Film Reviews by PV

This is worth watching esp for anyone interested in stories of WWII and the Holocaust. This has a specific focus on Jews living in Czechslovakia - now Slovakia. Indeed, it features the first Jews send to the new Birkenau camp at Auschwitz in 1942.

The local Jews hatch a plan to save their women and girls from being sent away by cattle truck - no spoilers.

The end of the film features the producer (who funded the film and a centre in New York) Emil A Fish whose parents/mother feature in the story, I think - a little documentary epilogue at the end explains things and what the town is like now. The film starts with a prologue documentary snippet too.

Not a major film, a minor one, and low budget but worth watching. 3 stars.

Lots of previews for low budget movies from the same film company before the film starts - 5 I think - but thankfully one can fast-forward through them.

This is based on a young adult novel called TSCHICK, I believe, and teenagers will probably like it therefore.

It features vignettes of the various odd people a pair of teens meet on a road trip in the summer holidays. It is what it is.

All a cartoon character caper really, saved by the main character who is interesting and played well; I thought his Russian friend was less believable and maybe a tad too old/big, though maybe not - some 14 year olds are six foot!

It's worth a watch, though as with many such road/journey movies, it's hard to believe some of the characters the pair coincidentally meet. There are some great road movies, and walking ones. 1989 TV movie FIRST AND LAST is a fave, as is TYPIST, ARTIST, PIRATE, KING (2023). So many more.

3 stars. Worth a watch and enjoyable enough.

One point - the mother bis portrayed as an alcoholic always glugging away at a bottle of vodka but, as in so many films (Wolf of Wall Street et al), these people are shown looking great with mild hangovers in the morning. They do not show shambling wrecks in bed for days with DTs and nightmares (watch The Lost Weekend for that or Leaving LAs Vegas maybe).

I watched this not knowing what to expect. What I saw was a really intelligent film that had me hooked from the start, real tension, utterly believable corruption and characters.

This sort of stuff is common in most Asian and African countries which are corrupt, and many have powerful religious figures too, Islamic states, so I can believe it all.

Reminded me of Great Expectations really, a boy leaves his simple seaside home and discovers the city is not the utopia he thought it would be.

Recommended.

I loved this - it is a fascinating story about Richard Burton, born 1935, died of a stroke brought on by drink probably in 1984 after his last performance in that movie (Eurythmics soundtrack). He was clearly one of the greatest actors of the 20th century who emerged from a mining village in South Wales. Born in 1925,. he'd remember the 3-day Blitz of Feb 1941 which destroyed much of nearby Swansea - the German plane hit the huge oil tanks and they could be seen burning many miles away.

The acting is great from Toby Jones and Harry Lawtrey, and especially Richard's drunkard dad, and the focus on the 'love story' between a student and his mentor was surprising but works - maybe the modern obsession with gender/sexual orientation is reflected here. A movie made a couple of decades ago would have left it out. And the actual acting and elocution lessons given to Richard and then the recitation of Shakespeare that Burton voice are superb. They are the pros.

The cons include the very CGI-looking scenes of industrial port Talbot, but I suppose a budget issue there. it is hard to recreate a grey, polluted, industrial landscape which has vanished now, though my mum remembered it and my grandfather was born into it. 80% of the world's copper used to be made in Swansea, and the South Wales coalfields powered that and the ironworks and steelworks and zinc works and more.

Also, it does drag a bit as it goes on. The text on screen is too small - fine for a cinema but had to squint to read that on a TV. For me, the actors playing Richard Jenkins and his 17/18 year old classmates look WAY too old, 25+. The later Stratford scenes set in 1951/2 when Burton was 27 are a better fit, with the actor looking that age.

Anyway, I enjoyed it immensely anyway. 4 stars

Most of all this film is BORING. Not offensive as I do not care about such things. The sexual references and swearwords did not and do not impress or shock me. Ever.

I am disgusted and repulsed by the constant anti-British racism (and in law a nationality is a race). This is expressed directly and via absurd cartoon character BADDIE Brit police or protestants at least. See, KNEECAP are Catholic so hate Brits and want Northern Ireland which is majority Protestant to join the south in a 'United Ireland' which never existed until Brits arrived 800+ years ago and deposed the oppressive, feudal, slavetrading kings.

When Eire became independent after civil war in 1922, it in effect became a dictatorship of the Catholic church and pervy paedo priests. Great eh? These days, the Irish has had piles of EU cash (from UK money paid to EU) to boost their economy.

Can you imagine if a similar film was made celebrating a rap group who despised Catholics and the people of Southern Ireland? It would never happen. WHY NOT? Bias. It is somehow OK to spew racist abuse at 'white' Brits, and protestants in northern Ireland. WHY?

BUT as this is cloaked in 'minority language' status', this film INCREDIBLY got UK taxpayer funding to the tune of £150,000 from BFI plus Lottery Funding.

SO there are over 5 million people in Eire and nearly 2 million in Northern Ireland. Only 80,000 speak Irish/Gaelic, a tiny % as with Gaelic in Scotland. Only 6000 speak it in Northern Ireland. I conclude, therefore, that most now jumping on the ProPal Israel-hating Kneecap bangwagon cannot understand their ranting raps - or only the swearwords in English anyway, the F and the C word a lot. All the childish boasting about sex and drugs, it is like entering a 13 year old teenage boy brain...

This is not music, and it is now even good rap - it is C-rap. I can appreciate rap like Eminem, it is clever and uses melodic samples for the chorus. This Kneecap stuff is like teenagers writing in schoolbooks, basic rhymes, lots of swearing and lewd sex references to try and sound big. It doesn't. It is infantile and BORING more than anything else.

The film is silly, boring, a cartoon character caper with an absurd plot tacked on. How it got made is a mystery. I'd rather pay not to watch this again or listen to the awful c-rap, the non-music which people now listen to as Kneecap is Jewhating flavour of the month. Only one PalFlag shown here and no Jewhating. That is in later concerts - why one if on bail for terrorist offences as I write.

No stars.

I was not sure if this film would be a huggy slush-fest as so many feel-good heart-warming movies are - i have literally turned off more than a few before the end as I detest that schmaltzy stuff. However, though the tweeness is here - with a rescued penguin - the main character's cynicism and the political backdrop of 1976 Argentina helps the story to avoid drowning in slush slurry as so many others do.

The word for feelgood books like this is 'UP-LIT' - often near-fantasy stories of a stranger entering a community and touching the lives of everyone in a positive way. Films like The Untouchables (French, 2011) and Amelie and Chocolat and more are like that, and all these novels about people going on long walks. It is a slim, simple, feelgood story, perfect for family viewing at Christmas or whatever.

I first heard of the Penguin Lessons memoir on which this fictional film is based ('inspired by a true story') on a radio programme, World Service, I think. The author himself, Tom Michell stated in interview that the film was not his story really as it is altered and embellished, but hey, that is film. In reality, the 23 year old Tom became a chemistry teacher in Cornwall.

Here Steve Coogan plays a cynical fifty-something with a sad backstory (no spoilers). All fiction. No idea if other stuff that happens is fact or fiction. I do know no school private or state would stand for a lot of what happens in the lessons here anyway, all a bit Dead Poets Society etc. Coogan gives his best performance since the great Philomena (2013) and Stan and Ollie (2018). I try to forget how irritating he and his views are in real life when I watch him on screen...

The backdrop of the fascist dictatorship in Argentina and how many people went missing (presumed dead) then helps steer this story away from twee oversentimentality, as does some snappy cynical dialogue (no idea if that is from the book or not).

And the penguin is great! Spanish for penguin is pinguino I learnt here! The word is actually from the Welsh language, meaning HEAD WHITE literally, used to describe the extinct Great Auk originally. But sailors usually referred to the bird as 'arse-foot' which makes sense LOL.

OK so, I was unsure what to expect from this film but sort-of liked it. It is good to see groups not usually represented on screen much, like gypsies. BIRD is another difficult British film like that. I am familiar with static caravans too so get that culture as shown in the film THE SCOUTING BOOK FOR BOYS.

BUT 1) the main character of Richard is played by an actor much too old, he looks 20, and anyway for a Romany of that generation, I doubt he's be called Richard anyway.

2) this is a character study, sure, but also sterotypes abound esp in the female characters (poshos) in 'the big house'.

3) it could all be a half-hour TV drama really, and it's based on a short story by Freddie Machin who plays the rich young scrapyard owner

Odd that the actor playing Richard has gone on to appear in and produce the BLOOD AND HONEY WINNIE THE POOH films and the NIGHTMARE NEVERLAND ones.

The director has gone on to direct MIDAS MAN a biopic about Brian Epstein.

I cannot help thinking the 2 glowing 5 star reviews from people who have only 2 reviews to their name each are SHILLS...

2 stars.

Very good-looking and very VERY French drama. A romance in flashback merged with the present-day 35 years on when the author Stephane visits his home town/region after 35 years. People forget just how very conservative the French provinces are. That issue is raised here a lot.

The actor who plays Stephane as a 50-something looks the spitting image of author Phillipe Besson on whose novel Arrête avec tes mensonges (literally STOP WITH YOUR LIES was translated by Hollywood actress Molly Ringwald and published in English with the title Lie with Me - she was sent to a private bilingual school in LA as a child so...)

The novel (which won lots of awards) and film are a real roman à clef (so about real-life events overlaid with a façade of fiction). The south-west French region is where the author Besson was born and brought up, and the main character is his age, and he did have an affair with a boy there when young...

Apparently, at school, Besson was often mocked by his classmates for his appearance, his clothes and his manners, just like Stephane here. And also, during his final school year, he fell in love with a peasant's son in his village in Charente, but they were forced to hide their relationship - just like the romance here then. BUT I suppose all fiction comes from real life in a way.

This is a high-quality romantic drama anyway, with stunning scenery, well-acted, not that explicit for those concerned (one full frontal shot only) and all rather sweet, if tragic. Some may roll eyes at the latter point as so many gay novels and films show tragic love stories and...well, no spoilers, but what happens to one character is common.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and it deserves a wide audience too, not just a gay-interest one.

4 stars

Somalia is seen as a failed state. Watch this and realise why. Part of the Italian empire until 1941 when British liberated the place and Ethiopia from Italian fascism, then Somalia and Somaliland (the northern bit, peaceful, prosperous part of British Empire) were British protectorates until independence in 1960. Since then, the place has followed the African basketcase model, with the cold war played out in its territory. Hence so many Somali refugees who conveniently use the 'civil war' to come to richer Europe (they never seem to go south to African states, east to China or directly north to Arablands. Somalia is only Muslim due to Arab empire colonialism of course, over a millennium ago.

Anyway, it amused me greatly that the Somali gangs attacking the Korean and other diplomats were anti-foreigner, yelling THIS IS OUR COUNTRY and SOMALIA FOR SOMALIS. So, they are probably 'far right' then eh? Maybe their equivalent UKippers or REFORM members? LOL. People forget that bare racism was and is behind so many independence movements in Africa/Asia, and see now the racism of the South African government against Afrikaaners who have been there 300-400 years - way longer than most Africans in Europe!

An unusual and original action movies which holds the attention was more than most Hollywood action movie dross.

A word of warning, however: it's a fact that the Koreans here all have similar features (black hair, east Asian features) and Somalis look African. That means much less diversity in appearance than Western films (which have white and black and all hair colours). SO it is VERY easy to get characters confused, mixed up, and to forget which one is on which side - the govt forces or the rebels. SO keep your wits about you when watching.

A decent action movie, original and interesting. One to watch with THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, RAID ON ENTEBBE, BLACK HAWK DOWN (also set in 1991 in Mogadishu), and CAPTAIN PHILLIPS with Tom Hanks battling hijacing Somali pirates.

4 stars

Partly in German, partly in French, this is a rare film from Luxembourg. Even now, the population of this tiny Duchy is just 680,000. It is an EU taxdodge state - why so many online companies have offices there.

With 2.45% of its prewar population killed, and a third of all buildings in Luxembourg being destroyed or heavily damaged (due to the Battle of the Bulge), Luxembourg suffered the highest such loss in Western Europe in proportion to its population. 1,000–2,500 of Luxembourg's Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

It's a small, modest so-so film, about the Resistance in WWII and betrayal, mixed with love stories.

Worth a watch without being stunning, so 3 stars

OK so I wanted to like this film, I did. But in the end I found it dull, derivative and a bit irritating. It is not all that explicit either if you are watching for that reason.

There have been a lot of films about male prostitutes, MIDNIGHT COWBOY the classic 1969 movie with John Voight and Dustin Hoffman most notable in defining performances. House of boys 2009 is another one. No doubt there are more.

This is mostly set in contemporary London and depicts the way such escort services have moved online, as has so much of our shopping lives!

What really made me roll my eyes is the idea that this 24/5 year old man is apparently one of GRANTA's 'one to watch' new authors of fiction and only after having one short story published. Gosh, and he already has an agent and a publisher begging him for a novel. What strange fantasy world is this, I wonder... In the last 20 years I have had contact with many writers of fiction and ALL published had to struggle hard to publish, often after years of rejection. Some selfpublish with success and some are signed later by agents and publishers.

Always a risk, as with films on fictional pop stars, when we actually hear the songs - which are always bad. The same happens here when the character Max reads his work to a reading group. What he reads is dire, very derivative bland prose peppered with stereotypes and clichés such as a man yearning for sex like a hungry/thirty man in the desert. Hardly original, that clunkingly obvious and trite metaphor. I found that entire claim absurd. WHY create such a character who is a supposed literary prodigy?

The only true thing is when they showed him with 5 other GRANTA young writers to watch and he was THE only 'white' male. True dat, these days. You have to be gay or disabled white male writer esp writing about those issues if you are to get equal treatment these days.

One line made me laugh: "there're no money in writing fiction, or writing anything, full stop." SO TRUE!

SO the rent-boy here - a British one, when I believe courtesy of Keith Vaz news story that many are foreign, often Romanian - predictably hooks up with older men, and rich Arabs in the closet in an orgy, and then an older academic whom he likes and talks with about literature etc. And somehow it ends up overseas with an unrealistic series of scenes which had me shouting at the screen almost: CALL THE POLICE!

Cue arguments with his agent, publisher, literary types and his supposed employer - but why would a freelance journalist even need to be in an office? They work from home.

I did watch some of the extras and cringed when the director said, as the remaker (NOT creator) of Dr Who Russell T Davies has done, that gay characters have to be played by 'out' gay - or 'queer' as he says - actors. Not 'cis straight males', and I quote. Come on now guys, think it through! That also means that out gay actors should be stopped from playing straight roles. That is NOt progress in any way, shape or form, That is identity politics tickbox tosspottery gone mad! It's called ACTING for a reason. You really do not have to be an 18th century pirate to play 18th century pirates. Get real eh?

Anyway, almost 3 stars but it is really a forgettable - not shocking or original - film in love with itself, and funded by Lottery and BFI, so 2 stars.

This film is well made and watchable, the latest from this writer/director. It is political with a small 'p', using the metaphor of a divided family for the state of the nation of Iran, under Islamist dictatorship since 1979. Everything is riddled with suspicion, whispers and betrayal - as is usual in dictatorships or volatile states, same in Britain in 17th century.

The acting is great too. It is all intercut with real-life footage, much from smartphones, or street protests of recent years. The creeping suspicion does strangle the family and film like the sacred fig parasite plant, as described at the start of the film.

OK so the downsides - this film like many these days is too long, some flab could be sliced off here easily. The plot becomes in the third act a B-movie thriller which reminds me of old black-and-white films really. No spoilers. I suppose it had to end somehow...

Moreover, like many films, TV dramas and claims of certain actives, men are pitted against women here, the claim made that men oppress women and are responsible for such dictatorships and oppressing women. WHAT ROT! Those who know such cultures know it is the WOMEN who rule the home, not the men, so it is the older women in many Muslim/Asian households who force girls into headscarves and burkas, and enforced FGM and forced marriage. Not the men.

Indeed, how ironic that in the UK, the feminist lobby DEFENDS girls wearing hijab/niqab/burka, and even BBC has shows promoting these. Over in Iran, brave women and girls ripping OFF the headscarves/hijab is a sign of liberation. The UK has areas in cities where those females NOT wearing hijab will get targeted by patrols enforcing these rules - and we let that happen! Tolerance of intolerance happens a lot in the UK. Well done Iranian people for being so brave!

France has a group called Ni Putes Ni Soumises made up of Muslim women fighting extremist moralising Islam and things like forcing women and girls into headscarves, and face veils, and against domestic violence,. Sadly, the UK does not. That speaks volumes. The UK should be ashamed of this, the way here the burka/headscarf is imposed, with even newsreader here in hijabs and students at colleges/schools in burkas. Just wrong. BUT this garb is imposed by women in those Muslim homes, NOT men.

I am sure things will change in Iran soon, from within, maybe a more modern Gorbachev-style politician emerging from the present structures rather than ground-up protests, or maybe a bit of both.

This film deserved its Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film (for Germany). A great watch, 4 stars

A look at the credits reveals this is made in Bulgaria, with most crew with names ending in -ov, and actors too. The main actor is an Italian man, and the director made his only other movie with the same main actress in 2021 (TILL DEATH).

It is watchable but at times feels like a soft porn movie showing latenight on Channel 5. It has that B-movie-for-TV feel, with the pulsing soundtrack background music always on. Some neat sequences though and dramatic tension, however unlikely. A popcorn movie, for sure, but relatively effective. The lot is absurd, with slush ladled on with the hospital op theme etc.

I liked the AI reference, though generative AI will not create human-like mannekens, almost impossible to do that; no, AI will just replicate humans online and datascrape text written by real humans, editing it to produce 'new' work; or mimicking voices or faking photos and films.

M3GAN and M3GAN2 are the latest robot-gone-wrong movies, and MICKEY17 maybe, but there've been MANY films about robots gone wrong, the WESTWORLD movie 1973 is a great example, and the TV series takes the theme further, and I suppose Spielberg's AI (2001) and the under-rated 1988 Canadian horror film PIN. I suppose The Stepford Wives (1975 movie the best not the newer version) counts too and Fritz Lang's Metropolis. So nothing new here.

Watchable but forgettable. 3 stars. Just

I had heard about this film, with - usually - younger women oohing and ah-ing about how sexually explicit and debauched it is. The thing is, it is not. I've seen more explicit sex scenes in mild TV drama.

I do not think I have seen so many plot-holes in many films though. At several points I though 'YES BUT WHY DOES HE NOT JUST...etc'. or 'HOW DID HE/SHE NOT NOTICE...etc'. It gets annoying.

Locations chosen for the look, the style, with set pieces to please the eye. This is FLUFF therefore. It's a bit like an episode of Midsomer Murders really in so many ways - lack of logic for a start. Although no police seem to exist in this fantasy world...no DNA testing...no CCTV...no logic... It was filmed at Drayton House in Northamptonshire, privately owned though open for visits, by upper class aristocrat mates of the poshogirl director, no doubt.

Also it is deeply derivative - THE TALENT MR RIPLEY is the base for the writer I think and BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. It's filmed in HERTFORD COLLEGE where the classic 1981 ITV series was filmed too (watch that, not the tedious later movie - the novel is NOT about a love triangle at all). Watch those films and not this dross.

The writer/director Emerald Fennell is a deeply posh entitled upper-class rich kid who got to play with film as an actress the director, funded by the #metoo craze.

I have noticed that in recent years there are a lot of films, by both male and female directors, which shod full frontal male nudity but no doubt deliberately show no female full frontal nudity. Such hypocrisy. Esp re the end dance scene here - I would slice that all off, the last 10 minutes, like the misandrist flab it is.

The equal and opposite rule applies. SO if a male director got his pretty female star to gratuitously prance and dance around naked in a film, while having no male nudity, what would he be called? A misogynist? The male gaze? A pervert even? Exploitative? Yes, all that. The sisters would soon be screeching and shrieking about it. SO WHY is it OK for a female director to do this? Well?

I am no prude but THIS nudity is gratuitous, as well as deeply misandrist, sexist and unequal. I am fine with nudity and sex scenes when the story demands it.

Also, why do films and TV drama do this with a song and dance number to end? Is it Bollywood influence? Dr Who Beatles episode did it, badly. MEDUSA DELUXE too. Why? STOP IT! This is not Summer Season from Scarborough!

It is watchable. And I do like Barry Keoghan as an actor THOUGH he'd maybe too old for the character here.

BUT it is really very badly-written, full of trite lines and cliches, and cartoon character aristocrats. So yes we know some upper-class toffs are nuts, just read history, and sexually incontinent too often, and that includes straight and gay sex. SO watch a DECENT depiction of that, in the 1981 ITV drama BRIDESHEAD REVISITS then.

2 stars

I do not usually like action movies, but this had my hooked. I watched all 4 episodes in one go from DVD disc 1 then did the same for disc 2. That sort of series.

I have watched series 1 and 2 and do wish the extras had a 10 minute recap of series 2 and even 1 as it is a LONG time since I watched them and I really cannot remember all the plot twists then.

Internecine warfare, shifting loyalities, betrayal, blackmail, love, hate, lust, drugs, murder - and seemingly no police anywhere on the streets (at least that bit is realistic then - UK police all down the nick starting at screens scouring the internet for hurty words these days to get easy meat arrested using bad thought crime laws).

Like Breaking Bad or Peaky Blinders in the levels of violence and body count. Maybe some room here for British gangsters - the Richardsons a famous real-life gang, so it is not all foreigners or Irish or Pakistanis or Kurds or Jamaicans etc.

Watch the short extras films - short but informative! Wonderful how foreign scenes all shot in UK studios - see how they made a palace in Pakistan's heat in the UK.

The set pieces in locations chosen to be eyecatching are as fun as a funfair, which is used to its full potential - and even an old hall of mirrors sequence which was used in the original AVENGERS in 1960s, But why not? Chose great locations and landmarks.

The main director is Korean and this definitely has an Asian flavour - and Sky is aiming it at the Chinese/Far East market for sure.

The character arcs and plotlines intersect well, with so many twists that views have to pay attention of the shifting loyalties. Acting is great.

The moral questions give depth to the characters too, more so than in many action movies and it is that psychology I like - it helps me to forgive the OTT absurd plots and violence, in a fantasy London, a city where shooting a gun gets no police response at all, even after half an hour...

BUT it is not realism; it is stylised fantasy, and best watched as that. Just roll with it.

No spoilers but ambiguous in last part, so there may well be a series 4.

4 stars.