Film Reviews by PV

I do not usually watch documentaries but got this out as it looked fascinating and it is.

All about identity and who we pretend to be, the roles we play, what we choose to believe and what is or may be true or false, and who may or may not be telling the truth, or sociopaths or even psychopaths.

Also all about a massively messed up American family which, as the 'imposter' says himself, is not the USA of tall buildings and busy cities he was expecting to see and what is always shown in Hollywood movies. That flyover state America of malls and debt and wooden houses and wasteland is the real America for many.

This whole story may pan out more in future decades if more evidence is uncovered - which may or may nor happen. No spoilers but I know what I think happened...

I would have liked a little more information about what 'the imposter' is doing now at the end BUT the documentary got a scoop anyway by interviewing him so much.

I just do not understand another reviewer;'s 1 star score and the claim it is in a 'documentary style' - did they really think it was a feature film mockumentary? This is a DOCUMENTARY about real events with real people.

4 stars. A decent watch and a fascinating almost incredible story. But true.

Sorry but I hated this and turned off halfway through. It is a sickly sweet, saccharine sentimental schmaltzy Christmas-y kids' movie, full of magic and sentimentality and other 'cute' overload. Reminds me of the awful BILLIONS and those awful NATIVITY TV movies.

Try renting DUMBO or BAMBI instead or THE LION KING - they have the same message but do it better.

Avoid if you dislike schmaltzy nonsense.

I lasted 40 minutes with this before ejecting. Maybe if I were 13 or 14 and of very little brain, I'd find it funny. Or maybe not. It is gross-out as with AMERICAN PIE and PORKY'S and THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. I dislike such movies in general and do not find them remotely funny. Many will of course - the more unsophisticated audience who think vulgar visual gags about sex and toilets are hilarious. Zzzz.

It is a B-movie gross-out movie too - bodily fluids, cheap video clips used throughout (maybe to save money and maybe to appeal to kids weaned on YouTube?) The hilarious thing is, video tapes and cameras are almost antiques now and obsolete.

The plot is so paper thin it blew away within seconds. The characters all vile and unpleasant.

The director later directed the brilliant Britflick horror WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT in 2013. Rent that and forget this trash.

1 star.

Well if you want similar stories of addictions etc then watch LEAVING LAS VEGAS, MIDNIGHT COWBOY or the superb TV series BREAKING BAD.

This movie is from a Bret Easten Ellis novel and they always suffer from 1) having spoilt rich characters that not many can relate to, and often behaving so horribly you do not care at all if bad things happen to them; 2) an almost worship of money, bling, wealth which always leads to poetic justice.

It is all very 80s and all totally MEH really - I watched it, shrugged, then turned off.

As ever in these films, the massive addicts never look as bad as real ones (cf WOLF OF WALL STREET) so it';s hard to believe in the characters really and suspend disbelief. ALSO the SHOCK HORROR revelation (no spoilers) would not be so shocking today in our pansexual transanything world. That happens with novels too - a shocking unmarried mother in novels of even 50 years ago is almost standard these days.

So, it's all very 80s, and fun to look at the hairdos and cars and clothes etc - but I did not care about the characters at all. The musicis all pretty awful west coast US 80s tracks rather than the superior early 80s UK synth stuff.

2.5 stars rounded up.

I LOVED this film - it is watchable, effective, scary - with some real jumps - and is pretty spot-on re the 1970s decor and issues. Nice to see a film set 'oop north' in Sheffield (South Yorkshire) area too, from the accents. The era is shown accurately - women in scarves, the freedom kids had back then, the hard-drinking council house working class men (in work, back then, in industry), coal man delivering etc. ALL spot on and rarely seen.

My only criticism is there is not a SUBTITLES option and I was not so sure about some school scenes - I think girls in 1974 had to do domestic science and boys did metalwork/woodwork. Most people had black and white TVs then too so that is as spot on as the hideous orange and brown patterned wallpaper.

Anyway, I LOVED this. Skillful use of pace and imagery suggests a horrific presence which is always way more effective than endless CGI (ask Spielberg whose Jurassic Park did the same, with dinosaurs on screen for only 6 minutes or so - the rest is suggestion). So the noises, the chil, the swinging lampshades all work so well. And the exorcism scenes are not so silly, nor is the historical bit, because it does not go on TOO long - this is a quick, snappy film, and keeps the interest from the beginning till the end. This is WAY better than all the state-funded drivel paid for by the BFI, Lottery, BBC - all pc box-ticking and so slow and boring. This is not slow or boring - it is GREAT!

A perfect little British horror film which needs to be seen by more people. Original, in its setting, though of course ALL exorcism films will be compared to The Exorcist. BUT I preferred this film to that. Poltergeist is another reference.

4.5 stars rounded up.

This is an awful film. It is short but feels long, It is dull and boring. Moreover it is totally sexist - thew few males characters are all cartoon baddies (all except a token old goodie man in the prosecutor's office). One real issue is that the main character is such a vile, nasty, greedy, selfish, horrible amoral woman that we do not care what happens to her - no matter how bad. The other women are often just as vile.

Watch WALL STREET or the wonderful MARGIN CALL or some other movies about finance. Good movies. Unlike this trash.

This is very badly written, unrealistic, misandrist (sexist against men), with much whining and whingeing from women who claim constantly how much harder everything is for them. Nope, not true - I may sympathise with these vile bankers' cleaners but not with them! Ever. Watching the horrible self-serving women - and men - in corporate finance here is not only irritating but makes me sympathise with anyone who wants to come down hard on that greedy corrupt world.

Some massively sexist nuggets of dialogue here - in one scene, the main character says 'you men don;t do that, do you?' when she is worrying. Oh no, men never worry - ever, Life for them is so easy peasy they never have any worries at all. Maybe that's why 85% of suicides are male and every day up to 15 men kill themselves - because they have it so easy.

A vile, sexist, pointless mess of a film - badly written for a start, so amateurish with the pity party femi-whingeing.

No stars.

This British film is state-funded by the BFI and the BBC, I think, and also the Lottery. AND SO it is obsessed with diversity and promoting (some may say overpromoting) female film directors.

The end result is a mess of a movie, pretentious and arty - it all feels like a student film, to be honest, and it felt so long and slow even though it was only 90 minutes.

All set in a girls' school and only 3 males in the entire film, to the diversity-worship of feminist box-tickers will be happy.

Based on some real life stories - of fainting of girls at school, dating from UK in the 1960s and 70s, so the writer has just stolen that and tried to write it all up as a mystical feminist drama - and failed. The plot gets muddled with every social issue you can think of chucked in (and behold, it is all the fault of a nasty wasty man!).

As others have said, the acting is good esp the lead girl. Music is a bit random and done by Tracey Thorn, thereby nailing its arty state-funded colours to its rather limp mast.

All in all it is a MEH movie. Passes the time and then can be forgotten.

1.5 stars rounded up.

I lasted 40 minutes on this. IT IS AWFUL. It no doubt thinks it is profound and meaningful, and some sort of study of modern masculinity. It is not. It is RUBBISH.

The one star is for the pretty Greek scenery - and the scene of bashing octopuses against rocks to remove the slime, which you see all the time in Greece (and allegedly sometimes fisherman, ahem, pleasure themselves with them...)

This film is the sort of foreign film that gives foreign films a bad name. 40 minutes of my life I am never getting back.

I have to confess I hate Marvel and superhero movies BUT rented this as the preview looked good. A mistake. I lasted just after halfway before yawning for the umpteenth time and ejecting. I have forgotten the first half already - it is that sort of movie.

Clearly aimed at the teenaged computer game generation, this is so CGI and computer game-y that for me it got very boring very quickly. A lot of cod spiritual nonsense reminded me of 'grasshopper' in the 1970s - all mystical nonsense about different dimensions and totally humorless.

Watch the 3 series of DA VINCI'S DEMONS instead to get mystical united with fun.

This is just boring. 1.5 stars rounded up.

This is a TV series made, I presume, to pander to the MeToo demands for more 'strong female lead' characters in drama. Most movies doing that have flopped badly because the movies are so dull. This is not, BUT I longed for a TV drama about the more fascinating Peter the Great (early 18th C and he worked as a ship builder incognito of Deptford in London too) or Ivan the Terrible (16th C).

Helen Mirren does her usual royal imperious act, though it was hard to keep her portrayal of Elizabeth II in The Queen out of my head while watching this.

I am no expert but I believe Catherine was a brutal ruler who executed many people - she is portrayed here as a 'liberal' who wants to ban slavery (Russia had serfdom till 1860s, I think). I suspect Russian language films about Russian history will be better.

Potemkin in real life was a sycophant who grovelled to Catherine and lied to her about the success of Russia. He lends his name to Potemkin Villages - the fake PR exercise using stage set boarded facades of houses which he ordered by put up along a river so when Catherine saw them from her boat she thought these were wonderful new villages and towns constructed during her reign., It is baffling that that is not included here. Instead Potemkin is portrayed as an idealised and perfect man who was adored by Catherine - the relationship was a lot more political then that. BUT then, The Crown is pure fiction and lies re the British royal family, and Hollywood's pc lies are legion.

The Crimea features no doubt as the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia was a news story not so long ago - and it all started here.

All filmed in Lithuania. Nice period buildings, sure, but it ain't the real thing, the Kremlin, Read Square, the WInter Palace and Hermitage. So it's all rather understated and just not bling enough, really.

But, watchable. If meandering. I'd love to see a series on Peter the Great though. Over to you, Amazon/Netflix/whoever.

3 stars.

OK so I have to admit that The Lion King original was not my favourite Disney cartoon - not in the same league as Dumbo or Sleeping Beauty or Pinnochio for example. Its plot is totally ripped off from HAMLET. But anyway, I did enjoy this film with some reservations. Here are the pros and cons.

1) the bad things: why remake a decent animated feature anyway? Milking it. The animation though is superb - lovely colours and contracts black evil/lighter colourful day. Not sure how much they took from the original and how much they added. One issue then is that this looks SO realistic and yet a) the lions lack any physical sign of maleness under their tails (!) as if they are all sexless, and the naturalism jars then. b) the animals of various species all living together happily is pure nonsense - it works in an animated film BUT when this looks so realistic, it comes over as silly. I also disliked the use of black actors only for play the lions as if that makes it authentic! They are all Brits or Americans anyway. How absurd! Lions are not black people, even if living in Africa! Clownworld 'authentic casting' trend. WHY is Nala sounding like an African American sassy woman as played be Beyonce? Miscast badly. I can think of many white actresses who could have done a MUCH better job. The music by Pharrel Williams is too modern R&B for me, and tbh the Elton John/Tim Rice songs were not all that great in the first place.

2) the goods things: the animation is really classy, detailed and superb. The script and story structure is well done. AND I loved the fact there was violence and death in this story - so many authors of children's books and TV shows get told these days that they are not allowed to show bad things happening or violence or death. So good for the Lion King producers for that. I did enjoy the characters and story, despite its silly 'all animals love each other' shtick. A good evil character in Scar too.

SO all in all, this is Disney milking it as it is all its back catalogue now - so lazy and cynical. On the plus side, I enjoyed a mindless almost 2 hours watching this fairy tale. So 3 stars.

I have to agree with all the poor reviews - this is an awful, amateurish film. It's as bad as the end of year art shows it parodies - that was the only bit of this where I even smiled. It's just over an hour yet feels so much longer because it is so very dull.

I assume it was made coz Simon Amstell has some rich and famous film industry mates. Just shows what a mistake cronyism can be then.

I like Simon Amstell as a presenter and also GRANDMA'S HOUSE a BBC2 sitcom.

I suspect this whole idea, a rather limp and twee gay fantasy, may have worked better as a gentle BBC2 late night sitcom.

I suppose some young gay guys coming out may relate to it. No-one else will. And even for them, no-one gets naked much.

The lead actor is a mumbleton who does not seem to be acting.

Truly awful, and so trendy it's disappeared up its own Hoxton hole somewhere in its body...

For a decent gay romance watch ANOTHER COUNTRY maybe or BEAUTIFUL THING. Not this.

1.5 stars rounded up to 2, solely on account of the music and half-decent French boy performer who is clearly posh Paris stock with a first name like Phoenix.

OK so the later series of VIKINGS are not as good as the earlier ones - something which often, or perhaps always, happens in TV series (think Peaky Blinders; think Endeauvour). But it is still hugely enjoyable.

Now we have the shifting loyalties of brothers with various power hubs, whether in England or Scandinavia.

Some of the 'strong independent women' metoo feminism goes way too far - in no way would women have talked to their noble husbands in the way many here do. But then they would not have been fighting in battle either - women were too precious as child bearers to risk losing, except the 'shield maidens' who were more like cheerleaders really. But then the pc elements of this drama reflect our age - not the Viking age. Just like all the 'sword and sandal' epic movies of the 1950s and 60s reflect those ages and not the real ancient world. I must admit groaning at the pc metoo stuff - the series would be better without much of it. It all makes me long for THE VIKINGS the late 1950s movie which made the late Kirk Douglas 's new production company rich (he was angry at being turned down for the Charlton Heston role in Ben Hur so optioned The Vikings immediately and produced and starred it in himself, then sacked the first director and appointed Stanley Kubrick...and the rest is history)

Some great characters here, all male really, the most interesting ones - Ivar the Boneless the snake-like disabled son of Ragnar (though nobody really knows why he was called that - maybe he was just impotent; some believe he had a brittle bone disease). Hvitseck who is great and conflicted. Ubber. The Warrior Bishop played sexily by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (an improbable King Henry VIII in The Tudors). And even old Stephen Berkoff pops up theatrically in the final parts.

There is a 6th series and I look forward to it. Hard to keep up the momentum though really. This gets 4 stars (maybe 3.5 rounded up) from me - points taken off for the padding here (lots could be cut) and the OTT pc agenda.

I really disliked this film - more as it went on.

No plot spoilers but really when movies start with the spiritual guff, especially when it comes from nowhere, I tend to tune out. The first act is fine but after the halfway point, I wanted to chuck this DVD out of the window.

There is NO explanation where the mystical stuff comes from - the writers (incl the director) just though it'd be fun to add it, I suppose. So why not a space ship too, some aliens, maybe a unicorn - they would make as much sense.,

The acting is fine and the slow pace arty as expected. It's pretentious, unbelievable and silly - and nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is - though I can see the roots of this story in Ancient Greek drama which it rips off (as so many soaps). Why arty types worship this director I shall never know. This is a boring stage play brought to life - slowly.

And no way is this as bad as the dreadful THE LOBSTER by the same director.

But really, if you want a revenge drama, watch MISERY or CAPE FEAR (original drama) or even JAWS or the excellent NIGHT OF THE HUNTER - panned on release which is why the British gay director Charles Laughton (played Henry VIII in 1930s and Hunchback of Notre Dame) could not face making another film. BUT IT IS BRILLIANT. And all those moves are far more intelligent than this arty tosh.

1.5 stars rounded up

I loved this film when I watched it on TV as a kid in the late 70s so thought I'd watch it again - and loved it. Yes, it's dated in a way - but so what? Some so-called progress in movies such as CGI or pc quota casting is often not progress at all.

Lots of stars here - Gregory Peck. Tele Savalas, Anthony Quale. And loads of wonderful Apache who these days would not pass the pc censorship test as the actors who play them are not real Native Americans! See what I mean about 'progress' - it's ACTING, for goodness sake. The nonsense of so-called 'authentic casting' now does not recognise that!

The music is pretty awful and by the great Quincy Jones who, less than 15 years later, was writing and producing THRILLER with Michael Jackson.

If you like a good Western and some good old hokum about finding gold with goodies and baddies, then you'll like this; If you demand CGI, quick edits and pc casting, you won't.

But I give it 4.5 stars rounded up. It's one of the best cowboys and Indian movies ever.