Film Reviews by PV

1 or 2 stars for this movie. Why? Because it manages to be dull and boring, despite the fact it's all about killer fish killing people! Why? Well, it's made for American teens - therefore, it must have lots of sexual references and also lots of gore. Treat it as comedy and it won't drag so much. Oddly, the 1978 version of Piranha has more dramatic tension with 10% of the gore! Perhaps that's the problem - too much gore and not enough of a good script. Watching people splashing around in the sea which is full of fake blood is, actually, boring - perhaps someone should have told the director! Maybe it makes more sense in 3D of course. The most annoying this is the crudeness of some of the sexual imagery - they use the same fake circumcised (as most Americans are) plastic penis that I have seen in Teeth and Hostel 2! Same size, colour, shape! Is there only one in Hollywood? And can those with unmultilated (uncircumcised) penises also get screen representation huh?

The first thing that strikes anyone about this movie is all the hype - we have all heard of it and most have Facebook accounts.

Then, when the film starts, the main thing that strikes anyone with a 'normal' TV set-yp is the terrible sound quality - which has clearly been sdesigned for a surround sound system in the cinema. In fact, unless you have a sooperdooper set-up at home, I'd advise turning on the English subtitles! This movie is written by the West Wing creator, so everyone speak quickly, naturalistically, and over each other - so it is so hard to understand what they say! YOu have been warned.

In general this film is passable. A great lead role from Jesse Eisenburg, utterly believable as the selfish spoilt geek.

Some stereotypical scenes of upper-classness in Henley on Thames (filmed at Eton'sa boating lakes) are completely unnecessary - but clearly the Americans think we all live lives like Prince William in the UK and go rowing every Sunday...

So all in all, this is OK - but masssively overrated. In fact, I'd summarise the movie like this: 'The Social Network is a movie that uncool people think is really cool' - people like the fifty something Kevin Spacey who produced it. It's not worthy of any Oscar, that's for sure.

In France, Serge Gainsbourg is worshipped as some kind of god - an artist (so the French think) of such quality that he was allowed to behave in a rude, drunk, selfish way all the time becase he was an 'artist'.

In the UK and the restbof the worl, Gainsbourg can be seen for what he really was: a drunk, rude, pervy little man with a mediocre talent who tried to shock by showing off because his talent wasn't sufficient to speak for itself. So he wrote a number one hit? So what? So did Kagagoogoo! So did Mr Blobby. So did St Winifred's School Choir! Can we have a biopic about them then?

Also this movie can't just tell his life story. Oh no - it's a French biopic you see, so has to be arty and up its own derriere! So we have to put up with large puppets walking around with Monsieur Gainsbourg for no good reason.

I was actually hoping to learn something about Serge Gainsbourg watching thsi mnovie - but I didn't learn much, other than his songs are terribly dated and awful.

I heard someone raving about this movie on the radio so got it out. What a disappointment! This is a comedy is it? And how are you defining comedy then? This is a silly, tedious, unfunny, predictable movie that thinks it's funny but isn't - and that is quite simply one of the worst kinds of movies that exist. Avoid.

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.