the story makes sense if one suspends disbelief, and it has its own odd logic, as these fantasies always must. The 'night crawler' plot point is great fun.

So, a fun animation if you can get past the heavy-handed 'racism is BAD' worthy lecturing.

4 stars.

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.