Film Reviews by Strovey

There is a saying amongst the more empathetic and kinder social media users, (yes there are some), about being careful how you treat people and what you say to them, even if they are rude or nasty, because ‘you don’t know what is going on in their life’. A Man Called Ove is this simple line made into a film. Originally a book we are greeted with a miserable and frankly horrible man but as the story unfolds, we see how he became this character, what he is trying to do and how he is redeemed. It is that simple.

As with any story, it is the telling that makes it. This could have been sugary or sappy but in all honesty if any of us had lived near the character Ove we would not have liked him. His obsession with one particular make of car, his bitterness at losing out in the chairmanship of the residence group to his only real friend, his seeming cruelty to pet animals and yet inside the dark there is a glint of light.

Rolf Lassgard plays the main role, alongside Filip Berg as his younger flashback self, with the assurance of someone who knows exactly who this character is. It is so well played in fact that when Ove finally cracks and laughs, you are not really expecting it and it was a thing of immense joy. Although the film is billed as a comedy, I would say for a great majority it is more drama. This is not a bad thing though. The drama builds up to the joyful final act where we get to celebrate as an audience someone saved from the brink. Genuinely lovely.

Bahar Pars is superb as the new neighbour who happens to be an immigrant Persian and it is notable that right from the first meeting the nationality and status of this new irritant is the only thing that does not irritate him, a subtle and easily missed pointer to the real nature of Ove. Later on, his meeting with the gay lad working in the local fast-food café underlines the point.

The film must be said to be heart-warming but what appeals to me is the fire that warms your heart is small but steady, director and part writer Hannes Holm is subtle and slow. We do not get huge expansive scenes shouting what we are seeing from the rooftops but slow gentle easing into the change, much like Ove himself.

One thing that does get slightly marked down for me is the flashbacks, I will concede that they are needed in this story, telling it in linear fashion is unfeasible and have exposition would be mega-New Tricks territory but I still found it intrusive and parts of the back-story seemed unlikely but I did enjoy the retelling of the important romance part of Ove’s story. Well-acted by Berg and the engaging Ida Endvoll, the romance and love between the two was believable.

The scenery is probably not a Sweden I am used to and probably any non-Scandinavian audience too, it made a change from seeing Stockholm or mountainous and snowy vistas. The soundtrack was enjoyable and in particular hearing Demis Roussos singing ‘Forever and Ever’ took me back.

A Man Called Ove is an interesting and charming tale that talks about grief, old age, acceptance and redemption wrapped up in a smile. The actors looked natural in their roles and looked like anyone who could live near you, rather than gorgeous Hollywood stars.

If it has a fault the denouement, the reveal as it were, is fairly rapid and seemed almost rushed. It is not very often that I say it but perhaps if the film were twenty-minutes longer the resolution could have been as leisurely as the set-up. Nevertheless, A Man Called Ove has to be recommended for a familiar tale told in a Scanadavian style, the US remake with Tom Hanks, A Man Called Otto, is a good remake and for anyone who has not seen either it might be fun to watch both and draw your conclusions on the styles and telling of the story.

Both films are good but as I am giving my opinion of A Man Called Ove, I have to recommend it.

9 Souls is over twenty years old and it has to be said now and probably then any western viewer with no real immersion into Japanese society would find it odd. I suspect a lot of Japanese viewers would find it so too. You must watch the full run time to realise that the biggest problem, which is probably deliberate, is the tone we are presented with. Initially it is in a comic vein, albeit with an unpleasant edge, but the film becomes unpleasant, bloody and violent, which you are not entirely expecting. The story and film and the way it meanders gets confusing. Situations arise, disappear and you are not really sure how they happened or why.

At the beginning the ‘boxouts’ for the prisoners as they are literally on the run says their name and what their crime is but as we proceed these crimes do not tally with the character and what he says he did. Presumably this is deliberate.

The main point of the story seems to be do not search out your past as you will be disappointed or even meet a worse fate. Your past dreams should stay in your past.

I think.

The pace of the film is off and very in and out and add in situations that seem to come out of the blue with no prior reference or set up and anyone viewing is going to be confused and bit thrown off at some point.

The acting is fine, often the acting seems to be melodramatic with big gestures and so forth and I take that to be cultural but perhaps I am wrong. The scenery and setting are different, certainly not big city Japan but more rural and often looking a bit poor and run down – you do not always get this side of the country shown.

All in all, 9 Souls is watchable, I enjoyed some of the characters ‘journeys’ but I felt the violence and blood at the end was very much at odds to the early film and as such unnecessary.

Definitely strange, I am happy I watched it, I probably would not seek it out again though. I love Japanese films and filmmaking, and it is not often I say this about one.

If you have watched Mad Max from the start, I think it is fair to say that Fury Road and Furiosa although in the ‘saga’ are not really part of the story. Fury Road was okay for me, a recreation of ‘Mad Max’ using the same name, but in honesty it could have been a different character entirely and that was the weakness of the film. It would have been better to call Fury Road something else and Tom Hardy’s character ‘Bully Bert’ or something.

Fury Road spawned Furiosa the back story to Furiosa the main character in Fury Road. By the time we get this film all pretence at having any connection to the original Mel Gibson Mad Max films is gone. All efforts to create a viable realistic world with rules and limitations have gone. We are clearly in cartoon land here. It might be very violent and full of death and horrible scenes but it is cartoon land. Weapons and fuel and people willing to die are limitless, yes, we have the ‘Bullet Farm’ and ‘Gastown’ and the ‘Citadel’ all supplying what is needed to the endless hordes of death bringers but ten seconds of thinking about it and the story collapses.

So, once you watch Furiosa you must switch your brain off and go into the fantastic and harmless film world it is constructed from. My disappointment is you did not have to do that for the original Mad Max or even the sequel. Things were grounded slightly and you could see it developing this way in some fashion. Fury Road and most certainly Furiosa is based in fantasy and frankly is so silly that the hundreds of never-ending set pieces, chases, explosions and cartoon baddies did nothing for me, and perhaps being an old man with too much nostalgia I wanted the theme, story if you will, of Max Rockatansky. In the original trilogy Thunderdome pulled us away from ‘sensible’ and Fury Road and Furiosa are just extensions of that. Exciting if you like that sort of thing but murderous fantasies in a world with flexible ‘rules’ depending on the character and cartoon villains is not what I am looking for nowadays.

Depending on your viewpoint the cinematography, explosions, costumes and crazy characters are all there and exciting in a way. Well done for what they are. Chris Hemsworth gets more pantomime baddy as the story goes on, I never really took to his character or motivations from the start and Anya Taylor-Joy is very much Charlie-Theron-like, but her and young Alyla Browne prove to be bionic superheroes in their actions. I understand empowering female leads, and it is refreshing, but I find any ‘hero’ who apparently is a top expert at everything they do, including of course driving and shooting that defy the laws of physics, and are indestructible, and clearly feel little pain, very tedious, very quicky. Tom Burke is a sort of ‘goodie’ Australian accent and all, but here he looks like he is dialling it in a tad and he mainly frowns his way through the unlikely set-pieces. Very disappointing.

Considering the setting, the actors, what was happening on the screen, the biggest insult from me was from beginning to end I was bored.

That should never be.

The original Quiet Place was derivative of the Matthew Fox starrer Extinction (check it out) but was a good film in its own right and enjoyable although a few plot points and storylines made little to no sense. The second film was weaker and spoiled the chance to expand the story in a significant way. So there is a lot of credit here to John Krasinski who from interviews seems to have deliberately moved away from his tales and wanted to go in a different direction, with a new location, new actors, new writers and director and I have to say for me it works.

Lupita Nyong’o is a great actor and is given a protagonist with a bit more about her in a tale like this. She is terminally ill and is basically fed up and uncaring. Now put her in a situation where noise means death how would she react to it? How would you? I find this interesting. Then add in Joseph Quinn, who more than holds his own in the acting stakes, who is kind and terrified to paralysis and you have something different for this type of tale.

Focussing on the relationship and characters and having the alien monsters as almost supporting cast is a good, interesting and dare I say challenging idea. The film puts you in their place, so from start to finish both Sam and Eric have no idea what is happening, why or what the attackers are, just like if this incident occurred you or I would.

Too many films wrap up tales and story points with exposition and unlikely interactions. A huge sci-fi franchise for instance where every single character bumps into the people at the very top of the command chain. My dad was always having tea with Winston Churchill in World War Two, so it could happen. Except it does not.

The film is gripping, and you do feel peril for the two, but it does not rely on gore or jump scares, only aftermath gore. Again, it is better for this.

Included in the story, something that seemed made entirely for me; in the first two films the aliens just killed people, the did not even eat them, seemed to kill them for no reason and run off, especially in the sequel. Here we see a sort of nest where it looks as if victims are cultivated for food or an ‘alien’ nursery, I could not tell if my view on this was correct, and no one explained it or even talked about it in the story. At last, someone understands proper storytelling, let the viewer do some friggin’ work.

New York looked devastated, Lupita looked peed off and Joseph looked scared and the monsters seemed more realistic to me, not faultless, car alarms fooled them and water does them in.

After the film ended I did a bit of looking for general opinions of the film and found out why I do not go the cinema much nowadays and watch films on my own.

Dozens and dozens of complaints that the aliens were not ‘explained’, not enough aliens attacking tanks, not enough death, mayhem and explosions. It was noted with much mirth and derision Nyong’o’s character just ‘wants to get a pizza, how stupid’.

The story explains why she wants a pizza very clearly at the end, it makes sense and it is clear and obvious.

Furthermore, she has a terminal illness and no matter what happens she is not going to survive. The story has to focus on survivors, otherwise there is no story, seeing monstrous aliens attacking where they are in numbers in exciting and graphic action means they would not survive, just like in real life none of us would.

I think some people might need to watch things other than CGI-infested explosion-fests.

Day One is a good alien invasion horror film, the strongest in the trilogy for the setting, the acting and the story.

Of the many films I have seen recently I would watch it again, in fact I might do before I post it back to Cinema Paradiso, and I might even buy the Blu Ray. Easily the best horror/sci-fi/monster film I have seen in quite some time.

Finally, if you love cats, you will love this film.

The Mercenary, that was originally called A Professional Gun in the UK is a Zapata Western set in the period of cinematic history when the Italians were seemingly churning these films out daily. Due to this, your chances of getting a similar story of questionable quality were high and when you get a good film with an interesting story you notice it more. This is the case with The Mercenary which took portions of its story from Guns for San Sebastian, and itself was soon remade and unfairly compared with Companeros also made by Corbucci and also starring Franco Nero and Jack Palance, these films really do sit it an odd and unique place in film history.

The film is very violent, if you count the number of people shot, blown-up, stabbed with pitchforks and mown down by machine-guns the figure is stratospheric, but it is not graphic. Corbucci pulls away from most of the extreme violence, the pitch-fork stabbing is shown off-screen, as is the castration, fortunately. A hand-grenade blown up head is shown, but even that is bloodless and what blood we do see looks more like melted wax than blood.

There are comedic moments, a sort of romance, and it all flies along at a fair old pace, so whatever you think of what you are watching, it should not bore you unduly or let your mind wander, unless you really are that type of person or hate these films.

The main protagonists are all good in their roles. However, Franco Nero is about as Polish as me, Tony Musante is charismatic and slightly naïve Paco and the two have a believable chemistry, Jack Palance is Jack Palance. He effortlessly breezes through his role as the dandy and utterly psychopathic Curly.

What is interesting to see is the extremely attractive actor Giovanna Ralli is given something more than just being extremely attractive eye-candy. She joins the Revolution and has a bit more agency than her obvious good looks. The other baddies, Eduardo Fajardo the chief among them, behave as they always do in these films, laughing uncontrollably, gurning and looking evil, so that anyone within a country mile would instantly know they are evil.

The film gives Nero his usual ‘real’ partner a great big machine gun that at some point he must carry around whilst killing a lot of people, in real life absolutely impossible, but it was his trademark and these films' trademark.

The landscapes and deserted outdoors look as you would imagine Mexico and the States looked like at the turn of the century and the towns used fit perfectly. Always a big strong point in these Westerns. Add in the mercurial music of Ennio Morricone and you basically have a film that is worth watching no matter what is happening in the story.

Abigail is not an original premise, but it must be said it is well made and knows its strengths. The directors Matt Bettinelli and Tyler Gillett and writers Shields and Busick restrict most of the action to an old house that is deserted and full of dark corners to be jumped out from. Basically, a fancy stage play. This means that here they trust their actors and in general this pays off.

The two stand-outs are the strong Dan Stevens who seems to be able to turn his hand to anything and Alisha Weir who for such a young lady really smashes her role out of the park, Kathryn Newton and Kevin Durand are strong enough to hold their own with slightly weaker roles and maybe the slight miscast was Melissa Barrera who perhaps is not a sufficient presence to hold the lead. It really is disappointing that to draw certain eyes she wears the tightest, smallest top with a push-up bra and is in tight jeans. It is the 21st century folks. William Catlett and the late Angus Cloud fill out the cast roster but do not last too long to make too much of an impression, and yes the only black bad-guy does not last very long, honestly, also Angus Cloud’s performance considering his real-life fate was disturbing to say the least and not funny.

One thing that has to be said is the ‘get the screaming youngsters in’ marketing was also disappointing, showing the twist in the tale, which admittedly seemed obvious to me and came fairly early on, in your posters and trailers seems a bit crass and money motivated.

It is fair to say that there were a few twists and turns I did not see coming and the ending, although I would say was stretched out too long (‘less is more’ is a hill I will die on) did surprise me here and there.

The lore of the ‘twist’, which I won’t spoil, seems to be all over the shop with regard to known cinema and literature lore, and being the boorish chap I am I did find it distracting, to the point I actually said ‘no’ out loud a few times.

There are humourous moments dotted throughout the runtime and they are well managed enough to not intrude or be out of place, I particularly found the bookshelf sequence near the end funny.

Overall though Abigail is a good entry in an attempt at an entertaining jump and scare-fest with excessive gore, it keeps your attention with the story and acting even though some parts and ideas seemed to be a tad cheap and easy to do. The previously mentioned ‘sexy clothes’ were not needed and the same character near the end proved to be ridiculously indestructible but at the conclusion of the film I had enjoyed what I saw.

My own opinion is looking at the filmography of Matt Bettinelli and Tyler Gillett who directed this film I would hope that they would move on from the cheap scares, gore-laden horror and move up a scale, making things more challenging and more interesting.

Watching the same style of film over and over again can get a bit wearing, no matter how much you enjoy them.

When this film started, I was quite enthused and fairly happy. I mean we all know the story, the very premise is silly, most viewers would know what has gone on before, so you settle in for daftness and giant monster things.

So we started and have a new-look (for the film) Rebecca Hall who I have to say whatever the material really seems to buy into it, so you get the best she can give no matter what lines you give here or what the story is about. That made the opening twenty minutes or so fun.

Coupled with Brian Tyree, comic relief for sure, but again an actor giving his all and buying into the role and type of film. This was fun. Kaylee Hottle reprieves her role, sign language becomes a normal situation, great. Even Dan Stevens slightly overplaying his cool, wacky, veterinarian and Alex Ferns being given the only role casting directors see him for took little sheen off the product. I was enjoying myself.

Then the film progresses, Godzilla pops up, angry and here you go, clearly killing hundreds and thousands of people, Kong has a toothache, they fight, millions of people are killed, huge buildings and landmarks are destroyed. Is it fun, I saw cars dropping into rivers off bridges haphazardly destroyed by Godzilla, hundreds of people drowning, trapped in cars. Oh well, people who want to see giant monsters thumping each other do not really care do they. On we go.

The real problem is the humongous protagonists. Take the appearance of giant gorilla, lizard thing, evil-chimp thing, off them, add muscles, suits and capes and Godzilla x Kong is just another superhero film with goodies fighting baddies. The action featuring the creatures was frankly mind-numbingly stupid, the Baddy Chimp Thing was nothing like an ape in any way, just an evil skinny gangster, the apes behaved exactly as humans would in these type of films as did Kong.

Godzilla x Kong: New Empire gets worse as it goes along, and it genuinely looks as if a sugar over-dosed eight years made the action sequences, or heavily addicted LSD users.

Therein lies the rub, if you are sugar over-dosed child or a heavy hallucinogenic drug user then the film might well appeal or hit the spot. But watching the film as it progressed, the longer it went on the more I could feel my brain shutting down.

The ultimate battle scenes, even in the context of this film series, were ridiculous, stupid, and even though they were silly they did not raise a smile.

Some of the effects are outstanding, others, not so much, the screenplay and writing are poor and cliched.

A potentially great film series, with monsters, fun and excitement is ruined, as often they are, but the seeming refusal of people making the film to say ‘NO’.

Less is more and less of watching this would make my day more interesting.

The original film Ghostbusters was 'the film'. In hindsight it should have stood alone and that was that. A great film never remade, never needing a furthered story, fun and watchable and on we go.......But this is the good old Hollywood film system and all that matters is money, so if the first film made a lot of money then it stands to reason sequels should. Then we get years later nostalgafest, as old farts look on the past and say 'Why can't we have that again?' and so we get 'reimagined' Ghostbusters. All of them are derivative of the original, diluted like a really poor glass of orange squash your granny gives you. The last one, cannot remember its name, but it had the lovely Carrie and delightful Paul in it, wasn't really awful and unwatchable, people sort of liked it. So we MUST HAVE A SEQUEL.

Err no we don't.

This is the sequel we didn't need. The effects and the film itself are slick, well-made and with some good effort put it in. The acting from the senior actors is good enough but from the youngsters it is poor. Mckenna Grace was great in the first film, no so good in this one, so obviously not 15 she looks like a grown adult, although she, I believe, was only 17 or 18 but she just looks like a grown woman and that takes you out of it. The story is so familiar, another ghost monster thing that can destroy the world, only Ghostbusters can stop it but the evil people who run New York, the mayor, and anyone in charge, want to stop them and thus nearly end the world.

It is boring if you are my age. If you are very young you might love it, lots of ghosts, young heroes, colours, flashing lights and so forth.

This fim and others are starting to make me go back in time myself and just watch films from the 90s and 80s or even further back in history and from other countries, and if I see a reimagining, run away, run far away.

Flashy, full of exploding ghosts and crazy characters, everyone was probably paid very well and walked away happy, which is more than a lot of viewers will.

Must do better.

Apparently, this film was created after Leslie Bohem found a script stashed away his father Leslie had written in 1935. The story while unusual is not entirely original, there was a film made in 1942 called ‘Tales of Manhattan’ which had a similar theme albeit about a topcoat. What Twenty Bucks really does is use the money as an excuse in writing quick vignettes about various characters that have no bearing on each other. Unfortunately, the writer here tries to weave their tales in and amongst each other in an unlikely series of events that means no character gets any real development or depth.

For instance, Brendan Fraser’s character pops up in and out of the other players’ lives and I think we are supposed to feel sympathy for him and the circumstances the bill leads him to, but the way it is played, and written makes him an ignorant, dozy, airhead that his fiancée did well to dump.

Easily the best section involves Christopher Lloyd and Steve Buscemi who effortlessly play two sleazeball criminals from different ends of the scale, Buscemi the grubby conman, and Lloyd the calculating, murderous but cool and collected robber. Unfortunately, their interesting, violent, and fun story is too soon over, and we never hear from them again.

What we do get is an annoying and unlikely vagrant old lady and dipping in and out of Elisabeth Shue’s burgeoning writer tale and Brendan Fraser’s thicko.

The film is dotted with high-profile cameos, some bizarre and odd, Gladys Knight was obviously asked to do ten minutes on set, and William H. Macy is wasted but it was nice to see David Schwimmer not being Ross and showing he could act other than gurning and over-reacting on Friends.

Some of the younger actors are definitely ‘acting’ and it can be seen how they have developed over the years from this 1993 effort, there is a lot of ‘nines’ here that should be dialled back to ‘six’ at least. The levels are great, Lloyd and Buscemi, to poor, the stripper Melora Walters.

The cinematography and locations fit the story and characters perfectly and the script despite my reservations about the story is on the whole natural and does not jar you out of the viewing as many films do. As the film reaches the conclusion things get more convoluted and unlikely and the late Spalding Gray as a priest is probably in the film's only genuinely amusing scene but overall, Twenty Bucks both succeeds at what it is trying to do and fails.

The story is original for the time but is not if you watch enough films. Trying to be the average life of a twenty-dollar bill makes it an extraordinary tale about some almost spiritual coincidences and due to the cameos and little windows into character’s lives, I did not invest in any of them or care about them.

Twenty Dollars was worth making and is worth watching but I would never watch it again and like a grubby twenty-dollar bill you might pass over the counter in a ‘store’ it is soon forgotten.

This film has no actors or voice artists in the credits because there is no dialogue. Apparently, some of the on-screen noises were made by Ivan Labanda but no credits were given.

The film therefore lives and dies on its animation, here it is of the cutesy style instilled with realistic situations, so anthropomorphic animals live in New York but like every stripe of beast the real inhabitants are.

The open montage of Dog making Robot is superb and reminded me so much of making furniture and other items that have been delivered to me over the years, it was, I would say, perfect.

From here on in you get what is basically a love story with friends who become firm friends and get into adventures but then end up in a difficult situation that sees them separated and from there on in what happens.

To the writers and director’s credit for a cartoon that youngsters can watch the story resolves fairly realistically, or non-Hollywood.

So saying the story was interesting and adult in style, fun and sad, and the animation was good where is the problem?

Length and meandering.

Being subjective to get from the Start A, to the resolution of say G, the story goes to every letter in between when to get the point across it could have been A to D at the least.

To sum up, what started as interesting and fun at the beginning, started to lag seriously in the middle, my attention wandered, but picked up near the end. I would say this was a huge minus point on what was a fun, well-made, interesting animation, telling a different story that a lot of adult viewers could relate to.

Maybe worth a watch and if your viewing patience is better than mine, all the better for you.

Prince of Darkness was made when the director John Carpenter was arguably at his strongest. His reputation of making cheap slashers with thin plots and unknown actors appear better and more robust than they were went before him. By the time this film was made, Carpenter already had Halloween under his belt, Christine, Starman, Escape from New York and Assault on Precinct 13 to name but a few. Here Carpenter again appears to be working on a low budget with mainly unknown actors, save for Pleasence, who was never a snob about the type or budget of a film, and was a previous Carpenter collaborator and a guest starring Alice Cooper.

The problem here was Pleasence was such a sure-footed and solid actor every time he appeared on the screen it showed up those around him. The supporting cast tries really hard and you can almost see the sincerity on their faces but it is obvious that in the majority of cases they are there to be victims.

The setting is mainly the abandoned church where the evil washing up liquid is discovered and straightaway we are put in mind of Assault on Precinct 13, one location and trapped group of ‘goodies’. In this case, they are a motley crew of student physicists, we have this underlined with the incredibly clunky dialogue of Lisa Blout’s character explaining Schrodinger’s Car to another character. In fact, all of the student's dialogue seems stilted and unnatural from the get-go.

This is not to say that the film is not an attempt to ask an interesting question about the very meaning and origin of what we consider evil. Scientists and a priest teaming up without major falling outs and trying to work together is certainly something that is not seen too often. But it seems as we go on Carpenter succumbs to the cheap thrills of meaningless murders, odd zombies and possessed people whose purpose is confusing to say the least.

Characters do the same thing that characters have been doing in these types of films for years, wandering about looking for missing people on their own, slowly turning around so they can be murdered, the standard level of stupidity. Here it gets very tiring.

To be fair it is not utterly witless, the beetle-man is fun although anyone who knows their insects knows that those are beetles and not cockroaches.

The cinematography and sets can hardly be mentioned in truth. A lot of dark or semi-dark shots and at some point it seemed to be the sets from the police station used in Hill Street Blues. Lots of wood panelling and doors.

Nothing much really happens particularly as the film goes on and in the end you are secretly placing bets on who survives and who does not and what happens at the very end. We all know when evil is beaten it is not by now.

All in all, Prince of Darkness was a great idea that with a bigger budget and a bit more time spent on it could have been a good horror film. Here it was cheap and looked like a TV series glued together and without being overly critical or mean the acting looked like 1980s TV show acting.

I did not really care about the characters and their fates and I did not get frightened that Satan’s dad was going to come out of his mirror door and do, well who knows what, to the world and mankind. There seemed to be no suspense or peril throughout.

Prince of Darkness was like The Thing meets Assault on Precinct 13 and as good as that sounds it was entirely the opposite. A good chance wasted.

It has to be said that this French product about an absurdist play by an absurdist playwright seems to be equally as absurd.

Truth be told all the main actors play it straight and realistically, making the tale fascinating and fun. I was particularly impressed that the prisoners, from all backgrounds and ethnicities with differing convictions are presented in a balanced way. There are no histrionics, no instant fighting and knife fights, just normal reprobates in prison who eighty percent of the time are just human. It is refreshing and immediately catches your eye. I could imagine how Hollywood would show this. Honestly, this film in the form you see could not be made in the big-star, big-director system. It is too low-key, and dare I say too subtle.

Apart from a few outside establishing shots, and some on-coach action, the main scenery, cinematography, involves six men in a room or cell. Therefore, the acting, the drama and the comedy have to hold your interest.

It does.

In particular Kad Merad, as Etienne, is wholly convincing as the world-weary actor who takes on jobs to pay the bills. But no matter how weary he is he is passionate. Merad plays this to perfection.

The inmates all have backgrounds and characters we are slowly led into, subtly. It is lovely. The writing and acting are so good I liked every one of them but at no point would I trust them.

Marina Hands the main female character, in a way a thankless task, representing authority as the governess, more than holds her own in a role where she has to draw the line at steely authority but also working miracles because she really wants the men to be more than they are. Again convincing.

Equally impressive is that we are shown six months of rehearsals, where nothing is easy and the prisoners have to understand and realise that acting is not quite the hilarious jape it appears. Things that happen that cause them problems are not instantly, heroically or otherwise, overcome. Simply put this film is not ‘pat’.

The prisoner's tiredness at their situation and the way they are treated despite their obvious talent is shown with a gentle touch and not the huge vulgar hammer blow framed by exposition that can ruin films, and like Beckett’s actual work there is more on display here than you first see. Like his play's protagonists, the players are trapped in seeming eternity, unable to move forward without someone watching, guarding, and detaining them.

As I have said previously a great strength in The Big Hit is that it does not condone or praise the criminals or how they arrived at incarceration, but does show how their punishment does not solve their problems and how art, albeit just a one play, can bring joy, fun and even a sense of freedom from their daily grind.

Art is important, I can say it, my artist/creative friends say it, and this film shows it entertainingly and skillfully.

Even more absurdist this story, including the left-field ending, is based on a true story – I could not believe it when I found out – and an event that Beckett himself found out about and said something similar to “This is the perfect thing to happen to my play”.

I highly recommend this film.

Peter Dinklage undoubtedly can play characters with some great weight of responsibility, guilt or other highly emotional heft on his shoulders. He is superb at it. So far so good and just to add to the burden, on his shoulders, he carries this film.

It just as well because despite the acting and compelling story what he is really at the front of is a fairly standard murder-mystery-thriller wrapped up in science-fiction. The memory machine just being a replacement for 'Detective Exposition' that rolls up in these films normally.

This is not to say Rememory is a bad film, it is not, but it is placed front and centre as a science-fiction mystery and without the unlikely and huge plot-hole machine it is not really that.

The story unfolds in a convoluted fashion and characters seem to be motivated to do things just to prolong the story and make it more confusing. So many characters seem to have some dark secret or problem that the memory machine uncovered that it would have been obvious to any corporation/scientist that this needed further work.

Peter Dinklage’s character seems to be trying to find one important thing out but it really is something else. There is a slight twist near the end that might make you sit up if you were not paying attention but really every character seems to skipping past and jumping over plot-holes.

The acting in general is strong with Dinklage remorseful and sad like he has a great weight on his shoulders and his foil Julia Ormond as the scientist Dunn’s widow, matches him with a quite different but believable and sympathetic character.

The film's main threads are regret, guilt, remorse and redemption right there, front and centre, as you would expect a film dealing with delving into a person’s memories to be. The problem is this has been done before and after and much better. There seems no need to twist the story up in a murder mystery that had to be solved and to add a plot device memory machine, whilst raising interesting questions, seemed a bit like lazy writing.

The cinematography, overall acting, look and feel of the film are good, although the memory machine seems a bit PlayStation 4, but there are few glaring leaps of logic. In particular a thing that has to be addresses delicately, Mr. Dinklage is a well-known and superb actor that never lets his size affect anything he plays, but and it is a big but, he is a little person and carting around a memory machine, being a mystery man that no one seems to know who he is or what he is doing, not one investigator/questioner says ‘Oh yeah it was a little fella, you can’t miss him’.

Overall Rememory will not stay in my memory for long and the subject of the story could have been treated in an entirely different matter and still drove the point home.

It is fair to say that Denis Villeneuve has an unerring eye for science-fiction/fantasy on an epic scale and as such would surely have been the only person up to directing the much-vaunted, exceedingly difficult-to-put on the silver-screen, Dune.

For the record, I have tried to read the Dune novels but perhaps they are too epic for me but I got some way into them but never finished. So, I am not a massive fan steeped in the lore. This I believe helps. It is impossible to not read opinions about either Dune movie before watching them due to their size and publicity. It seems to be there are only two views, 10 out of 10 will brook no criticism, or 4 out of 10 not the novels, missed ‘this stuff’ out.

I think I am in the middle somewhere. I really enjoyed the first film showing those in charge, the aristocracy if you like, in an epic story and they were not a-holes. That is good. The battling and death were epic and extremely violent, although military tactics, like so many films, seemed a bit 9-year-old in the sandbox with toy soldiers basic to me. Does no one sneak about and use tactics in these places, ever?

Dune: Part Two carries on where we left off, Paul, played with ease by Timothy Chalamet, who has the world at his feet at the moment, is now ensconced with the ‘Freman’ and although not fully trusted is part of their movement. Supported fully by the impressive and very believable Javier Badam and despite the sincerity of all characters involved my overriding feeling was ‘religious nutters’ – in real life, they would be ISIS or some right-wing conservative Christian supremacists.

As much as I like Dave Bautista and Stellan Skarsgard the baddies in this story are too bad, ridiculously psychopathic with immense armies, and it is clearly shown how immense they are, who obey everything they say despite the fact they might kill any one of them for no reason at any time on a whim. Ceausescu anyone?

The pacing focuses way too much on the machinations of the Freman, interspersed with a few raids on the baddies, which seemed a bit too easy, as the invaders seem hopelessly incompetent. So endlessly traipsing around deserts whilst story-building may keep some interested but my attention started to wane.

The ending ties everything up neatly, and to my mind seemed like childish wishful thinking for those who think the world is fair. Everyone got what they wanted, all those who had to die met their ends at the hands of those they had wronged – genuinely this took me out.

The special effects, cinematography and huge story are to be applauded, the acting ranges from believable great to a bit no-energy and perfunctory, I preferred one of the actors when he was traipsing around Bristol recently, and the story for all its adult-orientated serious world-building of political and religious intrigue also had moments of childish simplicity that took me out of what I was watching. Was it originally Herbert or the scriptwriters? Honestly, I do not know.

Dune: Part Two simply put was watchable, very well made and continued the story in a linear and understandable way, but at times it was a bit too ‘really?’ and it was way, way too long. Also, religious nutters do not heroes make.

River was created and made by the same folk, Junta Yamaguchi directing, who made the highly original and amusing ‘Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes’ which is a personal favourite of mine. Looking at the surface of River you can see it is a story about people caught in a two-minute time loop, the problems it causes, and how they get out of it. So far, so very similar. But, and this sounds positively ridiculous the two films have little else in common.

Like Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, River has a roster of likable, charming and in a lot of ways realistic characters. They all inhabit a film that is actually concise and short, a little over eighty minutes, but whereas the first film takes place within the confines of a café and apartment here we are transported to a beautiful rural area.

Aside from the engaging acting, the comedic and almost slapstick moments the strength of the film is you really do not know why what is occurring is happening. Firstly, those affected do not spend most of the film confused, not believing what is happening, but very quickly come to grips with the unlikely circumstances they are in. This moves the story along and also, for me at least, makes most sense, once something as weird as this happens a few times you are just going to accept it, no matter how unlikely. Then no matter what you think is going on you will probably be wrong, in fact, the paths you are led down are superbly fooling for the entire story, and that is all I will say.

The ending itself, which I cannot describe for obvious reasons, made me laugh out loud and I suppose you could say it might be a ‘cheat’ but I loved it.

If River sounds like a slight comedic fantasy romp about time problems then you could say it is but what has been done so wonderfully through the story is the real-life drama of how we treat each other, what we fail to do, how we should behave to our friends, it gives the story a dramatic twist that perhaps you did not see coming and rounds out the characters even more. Despite the fantasy, they are real, well-rounded people.

River is a wonderful film to watch, I guess it is a style that some would not like, but if you have seen Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes you will love this. It is well-acted, features a stunning and beautiful location, and some detailed and realistic characters for you to empathise with.

Just in case you are not sure, I really liked this film.