Film Reviews by PV

There is one thing that lifts this movie above the standard boring US political drama to make it clever, twisting, intelligent and thus entertaining: the writing. I noticed in the credits that it is based on a play - and that's no doubt why. There is some great writing, some unexpected plot twists, and also fabulous acting from all involved. AND it is around 90 minutes - unlike the usual Hollywood movie which stretches up to an hour past that usually. This film is thought-provoking, succinct and precise. ALSO, Clooney has not just made a movie that supports and promotes Democrats. I loved the cynicism of the movie - which works in a plot twist on a smart phone (a first?). Politicians, agents and lobbyists are portrayed prety accurately in their ruthless ambition and hunger for power. I am not much interested in US politics or their weird primary system - where the supporters of the opposing party have a vote for the candidate of their enemy! But this film is just about the best of its kind. An intelligent, watchable film about politics of the type that Hollywood rarely makes.

Is this Japanese film at its best? Probably. OK, so the soundtrack - and hammy acting - are perhaps more of a south-east Asian taste, and they grate with me. But there is no doubt that this movie is entertaining - as well as an excuse for plenty of grand guignol bloodletting. There are screeching Japanese schoolgirls aplenty too, for those who like that kind of thing. This film also has a plot that sort of makes sense, with characters' motivations justifying their actions, and a good dose of Japanese shame and suicide too. A bit overblown, a bit nutty (but now on in the same mentalist league as The Happiness of the Katakuris) - but good horrific fun. The only thing missing is reality TV cameras (and just how the organiser can afford his own private army and island is anyone's guess!). Was the writer of this script a teacher exploring a fantasy maybe? Anyway - Recommended.

This movies is superb - well-written (script won the Oscar), generally well-acted (some overacting too, but that fits actually in such a farcical satirical context), great sound (you can hear every line and there is no constant pounding music drowning out the dialogue as with so many modern movies). The scathing satire of the TV industry is still relevant today - except that today both TV and the Internet have gone further than any character on this movie could have imagined! Compared to TV these days, 1970s trash seems quality and 1970s sex and violence very tame indeed; now we have presenter-led TV where the presenter and not the programme matters (which is why the ubiquitous and oleaginous St Stephen Fry, a man stupid people think is intelligent, narrates programmes on wildlife and whales about which he knows nothing at all!)....This movie, together with The Truman Show, are the best movies about TV ever made. This film deserved its Oscars (they often don't!). A classic movie - in the top 50 movies ever made for sure. 5 stars.

This movie is tripe - utter tripe. It is based on a stage play - and boy does it show! It's acted like a bad play in rep - or by a university drama society (but less well acted). The chatroom concept just does not work on screen either - nor does the self-pity Oprah-style psycho-babbling self-pity (it makes characters whiny and irritating, not brave and interesting!). The film is also obsessed with diversity as much as any 4th rate episode of Dr Who which is resembles (it even shares some of the same 'actors') - the credits even thank the Film Council Diversity Department! OMG - it seems the purpose of this movie was to create a piece of diversity propaganda, not a good film. Like some state funded Soviet propaganda - but promoting political correctness. Just like the BBC really - and why the BBC is going downhill fast. Really, this twaddle should have been a cheap CBBC series - kids will watch such nonsense, with flashing lights, noise, internet imagery. Grown-ups can see it's a load of twaddle and badly made. The ending is also more or less directly lifted from Hitchcock, as if in a desperate attempt to inject some tension into the drama. This strategy fails utterly. Ultimately, you just don't care about the characters or if they live or die - which makes all tension seep out of the story and form a stinking putrid puddle of turgid tedium throughout this dire attempt to be 'fast, young and diverse'. Unsurprisingly, this is state funded - lottery and Film Council. All I can say is: if this is where our cash goes, I am glad the Film Council is no more. Good riddance. RIP.

Here's yet another British film aimed squarely at the US market (like The Queen and the awful The Iron Lady). It's all well-acted (by Brit character actors) and pleasant enough. Personally, I couldn't buy the constant sympathy for Marilyn Monroe - people who are unreliable druggies are not beautiful or lovely, just annoying and let everyone down. Also, one wonders if Olivier et al actually said the lines they speak here (buy luckily they are all dead so cannot sue!). This film makes me want to watch The Prince and The Showgirl though...... But really, I suspect this whole film and the book is based on is all some old posh bloke's wish fulfillment fantasy: he wrote it when he was in his 60s. It always happens - look at artists and other writers. Dirty Old Man Syndrome. Nothing more..........I am also getting more and more irritated at how the British film industry seems to have its snout permanently stuck up America's blowhole. Why do all British people in movies either have to be VERY upper class - utter toffs - or criminals and bad guys: if black people got that treatment it'd be called racist! Having said all that, I give this movie 3 and a half - for some nice acting and funny lines. Just do't take it too seriously or think it is fact: ditto for The Queen. The Iron Lady, Hollywood war movies and other figments of the imagination.

Yet another Scottish film getting huge chunks of public money (via the Film Council, FilmFour and The Lottery). Scotland's population is 10% of the UK's and yet it seems to get 20-25% of the funding. This needs to be addressed - for the sake of all the Welsh and English film-makers who are losing out because of policies of the Scottish Raj in London. Scotland already gets 10% more pubic funding than England and Wales, so I have no idea why the Scots are always such whingers (they would be if they got double the money, of course)..................Anyway, the film. Pretty boring, best suited to TV. A little inconsequential story - with wish fulfillment fantasy-line adolescent sex storyline, almost like the ones that used to be in porno mags. Pretty views of Edinburgh. Best of all - some really interesting and oft-unheard indie music on the soundtrack. The acting is fine. The accents not to strong (it's not Glassgie...). But why? Why was this film made? I see the director and writers are part of that clique that tend to get lots of BBC commissions and public funding. It's based on a book - a graphic novel? Anyway, this should have been a BBC 2 drama, not a publically funded movie - it is essentially uncinematic. And credulity was stretched to breaking point too. 2.5 out of 5, rounded up to 3 (and over 1 of that is for the music).

I really liked this film - it's entertaining, sometimes shocking and a bit disturbing perhaps. It's well-written and acted, for sure, and not too long like many movies (maybe because the writers, director some producers are British). But the director's flipping around to flashbacks at the beginning didn't do it for me - it was confusing and a bit pretentious too. Unnecessary. Reminded me of the kind of pretentious French New Age twaddle that students get taught to admire at film school. A film, like a novel, needs a timeline - one or two flashbacks are fine. But this movie had scenes from around 5 or more different times happening in seemingly random order. Now, the book.............. The novel was based on true stories of high-school massacres - and it shows. The author's trick was to listen to, watch and read about real cases then make a 'fictional' book from them. The only major thing changed from real life was how the son killed his victims (no spoiler here though). In the USA, where most states allow most people to buy and carry guns, a killer would surely choose a gun, non? So that was unrealistic, I thought, though interesting. Also, the demonic son storyline is an archetype - as in The Omen and many other films and stories. And don't they have social services in America? In the UK, this family surely would have got support. In the US, the Oprah-fied land of counselling, self-analysis and therapy, surely a family like this would have regular shrink sessions - just like all their neighbours. BUT, having said all that, I consider it a really good movie so award it 4 and a half stars, rounded up to 5.

This movie is fun to watch, but it is utterly spoilt by the Hollywood desire (as personified by Spielburg and JJ Abrams) to make everything mawkishly sentimental. So here we have a motherless kid, a girl he fancies whose dad hates him, conflict with his own father - and, laughingly, a scene where a 13 year old boy persuades an alien moster who feasts on human flesh not to eat him but instead 'go home' (like the super-intelligent alien hasn't already thought of that!). Worst of all is the typical Hollywood need to send the main character on 'a journey' where, at the end, he and we will have learnt something - usually that 'lurve' is kinda cool, and we should all hug eachother and cry, and that we have to 'let go and move on' (that is done literally here)'. Didactic lecturing is irritating - but maybe the Yanks love it - they're used to it in church, one supposes. Ho hum...................................... The CGI scenes are boringly effective. This is set in 1979 but not the 1979 I knew - no-one had a super 8 camera or made films then because it was all just so expensive (maybe in the US though). Add to that some songs on the soundtrach which were not hits in the UK and there is no real tug of nostalgia for Brits here either.............. But all in all, I enjoyed this - not to bad, but the second half descends into Oprah territory. The movie would have been better without the teen love interest really. ET is the template here. This is Cloverfield (also JJ Abrams) remade for little kids - and also their nostalgia-seeking 'moms and dads'.

This film is a great find: not only does it have Sean Connery and Trevor Howard - (and bizarrely Peter Bowles in pre-To The Manor Born days), it also has a fine if a little theatrical and Pinter-esque script, and an interesting director in Sidney Lumet, and a piercing score by Harrison Birtwhistle....................

The first 10-15 minutes or more is almost completely free of dialogue, as the story seeps into the screen and it becomes obvious that a child killer is on the loose, after some baffling sequences that make sense later........... I loved the silence in this film, and the piercing sound design, aimed at making aural the troubled mind of the protagonist - but perhaps what most impressed me was the way a police thriller turned into a deep psychological thriller about the mental breakdown of the Connery character. This movies is SO much more interesting than most Hollywood police thrillers today. I'd compare it to Get Carter - but better, for me, anyway..........

Now the negatives:

My first criticism is that perhaps it is is sometimes a bit dated, 1972 still being infected with that tiresome sixties vibe - so we get too many odd sound and vision episodes (though some are OK)........ My second is that, especially when characters are shouting, they are hard to hear - not because of background music, as in films nowadays, but because of the less good microphones used back then: if I watched this again I would certainly use subtitles from the off (though the DVD menu design is rubbish so you'll have to search for the hard of hearing thing)......

But all in all: this film is great. A must-see. In my top 10 or even top 5 British thrillers. It's a film that I have never seen on TV and it's been sadly neglected, I think, for some unknown reason (maybe the child killer theme?)

This is the kind of pseudo-intellectual mad as cats bonkers film only the French could make. But for all its failing and pretensions, I found it interesting to watch - (more interesting that most Hollywood drivel)- though a bit unpleasant and pointless at times. Just why the French so love the middle aged male intellecctuals so much? Old drunk men who are academics or psychoanalysts really are not at all interesting or to be admired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And one question: where were the police in this movie? Does France not have any Gendarmes any more??????????????? BUT the biggest issue by far in this movie is this: the two guys are supposed to be redheads persecuted by society; in fact, one has light brown hair and the other's is auburn/titian! In the UK they would not be called ginger at all!!!!!That is a big visual error in this movie!!!! Oh, and also, Ireland is NOT 100% full of ginger people either: the UK is about 5%, I think, with Ireland and Scotland between 5 and 10%.................. With this film on the DVD extras you get MIAs 'Our Day Will Come ' videa set in the US by the same director - much better than this movie, really.

This comedy series is superb - I challenge anyone to watch it without laughing out loud - even the pompous pompous finger-wagging police of political correctness. The fact is that the BBC has secretly banned this show - because, no doubt, it features comic Indian characters and the main one (Raji) is a superb white actor called Michael Bates whose skin is slightly darkened for the role. The BBC sees that as 'offensive' blacking up. But this is not racism - it's make-up! There is no racist intent and the Raji character is not a racist figure to mock, demean and belittle - just a comic one. The actor Michale Bates grew up in India and spoke fluent Urdu and Hindi - which is no doubt his character and caricature is so spot-on. It seems at the BBC, cariacature is only OK if it portrays white people - now that's racism , folks!!!...................... This was the favourite series of the writer Jimmy Perry - more so than Dad's Army. It is a national disgrace that this great, funny, non-racist comedy should be labelled as such and kept off our screens for over 30 years by the self-righteous commandants who rule the BBC (on our money). To be replaced by what? The terminally unfunny Lenny Henry and the vomit-inducing 'Outnumbered'. Yuk.....................All I can say is: Thank Krishna and all the gods for the Internet and DVDs so we can circumvent any ban by the nanny BBC and watch great funny comedy series like this again........................ And by the way, the big joke here is on the useless white British soldiers and the Empire-loving sergeant major - the native Indians are always shown as more clever and getting one over on them! Racist? No. Hilarious? Yep. Watch it and mourn the current state of BBC 'comedy'.

This film is good in parts - it's genuinely interesting, and when it allows the plot to break through the theatrical overacting and alleged 'comedy' (maybe you gotta be Russian to get it?) the film sparks to life. Set in the early 30s, it tells the story - true, and so true for so many others - of what happens when people live in a dictatorship: the betrayal (personal and political), the shifting sangs of allegiance, the hypocrisy, the paranoia, the misery and bleak existence that so many lived through. Way too long, and the subtitles are ropey - and a few dates on screen would have helped - but still well worth a watch for any who perhaps believe that communism was ever glorious or good for 'the people' against 'imperialism' (I saw parallels with Islamic paranoia today actually). The last scenes are almost of classic status.

Here's an oddity: a film made in Lapland (and in the Lap language, I think) about Santa Claus - or Father Christmas as he's called by many in Britain. It is the best Christmas drama I have seen over Christmas for sure - and it couldn't be more different to the sacchirine-stained, soapy, girly, pity party, badly-written, derivative, forgettable dramas the BBC spew up at this special time of year. This film is memorable and orginal....................

Without wanting to give a spoiler - suffice to say that the 'real santa claus is coming to town'. This movie is perhaps more gory and violent that some would expect - and the Scandinavian openness about nudity is in stark contrast to American puritanism (where babies do not have gentitals, apparently, as in the sickly Mars Needs Moms). There are also a couple of funny jokes. But really, sit back and watch this small, short movie (oh how nice not to have to suffer 2 and half hours of Hollywood backstory boredom) and enjoy the ride. You won't see anything else like it!

I loved this film. I watched it on TV in the 80s or 90s, but saw so much when watching it again. True, I do love the music of Tchaivovsky, which helps, but I think most people would love this movie. It's fun, exhuberant, theatrical, interesting and risky - all the things most if not all movies by Brit directors are not these days. The screenplay is from a book by a relative of the composer's sponsor, so it's all pretty true and a cracking good tragic story too. The only inaccuracy is that Peter Tchaivoksky's death came about because he made a pass at the Tsar's nephew - buy anyhow, the film rises and falls like a great symphony....................................... Just as tragic really to think that Ken Russell could not get funding from the BBC or Channel 4 (which is funded by our BBC cash) to make any films whatsoever in the last 25 years of his life - so self-funded and financed small digital video movies. And yet our money financed dross like Sex Lives of the Potato Men and loads of gritty, realistic, utterly tedious films by young Scottish female directors...

This movie is perfect. It has a perfect script, first and foremost, and it's perfectly acted - all actors act well, from Marilyn, Lemmon and Curtis to all playing small roles. The film never ever drags, is well-directed and has good pace.

And, most of all, it is genuinely funny - really laugh-out-loud funny: the men-dressed-as-women shtick is older than Shakespeare, but works well when well done - and this was very controversial on the film's release when test audiences didn't like it!

But this film is more than a drag act: it is highlight of the careers of all involved. I watch this film every year or two and I still think it's funny - and way funnier than any film I have seen in the last decade (Except Four Lions perhaps). This is the best comedy ever to come out of Hollywood in my opinion, and so massivley superior to the crude, lewd, unfunny gross 'comedies' Hollywood makes now. A perfect movie.