Film Reviews by PV

This is from the director of the awful yet inexplicably overpraised prize-winning film THE GREAT BEAUTY. It is equally bloated and pompous, overlong and often pointless. But then, it is Italians and they like it like that maybe (as do the French and Spanish), and also very VERY Catholic.

If you are not Catholic and do not believe in miracles and magic or that some old man - usually Italian - who gets made Pope every now and then is chosen by God to lead the church and humanity, you probably won't like this TV drama series much. Of course, we now have an Argentinian Pope and before that a German and before him a Pole, and one English pope Adrian IV for 5 years in the middle of the 12th century. Apart from that, all Italians and often very abusive, brutal and corrupt - often had kids too who they called nephews (where our word nepotism comes from).

It is pleasant enough BUT oh SO unbelievable that I could not really suspend my disbelief. I just do not believe a word of it, or the miracles, or the magic etc though Vatican intrigue is well known - that place is stashed with treasures stolen over centuries (incl the solid gold menorah nicked from the main synagogue in the siege of Jerusalem over a millennium. The Catholic church is ALL about wealth and power, now an always.

I enjoyed some parts and characters. The nuns were funny; the references to gay priests too. But cynical sceptical non-believers like me not the target audience maybe.

I just cannot believe the story esp the 3rd act. It's really an attempted fairytale. I enjoyed seeing Rome as I have been there twice - CGI in many places though. Try watching THE TUDORS for more Papal intrigue.

Jude Law was good in the role as were other actors.

2 stars. Thankfully there is no series 2.

The first thing to say is that this is possibly Robin Williams final film as an actor, which is maybe the cause of the nannying unnecessary sign on the screen before the film saying some scenes are upsetting. I hate that as I hate it when TV announcers do the same, even at 9pm. we're ADULTS for goodness sake - we can cope!

This film is a remake of an Israel film called Mr Baum though not sure how loyal it is to that.

This misfires on several levels - the central conceit is unbelievable, though many movie concepts and plots are. No doctor would do this - so it slips into fantasy territory from the start.

To see a masterpiece with the same theme watch IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE with James Stewart. Classic.

And so it goes on with Robin Williams doing his sentimental schmaltzy act which I have never liked - those maudlin emotional movies he stars in are ones to avoid for me; I am selective re his movies. The schmaltz is just trowelled on.

Many great movies about breakdowns - this is not one of them.

Some bits are seriously objectionable - crude, unnecessary, and mocking people who stutter is just wrong and not funny, whatever the punchline. The excuse that this is 'Jewish' humour won;t work.

The plot is confused and too busy - just too much going on, The focus should be on the Williams character not the young female doctor. AND the medicine is fake - having had to see people have strokes and die later. It is not like this.

This movie also ticks so many boxes re diversity casting (a common woke thing now) it could be Tescos.

So it passes the time. Would have been 3 stars if not for the crudeness.

Poignant of course, considering how it ended for Williams soon after. Watch GOOD MORNING VIET NAM instead.

I was open-minded about this film as I am about all British low-budget films in particular. However, this is awful.

Confused, confusing, a throwback to late 60s and 70s psychedelic film-making esp trippy editing, and why filmed in black and white. Ah yes, because everything was black and white in the past, esp films made in the 17th century. I hate it when TV does that, history docs showing old battles in black and white with scratchy 'film' (in fact, a digital film option, sadly).

It is no doubt meant to be profound, but it isn't. I was going to give it 2 stars but the final act out-baffled the first two, and I found myself watching some 21st century actors dressed up in a field rather than believing they were 17th C English Civil War deserters.

This film has the stink of the theatre and should really be in fringe or at the Edinburgh festival, not as a film - and I hate the way the state (Film 4, Lottery funding, EU funding) gets given to such duff movies, often I notice with female/ethnic angles. The former in this case as written by Amy Jump who has written other films like Kill List which I also gave 1 star. Very annoying when there is SO much writing talent out there. It's all so corrupt - who gets the free money. So much croneyism, backscratching and diversity worship.

Instead of this boring nonsense, watch the early 70s UK film about the English Civil War starring Alec Guiness as Charles I and Richard Harries as Cromwell (I think called CROMWELL). That is a hugely enjoyable film and will teach you a loot; this mess isn't, and won't.

I enjoyed the later Wayans movie WHITE CHICKS - which owed a lot to SOME LIKE IT HOT and had its funny moments, though still a Friday night trashy movie.

But this is awful. It is just not funny - except if your IQ matches your shoe size. No doubt it appeals to a certain audience who demand very little in the way of intelligence.

It actually reminds me of those awful movies from 1930s and 40s, with 'simple' comedy characters, black with bulging eyes. If a white director had written or made this, the yells of 'racist' would be deafening.

I suppose the special effects are impressive for 2006, but the scenes are often more than just bad taste - they are out and out abusive and nasty, which is maybe why I have never seen it showing on terrestrial TV.

And of course utterly unbelievable. Films like TWINS or BIG demand massive suspension of disbelief BUT they work because they are good well-written movies - this is not. I liked DOWNSIZING too which is like this.

I hated this because I do not have the brain of a 6 year old. This idea is not strong enough for a movie - it should stay on trashy US TV network comedy shows really.

But if it made money they'll keep churning it out...

Just awful.

I would have given this film 4 stars - because it is remarkable, filmed live during the war in Syria in Aleppo.

However, I was angered by the utter bias. The narrator makes the claim the Islamists who supposedly highjacked the revolution (though many started the uprising) were better then the regime. OH REALLY? I suggest Googling Islamic State and see what they did in the places they ruled which included executing people, chucking gays off buildings to kill them, crucifying people and worse. Palmyra is where the Islamofascist Islamic State smashed up old ruins and statues because Islamists believe in doing that - as they did in Afghanistan with the Buddhas and as Saudi Arabian regime destroys all old tombs of Islam.

Fact is, we in the West should have negotiated with Assad - not supported Islamists over there who are cut from the same cloth as the Islamist terrorists who kill people over here and in the West! These are not modern democratic people. The cities which have been ruined like Homs and Aleppo are like that because of Islamist uprisings.

So this is not like people overthrowing a regime as with the USSR and replacing it with liberal democracy. Yes, Assad is a dictator but arguably better than Islamic State - and chaos as in Syria and Libya is the worst of all worlds. Egypt has rejected Islamism.

So that bias spoils this film, which is shocking in places.

It could have been so much better, but no-one who believes in modern liberal democracy can possibly support Islamist uprisings.

I have no idea why people think this is a wonderful brilliant 5 star film - maybe just because it won at Cannes (which gives awards to some right dross, and no mistake).

This is not a bad film BUT the first half is overlong - you could cut 30 minutes or even half an hour from it easily; far too many scenes of people sitting around talking and eating.

It gets interesting later but time really dragged in the first half.

Also, I am not sure I believe the story - which means I cannot suspend disbelief. Overall, PARASITE is far better.

3 stars. JUST.

Very interesting to see the poor side of Japanese culture though - different from what we usually see. Poor working class/underclass Japanese people struggling to get by in a law-abiding society. Smalltown Japan.

It was fascinating to see them also drinking from CODD BOTTLES - the glass ones with marble stoppers. Common in the UK in 19th and early 20th C. You can buy them from antiques shops at £5 each or less.

I saw this film mentioned on social media in the light of all the woke BLM banning of whites in 'black' roles and the demand for blacks in traditionally white roles, so thought I'd give it a go.

And I must admit I enjoyed this - as a trashy Friday night movie.

Some laugh-out-loud moments here. Some clever stuff, and gags. Acting very visual as is needed. Lots of jokes re race relations in the USA - which do not apply as much in the UK (which is 3% black only). But I laughed! It's funny, in parts - and the make-up etc is impressive, to be honest.

Of course, this movie could only be made with black actors becoming white not the other way round, not these days anyway. So a massive double standard there. I think Michael J Fox played SOUL MAN in the 80s? Then there is the classic TROPIC THUNDER - though these days people would be too scared to make those movies, sadly.

The characters, voices and even plot if lifted from probably the best Hollywood comedy ever made: SOME LIKE IT HOT. And no worse for that. Gender bending is an ancient tradition, used in Shakespeare and ancient Greek drama, and this is part of that tradition.

Not sure if the WAYANS actors are sons of the director or related? A family affair, it seems.

3 stars anyway.

This follows the usual biopic template: start in the messed up resent, then flash back to the past and childhood to explain the present mess as it gets worse with flash forwards to the present. Baddies needed, whether or not the real life facts support that - cf Rocket Man.

That is not to say this pattern is bad, necessarily. But what is bad in this movie is the unbelievably cringe-worthy and crass ending (no spoilers). Really, it was like nails being drawn down a blackboard.

I have no idea whether the gay comedy duo of fans existed in real life, or maybe they were invented for the stage play on which this is based? Did this all really happen? One is never sure with biopics and the answer is usually 'NO!'. But if the invention works, fine, Here it does not - in the third act.

For fans of Judy, especially amongst her gay following, this film is probably 5 stars. I'd give it 3 stars - as a movie it is distinctly average, though the best actress Oscar was well-deserved. There are some great set pieces earlier on, which will please the am dram musical theatre fans.

I couldn't help thinking of Shirley Bassey and the way she performs when watching this - maybe one copied the other, or maybe this was how mid-20th singers did it.

It is QUITE APPALLLING that bandleader Burt Rhodes is portrayed as being black/mixed race though. He was not black - but a pure white proud Yorkshireman. DREADFUL dishonest diversity casting. Just awful. I mean, would you like to be portrayed as a different race or gender if you appeared in a movie one day? Just wrong. Ethnoshambles madness!

I had no idea what to expect with this. Though when it won Best Picture Oscar and the #OscarsSoWhite were still wailing., one does wonder whether they even opened their eyes....

I liked the handbrake turn plot twists in this - no spoilers but usually exactly halfway through act 2 at the precise middle of the movie there is a major change. And the interesting characters too. It is a bit like GET OUT but focused on division versus belong according to wealth, not race. Because mostly it is social class/wealth that divides people, not skin colour at all (the 2 may coincide of course).

It reminds me too of THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES and some other continental films, also AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970). Sinister and twisty. Dark humour for some. It was 2 hours but I was never bored and it's not overlong like most Hollywood efforts.

I disliked some of the theatricality but you often get this in foreign films - watch the Italian MONTALBANO on TV. Also, a slight lack of realism maybe - mobile phones do feature a lot in this movie, but not at points when one would have changed the plot. Convenient, that. And a tutor (and I have been one) would never be allowed to behave like that either!

I also liked the ending. Very un-Hollywood in so many ways.

So 4 stars.

I really wanted to like this BUT it was so incoherent, messy, sloppy, boring that i could not;

I stopped watching after 40 minutes. Maybe it got exciting after that. Shame.

2 stars

J P deserved the Oscar for this BUT the movie is a one note tune.

I am SICK of the portrayal of men caring for mothers as mentalists; women caring for mothers get no mockery. SEXISM. MISANDRY. I call you out, sisters, #MeToo hypocrite moppets.

2 stars

Very bad portrayal of mental illness too

OK so I preferred the first series to the 2nd, and the reason is that it's all become very tricksy, lots of mind games happening, which I know is trendy in Hollywood movies but which can grate. I think more just needs to happen. There is a lot of padding here.

Having said that, I still enjoyed it and so give in 4 stars (just squeaked that instead of 3 stars, partly for great acting, partly for brilliant music selections, many of them British and from the 80s or even late 70s - lots of synth bands and new wave stuff).

4 stars

The first series of Mr Robot was great, 5 stars esp the first half; the 2nd seemed forced and too tricksy postmodern, but I gave it 4 stars - just; in this 3rd series, however, the endless non-plot about multiple personalities and mind games gets, in a word, boring. More than once I found myself reading my book and watching this at the same time. Time to put this series out of its long, slow misery.

The acting is great and the music choices superb. I got very tired of the blonde Angela though, who is so wet and annoying I just cannot believe she could do anything competently, esp for any security service or dark army or the Teletubbies too.

The focus on Chinese empire-builders is spot on and I hope to see more exposing of the amoral greedy Chinese empire in future movies and TV series, but here it becomes silly, cartoonish and so unbelievable.

Credibility is strained at every turn of this series now. I am glad Remi Malek has moved on to better, less post modern dross things.

3 stars

This film has got great reviews here and elsewhere. It does not deserve them. I can only assume the reason why so may critics praise it is the yawnsome cliche of a 'strong independent woman' #MeToo hero - that and the fact JJ Abrams produced it. That does not stop this being a boring B-Movie. One of the worst movies I have seen in the last few years.

They should have called this movie Milking It or Cashing In - because that is why it exists.

The third act is absurd. In fact, this movie has NOTHING to do with the original Cloverfield - which was a silly monster movie, but entertaining, at least. This is not. It is not even particularly tense for a thriller - it is predictable in every plot point and development.

Want a tense thriller? Watch Silence of the Lambs, Misery, The Secret in Their Eyes (original) or even Brit low budgent Cabin 28. Not this drivel.

John Goodman is good in his role and believable - unlike the cartoon character superhero main female character and the secondary male character- but he looks so ill. Maybe that was the effect of reading the script - but no doubt, he thought of the money and points he was getting and carried on...

1 star.

There is something in Italians - and the Spanish - which seems to make them rather blood-thirsty in their art. Look at the paintings of Goya. The French call it 'Grand Guignol' - and there's a lot of that here, lots of ketchup-coloured fake blood and, no doubt, what critics would now call exploitation of young pretty women who get 'done in'.

The first time I tried watching this, I turned off after around 10 minutes as it was too bloody and I wasn't in the right mood. Later I watched it all the way through - and it's a very 'of its time' 1970s Horror flick which the Italians churned out in that decade. Not half as clever as it thinks it is though. It is, at the end of the day, trashy horror with an absurd plot and often cartoony characters. Like Hammer Horror but pushing the boundaries of what the censor allowed in the 1970s but giving it 'Sam Pekinpah' levels of gory blood-soaked scenes. It is what it is.

One note on the music - a very radical, for the time, synthy soundtrack which o doubt sounded hyper-modern and cool at the time, but which now sounds very dated: nothing ages so fast as a vision of the future. I still enjoyed it though.

Perfect for the 1970s theme party/film night.

3 stars