Film Reviews by PV

I really enjoyed this film. If you dislike French-style slow films about 19th C artists, you won't like it though; if you love art and know about Renoir, you will.

Interesting to see the set-up Renoir had in 1915 - as an old man aged 74 who has kids with a variety of female followers. The characters of the old man and his sons are well-drawn, as is that of the artist's model and the maids. The youngest son's feral and depressive character is especially well-drawn.

Of course, the Jean Renoir (the painter's son) in the film became a famous film director in the mid-20th century.

The subtitles are good and the visuals are painterly.

I enjoyed this so give it 4 stars. It ends a bit abruptly, but it has to end somewhere!

One reviewer says this is not a film for 'the little ones'. I absolutely disagree - hiding bad things from children is silly. War exists and kids could and should watch this film (force feeding them pink fluffy fantasies of the world is wrong IMHO).

Anyway, this is a very depressing movie - all about Japan towards the end of World War II. It works not because of wonderful animation (which looks basic in parts) but because the characters are so well-drawn. It is utterly believable.

One thing that impressed me was the was the writer of the story was prepared to show Japanese people in wartime being horrible and nasty, even to their own people and families. It destroys the myths promoted by both East and West.

It's a sad film but that does not mean adults or children should avoid it. Quite the reverse, actually - people of all ages need educating about things like this because so many are so ignorant.

If you want gormless dumb fantasy cartoons to rot your brain there are plenty to choose from. This movie makes you think. Brave for the story to develop as it does - no Hollywood studio would ever allow such a thing due to that old obsession with a happy ending and heroics!

Good too that it has both subtitles AND dubbing into English if you want - the film is from 1988; the English version from 1998.

One thing REALLY annoyed me about this film: the use of modern and American language spoken by characters in the 1960s and 70s. People in the UK did NOT say 'all good' in 1963, and nor did they say 'I like to shop' (they said I like shopping). Pronunciation too - the stress on formidable is on the first syllable NOT the Americanised stress later on in the word. These things matter!

But then, this is aimed squarely at a USA audience. Hawking is world famous (largely because of his disability, it has to be said) and a household name. Thus the movie serves up exactly the sort of 'becoming a winner against the odds' story the Americans so adore.

The cinematic tropes are American too - yet again, the slow handclap rising to huge applause one sees in FAR too many Hollywood movies (and accurately satirised all those years ago in Comic Strip's The Strike). And of course the Americans love idea that all Brits are posh and upper middle class like David Niven (or Colin Firth, Daniel Day Lewis, Eddie Redmayne) and they adore the royal family so get the scenes in the palace in quick at the start of the film. UK film makers (and TV drama makers) pander to that international taste - and the UK film/TV industry is much worse for it too.

Did Redmayne deserve an Oscar? Well, I have long thought that 1) Academy voters vote for the person portrayed perhaps more than the actor doing the portraying, and 2) the Academy voters always vote for any actor playing someone with a disability especially if they also age (eg My Left Foot, and this years Dementia best actress Oscar too, and Matthew M for Dallas Buyers Club - another mediocre movie - when Leonardo di Caprio should have been a clear winner for the Wolf of Wall Street).

So all in all, not a bad movie but now a great one either. Hence, 3 stars max.

This is a so-so film which passes the time - not great but not awful. However, it BADLY needs subtitles and NO subtitles were available on the DVD we were sent. Therefore, some dialogue with unintelligible.

This movie starts OK, then descends onto girly psychobabble territory with group hugs aplenty.

As a curiosity piece it's worth watching, just for Colin Firth. No doubt some will like the sight of him 'in flagrante' too...

But the plot is silly and not really believable, and the film seems to lose its way a bit - wondering how to end and progress.

Also, I think very many viewers will not buy the idea that a rich successful man with a girlfriend and a son and his health would want to fake his own death and escape to another life. Doesn't cut it really, and I could never suspend disbelief.

2 stars.

This is a very slight film and rather stagey. It is more like a BBC2 drama, and is not cinematic really.

Eddie Marsan is excellent as usual, though I could never really believe the character or job role either - both seem over-calculated by the writer, as a framework on which to hang a rather unbelievable plot.

Some very wooden acting in this film, esp from some of the Asian actors. Couldn't work out the ages of ex-soldiers too - some look about 80 years apparently served in the army in 1981-2. Odd.

Hated the ending, though the religious may choose to differ.

Some good scenes but a very little curiosity piece all in all. Not nearly as profound or good as it thinks it is. C grade stuff.

Just about 3 stars at a push. Without Eddie Marsan, 1-2 stars.

I really loved this movie - which is just the right side of 'feelgood' and 'American schmaltz'.

Often I dislike Bill Murray, mainly because of the movies he is in (many of which I think over-rated, like that Japanese advert movie).

But here he is excellent in a neatly plotted movie that never sags and has some genuinely interesting and believable characters.

Full marks too to this film for daring to state that a boy needs his father and not always siding with the mother - which is the pc propaganda of most Hollywood films (and all BBC drama!).

A comedian well-known in the UK, Chris O'Dowd, is hilarious as the mad funny teacher at the private Catholic school the boy goes to (there being no religious state schools in the USA).

The boy too is good - but arguably too small for his supposed age (12). But then movies always like em little...

The film really works, however, because of the writing - and a neat plot with subplots which allow Bill Murray to make the most of his old grouch role. Minor characters are great fun too - like the Russian 'lady of the night', the try-to-be-nice mum, the local bar flies etc. The music is great too.

To my surprise, I absolutely loved this movie (and wonder why we Brits just cannot seem to make such efficient film comedies).

5 stars.

I find it deeply depressing that many Americans will watch this movie and consider it fact - that 5 US soldiers in a tank defeat 300 Germans. Even worse that the AWFUL Inglorious Bs. Dumb CGI effects and non-history. Really REALLY stupid film on ALL levels.

I cannot believe people mentioned Brad Pitt's name in connection with the Oscars for this utter drivel.

No stars.

I rented this movie after watching the absolutely brilliant Nightcrawler (2014) which also stars Jake Gyllenhaal.

This, however, is not in the same league. It is a Canadian movie with French director, and thus pretentiousness is probably to be expected. It is set in Toronto - but the director succeeds in making it look like greyer then grey concrete jungle East Berlin circa 1977. How very art-house...

But this film is also confusing, with pointless and surreal images occasionally - just, it seems, to say 'hey, I am all arty, look at me' and it really does not work. A silly opening sequence makes no sense. It may work in the novel, but not here - and I sure the writer is just fixated on spiders anyway because they bear no relation to the plot. There are better films about doubles (the man and his shadow, for one, and others: it is a very old dramatic idea, after all).

When it gets into the body double plot it's passable. But a director would have been better to dump the surreal parts of the novel and focus on the thriller element. The ending is again utter misjudged and pretentious. The old trope of 'is it all a dream' is trite beyond belief.

Also, there were NO subtitles which is annoying - in movies where characters mumbles, having HOH subtitles is the way to go!

2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

Gosh this film is depressing. Though, probably unintentionally, the sheer doom-laden scale of the chain of events involving stolen meat, a dead body, an alcoholic hack, shootings at flower shops etc becomes rather funny. Black comedy at its blackest! Dead bodies going AWOL are always funny in films.

This tragic drama Shakespearean or perhaps even Ancient Greek in the way the behaviour of one mentally unstable young man starts a series of events which leaves a trail of bodies and misery throughout this sink and sinking town. A domino effect that no-one has the energy to stop.

It's set in the 1970s (apparently 1978) though I only realised this after a while when old-style phones were ringing and people were wearing funny clothes like flared trousers! The area of God's Pocket is in Philadelphia apparently, though it was all filmed in Yonkers, New York. And it touches on themes of the day: racism, the mob, the American underclass etc.

It's also the last movie the late Philip Seymour Hoffman acted in, and his character anchors the story as the world collapses around him; however, his penultimate movie, A Most Wanted Man, was by far the better film. This is a small, modest film which, typical of so many US indie movies, tends to wallow in the underclass poor America which Hollywood never really shows or cares about.

However, the film for me is stolen from the lead actors by the excellent British actor Eddie Marsan (Sixty-six; Tyrannosaur etc) whose cynical cash-strapped undertaker steals the show for me from the flashier more well known leads. In a better world, that might get a best supporting actor Oscar nomination.

One BIG gripe: there are NO HOH subtitles with this film, which, considering so many characters mumble and slur their lines in the now-compulsory naturalistic way, is a real problem. All viewers, I am sure, would appreciate hearing all dialogue clearly using subtitles (you don't have to be deaf to use them!)

Probably 3.5 stars but 3 because no subtitles!

This is a brilliant movie.

First off, there is a towering Oscar-worthy performance by Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis Bloom, the amoral, psychopathic, sociopathic, manipulative, soundbite-spouting, ruthlessly driven and charmingly optimistic small time thief who stumbles on a career as a 'nightcrawler' - someone who photographs and videos crime scenes, sometimes before the police get there, in late night LA, the sells the footage to the early morning TV news. Other characters are also interesting and well-played.

Second, the satire is sharp and true to life, with not only the TV industry exposed for what it can be at its worst, but also human ambition itself - and the American Dream too, which the Louis Bloom character is focused on chasing as he reaches for the top (and this character can only really be American in his ruthless optimism learned from internet get-rich-quick and succeed business courses). It's easily the best movie satire on TV new since Network in the 1970s.

The presence of 4 or 5 real-life US newsreaders must make this even more real for US audiences. But all viewers will at some stage realise, perhaps with horror, that what the sick amoral psychopath says is actually true - people (i.e. us) - do want more and more extreme footage on TV, and ratings go up when such 'corss-the-line' amoral videos are shown (on TV or online, where beheadings and other horrors are watched by millions).

Third, this is a really effective nail-biting thriller, where all violence is necessary to the plot and not gratuitous. I was hooked to the screen here.

One enormous plot hole, however, arrives when the police interview Bloom but do not seize his laptop, video camera, or check internet records. In the UK the police do this for trivial non-crimes (such as squabbles on Facebook, Twitter and email) - but then our police are becoming a bit like the Stasi as they crush free speech in order to boost their arrest stats. But I am sure in the USA the police are more draconian. There is no way therefore that Lou Bloom could hide his tracks.

Interesting name too, Lou Bloom - because this character is blooming in his life as he achieves the American dream by owning a TV company.

This is probably the best movie Jake Gyllenhaal has ever made. It's intelligent, slick, thrilling and a wickedly brilliant satire on the whole TV industry, especially the one in the USA - but it's also much more than that: it is a satire on our media-infused always-on news-junkie society itself, and especially the amorality of the American Dream and cut-throat ambition which over-rides any sense of morality to get what it wants. I have known people, some in the TV/media industries, who are like this and would sell their own grandmothers and watch their friends die to get ahead - so this is all frighteningly true.

A brilliant movie and a must-see. (It should win Oscars but probably won't due to its release date). 5 stars.

This film is well worth a watch - it portrays Dr Mengele who lived under an assumed name after fleeing Germany for South America after the war (on a Vatican passport!)

Set in 1960, at the time when Mossad kidnapped Eichman and took him to Israel for his trial, a viewer who knows the story (and that Mengele died in 1979 in Brazil from a stroke) is not so much what happens, but how it happens.

I did wonder if all the stuff about a doll factory was based on what actually happened, and if Dr Mengele actually stayed with this family, using them in his secret medical experiments, delighted to have a pregnant woman expecting twins to use in his experiments.

However, one expects the truth to be embellished for dramatic purposes.

The story and acting here are really believable, with the actor playing Mengele capturing at once his evil charm.

Worth watching this together with the 1976 film The Boys from Brazil (based on the Ira Levin novel) and maybe an episode of The Nazis - A Warning from History.

This film is a charming take on the story of Paddington, a bear from darkest Peru, who gets found at Paddington station by the Brown family. They take him in, and much chaos ensues in a gentle, jolly way.

Well, that's the books. But the picture books had no real plot, just gentle adventures and vignettes; so, necessarily, a full-length movie has to create a three act structure - and introduce obstacles for the main character to overcome, largely in the form of Nicole Kidman's ice queen taxidermist baddie. Hey ho...

The script here is sharp, with several laugh out loud lines and sequences, the characters very well drawn and there's some class acting on display - and the wonderful stage and Shakespeare actor Ben Wishaw (who played the definitive Richard II in the Hollow Crown TV series) voices Paddington himself. Plus some of it's set at the Natural History Museum, just about my favourite place in London! It's probably the last time Dippy will be on screen too as that fake/plaster skeleton will soon be replaced by a real one of a blue whale.

Re the time this film is set - well, it does what very many adaptations of old kids' books do and goes for a non-specific fantasy time, where kids have ipods yet no-one has a mobile phone or computer. It works here - in a way it really didn't in the recent awful TV version of Professor Branestawm.

There is clear influence from silent comedy in this film - and I bet the film-makers went back to Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and others, and copied frame for frame the expressions and pauses. But nothing wrong with that!

Now the negatives. In the books, the Browns are a modest family living in (I think) a semi-detached house with a little garden. Here, they live in a stucco mansion which would cost well over £3 million in today's market, maybe £5 million. Julie Walters plays Mrs Bird who in the books is a cockney, I think - here she is Scottish (why? To appeal to the US market no doubt). Occasionally the movie edges over into smugland - especially as the cosy upper class Browns are portrayed as 'normal' whereas Peter Capaldi's single man who lived with his mother unto, she dies is portrayed as a baddie and/or fool (that is offensive - why is it OK to be abusive to single men like this in a way it would not be acceptable to any other group?) And then there are the occasional subtle pro-mass-immigration lines smuggled in - much waffle about 'everyone can fit in here in London' - and that all grates.

BUT it could have been a LOT worse, as many attempts at movies from old kids' books show. So a well-deserved 4 stars.

I really enjoyed this film. It's clearly from a stage play and would thus be a bit wordy for some, but I just loved wallowing in a well-written piece of drama with great acting from experienced actors who know what they're doing. A real breath of fresh air after watching Hollywoodised trash.

Kevin Kline gets his best role for ages (especially when he starts drinking again...); Maggie Smith maintains her usual high standards with a cracker of a wicked old lady role; and Kristin Scott-Thomas also has a plum role for an older woman.

The plot hangs on a weird point of French property law where someone can buy an apartment with a sitting tenant. Not sure how true all that is, but it's a great staring point for all sorts of fun.

OK, so maybe the 3rd act strains the suspension of disbelief (and there is a horribly misjudged opera scene by the Seine) - and maybe the therapy-speak pity party US-style poor little rich kid 'mummy and daddy didn't love wickle me' shtick gets tiresome. BUT it's a film which I enjoyed thoroughly and which made me laugh out loud on several occasions.

A good 4 stars. One gripe: NO English subtitle option! Though the movie is mostly in English not subtitled French, so general viewers won't mind that. BUT very ironic that a film which would appeal to elderly viewers who may be deaf has not HOH subtitle option...

The first thing I have to say re this movie is that it is not a patch on the BBC TV movie 'Breaking the Code', starring Derek Jacobi as Alan Turing from 1996/7.

The second thing is that I have never liked Benedict Butterscotch, or whatever his mad name is, and cannot really believe him in the role.

The third thing is that this is a movie which is sheer fantasy, not accurate biography, and tells blatant lies about Britain during World War II - not that the intended US and international audience will care. But I do.

No-one 'starved' during WWII in the UK when bread was never even rationed - so goodness knows where the film makers got the footage of a woman eating out of a dustbin! In fact, rationing ensured everyone was well-fed - and the poorest better fed than in the 1930s; indeed, people had a more nutritious diet than many do today.

Another massive lie is that the US gave help and food to the UK. NO! The USE only LENT Britain money which it could then use to buy stuff from the US to boost the American economy. The UK did not pay off this debt until 2006! Unlike with Germany and Japan, Great Britain was never GIVEN a penny or a cent by the USA.

Another big issue with this film is the use of modern words when this is supposed to be 1940. Listen - NO-ONE used the word 'smart' to mean bright or clever in the 1940s; this usage did not become common till the 1990s! Moreover, a 'professor' in the UK is NOT just a lecturer as in the US.

The facts here are no such thing - and as I know a lot about Turing I can say with confidence that Bletchley Park's experts were ALL male, so NO, there was no pretty genius Keira Knightly character in real life. The politically 'correct' pro-feminist pro-gay polemic and plots here are irritating. The fabricated protagonists and obstacles that face Turing in this movie annoying to anyone who knows the truth.

This screenplay won the Oscar in 2015. That says a great deal about the Academy Awards, frankly. It did not deserve the honour at all.

Having said this, if you can look past the Hollywoodisation and lies than infest this movie, then it is an average watch - and will no doubt appeal very much to all the millions of ignorant people worldwide who know nothing about Turing. And yet, that these people think that Britain was starving during the war and saved by the US of A is a disgrace. Hollywood is always doing this - it did it with U571 which showed Americans finding an Enigma machine on a U boat (which the British actually found) and it did it with Argo, which falsely showed the Brits refusing to allow people access to their embassy (when in reality they did!).