Film Reviews by PV

I LOVED the Norwegian film SICK OF MYSELF by the same writer/director, by far the best satire on the pill-popping age of now (whether it's anxiety or weight loss pills). It's like a DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS for our age - a cautionary tale. I loved DREAM SCENARIO too despite the fact I usually hate Nicholas Cage.

This bears the hallmark of sly intelligence in all the films of Kristoffer Borgli. However, it does not reach their heights of his previous two films. I think that is because, for me anyway, this is all very American & New-York-based, with 2 lead actors chosen for their fame perhaps - though they act fine - to attract a younger audience. Not sure.

I did not quite believe the relationship somehow. Perhaps because I doubt an art gallery curator would behave as he does or fall for this mixed race girl - who imho is actually not that attractive. Anyway, that's just me.

I have zero interest in wedding movies either. I mean, why should I care?

Not sure I believed all the plot developments, the first which leads to the wedding going off the rails. Hated the ending (no spoilers). I could not believe that or some events.

Some decent jokes re Brits/Americans, though it never quite rings true for me as a story, or perhaps I did not believe the way characters reacted to events and news (no spoilers). This is the USA, where you can but guns in Walmart, remember! Not sure. Some clever imagined scenes and quick-edit cuts n fun too, which lifted the film from a rather pedestrian wedding-themed TWENTY-SOMETHING soap.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Slowbeat says it all. I stuck with it, enjoyed the beautiful Greek island scenery and was interested to read in the end credits that some of it was filmed at Ostia Antica, the former Roman port (now 2 miles inland) half an hour by train from Rome. Great place to visit, more compact than Pompeii.

Definitely not a film for kids of those lacking patience - put on the subline JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) or a SINBAD film for that.

I did enjoy it, with reservations. All a bit soapy for me, family relationships. Reminded me a bit of TV drama VIKINGS and Ragnar's journey. probably a good add-on film to the major big budget Odyssey movie.

The latter's caused controversy by casting a black woman as Helen of Troy (absurd for an age that valued very white fair blonde blue-eyes girls most of all), and this also parachuted those with sub-Saharan African features into this Ithaca, an island to the west of Greece near Corfu. WOULD there be so many black African-origin faces there 3000 years ago? No. Maybe the odd one. For those who defend this colourblind casting, fine, but be consistent - so let's see black Chinese emperors and Indian sultans then, and white ones, and maybe white ginger Zulu warriors and Chinese ones, with ed Sheeran playing Nelson Mandela and Lenny Henry and Idris Elba playing Samurai. OK? I hate this colourblind casting cult, makes me wince ESPECIALLY as the baddie is, yep, you guessed it, a very Nordic white blond man. Sigh...

The director seems to make very stagey films, which perhaps should be drama-documentaries on BBC2 or Channel 4. I half expect some TV presenter in a sunhat to pop up between scenes explaining the historical context, arms flailing as they do that slow walk to camera they learnt at TV presenter college...

to me, it felt like an Italian film - I see it's a UK/France/Greece/Italy coproduction but most cast and crew are Italian, from the names.

I enjoyed the climax. But even I, with my well-trained attention-span, found the prelude wearing at times... and I do confess to clock-watching! The third act is great though.

3 stars.

This is a nice, rather nasty, subtle but snide little stab at a film with is all about secrets in a small town - and very VERY French. You couldn't get more French than the death of a baker who mentored a man returning to the village for his funeral after a decade away, meaning deep resentments and jealousies bubble to the surface of a society humming with secrets and illicit sexual desires. Envy, hatred, love, sex of all kinds - it's all here, yet hardly expressed.

A word about the title: "mis·eri·cord' is either 1) ledge projecting from the underside of a hinged seat in a choir stall which, when the seat is turned up, gives support to someone standing. Many ancient ones carved of wood in British churches; 2) an apartment in a monastery in which some relaxations of the monastic rule were permitted. 3) a small dagger used to deliver a death stroke to a wounded enemy.

Well this French film could tick all three of them.

A nice deceptively quiet and gentle story that is anything but. Be sure to concentrate because some of the undercurrents raging quietly here are subtle, the petty jealousies and hatreds of closed communities and village life, the resentment, the disappointment, the misery...

It has a few bumps, some unbelievable plot developments esp re gendarmes (SO SPOILERS). It had to end somewhere, but not sure if this was the ending I'd have chosen.

4 solid stars

This film is from a novel, though the odd disclaimer at the start that the characters are fictitious is fooling no-one, not when one is even called Vladimir Putin. Boris

Yes , it's bitty. But Jude Law is great as Putin and Paul Dano is always worth a watch.

Reminds of me other shy dramas, THE AMERICANS TV series, also DEUSTCHLAND 83, with its depiction of the communist regime. A great but forgotten UK TV drama RED MONARCH from 1983 is way superior to the later The Death of Stalin (2017) which I found annoying. McMafia a UK TV drama from 2018 nails the Russians in London mired in corruption and with enemies angle well. Boris Berezovsky's life and dodgy death could provide more than enough material for a feature film in itself!

I visited the USSR during communism so know a lot of the places featured in Moscow and Leningrad, as was. They use real documentary/news footage here for various events, sometimes altered by AI to add Jude Law's face. I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of that kind of thing, and have, in fake news online, which means people believe nothing any more.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, though I'd say that if you lack knowledge of the news esp re Russia n 1980s/90s/2000s and Putin, you may find it confusing at times. For those who know about recent Russian history, this is a useful addition to the genre. 4 stars

I suspect this would have been better off as a 1 hour of 48 minute TV drama, or even drama-documentary. There is just not enough here to pad out a whole film, and this did drag at times, esp the second half. This is one of many misery memoir films - too many to list here really. Some are better than others.

Based on a real life City trader who now campaigns for the NSPCC, I was a tad concerned at the misandry here, where all white adult males are portrayed as child sex abusers or just amoral greedy capitalists in the City (the real life David, focus of this biopic, was one himself, made his fortune there). It just gets tiresome, in a cartoon character way, though I have seen quite a few films like this now - it's quite the thing, hating on white men and boys!

And the 1 in 20 stat at the end needs analysis - for 'children' the NSPCC counts anyone under 18, I think, so most claims are by teenagers. There is a danger of overusing claims of abuse, automatically believing claims and demonising all men and boys. We see the effects in the permanent suspicion in which all men are now treated, guilty as accused. That is very dangerous as lies are then weaponised for revenge.

It's not explicit in its depiction of child abuse so not sure why any gets triggered at things like this.

It's a so-so film BUT I'd recommend WAH-WAH (2015) by Richard E Grant more and a south African film MOFFIE (2019).

2 stars

This is so French - sexy woman, a model, spends all day obsessing re the trial of a serial killer for reasons unknown.

The first half ratchets up the tension nicely. Then the subplot re the fellow obsessive and unlikely court scenes go OTT, rather, and I sensed the second act of the film was trying to waffle somewhat, to time-fill, stretch it all out a bit. The ending remedies that well with dramatic tension.

The techie plot re Red Rooms reminds me of several other internert-based films, and we're likely to see more of course. 8MM (1999) is one; PEEPING TOM (1960) always an influence though via the camera-age of film and projectors. Best internet film of recent years is the shoe-string budget horror HOST (2020).

3 stars overall

I loved this director's MISOMMAR and also the later EDDINGTON. And he produced DREAM SCENARIO one of the best films I've ever seen. That film and MIDSOMMAR also fall into what call the TRICKSY FILM category - very meta and post-modern. THE JOKER film is like that too as is I,ROBOT the TV drama. Loads more out of Hollywood in recent years. Not a genre I enjoy, in general.

Is this real or it s fantasy? Who knows? The danger is the viewer won't care, however, and sadly that is the case here as it was not with the much better MIDSOMMAR and DREAM SCENARIO.

It starts strongly, though events made the viewer wonder how real it all is, as do images, and characters. So instantly we have an uncomfortable feeling something is amiss. Then the plot develops in random ways, (NO SPOILERS) and it goes on and on and on, for over 3 hours. Someone badly needed to tell the writer-director to hire an editor, kill a few darlings, maybe an hour's worth.

Much of the latter part of the film is unnecessary imho, and/or baffling and/or silly. But who cares? We do not because the main character is annoying more than anything else. It all needs to be streamlined and simplified imho.

I was gonna give it 3 stars, but that last hour was very trying, so 2 stars. Baffling that it's labelled a 'comedy' too.

OK so I really wanted to love this film. The South African gay director made MOFFIE a superb film from 2020, based on his own experience I think.

This is from a short story, which seems a sort of fictionalised account of famous song collector Alan Lomax and/or his father John, with added value with the gay love affair.

To be honest, this could have been an hour-long TV drama, in fact 48 minutes to allow for adverts. I say that even as I liked the film BUT I was expecting a long ride and got it - and I am a big fan of songwriting and the history of it, so this was right up my alley. More impatient viewers may switch off which is a shame because the final scenes (no spoilers) are crucial and made sense of all that has gone before.

One issue I have with this story is that I really do not BELIEVE the character,. WOULD someone born and brought up in such dire poverty turn down the chance to live the high life, and not a normal working class life in Europe either, but a seriously loaded upper class one? I don';t buy it. This was my issue with that 1993 Indecent Proposal - as if someone would really turn down $1 million dollars for doing the dirty for a few minutes. Maybe I'm just cynical. No, not maybe....

Anyway, I did not dislike this BUT be warned, you need to be in the right mood for it, let it wash over you.

I felt the inclusion of black families singing traditional British folk songs was pushing it, a tad too tickbox for me. And no, it does not always rain in Britain - as I remind Paddington fans worldwide always. In fact Rome has more annual rainfall than London, fact.

Nothing explicit here sex-wise so fine for any young one who may miraculously have managed to retain an attention span in our age of AI slop on social media turning em all into brainrot zombies.

3 stars

The deep irony about this film is that it claims to be some sort of profound satire on AI, but is actually little more than AI slop itself, dominated as it is by crash-bang-wallop CGI at every turn.

It is neither profound as satire or original as scifi, and if anyone laughed at this, they have a lower comedy threshold than me, for sure. All influenced by The Matrix, The Terminator films, Zombie films galore, Spielberg's AI, The Fisher King/Brazil in the Terry Gilliam film universe, steam punk etc. Meh. This is NOT the first film to mine the topic of brainrot zombies focused on their smartphones either.

In fact this sort of thing has been done for many decades on film and in novels, esp short stories. One, from 1910, by genteel repressed English author EM FORSTER of ROOM WITH A VIEW fame called THE MACHINE STOPS from 1910. Yes, 1910. It's free to read online if you search.

It reminded me more than anything else of one of the lamer episodes of Dr Who, with loads of running around to a thumping soundtrack (hallmark of Russel T Davies).

This may appeal to lovers of Sci-fi more than me, I do not know. Maybe I'm too old... Truly silly plot and the sort of CGI scenes that 13-year-old boys would come up with in a brainstorming session, which says it all.

Did I care about the characters? No. Did I believe the plot? No. Did I think it was 1 star unwatchably awful. No.

So, 2 stars.

I so wanted to like this. Written/directed by the late Ron Peck (1948-2022) this is a gangland thriller focused on the 1980s redevelopment of London's Docklands. But I was prepared to give this a try, especially as Ron Peck was a pioneer of independent British gay cinema since the 1970s. His NIGHTNAWKS (1978) my well look dated and even amateur now, even a tad boring, BUT it was a first - I watched it on Channel 4 in the mid-late 80s. A film that matters despite its many flaws.

This, however, is all a bit of a mess - surprising when the screenwriter is by now more experienced in film-making. A confusing plot, perhaps too many characters, which makes one wonder by the final climactic scene just what that is all about and even who that man is. The whole thing needs streamlining into a 3 act structure, with plot points, and focus.

The classic British film about that is the sublime THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1979) which made a star of Bob Hoskins (and also features future James Bond Pierce Brosnan as a gay Irishman in his first big screen role) with is 5 stars any day of the week. That has a fantastic synth score. This EMPIRE STATE has a soundtrack of Bronski Beat and others.

So a curiosity piece really. is it a good film? No. Is it worth a watch for those interested in British independent/gay cinema of 1970s/80s? Yes.

This film is VERY loosely based on a real operation - I'd advise all interested to search for the real story online.

As per usual these days, they have to have a black member of the SOE team when in reality there was none; the Marjorie SEO agent role was a real woman BUT she was in London and did the planning for the mission and others, so was not some Mata Hari temptress in nightclubs. In reality, the operatives were all white British males except the Danish Anders Lassen who joined the British army.

The location is real, was a Spanish colony and Spain was neutral in WWII - Franco sat on the fence, would not let German troops in Spain, supplied Germany with copper ore as neutral Portugal did tungsten ore and neutral Sweden iron ore (in 2 world wars too). There's no such thing as neutral, then... Major March-Phillipps was indeed handed over to the Germans by the Spanish, who shot him!

Researching the real men the characters were based on, most died in the war it seems, 2 in Italy 1 in France. The Anders Lassen character was real and his bow and arrow were his preferred weapon, though the British army in which he was a private refused him permission to use it!

The hokum re this raid stopping the U-boats in the Atlantic is nonsense - when ended the success of the seawolves was radar and triangulation which enabled destroyers to drop depth charges and destroy U-boats, and 75% of them were destroyed, and 75% U-boat mariners died. In the early part of WWII they sank so many ships trying to supply the UK from neutral (until December 1941) USA (the UK only finished paying back the warloan from the US in 2006). The ship's cargo was unknown, suspected to be arms and weapons, which is why it was targeted.

Anyway, feature films are not documentaries... SO does this work as a film? Yes, as a cartoon character action movie, and I enjoyed it WAY more than the awful Inglourious Basterds nonsense with its rewrite of history. The cartoon character pantomime baddie Nazis reminded me of the Indiana Jones movies. I do wonder how much better this film would have been made in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, however...the golden age of war films.

So, 3 stars. If you want a cartoon character caper action movie set in exotic climes in WWII, this is for you.

One irritation - the dissing of British cuisine as 'only fish & chips'. Unforgiveable from a British director. SUCH ignorance, though to be fair, German food is similarly dissed.

This film seems very derivative - of so many 'detain dramas' where people are abducted and imprisoned. THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (2009) is THE classic one, but there are many.

The plot and character arcs make political/social points bluntly, as in sledgehammered, but it's a decent enough watch, if unbelievable.

I was frustrated by the lack of information here, on character backstories and dark whispered parts of the plot and motivation for a random abduction. It seemed almost dystopian fantasy at times, with the odd 1950s-style family (and we know the father is a baddie as he says LONDON'S NOT WHAT IT WAS - he fails to pass the diversity-worship test so is branded a baddie from the start). The boy claims to be 10 but sounds 13 which is odd.

It felt very stagey and wordy, could have been a theatre play - the first-time (Polish) screenwriter will no doubt have a theatre background. The studio scenes are filmed in Warsaw in Poland too, and I found the whole setting odd. Maybe the Polish director does not realise how much such a mansion would cost in the UK, even Yorkshire? Stephen Graham the actor could afford it of course, but would someone with his accent who does not work be able to? Nothing is explained and it jars. Maybe he won the lottery eh? Maybe a British director/writer could have seen the lack of consistency here with socio-economic class issues?

The accents jar too - the abducted boy has a very broad local accent (Leeds?) yet seemingly lives in a detached executive home. For me, as a Brit, that needs explanation.

Anyway, watchable enough - the sort of thing that used to be PLAY FOR TODAY or similar, made for TV. This is not a cinematic film - outdoor scenes of lovely Yorkshire landscapes notwithstanding.

3 stars therefore BUT just watch THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES to see how it's done.

This film and others of recent years show me how far the Oscars have fallen - they used to matter. Do they now? Who knows who wins Oscars now, or cares? Some awful films have won in recent years and this is better than some, but is not Oscar-worthy at all. The Academy parachuted lots of black voters in after BLM protests, and #Oscarssowhite and that is why this won so many awards (BAFTA has similarly rigged its voting to go peak woke and tickbox). The acting is fine and Michael B Jordan and some tricksiness enable him to play two twins/cousins, which always plays well with Oscar voters.

This is one of those films which I realised, by the 30 minutes point, was not for me. By the first plot point and minute 24 we all know where this is going.

I am not F1 or sports fan BUT I did rather like RUSH (2013) with the excellent German actor Daniel Bruhl.

What this lacks is heart - it is ALL about racing F1. Some speedqueens may enjoy it, and its laddish angle - though I very much doubt there are many bigbusted blonde babes in the pit stops...

Not my sort of thing, and amazed it won an Oscar for sound as I can barely hear the dialogue - obvs one needs a decent 16 speaker surround sound set-up to appreciate the brrrrums and the rrrrroars and the rrrevs, Yawn.

It's produced by Lewis Hamilton, which shoudl have been a warning sign for wokeness and tickboxery.

I'd only watch all of this film if you paid me folding money.

I REALLY wanted to like this - I like small indy films and coming of age tales too.

However, after a strong start, this falls apart somewhat and loses focus. It's as if it cannot decide if it's a quasi-gay coming of age tale, or a crime mystery or thriller. Too much packed in here. A cruel edit would have been good for the screenwriter, tbh.

The actors so fine. The main actor who plays the boy Sebastian has never done anything else, which is a shame. Just been watching veteran French actor Thierry Godard in THE LINE/A FRENCH VILLAGE 2009 series (x7) on ITVX. Like in Australia, the same actors pop up everywhere.

It's watchable but disappointing in the end, gets confused and muddled, overloaded with issues and characters by the end, after a strong start.

Meh. 3 stars.