Film Reviews by PV

This film was nominated for several Oscars. Why? Well, because it's all about actors and acting, so appeals to the members of the Academy! But really, this movie thinks it's far FAR cleverer than it in fact is.

Without the confused 6th form surrealist wish fulfilment, this film would be an interesting character study of a has-been actor. As it is, I got very annoyed with the silly and undeveloped alter ego Birdman with superpowers shtick, and especially by some nonsense flying scenes.

I would have awarded this movie 2 stars were it not for the well-written character studies and some crackling dialogue. A shame it didn't stick to that really.

But it all made sense when the credits rolled: it's written and directed by Spaniards, and they ADORE surrealist stuff like this.

Anyway, it is what it is - which is a very average and at time pretentious movie.

This is a fascinating film, based on true events and a real bloke (watch the credits all through at the end to see original footage of this individual from 1984).

It's basically about some drunken fishermen going to sea in a knackered old boat, which ends up sinking.

In artic temperatures, most men would die within minutes, yet one man swims 6 hours to land and becomes a minor celebrity as a result.

It's really a film about fame, I suppose, and how the spotlight of fame can land on someone totally unsuited to it and for random reasons.

Only the 2nd Icelandic film I have seen (the other being Of Horse and Men which also involved a lot of drunkenness - maybe it's an Iceland thing? Well, it is cold there...)

The Deep is an unassuming little film, but I enjoyed it greatly. 4 stars.

I was intensely irritated by this film - which, I note, is made by BBC Films and based on a documentary by the director.

Was it because every social issues box was ticked (autism, tick; self-harm, tick; ethnic diversity, tick; mixed relationships, tick; bereavement, tick; MS, tick etc)? Or was it because of the brazen and shameless attempt to aim this film at the lucrative Chinese market? Or was it the dreadfully fey and whimsical soundtrack? Or was it the cop-out unbelievable ending? Or was it the wishy-washy wimp of a mother character? Or the completely unnecessary inclusion of girls in a maths contest (which really does not happen) and a silly love triangle subplot with one blonde English teen girl and another Chinese one lusting after the boy teen? Or the utter absurdity of the main character learning Mandarin Chinese fluently by reading a phrase book on the flight to Taiwan (yeah right!)Gosh, whom knows? Maybe I'll work it out in an equation and claim to be on the autistic spectrum too eh?

Good actors in this movie especially the always -wonderful Eddie Marsdan. Also Rafe Spall, even though this posh boy just doesn't get the character's London accent quite right (it's a stage school version...) Those performances get an extra star - otherwise I would have given this one star.

But I really didn't believe the main character, even though Asa (what a name!) Butterfield is possibly the next Spiderman. And the mother character and the teen girls characters were just shoe-horned into the plot because, frankly, high level maths is a male-only world, and that would never do (esp at the BBC...) Still, it has disability, autism, and is multi-ethnic, so no doubt the BBC think that alone makes it a wonderful film.

But it isn't. It is over-rated, calculated, schmaltzy and annoying. And it sure ain't a comedy either - I didn't laugh once.

And, by the way, at the vast majority of UK Chinese takeaways (all except the new ones opened to cater for Chinese students), they speak CANTONESE and NOT Mandarin, because the owners and staff are from Hong Kong families.

At first, this movie does not seem like a comedy at all, even a dark done. But as the film progresses, this becomes rather like an old-fashioned farce. Like a Nordic version of Kind Hearts and Coronets, with lots of snow and Norwegian wood and minimalist décor.

It's basically a quest for a man whose son has been killed to get revenge on the gangsters who are responsible. Enter a Serbian drug gang, as well as a Japanese-Chinese hit-man, bizarrely - and lots of mafia-flavoured fun ensues with many a misunderstanding causing confusion, and blood vendetta plots playing one drug gang off against another.

I particularly liked the way as each person dies, their name and an individual cross/star comes on the screen. And there are lots of bodies to get through.

Yes, it all gets a bit silly and unbelievable in the end. A non-believable gay subplot clunks into the story to drive it forward, for example.

But it's enjoyable ride none the less, especially the first half - and some well-drawn caricatures of drug-dealers and drug-smugglers are good fun.

4 stars

This low-budget movie is much better than many expensive Hollywood horror movies, most of which leave me cold.

There are jumps and scares, and a great soundtrack reminiscent of Halloween, like the suburban teen plot too.

Teens are stalked by a shape-shifting 'follower' - and can pass on the curse down the line to anyone they have sex one. A neat idea, but like all ideas, not original - it's just like Night of the Demon, that classic black and white film based on an MR James ghost story (as indeed are all Japanese horror films like The Ring).

OK, it's a bit silly in parts, and the first half of the movie is the best: films like this always struggle with an ending because where can they go? Death or Victory - or vague ambiguity, as in most modern films.

I enjoyed this film a lot - it's nail-biting and effective. And the scenes of run-down Detroit make a nice change from the usual LA-based Hollywood horror movies for teens.

Recommended horror film, just the right thing for teens to watch on a dark Friday night...

4 stars.

I read a really awful 1 star review of this film so had to rent it! It's an odd international co-production which seems have been filmed in Berlin with an Iranian director...

Basically, this movie is a study in insanity - with darkly comic + tragic tones. A man with mental problems stops taking his meds and so hears his cat and dog speaking to him, encouraging him to kill or not..

It's both funny and disturbing, in equal measure.

One point: I am getting rather sick and tired of cats being portrayed as evil in movies, and dogs as the good guys. Is this because the scripts are written by cat haters? Who knows? But I am sure some of these films lead to animal abuse.

And the way this cat has a Scottish accent is just bizarre - seeing as the main character who is making up the voice was brought up in Berlin until about 10. Maybe an evil character should have sounded like Hitler or Freud or another German speaker?

Some will no doubt be offended by yet another portrait of someone who's mentally ill and gets violent and kills people - when a really tiny number of anyone with mental illness (from depression and anxiety to real psychosis) does so. But then, there isn't much drama in watching someone staring at a wall, is there?

Yes, offensive. Yes, dark. Yes, occasionally funny.

3 stars.

TV is a monster, and reality TV is its deformed psychotic twin: this is the conclusion to reach after watching the poisonous effect of reality TV, (in this case, Big Brother), on a poor fish seller in Italy's poorest city (Naples).

The film starts slowly and so you need to stick with it. There's also an incomprehensive subplot about robots (which counts as one of the scams the key character has on the side).

But when the story gets into its stride, we see the poison of hope of being on some dumb reality TV show starts gnawing away at a man's soul. The effects on his family and means of making a living are also explored.

I suppose this movie falls into an old trope: that of 'be careful what you wish for.' So it could be compared to many an old folk tale, fairy tale, morality tale etc.

Ultimately, this film is also a study of delusion, paranoia and mental illness. And how human greed can destroy a man.

But really, it's one of the best and most interesting satires about reality TV ever made. In the top 5. (Truman Show is #1).

Four stars.

The first thing to remember about this movie is that it's based on a book written by a women for women - i.e. an emotional tale designed to connect emotionally to female readers who tend to like soapy, weepy, family stories - which is what this is.

The second thing to remember is that it won an Oscar for Julieanne Moore who stars as the smug academic whose hubris is rewarded/punished by a sad descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease - which used to be called, going doolally and senile (which was much easier to spell, frankly).

And that's it! How much you like this will depend on your gender, I suspect. All about family relationships and how they alter after a diagnosis. Thankfully though this movie is short at just over 90 minutes, so that's a big plus really.

Me - I thought it was so-so, and just reminded me of all those cancer/medical films they sometimes play on daytime TV (I remember one from the late 70s/early 80s about a woman singing downtown who gets cancer. The film never said if crooning the song causes her condition...)

It's also a teeny bit offensive in putting forward the idea that a 50 year old female academic who gets Alzheimer's is a tragedy far greater than an old person getting it. Nonsense. This academic ain't Einstein or Marie Curie - she's a so-so academic who's written a text book, like millions of others. I didn't buy the 'what a great loss to humanity' shtick really. Quite frankly, judging by some of the academics I have known, you wouldn't be able to tell all that much difference if they did get Alzheimer's...

If you want to see Julieanne Moore's best ever performance (which should have won an Oscar), then rent out Map to the Stars, not this.

In a word: 'meh'....

OK, so this is the 2nd sequel (I think) BUT it is still funny. I watched it with an 80-something lady who also laughed out loud at certain points (though disliked some crude visual jokes).

It works because the characters are strong, and the script is tight (the UK just does not seem able to make 90 minute funny film comedies like this for some reason).

OK, so De Niro, Hoffman and Streisand are phoning it I (and coining it!) - but hey, that's Hollywood.

A good fun comedy which, unusually, touches on the much-hidden US class system (where those in lowly jobs are looked down on).

This movie is a bit long and perhaps too reliant on CGI - the list of hundreds of names of digital artists at the end are a sign of just how much of this is create in a computer.

All in all, it's a bigged up version of the bible, which takes liberties and dramatic licence, but why not (the old testament is hardly a documentary!).

There are some fun parts - and in the tale of friends/brothers who fall out it aims to mirror Gladiator and Ben Hur etc I suppose.

The plagues are done well - you can have fun trying to guess what's next.

Most stupid scenes involve the pharaoh's advisor trying to explain the plagues by logic. For some reason, he has a strong Scottish accent! The other accents used are neutral, maybe mid-Atlantic. So why the SNP accent half-way through? Very odd. I was glad when he met his fate...

I do not have an issue with the race of the actors - ancient Egypt, after all, was populated by north Africans (not those with negroid features). The pharaohs were NOT black like Kanye West, no matter what certain race consciousness groups in the USA claim.

So all in all, worth a watch. But not a patch on Gladiator.

Ridley Scott is 75 years old though...so maybe time to pass the baton?

Watching this film, which resembles a pop video, I was reminded of 'Nice video, shame about the song.' This could be 'nice visuals, shame about the script.'

It's so-so - and from the school of independent US films and novels focusing on down-at-heel communities, so we know where the writer/director got his ideas from.

The story takes place run-down town, where work is scarce and which is in effect dying. Some very od scenes of a circus with unbelievable characters make this even more surreal and like a pop video. The director clears like shots of houses on fire too... I almost expected Bonnie Tyler to drive through the flames at one point.

All a bit nonsensical really.

Two stars for trying.

How much you like this film will depend on how much you like tricksy time-travel plots which don't, if you think about them, don't make much sense.

It's a bit like a Spanish time travel movie whose name I forget, or one of many Dr Who episodes.

It's a bit slow in starting and wordy (though the first scene gives massive clues re the rest of the plot). But it soon gets going and is highly watchable.

The gender issue is a weak point (men do look like men and women like women) but suspend your disbelief and you'll enjoy it.

Acting is fine - lots of Aussies doing American accents (it's an Australian movie set in the USA).

Clever, tricksy, a bit nuts and not overlong, with a pulsing soundtrack to drive things along.

I enjoyed it so 4 stars.

This movie is based around 2 common tropes used countless times in so many stories: 1) the country mouse visiting the city, and 2) a main character suffering memory loss.

Having said that, who said every movie had to break new ground with original ideas?

The film is suitable for all ages (not just little kids) and there are some clever jokes in there for grown-ups too.

The animation is, as to be expected, first class. The sheep characters and the dog ones are good fun.

It's all very sweet and funny, so 4 stars.

2 gripes: 1) why oh why is a sheep called Sean when, by definition, all sheep are female? Sean the Ram maybe? Ronald the Ram? 2) I got a bit sick of the UK portrayed as a place where 60% of people are black/Asian and was offended that they used a woman with a headscarf in this. A shame political 'correctness' even has to infect cartoons these days.

I loved this film before I even saw it, quite simply because it is a film about drumming and I have never ever seen a film about that before.

Of course, it's not really about drumming per se. It's a movie about obsession and specifically male obsession.

I would compare it to a film such as Raging Bull perhaps, maybe some scientific quest movie.

The script is tight and the performances excellent too, not only the Oscar-winning turn by the terrifying music teacher. The subplots (usual girl interest; family with competitive brothers) are limp as lettuce, but have to be - because the main plot and characters suck all the oxygen out of the story leaving no time for anything else.

By the way, it is all utterly unrealistic - no teacher would last one lesson spewing the sport of insults this teacher does, and to actually slap a student or cause them physical harm would possibly lead to arrest in the USA and maybe even the UK. Teachers such as this really do only exist in the movies. (Ditto Robin Wiliiams in Dead Poets Society).

But, so long as you can suspend your disbelief on this point, the movie is a joy, especially for anyone musically-minded.

I loved this film - which follows psychiatrist Hector as he travels the world in a search for what makes people happy.

A philosophical concept, so no surprise that it is based on a French novel. It is, I suppose, a modern-day version of Voltaire's Candide.

Anyway, this globe-trotting technique keeps up the pace and means that, if you dislike one section, there'll soon be another in another country.

Personally, I liked all the scenes but probably liked the ones set in London and LA least. The ones in China are fascinating, and those in Africa just wonderful and realistic (and how different from sentimentalist fiction such as Africa United).

The end drags just slightly, but not enough to spoil the film.

Great plot, lots of laugh out loud moments, interesting characters + good acting and direction. What more do you want from a film?

Five stars.