Film Reviews by PV

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.

This is a 1984 B-Movie really with a salacious, sleazy, soft porn angle - trashy stuff, odd plot, a tad confused.

MOST memorable for the actual appearance of Frankie Goes to Hollywood with Holly Johnson performing chart-topping 80s classic RELAX in a club scene in the second half.

Otherwise, very silly, absurd plot, TV-movie trash. 1 star stuff, with an added star for Frankie!

This film is also billed as THE DOUBLE sometimes.

It's a curio, interesting to see Roger Moore exercising his eyebrow acting muscles just 3 years before the classic Bond film LIVE AND LET DIE (the best one ever). His career was on the up. His relaxed persona is all here...

This is Basil Dearden's final film - maybe why some critics called it old-fashioned, more 1948 than 1968. Based on a 1940 short story by British-Canadian author Anthony Armstrong.

There have been other stories, books, films about doubles. This is possibly one of the weakest. It could be called hokum and the creation of a double is never explained. Because it's nonsense! Fun nonsense. One for the fans only BUT I love seeing London as it was back then...

Oddly prophetic this film what with all the speeding cars: "Dearden died age 60 on 23 March 1971 at Hillingdon Hospital, London after being involved in a road accident on the M4 motorway near Heathrow Airport, in which he suffered multiple injuries. An inquest heard that he had a very high amount of alcohol in his blood and that he was decapitated after his car crashed into a road sign and caught fire."

2.5 stars rounded up

OK so this is from the low budget HIGH FLIERS studio, though there does seem a substantial budget here - though not enough for English subtitles, which is unfortunate as many character mumble their lines in a foreign against in competition with background music. I am not hard of hearing but had to rewind sometimes to try and work out what was being said, but sometimes just gave up.

The central issue of this film of one of comprehension, and cohesion. If the story is not clear, and the character's motivation or deceptions, then any reveal later on will lack much or all power. The viewer has to get the stakes involved! Subtitles may have fixed that.

I know the mantra SHOW DON'T TELL is oft-repeated BUT sometimes it is fine to tell, to just spell it out, to have a character state the set-up, the aim, the possible issues and so THEN when we have a big reveal about deception or lies, it matters. Here, it does not.

Some back story creepy guff about the main character - not sure if it's a real-life person and/or how loosely this is a version of her life - just muddles things imho. Cut that out for a start. Slice off the flab, make the stakes clearer and there could be a great film in here. Malcolm McDowell is a big name veteran UK actor of course (in Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE early 1970s), phones it in here for the fee. Roman Polanski's daughter stars.

Sadly, what we have is a mediocre and annoying film, though impressive in locations (Poland), authenticity, action, budget. It all means little if the viewer hasn;t got a clue what's going on and why. If we cared more about the characters and really knew what was happening, the end would have more power - as it is is, the ending wilts limp.

2.5 stars rounded up

Based on a 2007 award-winning short film of the same name, also written by and starring longterm comedy collaborators Tom Basden and Tim Key, this is a lovely film which works because the characters are so strong and believable, even when the set-up, backstory and context are not. We let that slide via our willing suspension of disbelief.

The star here is Tim Key, who's well known from UK TV, Alan Partridge, Plebs and Detectorists etc; Tom Basden also well-known since Plebs and Peep Show where they both started after university where they were in a comedy act called COWARDS with 2 others. Key and Basden are from the same generation as Mitchell and Webb from Peep Show and emerged from stage, radio and TV comedy sketch shows too.

The Welsh-heritage director James Griffiths no doubt chose the South Wales locations in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire where this was filmed. He also directed the 2006 short film which has the same plot exactly. Just shows how long films take to get made/get funding - 20 years in this case. Maybe they could have done it sooner if they'd won the lottery eh?

Just roll with it, enjoy the story and characters - and the lines of the main Tm Key character are classic and believable, not cartoon character or caricature - this is a real man and we know blokes like this! The tall tale itself is unlikely, what with lottery wins and piles of cash BUT just go with the gentle character-based tale and this film will touch anyone who watches it.

Also, this film is VERY wise to just play snippets of the songs of the fictional pop/folk star. It is always a weakness in drama about fictional bands - the songs which were supposedly hits are always so lane. This gets away with it by just playing pretty bits of old songs, and folk-rock is hardly hit parade stuff either.

4.5 stars rounded up.