Film Reviews by HM

Great performances all round, especially from the youngsters. An African juvenile is coerced into a rebel army fighting the Government forces and other rebels. The film explores his corruption into violence as a 'boy soldier' and the motives of the commanders of the rebel army.

It begins by showing the carefree lives of kids and then the destruction of innocent villagers caught in the crossfire of military events. A hard watch sometimes as the rebel boy soldiers behave in an aggressive way towards other innocents, the message being; the corrupted corrupt and the de-humanising spreads like a virus.

We have all heard of these African wars, rebel armies, boy soldiers etc but this gets into the body of the dog and paints a gloomy picture of life under conflict conditions. A must watch to understand this all too repetitive situation so many people find themselves in.

I cannot imagine what people see in this out of date film. The original was bad enough (I got through 30 minutes before giving up) but this strung out version is only part 1! The book was published in 1965 so the themes and feel of it may have been original at the time (Star Wars writers may have been influenced) but SF stories and movies have covered this sort of territory many times since. Great Cgi effects (2 a penny nowadays) Atmos sound fantastic, but at the end of the day the story is lame.

SF geeks like the creation of future scenarios in novels, but in a movie it is just another deforested landscape with baddies and goodies. How does the wealth of the 'empire' manifest itself? So tribes fight over the rights to spices to sell throughout the Universe; so what? Who cares? What are the moral imperatives? Do we care who wins? I don't.

In the end we are expected to sympathise with the hero, a teenage boy Starbuck character with 'powers' prompting comparisons with the 'force' in SW.

A big yawn frankly. Lots of fight scenes, spaceships flying about, sorry but I expect more than special effects these days I have overdosed on them.

Well apparently Skakie had nothing better to do than cope with his femenist female empowerment daugther; a likely story eh? Ben Elton wrote the story so you needn't be suprised. And Judie Dench is his 'wife older than him', you are not kidding she is positively geriatric. Unconvinsing relationship.

So what is it all about? Well, we don't know much about him after retirement so why not make up some daft tale using his name to keep the English actors guild busy (Branagh an honury Englishman). His biographers refer to him 'likely' to have done this and that and managed his financial affairs etc. This story ignores his actual preoccupations as they are dull, and there is no reference to his collaberations with budding playwrites.

No idea why anybody should be interested in this waffle frankly. A sort of soap opera version which could run for a series 'the family squabbles of Skhakepeare' perhaps.

A tremendous tale and a movie to complement it. A young man from the other side of the tracks meets a well to do lady, daughter of an upper middle class Italian family. She encourages him to eductate himself and lift his social status; easier said than done. Who says only GB had or has a class system?

Complications between his lady's family and his socialist friends and leanings make for further dificulties as he tries to become an author and find success. Questions: will he make it? Will her family ever except him? And if success is achieved can he surmount the class barrier and does he even want to?

An analysis of social behaviours, status, motivations and character make for an intriguing and serious watch. I found it absorbing and very real.

Latest installment is in Texas. The purge doesn't end noon the next day as usual. Right wing (Trumpists) gangs decide to take on the whole of America. Fleeing nice white people and heroic Mexican hispanics team up and are joined by a native American indian to escape over the border where Mexican government has offered sanctuary!! Ha, ha very funny and ridiculous of course.

Nice Americans, liberals etc are not safe in their own country. Are you Americans sorry for what you did to the natives? Are you sympathetic to illegal immigrants? Are you a pinko Liberal? Well this is for you. I would have thought the biggest fans of this daft franchise would be the right wing loony brigade anyway so are the movie makers being a bit hypocrital? Well anything to make a buck, mind you they could lose some of their usual audience!

Great opening sequence and then the usual tired stuff. New 007 is a woman and of course she is black. Then there is a slip of a girl a bit dipsy but becasue it says so in the script she suddenly becomes a Ninja slaughtering bad guys and turning into an athlete. Totally the opposite of her actual character. What to do with women in action films? Make then into fake men of course! Bad guys cannot shoot straight and jump out from cover to be convenietly shot. In fact the shoot up sequences are pure video game nonsense.

Craig is too old for this now and should have been retired 2 movies ago. No sexual frission between the characters, Bond has been imasculated. Q is an Asian so there we are: Black, Asian and action woman. The British Army needs these women, we would have sorted Helmand Province out no problem. What a load of Woke rubbish. This version of Bond is dead in the water. Retire the character altogether if it cannot be done properly.

Cage is splendid in this unusual movie. Backwoods reclusive man has truffle finding pig. He makes his meagre living from this, but seemingly has no emotions to share with other humans. Loss and loneliness are hinted at. Is he mad? Is he emotionally damaged?

Pig gets stolen. The only people interested in the pig must be truffle hunters and sellers in the 'big city'. Off he goes to find her. More is revealed about his personality and background which all comes as a series of surprises. You are with him all the way as his mysterious past comes to light. Brilliant and special. Director Sarnoski presents this as his first feature and I cannot wait for his next. Forget blockbusters, this inspection of a slice of human frailties absorbs and satisfies all in one. See it!

New nurse compelled to spend night in hospital during 70's black out Britain. Her company includes two nasty people fresh from the stockroom of wind-up characters. Spooky 'it's behind you' events hint at supernatural interventions during the night shift. Things get darker as her former torments as a child return to haunt her. Things go bump and wham bam in the night. Genuinley creepy the movie keeps you in a state of tension.

Things glide towards a ghosty conclusion mingling human evil and disturbed spirits. Despite the obvious ghosty references used over and over in movies, the tension works and horror/thriller fans won't be dissapointed.

A hard horror watch at times, not gory just very creepy.

Based on a true story, an English salesman becames a courier for MI6, collecting information from a Soviet Officer highly placed in a Russian Government institution at the time of the Cuban missile crisis and smuggling it back to Britain. The stakes get higher as the spying deepens. No action, no car chases, just the tense grind of dangerous espionage. Personally I would rather have this slow burnig tension than the loud action nonsense of fictional movies.

Things come to a climax, largely because the Salesman and Sovier official become good friends and don't entirely observe the dispassionate approach adopted by spy organisations.

I enjoyed the experience immensly and Dominic Cumberbach bears an uncanny resemblance to the real Salesman we see at the end of the movie. Much recommended.

More of a one act stage play. Meandering dialogue. Goofy characters being smart ass in conversation. The basic premise is that a budding and an accomplished author of horror stories bump into each in a remote location of USA and get together in a shack to scare each other with ad-libbed stories. The stories don't work and the subsequent smudge into actual events doesn't either. Got bored and lost track of developments. I found I couldn't care less what happened to them as both characters were so irritating. My advice: give it a miss.

A highly unlikely scenario plunges a former drug dealer back into bad company. Imprisoned after a deal goes wrong he finds himself on the receiving end of a nasty gangster he has wronged. Cue heavy violence as he tries to save his wife and unborn child from mutilation. No point in any further description; just sit back and endure/enjoy a rollercoaster of violence.

Worth a watch? Certainly if you like punch ups and torture scenes. An exploitation film from start to finish. Plot? Who cares!

Begins with humour tongue wedged in cheek. It takes an unexpected twist then wears the viewer down as one action scene after another piles on the cgi. The script gets dumber and dumber and we end up with a video game shooter exprience. I have had it with super hero movies; Deadpool was a welcome semi-send up but this is just a clod hopping mess. End this series NOW!

Don't bother is my advice, they will just make more of this bilge.

A one hour tv drama dragged and padded out to movie length. Give it a miss if you want entertaining. This story doesn't belong on film and I doubt it has got a cinema release which is all you need to know.

The life of Mary Anning was one of relentless toil scouring the coast of Dorset England for fossils. A drama about her would centre around her work, perhaps family background illustrating the death of siblings, her unlikely survival and then her emergence from the shadows as a major contributor to natural science. However, the writer and director Francis Lee chooses to make up a story about a lesbian relationship between her and another woman. This is entirely fictional. What is the point of this film? It is misleading about her life, character and distorts other relationships she had; not as far as is known sexual ones.

Lee has made another gay film, so he obviously likes the subject. Sadly the film lingers on close to pornographic bedroom scenes. The two woman 'go it it' in an urgent rush which takes the characters as painted leading up to this in a differnet direction of temperement and character. Gratuitous sex really.

Having said all that it is an enjoyable drama and rather touching: just not about Mary Anning.

Tim Burton likes his concepts and redesigining trodden paths. This is a romantic journey through a dying man's life supposedly the truth that is too crackers for his son to believe. Do we believe it? Well it doesn't matter. The quirkey outlook of Burton keeps it colourfull and interesting. When you stop to think about it: why tell this heavily contrived story in the first place? No idea, but if you liked the barmey Edward Scissorhands you won't have much trouble enjoying this.

Entertaining yes, fairytale? Well yes that is what this is and what's wrong with that?