Film Reviews by Philip in Paradiso

A biographical drama, the film is based on the life and career of Giulio Andreotti, a seven-time Prime Minister of Italy, notorious for his alleged ties to the Mafia. The narration spans the period from G Andreotti's 7th election in 1992 to the Tangentopoli corruption scandal and his trial in 1995.

It is a very interesting film and I do recommend it. Some idea of what was going on in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s is a pre-requisite. The film is constructed in a slightly odd and unconventional way -- a sort of kaleidoscope of scenes and incidents that overlap. It makes it harder to follow and, as a result, somehow, it lacks pace, I felt. A more conventional and linear construction of the story could have perhaps worked just as well or better. But it remains a very original and interesting film.

Set in Edwardian England, and very faithful to the novel by the same name, written by E M Forster, the film is very good. It has become a classic in its own right.

Helen Schlegel is an arty non-conformist while her sister, Margaret, is more realistic; both are intellectuals. Margaret meets Henry Wilcox, a rich, widowed businessman involved in the colonial trade. Helen, because she wants to help him, gets involved with a lower-middle-class clerk, Leonard Bast, but he is married already. ‘Howards End’, the Wilcox family property in the country, plays a central part in the story.

The reconstitution of the period is remarkably good and the actors (e.g.: Anthony Hopkins) are outstanding -- including the supporting roles, it must be stressed. The film dwells on the mentality at the time and class differences between strata of society that live in parallel universes. When Helen Schlegel attempts to break down those social barriers, everything ends up destabilized with unexpected consequences.

It is most probably one of the best British historical and sentimental dramas ever turned into films.

This is a good film, which has become a 'classic' of British cinema. Although it is firmly rooted in the late 1970s/ 1980s, in terms of themes, atmosphere, music, etc., the acting and the story are good. Bob Hoskins' performance is excellent: don't miss the tirade in the Savoy towards the end of the movie -- if only for that scene, the film would be worth watching!

The film mixes tension, ambiguity, violence and humour in a very British way. Highly recommended.

This is a very good film if one looks at the acting (particularly that of G Oldman, superb and impressive) and the interesting re-creation of the political tensions/ debates/ divisions within the British political class and the Establishment as the country was entering WWII. It shows there was no consensus around what to do (a bit like Brexit!) and many were interested in doing some sort of deal with Hitler (led by Lord Halifax).

Where the film is a bit weak from a strictly historical perspective, is that it gives all the credit to W Churchill for wanting to stand up to the Nazis, whereas he was helped and supported by Labour in the coalition government -- something that is virtually ignored in the movie. This has been mentioned by historians and specialists.

Having said this, it is a very good film that you will enjoy and it does re-create the atmosphere at the time pretty well, I believe -- and even if the scene in the Tube is of course a pure creation of fiction!

The film is well-made and the first 80% is good in my view, and will hold your attention. The atmosphere that is created is what grips you, as it did in the 1st 'Blade Runner' film, despite the fact so much of it is actually implausible or far-fetched. The last 20%, on the other hand, feels a bit weak and underwhelming, as the expression goes. There is something a bit contrived about the ending, and too rosy and positive in relation to the first 3/4 of the film. It gets a bit sentimental in a way that makes the film lose its edge, somehow, but maybe no other ending could be envisaged.

Still, overall, I would say that, for anyone who has seen the original film and liked it, they should enjoy the sequel.

This is a very good film in my view. It grips you from start to finish, in that great American tradition of re-creating a drama based on historical facts: the way race riots in Detroit were repressed by the police, National Guard and Army with extreme violence in the mid-1960s. More particularly, the film centres on events at the Algiers Motel, where a semi-rogue police unit made up of overtly racist white officers took it out on a line-up of black men (and 2 white girls who happened to be there). It is quite chilling.

The film also helps us to understand the difficult state of race relations in the USA, given the history of violence between Whites and Blacks -- in this case, anger boiling over and into rioting followed by blind repression. And the court system at the time does not come out of it looking particularly good, to say the least!

With Clint Eastwood in the lead, it is the true story of 3 men who, in the early 1960s, staged the only successful escape from Alcatraz prison, on the island sitting in the middle of the Bay of San Francisco. (It is no longer a prison.) No one knows what actually happened to the 3 fugitives after they broke out of the jail, but they certainly succeeded in escaping.

The film is a great classic of the genre, full of gripping suspense, even though one knows the broad storyline. It is exceedingly realistic and has not aged at all (the movie was made in the late 1970s). A great movie.

I expected better than this. It is just an action movie with good guys (the apes) and bad guys (the human beings), and a lot of fighting, fleeing, etc. What is unusual is of course the fact apes are pitted against cruel and violent soldiers. Other than that, it is quite formulaic, in fact.

The special effects are good, and it is not a bad film, but it is not particularly deep or memorable. Earlier iterations of the franchise I have seen were better and this one can be missed, in my view.

This is an interesting film, which shows what the atmosphere was like, in Germany, in the 1950s, in relation to the country's Nazi (recent) past. A young and ambitious prosecutor refuses to give up when he is fobbed off, wanting to investigate former SS guards at the Auschwitz extermination camp.

This is a good film, with good acting, but it is a bit slow, perhaps, at times. There are also a few places where it is pretty obvious the scene was not shot outside but in a studio (cardboard-type facades of houses on a large square at one stage).

Still, I recommend it and enjoyed watching it. How do you come to terms with evil, and the evil perpetrated by members of your own family? A tough one.

What is striking about this film is 2 things. First of all, it is based on a completely true story: how extreme violence was born out of the military dictatorship in Argentina, which ended in 1983/4. In a way, the criminal violence depicted in the movie is a prolonging of the institutional and political violence of the dying military regime: an entire country was brutalized and things like that do not happen in a vacuum. Certain individuals have (or believe they will always have) impunity. Political violence morphs into criminal enterprise.

Second, what hits you is the ordinary character of 'the clan' -- outwardly an average middle-class family of good Catholics who are pretty dull and ordinary, except for the eldest son, who happens to be a star rugby player. It makes you think of the phrase (H Arendt): 'the banality of evil'. Who knows what, and who is going to do something about it, if anything? Who is going to keep quiet and avoid rocking the boat?

The characters lack depth at times, and yet the film is fascinating in its own, horrible way. The patriarchal figure of the father is, in his own quietly spoken way, truly scary. Overall, a good film that I recommend.

This is the story of 5 teenage girls confined to the family home while plans are made to marry them off, but they are not going to just take it and do nothing about it...

It is a brilliant movie. The 5 girls have so much personality and are so rebellious, it is fascinating to see how they battle the powers that be, i.e. the patriarchal order that dominates life in the villages of Anatolia.

The film is not didactic and is well-made. It is a very good, very authentic film. The acting is excellent too.

The film documents the 1965 massacre of Communists or Communist sympathizers in Indonesia through the eyes of one man whose family was targeted by the killers. Many of the victims were not Communists at all. The scale of the violence was such that it could be termed a genocide. Britain and the USA supported the genocidal killers, and, in fact, they are still, broadly speaking, in power in Indonesia today.

It will unsettle and shock you, but it should be seen. It could be called: "A study in Evil".

I was not sure the movie would be that good. In fact, I found it very good. The life of the main character was, in some ways, fascinating. The acting of all the key characters is excellent, particularly Amy Adams'. There are also some funny moments and the film sustains the viewer's interest to the end, in my opinion. Overall, a very good film in my view.

Not a bad film but not a masterpiece either. The storyline is interesting along the lines of your usual zombie movie. But I found the characters a bit formulaic and the hint of a love story between the 2 young lead characters is not credible, somehow: there seems to be no chemistry between them. Overall, you will like it if you like that kind of film. But the raving reviews it got when it came out are over the top in my view: it is fairly good, not superb.