Film Reviews by PV

This is a watchable movies. However, it is almost entirely fiction - NOT a true story: 1) the British embassy did NOT in real life turn any Americans away; 2) The Canadians were largely responsible for getting the 6 out, not the USA or the CIA; 3) most of the things here are invented - for example ALL the obstacles the 6 face en route to the airport.

So enjoy it as a caper movie and fiction. The problem is, most people will see this as fact - just like those lie-drenched 'America won the war single-handed' movies (Private Ryan, U571 etc etc etc).

Arrogance which looks rather hollow when one realises the USA is burdened with debt it cannot pay back and now is owned mostly by Arab states and in hoc to China. No wonder so many hate America when its propaganda machine spews out lies like this.

In short:

Argo has been criticized for its portrayal of events; especially for minimizing the role of the Canadian embassy in the rescue, for falsely claiming that the Americans were turned away by the British and New Zealand embassies, and for exaggerating the danger that the group faced during events preceding their escape from the country.

THE FACTS:

The six American diplomats had earlier been given sanctuary when they turned up unexpectedly at the British embassy's summer compound in northern Tehran,

Yet not only does Hollywood's account write out the British officials who sheltered the Americans but it also claims, falsely, that the US staff were "turned away" from the British embassy in their hour of need

The film's script also fails to credit the New Zealand diplomats who helped the group's passage to safety.

Early in the film, Affleck's character is briefed on developments by his CIA supervisor Jack O'Donnell, played by Bryan Cranston. He explains that the six US Embassy staff had escaped and been given refuge by the Canadians: "Brits turned them away, Kiwis turned them away."

But Mr Anders, 87, said: "That is absolutely incorrect, absolutely untrue. They made us very comfortable, the British were very helpful and they helped to move us around to different places after that too.

"If the Iranians were going to start looking for people they would probably look to the British. So it was too risky to stay and we moved on.

"They put their lives on the line for us. We were all at risk. I hope no one in Britain will be offended by what's said in the film. The British were good to us and we're forever grateful."

Argo is the latest in a long line of Hollywood movies to twist British history for their own dramatic ends.

U571, starring Matthew McConaughey, rewrote the Second World War so that American servicemen captured an Enigma code machine rather than British sailors. Mel Gibson took many liberties with British history in Braveheart (1995) - including depicting his Scottish warriors in kilts hundreds of years before the garments were introduced - and in The Patriot, his heavily fictionalised account of the American War of Independence.

I really like this director's later films We Have Pope and others.

But oh dear, this really is terrible. SO slow, SO tedious, SO tiresome - actually I did close my eyes for about 20 minutes in the middle.

The story? There is none. A man (the director and writer) rides around on his Vespa, occasionally borderline mental as he dances and annoys strangers. A weird Flashdance subplot left me baffled.

The ONLY redeeming feature were some funny lines and scenes in the final chapter, when the man gets a rash and visits doctors and Chinese medicine charlatans.

But apart from that, this has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen and worst Italian films too.

Baffling. Boring. Blah!

Very hard going indeed.

For me, this is the best film of 2013.

It is what it is - the story of a bullied underdog, Paul Potts, who ends up winning a talent contest and escaping the awful provincial industrial town where he grew up, and works as a salesman in Carphone Warehouse, to become a professional opera singer.

So it's predictable and we know the ending - but the journey is done so well. This is very well-written and structured - there are lots of laugh out loud lines which are genuinely funny - and the acting is spot on. Julie Walters, Mackenzie Crook et al - and the best Pavarotti impressionist I have ever seen! James Corden fits the role perfectly - I don't usually like his work, esp when it's too slapstick and loud, but he is perfect here (though thank goodness Paul Potts provides the voice). The change from childhoods to adulthoods is done brilliantly too.

Nice to see a usually unfilmed part of Britain too - Port Talbot in South Wales - a dead-end steel factory town which is contrasted here with the sublime city of Venice. The detail is spot on, though I was trying to work out Paul's age all the time.

I could watch this film again and again. The music - classic opera - is of course wonderful.

2 small gripes - on occasion, Corden lets the accent slip slightly into London-ese. However, it is true that people all over the UK pick up and speak in a London way now, so maybe that's OK. Also, Potts was born and grew up in Bristol (the film is BASED on truth only; his father was actually a bus driver not in a steel factory).

The second gripe is that when they sing 'for he's a jolly good fellow' they don't say 'and so say all of us' but the American 'which nobody can deny'. However, again, many people now - especially the working classes - do ape American expressions (happy NEW year, and not Happy New YEAR as we used to say...)

Anyway, this film is warm and funny, and gives hope to all underdogs who want to have a go and find their one chance of making it and following their dreams. It's a lovely fairy tale, basically!

It's a really well-made bio-pic of Pol Pott...no...er...Paul Potts!

Bellissimo!

Bravo, maesto!

I was very disappointed in this movie. I watched it on the same day I watched Sharknado - and Sharknado wins hands down for being way more comic and entertaining!

There are a multitude of problems here.

First, the characters behave like 11 year old boys, going on adventures in the woods, and yet also look about 20. Maybe they're retarded? Perhaps they've been watching too much Wes Anderson drivel and it's addled their adolescent brains.

Second, it is just not funny. The script thinks it's oh-so-clever - but it is utterly contrived, with some comic dialogue lifted from US TV shows - we're right in sit-com land here, and bad sit-com land at that.

Third, it is utterly unbelievable - the plot, the characters, the plot points - everything.

Fourth, no characters is likeable. Not one. We have seen it all before but done miles better: 3 boys include the zany silent one, the pretty central character one, who falls out with the lolloping ginger one with whom he is or was best friends. I wanted them all to starve to death in the woods really - but sadly, we were denied such resolution and catharsis.

Two good things about this film: the music (nice to hear Thin Lizzy) and some of the cinematography (though that linger too long to try and make out this movie is deep and meaningful, when in fact it's just a soap opera TV show aimed at girly kids and the undemanding young adult).

Want to watch a film about boys becoming men? Stand by Me did this SO much better. Lord of the Flies (black and white 1950s version) did too. And more recently, Mud.

This is not a good or particularly entertaining film, though no doubt it appeals to American film school students who love these self-consciously quirky silly movies. The film also seems to think it's shocking and radical - when it SO is not. It's as controversial as chicken popcorn, and quite as monotonous too.

Wes Anderson has a lot to answer for...

This is the sort of film Stephen Spielberg would have made if he'd been dropped on his head as a baby.

It's a real special needs, silly, shameless mash-up of disaster movies and Jaws (which it references in some lines).

Funny to laugh at and with. Happily, nice and short too.

This was way more enjoyable than many Hollywood movies that cost 100 times more and think they are profound and high quality. Hence the 3 stars.

Sad to see so many sharks getting killed though, even though the special effects are in some cases utter CGI pants and knocked up on the cheap on some Korean computer. Hilarious too that they use the same footage of a real shark over and over!

The film starts well - with a scene showing shark finning and a Chinese man hiring a boat to kill thousands of sharks.

Let's not forget the scandal of shark finning - whereby sharks are caught, get their fins sliced off, then are thrown back in the ocean alive to die horrible deaths - all to satisfy Chinese demand for shark fin soup - which tastes of chicken broth because shark fins actually have no flavour at all.

Up to 90% of large sharks have been killed in the last 20 years because of this vile trade. Maybe the sequel to this film could have Chinese people sucked up in a tornado and killed by sharks in revenge? That's be fun - and poetic justice.

I can't stand the way some people think they can go around the world wiping out endangered species - or as the Chinese call it, 'lunch'.

Sharks are really not the threat and kill so few people, and mostly silly surfers who are irresponsible. People are the dangerous species. Not sharks.

There is a charity and campaign group called Shark Trust, by the way. They do good work.

This film is so-so. Predictable, yes. Aping Hollywood comedies, indeed - and an American character here is obviously aiming for the US market.

But it's not too bad - a romantic comedy really. Some nice scenes and lines - and a snapshot of late 50s France.

Fun to see the French typewriter keyboard too.

3 stars.

In many ways, the original House of Cards was superior - it was shown with perfect timing in 1990 as Mrs Thatcher fell from power. I would certainly say that gets five stars.

This US remake differs a lot from that one - it makes relationships sexual rather than purely manipulative, for example - both share one thing: a fine actor in the lead, with an overpowering performance - the late Ian Richardson in the 1990s version pips Spacey at the post for me for his sly Shakespearean asides to camera.

Really, this is just a rehashed Mephistopheles or Iago or The Devil, as in the old Mystery Plays. But none the worse for that!

Spacey is excellent, as always, bringing an interesting southern good ole boy drawl to the character, which marks him as an outsider in the Washington monied WASP camp. It's all like a game of chess really, and the plot does keep you guessing and has some fine intrigue. Well-structured too - so never boring (UK TV drama writers take note!)

I was less convinced by the young girl journalist character, who gets very irritating. The role of Peter Russo is well-acted too though, as are many minor ones.

Too many sub-plots though, I think - it feels like padding to make 13 episodes as well as shoe-horned in political correctness to get more female characters and storylines in there.

Plus, I am starting to get very bored and irritated by baddies in US dramas being shown as 1) cigarette smokers; 2) atheists (the new 'blacks' in America, it seems!).

But these are minor quibbles. All in all, this is a superior drama and I enjoyed it more than any British drama I have seen in the last 2 years.

This series is well worth watching, though people should remember that it's based on a non-US TV series (from Israel), just like House of Cards is based on the superior 1990 UK version.

Not believable at all really, and both leads are irritating actors, but the writing saves it.

Avoid Homeland series 2 though - it's a shame they couldn't leave it here, instead of milking it. And Clare Danes a supposed CIA whizzkid is always so dizzy and incompetent she looks like she wouldn't be able to run a cookie stall at Charing Cross station, and yet here constantly seems to be an intelligence genius - there is real comedy in this series if you know where to look!

I didn't know what to expect from this movie - esp as I only sometimes like Jack Black (sometimes he is over te top). But in this movie he is perfect.

This is part drama and part mockumentary about a funeral director's assistant who ingratiates himself with a much-hated local widow, only for it all to end in disaster.

Really funny - and I mean laugh out loud funny - clips from mock interviews with townsfolk, add to the charm of this slight but excellent film. It has no need to be longer than 30 minutes either. This movie will never win Oscars (comedies never do anyway) but for a great fun film where the copious laughs come from a deep foundation of sadness (as all good comedy does) I am prepared to give this top marks.

This is a thought-provoking film and one I won't forget - and the initial demonstration of how to prepare a corpse is so very funny and true (the Americans really do conduct funeral care like that).

And it's based on a true story (how much we do not know) - watch through the final credits to see more mock interviews and footage of the real Bernie and photos of him with the widow.

This is one of the best US movies I have seen for ages. There is superb acting here and well-structured, tight writing, plus a wonderful sense of place.

Particularly impressive is the way this story delves into characters' psychology - the way the situation and psyche of a young teenage boy mirrors that of the fugitive he tries to help. The rejection each face change them - and a wonderful climactic scene when the boy confronts Mud is superb and not overdone. You can feel the young boy's rejection and sense of betrayal - ad he grows up to discover an adult world of relationships, lies, betrayal and disappointment.

The drama never lets up here until the quintessential American ending; however, this film takes it further with what is really a epilogue, ambiguously hinting at hope for the future and the characters.

A great film. Far better than I expected. Five Stars.

I love Christopher Walken, and his performance here is as superb as one would expect from him. Ditto for the other actors.

Unfortunately, the whole movie quickly descends into a relationship movie rather than anything to do with music. Lots of shouting, crying and histrionics - which at times looks a bit like one of those classes at US drama schools where girls scream and cry about how unfair life is. Well, cry me a river honey...Shouldn't you be practising the violin instead of behaving like a toddler?

Anyway, all watchable and so-so - it's just a shame there was so little music, and so much Noo Yoik relationship nonsense, though I suppose it was supposed to show Walken's predicament more clearly.

I liked the ending though.

Three stars. Something to watch when there's nothing else on.

I can't decide what is most irritating about this movie.

Is it the fact that it's overlong? Or that its soundtrack sounds like something James Horner wrote to accompany warships? Or maybe the overuse of CGI animation that, despite the attempt to impress, are not a patch on the hand-made 1939 'decorations'? Maybe it's the weird china girl which is I think a completely unnecessary character who was probably only added for gender representation reasons (and she is well spooky too!)

No, no, no, no again...

So what is it?

Well, it's the point at which Oz states that Edison invented the lightbulb, the phonograph (recorded sound) and the cinemagraph (film) - which is all a load of UTTER TOSH (a lie, basically)

Despite what ill-educated Americans think (and I refer to high school teachers here too), Thomas Edison invented nothing at all. Yep that's right - nada, zilch, sweet FA. He took others' inventions and developed them brilliantly, and was a genius at that, but he was NO an inventor as such as invented nothing new.

The lightbulb was invented by Joseph Swann, a Brit, and recorded sound and film were invented by several people at the same time arguably - British, French and German. But it sure weren't Thomas Edison, honey. That fact that this is a plot point in this film and repeated ad infinitum as truth so irritated me that I almost turned off.

However, I persevered and can say that, in parts, this film is entertaining - especially the start, ironically, before all the CGI stuff starts (some funny lines here). And there are some nice scenes with witches towards the end - and a handful of laugh-out-loud funny lines (some from Jewish stand-up, I think).

But really, it's all too long and too overblown - and promotes a lie to the world too!

2.5 stars rounded up.

Do yerself a favour and watch the brilliant original Wizard of Oz instead.

I loved this film and laughed out loud several times during it. Great script, with interesting dream sequences, good female roles, superb framing with an intro and ending, and some genuinely classic scenes. This film should have won Oscars and awards galore.

If anyone has seen the sexist, scurrilous BBC drama called The Girl about Hitchcock - which basically set out to portray him as leering disgusting pervert - then watch this and see what real talent and good writing, acting and directing can do (it seems we can't find much of it at the BBC these days). Hitchcock is class; the BBC movie was trash.

This is 5 stars easily - for acting, script, direction, music, the lot.

I really enjoyed this film. It's genuinely funny, in a cartoonish way. It is well-written, with some funny lines.

Set in the near future, its robots are believable if one suspends disbelief - but the music in one sequence certainly isn't - and nothing ages so fast as a vision of the future.

Some funny lines about libraries made me laugh out loud (well, we do live in an age of 'learning zones').

One has to suspend one's disbelief a lot for this - but the film is genuinely enjoyable and funny. Not too long - but with a silly subplot (about an ex-wife) which is utterly unnecessary and unbelievable. Despite that, it's well worth 4 stars - and the lead actor is perfectly cast, and the robot's dialogue is utterly believable. Good fun.

I found this movie deeply irritating.

Yes, Daniel Day-Lewis gives a perfect performance of Abe Lincoln - though he doesn't use the N word as he did in real life, and there is no mention of his plan to send blacks back to Africa. There is also an assumption too that the American Civil War was all about slavery, when in fact it was more about control and whether states (incl the southern ones) would be run from the centre (i.e. the north, and Washington).

But what really grates is the fact that the US is portrayed as a beacon of democracy and justice - when in fact in Britain slavery was banned in 1807 and in the 1830s in British colonies. So the USA was well behind the UK in its pursuit of justice, equality and democracy therefore.

The film itself is so wordy - so much so that even I, someone who likes wordy films (and foreign films often are) was bored. It's surprising that Spielberg, the best action director in Hollywood (think Jurassic Park) should make such a movie - which anyway would have been far better suited to a TV mini-series. Arguably, it is all about the division in US society now, and the Obama presidency - so TV would have suited such a subject better.

Disappointing, over-long, boring and verbose - though no doubt a favourite of those studying law - this only deserves 2 stars. I think a lot of people are rating Abraham Lincoln (and expressing anti-slavery pro-equality sentiments) by giving it more. I am rating the film as a film, not the man it portrays.