Film Reviews by PV

Robert De Niro in comedy cash-in mode again here. A rather silly film with some good bits in it - that's how I'd describe this.

Just couldn't believe the set-up though - but hey, it's just a dramatic device.

Hated the twee family set-up and the 'working woman' spiel though. The very idea someone who could set up and run a large company couldn't manage so clear a desk or eat breakfast is just plain daft too.

This is the sort of pleasant, inoffensive, mildly amusing girlie film you'd take a girlfriend to on a first date.

Forgettable twaddle, but raises a laugh now and then especially with the clash of generations - lots of gags there that ring true (which much of the rest of the movie doesn't). The dodgy driver subplot is a nonsense, and some of the coincidences in the plot are as silly as they are unnecessary.

It's a 'meh...' movie and as such get a limp 3 stars. Not good or bad or memorable in any way. But a passable feelgood film.

OK, so this movie clearly owes a lot of American Psycho - and I suppose it's a question of personal taste if you like the over-the-top satire or not. Personally, I wish it'd just been a more real world tale of the music business rather than a murderous fantasy - because it really does not need the flights of fancy (which are full of plot holes anyway - and a subplot with a bent copper is so unbelievable it should be on Star Trek - as should the dodgy porn subplot. Just not credible). But anyway...

Nicholas Hoult is, as usual, excellent - and even the ever-annoying James Cordon can't spoil this film!

The shark-infested music business is shown in all its amoral horror - as it has been many a time before in movies like 'Killing Bono' or even 'That'll be the Day'. This has a 90s twist though and in-jokes about shoe-gazing music and German techno are spot on!

Oddly, the movie is now almost nostalgic - since 1996/7 when this is set, the price of music has halved and the size of the record industry has halved too (half the staff now too). Internet downloading certainly nailed these rich kids! Power to the people now - who download for 99p an album track, so no need to buy a £10 album at all. Oh and the singles market has now utterly collapsed too.

I am not sure whether to give this 3 or 4 stars - because although enjoyable it's not all THAT great. But I shall give it 3.5 stars (the half is for being mercifully short and for some great tunes on the soundtrack) and round that up to 4 stars.

This is from the same team that made 2012 - about the Olympics. All written by John Morton who wrote People Like Us for Radio 4 which is what led to 2012 and then WIA.

Many people have called this a satire about the BBC. It isn't. It's a farce - and not about the BBC either but about the PR industry and the awful managerialist language you get in all modern corporations.

The other thing is this: it's not as funny as it thinks it is. I got very tired of the BBC waffling about what good sports they are allowing a comedy like this to be made on their promises. But really, this is NOT biting satire - it is (very) mild satire at best, but mostly farce. It's basically harmless and toothless, and not satire at all then. A real satire of the BBC (in books such as Rasmus) offends its target - and W1A is basically a harmless TV documentary spoof.

Having said all that, the use of language by the writer is exquisite in its rhythms (though some characters can get wearing). There is a real musicality and bounce to the language - as though words were ping pong balls being shot back and forth in meetings by managers who speak managerialese to try and justify their absurd job titles and huge salaries. That really IS like the BBC.

So 3.5 rounded up to 4. It was a good choice to limit each series to 4 parts. That means it stops before it could really get annoying.

Worth a watch anyway. But nowhere near as funny as it (or the BBC) thinks it is.

This 3 part TV series is one of the very best adaptations of Agatha Christie I have ever seen. It was made not BY the BBC but FOR the BBC - which is possibly why.

Really top notch scripting, production values, acting, everything.

And changed the '10 N-words' poem into '10 Little Soldiers' did not, for once, seem achingly 'politically correct' as so much pc tampering does. It was utterly effortless and natural.

Sheer class.

Five stars.

I read some poor reviews of this movies giving it 2 stars, but I found it hugely enjoyable. It really is nail-biting, especially is you don't like heights! My heart was racing at times, and my stomach quesy as camera panned down to the drop!

There was also a documentary Man on a Wire a while ago, and that's good too. But to be honest, I preferred this.

OK, we know that the guy DOESN'T fall from his high wire stretched between the World Trade Centre towers in 1974 BUT the writers stuff the script so full of jeopardy that it really doesn't matter (I only wondered at times how true all of the obstacles that appeared in the main character's way were really true!)

The only thing that grated a bit was the rather twee view of France occasionally; but then, Hollywood films give an equally twee view of London and the UK! Hence the 4 not 5 stars.

The characters and script were all good, as was Ben Kingsley as the strict circus teacher.

I would have liked to see the REAL M. Petit at the end perhaps, so we know how his life went after this.

But these are minor quibbles. This is a clear 4 stars and a great movie for the whole family to watch with their hands over their eyes!

This is a gripping thriller, superior to the usual Hollywood fare.

OK, so it starts with a coincidence and the bullying pity party is laid on a bit too think really, as is the wife's 'issues'. Also, a subplot with a competitor for a job does not really wash, and I kept on asking myself why the characters didn't do this or that to address the issue.

Anyhoo...this is a really watchable thriller that'll make you jump.

Like the best thrillers, it preys one of our greatest fears: that we never really know anyone - not really.

A genuinely surprising and brave ending too (though no doubt feminists will be outraged).

4/5 stars.

Together with the brilliant "Margin Call", this movie is the best made about the 2008 financial crash and the sub-prime crisis that started in the USA (we'd call it 'repossession' in the UK).

This film shows utterly believable characters - both the heartless scavengers feasting on the defaulters' misery, and the home-owners turfed out of their homes for defaulting by legal order - in a way that is both effective and believable. It must be a truly horrific thing to lose one's home like this, and some of the victims of the housing crisis are al too believable as they end up in single rooms in downbeat motels surrounded by crime, Hispanics, loud music and very angry people who have been evicted.

But what truly lifts this film is the moral debate - what is wrong and right soon gets very blurred indeed for both us and the characters. Sure, owning a home is important - but is it worth more than your family? A true moral quandary here.

If I had one criticism it would be that the misfortune affecting the main character (who looks too much like Andy Murray for comfort really!) is spread on with a trowel like very think mortar at first.

However, this does not detract from the excellence of this movie which is perfectly structured and exciting to watch in a way a typical British film or TV drama would not be.

Oddly, this film is produced from Abu Dhabi - not sure why (maybe the producers' families lost loads in the crash and wanted revenge?).

Whatever - this is a great movie and way better than most Hollywood fare. 5 out of 5. I could watch it again now, and then watch "Margin Call" - to prepare myself for the massive financial and housing crisis that is surely coming sooner than we think (in 20016 or 2017 I am sure).

This film is called 'The Lobster'. It should be called 'Preposterous pretentious unfunny Eurotrash fantasy drama'. It clearly thinks it is so clever and original - but it really is not. Theatre and film have done all this surrealist absurdist stuff a great many times over the last 100 years.

This is billed as a comedy, Well, no laughs for me, just groans at how AWFUL it all is. Terrible dialogue - written, I see, by Greek non-native English speakers copying drama workshops and many postmodern theatre writers (Becket, Pinter et al).

A shame so many great actors were wasted on this drivel, esp Ben Wishaw.

A fantasy story has to create a willing suspension of belief in the audience. Jurassic Park does that. This pompous film does not.

I see it is state funded by lottery and EU; and is a Euro co-production. No doubt someone had contacts and cash to get this awful film made with our money. But the world really would be a better place without it.

The fantasy setting seems half-Irish and half-French, which is distinctly odd. The Irish accents made me think of Father Ted, and I half-expected some great gags and jokes. There were none. The French is more like it - France has made countless pretentious movies like this over the years.

Boring, unfunny, pretentious, dull and deeply derivative and unoriginal. The only good thing is that I didn't pay money to go and see this at the cinema (which I was considering due to the superlative reviews it got at the time! The film companies and director are obviously very well-connected to film reviewers...)

I wanted to like this film - I really did.

But it has to be one of the most boring, slow, tedious films I have ever watched. Only 90 minutes but feels like 3 hours! Pretty countryside though, in Norfolk (not usually in films so that was a plus).

I suspect the problem is that the writer/director is pretending to be French - and this has all the hallmarks of one of those pretentious Gallic movies that art students and Derrida-drone academics so adore.

It's based on a short story. I wonder if it's French? That would explain why a British student goes to Switzerland (no-one ever did that, not from his social class! The hippy trail or Spain, maybe).

This probably works better on the page, frankly - and should have been a radio or TV drama really.

The lead actors are wasted AND very VERY irritating at times. I just did not believe in them. The older man who, despite being very academic, speaking fluent German and reading tomes on philosophy, works in a factory (this makes me think the story has French roots). The slightly younger woman - with a very odd accent - who apparently can afford a mansion on a teacher's pension. Other plot holes include: the convenient lack of children (why not adopt); the unreasonably resentful wife (as if anyone expects their partner not to have been in love with anyone else before marriage); the twee pregnancy subplot.

If you want to watch a deep and meaningful film about grief then watch something like Philomena. This 45 years film is pretentious and so in love with itself (it thinks it is SO clever and profound, but really is not).

This film is not bad. One issue with it is the ever-irritating James Dean character at its core - his petulant adolescent whinings, and his annoying habit of throwing quotes into every conversation to sound clever, make me want to yell at the screen for him to GROW UP!

However, James Dean is merely a puppet, as he was in life. The main character who gives us access to his world is the photographer played by Robert Pattison (like Nick Caraway lets us know Gatsby; like an academic lets us into Dylan Thomas's world in Set Fire to the Stars; like Ed Wood grants us access to Bela Lugosi). He is by far the more interesting character.

Some filler scenes in bars (with Eartha Kitt no less - and I had no idea James Dean knew her like that!) pad this movie out and it is overlong.

There are interesting scenes with Dean's family, but really, this story only comes to life when the photographer character is on the screen. He is the story. Not the egg-shell empty James Dean - a pretty face and a Hollywood puppet - who looked great + trendy + cool. But had minimal talent.

And I confess to a life-long hatred of bongos - (which the non-musical always adore) - and for some beatnicky reason, James Dean carries his bongo with him everywhere he goes.

Worth watching - but no more than average and the story is a bit thin and hollow. Like James Dean himself then...

Just like Sharknado 1, this is absurd - a comedy horror that really does 'jump the shark'.

Some deadpan comedy, self-consciously wooden action, obvious special effects etc.

But it is what it is. Noisy dumb fun!

The only thing I don't like about these movies is the idea sharks are dangerous. No they are not. Very few people attacked killed by sharks each year. And 90% of sharks have been killed in the last 15 years because of greedy Chinese demand for shark fins - a status symbol food that actually tastes of nothing. Maybe that's why I preferred to see the people killed horribly in Sharknado than the sharks!

This is a fascinating movie - about songwriting, the toll artistic creation can take, and somewhat surprisingly, the huge power shrinks can have over their patients.

Not sure how much is true - and how much invented through dramatic licence.

However, what is true is that the Beach Boys made some great records + all their great songs were written by Brian Wilson, who then suffered a mental collapse thru drug abuse, stayed in bed for 3 years then disappeared. Only to recently complete the SMiLE album started in 1968 (?) and start touring again (watch till the VERY end to watch Brian singing the track LOVE AND MERCY).

I had no idea about the rest of the story so enjoyed seeing that (and I have always been deeply suspicious of shrinks and their motives, so this was preaching to the converted really).

As a songwriter and writer, I also identified with the sometimes tortuous process of songwriting.

Though a bit 'poor me' pity party, misery memoir at times (to fit in with modern American mores and the habit of blaming 'abuse' by parents for everything that goes wrong in one's life, rather than, say, DRUG ABUSE), this is a really watchable film. One wonders if daddy was quite so bad though - he was just a typical post-war dad, non?

This film flits back and forth between the 60s and the 80s. With Brian Wilson played by 2 different actors - something that works surprisingly well.

I simply adored all the songs here - such great harmonics and key/chord changes. For that alone I loved this film. Though the changes can be confusing to the unwary.

4 stars +

I really enjoyed this film - not a classic but funny nonetheless.

Firstly, it's always fun to see Nazis coming to a grisly end, especially in a Paris brothel.

Secondly, Peter Sellers is such a genius mimic, I could watch him in anything. Here he plays an old French general to perfection, and also does his upper class British officer impression (which he uses in several movies including Dr Strangelove).

Thirdly, I like the way it whizzes through the war in 90 minutes!

And finally there are some laugh out loud gags and great characters.

I know they'll never show this on TV, mainly because one character Peter Sellers plays in a Japanese General/Prince - and TV esp the BBC have effectively banned any white person ever doing impressions of ethnic characters. That's a shame esp as the opposite is allowed. The same fate has befallen classic comedy It Ain't Half Hot Mum (thankfully available on DVD via CinemaParadiso!). The Millionairess is a better movie and has Peter Sellers playing an Indian (and singing Goodness Gracious Me). These films should all be seen in context BUT they should be seen and broadcast. I feels rather like living in a totalitarian state when the 'politically correct' Politbureau decide that the people must never see such things again.

Also, this was made by and with people who had lived through the war and been in it on both sides YET they can laugh about it. These days it'd be considered 'offensive' by the pc guardians of taste and decency no doubt. One more reason to watch and laugh then!

A middling entry to the Peter Sellers CV (and also featuring a performance by Timothy West and great German actors too).

This is a funny film - packed full of 2 things: 1) visual jokes which are as old as Laurel and Hardy and silent movies (in fact, older, but none the worse for that!), and what can be called Jewish humour - lots of that too.

The visual jokes and ironies are the funniest; the crude/lewd jokes don't work as well but like most movies this is aimed at a young audience in that. More mature viewers can appreciate the more sophisticated ironies + visual humour more, I think.

Quite a starry cast perform well. Some spot-on jokes for anyone who runs a small business too (like me!)

A good movie to watch on Friday night with some friends, some beers and a takeaway!

This is an excellent film - funny, well-written, and the sort of comedy the UK seems incapable of making (as its film industry was incapable ot making funny family comedies like Touchstone in the 80s and after).

Yes, it's crude and lewd (too much so for my taste). But it is also laugh-out-loud funny. The slapstick is like a crude version of Laurel and Hardy. The cameos (Eminem et al) are top notch too. I watched this movie with an elderly lady who, despite the crude gags and violence, really enjoyed it and laughed out loud too. I think you just have to GET satire to enjoy it, and so many these days - raised on dumb, unfunny, pc BBC2 'comedy' - just don't.

The movie has a serious message too - this is a really decent satire NOT ONLY on the awfulness of North Korea (and by extension all dictatorships, like the Islamofascist ones the woefully misguided lefties in the UK want to hug and appease as fellow Israel-haters) but also on American culture, especially inane celebrity culture.

This is a bit too long. Plus the actor who plays Kim Jung-un speaks American English too well and has American teeth too. HOWEVER, these are minor gripes.

This film is 1) funny; 2) true; 3) a classic.

5 stars.