Film Reviews by PV

This film manages to chieve what so many movies about modern wars do not: it is entertaining as well as being dark and ironic. Most films about the former Yugoslavia or Africa or Iraq etc and terribly worthy - and didactic. This is darkly funny and entertaining - which makes it far more moving and worthy than those other movies. This film is superbly paced, with great dialogue, nice twists and an ending that perfect sums up to insanity and inanity of war. Superb!

This film, though not historically accurate, workd for one big reason: the script is well written. It focuses on the relationship between a boy, his mum and his aunt - and this relationship structures the film and adds its emotion.

OK, so Uncle George died when John Lennon was 12, so the film gets a lot wrong - for a start, the idea that the teenagers in the 50s had access to 21st century sex from available girls in nonsense. Also, John Lennon is predicatbly idealised - he was, in many ways, a violent and selfish thug, and that never gets shown really.

And certainly, the music played by early incantations of the Beatles - the Quarrymen and others - was nowhere near as good as it sounds here! (I know - I've listened to the tapes...).

But all in all - a good film.

I liked this - some good writing and characterisation. The first film I've ever seen about Japanese funeral rites, anyway!

The problem is that the film is just too long and the last third drags terribly. If the film had been 90 minutes, it would have been better. I also didn't understand why the main character;s wife was so hysterical because he was an undertaker. Baffling. Maybe it's like that in Japan...

Having said that, it's still an excellent and beautifully shot film.

Over-rated thriller, from a soap writer, but worth a watch. Starts well, with good set-up and acting. Disappointing ending though - all too convenient and pandering to TV ratings. It's being made into a film in Hollywood now by Brad Pitt - which may not necessarily be a good idea...

Interesting film starring the always-excellent Timothy Spall. Perhaps if those execustion-bunglers in Iraq had watched this they'd know how to execute people efficiently and with dignity.

I thought this film was much better than I expected a spin-off for TV actors to be. The reason? The script - written by the Peep Show writers. It is a happy jolly funny film - rather undemanding but great fun. I found this much funnier than most Hollywood comedies actually. Recommended.

I liked this film. As always with Spanish/Mexican movies, it was gruesome sith blood dripping off everything; and as usual in films from catholic countries, children feature heavily - representing innocence. Also, so many movies in Spanish are obsessed with the Spanish Civil War - perhaps because the ghosts of that are still haunting everyone. It is a bit like the Turn of the Screw, Spanish-style. Sinister, moral, interesting to watch - and some moments of real tension. Better than Harry Potter. Recommended.

I really liked this film - it is clearly low budget and most of it takes place in a radio studio. But it is also highly entertaining in the main - silly, yes. But for me, better than the Evil Dead or Zombieland. The only eakness really is in the last reel - as often in such films, there is a need to tie things up and give explanations, and the conclusion about why all the bad things were happening did not convince. However - it is based on a novel! Movies just interpret books - so the main creative force and the main person to blame for such things is the novelist and not the author of the adapted screenplay or the director: these just interpret the novel. Two thirds of moveis are based on novels, remember.

I saw the reviews for this in various newspapers - usually between 3 and 4 stars out of 5 - so I was expecting a comedy. What I watched was a total unfunny mess. It's one of those films that thinks it's hilarious - so 'post-modern' and self-satisfied and smug.

Also, it's like those awful Wes Anderson films which have that Californian vibe about them. Are you illuminated? Well, not by this tripe.

This fim gets 1 star - and that's for the pretty views of Prague!

If you want to watch a REALLY funny film with a pair of conmen, watch the Producers, Paper Moon or Some Like It Hot.

Oh dear...

A great cast oi British character actors can be seen wondering why on earth they signed up to this sub-pantomime-level trash. Or maybe they're just thinking of the pay cheque.

This is silly piffle - even worse than bad children's TV - with a nonsensical plot, stagey dialogue (the script is terrible!), theatrical type action - and it all ends with a dance routine by children in costumes, who have never appeared before in the film! It's like the end of term show from a school for disturbed kids! Bad films always end with dance routines like that.

Utter utter rubbish! A lesson in how not to make a movie.

One star for the turns from John Inman et al!

I found this movies to be utterly boring and pretentious. Not intelligent at all actually, though it thinks it is oh so clever and intellectual. I tend to dislike tricky pretentious American movies; Hollywood does dumb far better in my opinion; when it starts to think it's an artform and brainy, the alarm bells ring. Unlike most of the people I know, I know what Synecdoche means and can pronounce it though!

I suppose if you like tricksy pretentious metaphysical semi-fantasy, and/or if you are an AcTOR and love the theatre and pretendning to be a tree or a tampon, then this is for you. But oh, how I hated it! I liked Adaptation and Being John Malcovich more, and liked Hoffman is just about everything he's ever done more too.

I wasn't expecting to like this movie much - I am no big fan of the massively over-rated Office or Ricky Gervais - but I ended up really enjoying it: the film is funny, intelligent, poignant, with some great one-liners, and a good script, and a great soundtrack! Some nice satire about religion and the gullibility of people (esp Americans) too! Perhaps for anyone non-British, the humour and ironies will not be fully understoood; and fans of The Office of Gervais stand-up won't like it; and younger people may find it up to the usual banal cliche-ridden glossy grossness of their fave Hollywood 'comedies'. But I ended up loving it - and would recommend it highly to the more educated audience who can 'get' its arch satirical bite - I loved the Python-esque 'Man in the Sky' scene with Gervais character explaining everything and all the people grilling him about this 'religion' thing! So true to life like the best satire. I think people who dislike this movie miss most of it - perhaps they should stick to American Pie? This Invention of Lying is a rare beast: it can make you both laugh and cry - I was genuinely touched by the scenes between the Gervais character and his mother, but perhaps you need to be 'of age' to get that. Great! But not for the gross out Hollywood movies lovers out there.

The film is watchable, but for a UK audience there is one major flaw: this band is unknown in the UK and is a really minor band, made significant only by Joan Jett's hit I Love Rock n Roll, and the fact it's an early girl rock group. That worthiness of a ferminist story does tend to spoil things. Films like Control (about Joy Division) or Sex n Drugs n Rock n Roll about Ian Dury mean much much more to a British audience.

However, it's still entertaining and I was happy to discover more about Joan Jett's origins. Never heard of Cherie Currie before, and only heard the name of the band not the music (but now know where the Go-gos and the Breeders got their influence from) Mike Shannon as the mad manager Kim is suitably bonkers and pervy, and the scenes in Japan are hilarious. I wonder if Japanese schoolgirls really are like that!