Film Reviews by PV

A dark farce of a comedy complete with gallows humour, so suitable for the immediate post-war period in ruined and ravaged Berlin - those who know the city will recognise streets, especially the ruined Kaiser Wilhelm church by Zoo station, the KDW department store, Unter den Linden, the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. It's as authentic as it gets.

The plot is thin, but the actors lift it, and Marlene Dietrich is sublime. Never forget she helped Jews escape Germany in the mid-late 1930s, donated huge sums to charities helping them, left Germany for the USA where she campaigned against the Nazis etc and toured Israel post WWII.

This may not be pc for today's wokeworld soaked in #metoo juice, but the plot hangs together and the characters are believable in the context of comedy, especially farce. Some may not like the juxtaposition of that romantic comedy with talk of the horrors of war, though the mass rape of German women by Russians is mentioned in passing.

This being filmed immediately after the war, the Nazis/baddies and those who collaborated cannot be allowed to get away. In reality, 97% SS members and many more Nazi party members including war criminals did get away without consequences, with many prominent Nazis just returning to pre-war careers post-war - a barking police officer here explores that slyly. Lots of references to trying to save the people by helping them de-Nazify themselves, to let children by children etc, so all very moving.

No spoilers but the ending works only in the context of those days. But nevertheless, this is a classic. 4 stars

This film was appalling. ProPal propaganda, fake history, I think antisemitic actually but certainly anti Israel. The layers and layers of lies here are symbolised by a clip of a supposed 1937 street protest with someone waving a huge Palestine flag - that flag was not invented until 1964!

Please watch EXODUS the great epic Paul Newman film from 1960. Or even LAWRENCE A DANGEROUS MAN - TV movie sequel to Lawrence of Arabia.

British Mandate Palestine (1918-1945) was the Brits trying to manage the mess left behind by the (Muslim) Ottoman empire which collapsed after WWI s0 if you're gonna blame anyway, blame the Turks! Britain and France struggled to keep control of the region, with Jewhating Arabs attacking Jews whose homeland this was for 5000 years,. In 1948 over 800,000 Jews fled pogroms by Arabs in Muslim-dominated middle eastern countries to the haven that is Israel. No mention of that here.

The claim the Christians sides with the Muslim Palestinian terrorists is nonsense too - plenty of Christians slaughtered by Muslims there, in Lebanon and around the Muslim world. Itis disgusting that this film will be believed as fact by many. The most Jewhating film I've seen for a while. NEVER forget how many Muslims backed the NAzis - the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a bestie of Hitler and spent WWII in Berlin. The modern Hamas and Hizbollah and PLO come from him via Yasser Arawat an Egyptian, like the rest in Gaza.

No mention that British Mandate Palestine included modern-day Israel AND Jordan. When Brits left that created Jordan from 77% of the land (that is THE socalled Palestinian state) and 23% became Israel and still the usual suspects want to destroy it. Never forget ALL land in Asia/Africa that is Muslim was STOLEN by Arab invaders in the past too.

The British soldiers here are panto villains who should be twirling their moustaches and laughing HA HA HA! The first scene has a British soldier saying "OI YOU! and chewing gum - the British army was an is strict about such things, and orderly too, with control, not thugs like this. NO WAY would a soldier be allowed to have long hair - he is the arch baddie panto bully in this whiteblaming Britbashing propaganda piece. We know this because at one point he says he understands the Jews and Zionists' need for a homeland WHERE by the way Jews have lived 5000 years - Islam was only invented in 7th C AD, and those in Gaza are Egyptian anyway. Muslim invaders is why it's all Muslim. Maybe they should leave and leave it all to the Jews who've lived throughout the Levant for 5000 years?

Appalling this got a release and distribution. The most Britbashing thing I've seen since the awful Channel 4 Brithate fest VICEROY'S HOUSE 2017 or that awful Dr Who Indian episode. Really, this is racism, fabricated history, masked as accurate historical drama.

No stars

Gosh what an odd little film. Very schmaltzy in small town America, shoe-horns in modern woke issues, though thankfully no wallowing in race-fixation as so many Hollywood movies now. A new screenwriter here, the director has a record of sentimental hippy-ish California-type movies, I think.

Ben Kingsley nails it as the ageing small town dad, retired, borderline dementia and alone. The standard set up for a buddy movie, with a new arrival friend - a dog, perhaps, or a homeless person, or as here, an alien (who is so obviously played by a young woman, the gait is so UN-alien and un-male!)

Do not think too hard about the plot, and how the US military can via satellite imaging identify houses and people to take out in warzones. Just pretend this is from an earlier, perhaps more innocent age. But there'd be no plot then or time to get to know the small blue thing.

Without Ben Kingsley this would be so mawkish and silly. However it just about gets away with it, as a small, quiet, Sunday afternoon watch. Maybe not one for cat lovers. Odd plot development there tbh. Another odd and slightly shocking one, no spoilers.

Watch with ET and the last 1970s movie I am sure inspired it: THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE. The 2011 comedy PAUL mines a similar vein.

3 stars.

Others have compared this to FARGO and no wonder - it ploughs the same furrow.

However, it all smacks of a B-Movie to me, one written by HR to ensure all major roles are female, to encourage actresses like Oscar-winner Emma Thompson to partake.

No spoilers, but the theme and motivation of the kidnappers remind me of horror films TURISTAS (2006) or the HOSTEL franchise.

Watchable, but forgettable and not believable at all. The snowy scenery is lovely, mind.

3 stars. JUST. 1 point of that is for the snowscapes...

When making a movie about sport, you have to choose what sort of film you're making, and the genre can be romance (WIMBLEDON, OXFORD BLUES) or thriller (1981's ESCAPE TO VICTORY), fantasy (FIELD OF DREAMS) or, as here, biopic - a fake biopic like ROCKY. This is the latter.

The sport here is table tennis which was MASSIVE in the post-war period in the UK. See the 1999 novel THE MIGHTY WALZER by Howard Jacobson, a semi-autobiographical novel about a teen obsessed with table tennis in 1950s Manchester.

However, it becomes more of a crime caper really, with an increasingly unlikely plot, complete with cartoon characters having capers around the world.

I suspect this sort of movie plays better with American audiences than British ones. They probably warm to the cocky hustler as I never did or could, and like the snappy salesman-type fast-talk. I find it annoying.

You can however smell the money on this - the scenes and 1952 context is all perfectly recreated. It looks authentic and expensive!

I rarely use this word about any film, but this was BORING. Also overlong and bloated. I was watching the clock at the one hour point, then 90 minutes, past 2 hours to 2.20. Why? A basic story could fit in 90 minutes if you sliced off the copious rolls of flab.

Nominated for loads of awards, it won none. Good.

2 stars

To be honest, the theme of this is not usually one I am drawn to and I rented it only as I am trying to improve my German by watching films/TV drama from there!

However, I was pleasantly surprised. It's all clearly heart-felt from the writer/director's debut, and I'll forgive her the clunkingly heavy-handed butterfly/caterpillar metaphor. After all, the core audience for this will be youngsters in Germany, not adults my age, and they've probably never encountered that metaphor before. British kids could do well to watch this too.

A tad depressing, showing the tower-blocked concrete Berlin suburbs, with a large immigrant-origin demographic, many Turkish - and Berlin is very Turkish. Of course, in Turkish cities every drinks alcohol and no-one prays 5 times a day or does Ramadan - THAT is very much the imported Pakistani/Bangladeshi Muslim demographic in the UK, especially after decades of being brainwashed by hardcore imported imams.

That German kids now say 'I swear on the Koran' would make Martin Luther spin in his grave, and not a few devout Catholic hausfraus.

But the characters are played very well by the actors, totally believable. reminds me in a way of OSLO AUGUST 31st, the 2011 Norwegian film which is the best I have ever seen dealing with drug addiction. THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE (2023) is another German film to watch with this, and THE WAVE (2008)

4 stars.

This is a bit like a B-Movie '28 DAYS LATER' with the latter the way superior film. The classic late 1970s TV drama SURVIVORS ploughs the same furrow as do later TV series, the Belgian CORDON being one of the best.

In the age of Covid, there are loads more 'plague' films. CONTAGION (2011) more or less predicts the Covid 19 pandemic complete with lockdown. THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN was Michael Crichton's early hit novel from 1969, about a virus from outer space, a film consequently directed by Robert Wise. THE BLOB is a highly entertaining a late 50s version of the same.

This is like a TV movie really, with a low budget, set in rural small town America and it includes THE most massive hammy over-acting I have seen for years in this, which is worth watching for the hysterics and screams!

Like most movies now, the main leads are all female, the baddies and clueless people all male. Sigh. I think (white) men are banned from lead roles in such movies post-metoo. Now there's sexism!

I loved the credits, BIG letters for once, top deign. Not sure why the Bob Dylan song is so significant. Maybe the director just liked it?

2.5 stars rounded up.

Enjoyable 1944 film with a cute ad to BUY WAR BONDS IN THE FOYER OF THIS CINEMA at the end.

Remember we were still at war when this was made and shown, and the USA had joined us too, hence the international cast - though the story is a tad outdated. The U-boats devastated British shipping in 1940/41/42 BUT THEN new radar and location techniques turned the tables, so the death rate of U-boat crews was a staggering 75%. Watch DAS BOOT, original and remade German movies and the TV drama series too, all excellent.

I often think Hitchcock is over-rated - remember who wrote the short story this is based on, John Steinbeck and the 2 others who contributed to the slim, efficient screenplay.

As often with older films, there is a level of violence that would get the professional victims triggered, and language and behaviour - what I LIKE about old films. They lack that New Puritan Age prissy pofaced priggish hysteria of now, with endless demands for 'trigger warnings' (watch the ORIGINAL All Quiet on the Western Front from 1930 with gore and male nudity banished from later versions; watch the 1967 Planet of the Apes, ditto).

It's a slick, efficient, stagey drama, with the usual plot points and character arcs - but some decisions and violence are quite shocking by today's New Puritan Age standards.

Some nifty twists and surprising events keep this bobbing along nicely, and I liked the opening glugging scene too!

4 stars

Very early (1939) WWII drama, though it harks back to RIDDLE OF THE SANDS conspiracy theory thrillers about the German threat really.

Interesting rather than anything else. A curio. Stark colour with naval blues and reds.

The plot is very penny dreadful, and sometimes confusing (so read the summary above here), and the acting very theatrical,

But a colour film in 1939 films at Dartmouth Naval College with real Navy men and boys. I wonder how many survived the coming war...

3 stars

This starts well. Suitably kooky, and weird, with bees - a real character study piece, on mental illness and obsession.

It proceeds well, with some violent twists and some dark hidden underbelly to the main character's past. Jesse Plemons with his memorable name and face, is superb as he was in Breaking Bad as the redneck crystal-meth-cooker slave-driver and in Fargo 2nd series too (the weakest of the three, which like this jumps the shark with scifi silliness at the end).

IF I'd turned this DVD off 10 minutes before the end of the film, I'd have given it 4 stars. BUT...

when this film I was developing I was saying to myself "I'm sure the director/writer isn't going to do what I think he might" - and then he did. This epilogue to the plot sends what is a pretty decent conspiracy thriller into Lalaland (no spoilers) and is completely unnecessary, beyond silly, just BORING. It ruins the film. It's like some lame episode of the Twilight Zone, but worse.

I see I've given this director's films 1 stars a lot - the truly awful THE LOBSTER and more. Not profound, actually deeply derivative and silly. This film was GREAT until the handbrake turn 10 minutes before the end (no spoilers). Turn off then and enjoy it. Continue and that point and JUMP WITH THE SHARK. Your choice.

I really enjoyed this. I do have vague, slightly scary, memories of watching the 1970s version of this 1973 novel as a small boy - that skull and the manor house and the disabled character are all I remembered.

This how wonderful performances from all the cast/. THANKFULLY no tickbox colourblind casting or preachy lectures. Just a great story, with atmosphere, mystery, magic of 'the old ways'/folklore, happiness and sadness.

Alum Armstrong's performance as the repressed devout 'father' preacher is superb, and authentic to the Welsh valleys, maybe because the actor's parents were Methodist ministers! Geralndine McEwan takes a break from Miss Marple to play a mysterious Miss Havisham-type old girl.

Good old-fashioned proper storytelling and ALL THE BETTER FOR IT.

A family film which kids of any age can enjoy, esp as they can relate to the child characters.

4 stars

The best part of this film is the first 10 minutes - just sit back and watch the almost-wordless human mechanics of foodies and staff working in a French country house kitchen circa 1880 with real purpose and co-ordination, almost like a cook ballet!

I could guess the end as soon as the first plot point happened. I found the film sagged a tad as it went on. Some may be annoyed that no explanation is really forthcoming re how and why an obviously rich man of property lives as he does, doing nothing but being a foodie; or why he's fallen for a cook, below him on what is in France still a rather strict class system (the civil service elite there is an example).

However, if you do not think too hard and just watch the cooking, it's fun. But those first 10 minutes are sublime.

Directed and co-written by a Vietnamese film director who moved to France from what was French Indo-China age 12. Co-written by a a man called Marcel who I presume is a top chef so provided the foodie details of that age.

Interesting detail re the ortolan scene where those eating the whole birds cover their heads with a cloth. Ortolan is a small songbird, drowned in Armagnac brandy then cooked in a cassoulet. It is now illegal, officially, in France. BUT in 1996 it was the last meal of former President Mitterrand who died 8 days later having refused to eat any more. A last supper for him. Eaten with white cloth over your head supposedly to hide the act from God - you eat it whole, wings, feet, organs, head etc. The ortolan is supposed to represent the soul of France. And there's me thinking it was a chicken/hen as on the football shirts...

3 stars. 5 stars for the first 10 minutes.

Hmmm, well, what to think of this film.

Firstly, I see it's co-written by Daniel Day-Lewis with his son Ronan who directs, so Peak Nepobaby there. But that happens - Daniel himself was massively privileged, son of Cecil Day-Lewis millionaire Roll-driving communist (Daniel grew up in a £3-5 million townhouse in Greenwich London, before posh private school boarding) and grandson via his mother of the film producer founder of Ealing studios Sir Michael Balcon. He and Day-Lewis junior are very much from that posh BoHo arty set, whether in UK or USA.

Secondly, I found it felt very stagey. When Sean Bean and Daniel Day-Lewis are on screen, they are each hypnotic and their dialogue is loaded, fizzing, electric even when it is wordless - I was transfixed. Bean is a Sheffield native but Day-Lewis gets the accent and manner of the character bang-on.

However, whenever the focus leaves these two, the film sags badly, the dramatic tension goes.

And as for the magic realism bits. I must admit I did roll my eyes at that unnecessary arty-farty silliness. I like arty films sometimes, but this jarred. No need for it.

This would make a great two-hander stage play, just those two men, no-one and nothing else. or a TV drama of the sort British television used to make, BBC & ITV. Those days are gone, as even single dramas are soapy tickbox nonsense promoting ISHOOS and with the reuired EDI-hire actors in inappropriate roles (thank crikey we see none of that nonsense here, which adds to this films raw realism).

Final gripe - the names. RAY is fine, age-appropriate and social class matches too,. But 'Jem'? That';s short for Jeremy usually, not a name associated with Sheffield council estates. And the title. A flower, one character's favourite flower and their dad's. And...? A better title for this somewhere...

So, not bad and worth watching for the truly electric scenes between Bean and Day-Lewis.

3 stars

I watched this and let it all wash over me, rather like watching a landscape painting at an art gallery. I think that's the best approach as the film is almost wordless, and has the thinnest of ambiguous plots, yet is goodlooking and beautiful in the cinematography. A character study really. No wonder Cannes loved it.

The Galician title WHAT BURNS is better than FIRE WILL COME actually, says more re emotions and landscape. The metaphor is old, pathetic fallacy really, as seen in art from 18th century Romanticism.

SIRAT is the latest film for the same writer-director team btw. Nominated for awards. Have not watched it yet so cannot comment.

We usually see sunny Spain, in films such as SEXY BEAST (2000) or native Spanish ones (though I think Almodovar's soapy melodrama movies are MASSIVELY over-rated).

So nice to see the famously rainy 'Green Spain' in that tourist-free north-west (it matters in the plot to know this I think). Galician (Galego) is a minority language in Spain, spoken just in Galicia the north-west Atlantic region above Portugal and its very similar to Portuguese, I think.

Pretty rather than moving or meaningful.

It is what it is. 3 stars for the cinematography.

Revenge of the Zombies is from 1943, maybe the first zombie film?

It features a lot of black actors for the time, actually.

A fascinating curio. Mad silly plot BUT 80 years old now!

This is where classic 1930s Universal Horror Films influences ended up.