Film Reviews by PV

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.

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.