Film Reviews by PV

This is a watchable movie, but suffers from a terrible sentimental streak, no doubt to appeal to the US market. There are plenty of stereotypes here too: the tough woman struggling to juggle work and family; the way her husband and kids comes round in the end; the loutish boorish character who turns nice by the end of the film; the way this supewrwoman overcomes nagativity and hostility to succeed in the end: this is a template for so many Hollywood movies and their imitators. But at times, this film feels like a feminist lecture....................

BUT - there are some great scenes in this story and good acting, and it's worth watching for the scene with the despicable catholic brothers alone. The catholic church is still covering up massive child abuse and refuses to give evidence to the courts about what they knew and how they just moved abusers from parish to parish. But this movie is a bit coy and puritan - we get no real details of this disgusting abuse, just occasional looks and silences - I would have preferred detailed and graphic descriptions, so as to show in no uncertain terms just what those awful catholic brother abusers did....................................

Of course, there is an argument to be made that sending children away to Australia was actually better than leaving them in slums with unfit mothers in the UK, but that argument is only represented here by some cardboard cut-out bureaucrat baddies. (These days, social workers are obsessed with keeping kids with their mothers, even if they are totally unfit and then give their children up for adoption, damaged and disturbed, when they are four or five years old).

This film is worth watching, so 4 stars. But it's not as good as the TV movie 'The Leaving of Liverpool'.

This is a great war film about a turning point in the war - the Germans' defeat at Stalingrad which, crucially, stopped the Nazis moving south to the middle east and seizing the oil that was partly powering the British war effort. The film does not flinch in its portrayal of brutal Nazis and brutal Russians too. It shows war as a messay amoral business............................. Sadly, this is ruined by the fact that the film is dubbed - not very well somtimes - and subtitles are not even given for passages of writing in German! Fortunately, I can understand a bit of German! Subtitles throughout would have been far far better - I hope to watch this film again with subtitles at some stage.

This movie is strictly for those who love their sci-fi. Me - I couldn't really get into it because I couldn't believe the situation OR the characters - though it is well-written and structured. I was going to give this 2 stars, therefore. Then I saw the ending. The alleged stand-up comedian who is about as funny as an infected pimple, and the sickly sweet affirmation of the American Dream in that awful vomit-inducing ending - the worst ending for a movie I have seen for quite some time. Zowie Bowie should be ashamed at himself for pandering to Hollywood and making everythning sentimental to the nth degree for that audience. Oh and of course there has to be the brave American soldier hero plotline - which I guessed within 5 minutes actually. Buy hey guys - you chose to go into Afghanistan and Iraq! Hello! Good grief - I HATED this movie at the end. One star. For a great repeated time loop movie, watch Ground Hog Day.

If you are a teenager/twenteenager, then you'll probably find this hilarious and think it's so originally funny in its cartoonish capers and crudeness. For anyone who left school before the 21st century, however, and does not find people talking about sex that interesting or funny, it's rather predictable - though funny in parts. What struck me about is was just how unbelievably old-fashioned it is - all those japes and capers make it like a 21st century Just William or St Trinian's - and how unbelievably unbelievable. It's about as true to real life as Grange Hill too! The 17 year olds all look 20; they all live is massive houses in the home counties, and yet go to the local sink comprehensive (yeah, right!). Its stupidity is sometimes offensive though - and it scores points off laughing at poor people: poor is the new black for 12 year old E4 comedy commissioners eh? So let's all laugh at poor people! Ha ha ha... In that case, why not laugh at black people or disabled people too? Oh no, can't do that - so who can we laugh at? THE POOR! Brilliant! Really glad I paid my licence fee now (Channel 4 is partly funded by it). All TV channels are desperate for younger viewers - and so online-friendly bitesize crude conedies like this tick all their boxes.

(BTW This series is co-written by the son of an established TV writer too (beesly) - so I bet he really had to work, like, really hard for that commission! I'm guessing he is not poor either, but enjoys laughing at poor people - no wonder he is doing so well at Channel 4...)

All in all then, this will give occasional laughs but it is nowhere near as funny or radical or inventive as it thinks it is. Much copying of other comedies of embarrassment is obvious. I watched the whole thing in one go - 6 episodes - and it passed an evening pleasantly enough: not special, or all that funny, but watchable. 3 stars.

This is an AWFUL film. Just terrible. Though it's all very prettily filmed etc, and the author of the book this movie is based on must take the blame really. But this film is basically just pornography for overprivileged spoilt American women! It's Emo-porn - how sad! It's self-obsessed, vain, silly, simplistic, twee, up itself, and also offensive: sexist and racist. SEXIST? Well, this poor wickle rich Americn woman has such a miserable life (what with all her money etc) because of the men who made it BAD - though one wonders what the men would say about putting up for so long with such a spoilt moany needy brat of a woman. RACIST? Well, this silly film starts in 1) ITALY - land of food, where all Italians are happy and steroetypically Italian. There are no immigrants in Rome according to this film - just good old Italian peasants, who love and respect Mama, and all women. In reality, Italy is a very corrupt place, and Italian men are well-known for their sexism - yet silly American woman thinks Italian women are having such fun lives, with all that food and family - unlike poor unhappy wickle Amercian women! No Italians ever seem to work in this film - they just sit around eating. 'Sexy' Rome is seen as better than 'stuffy' London by this silly Amnerican twerp woman - funny really, seeing as so many Italians want to come and live in London! Italy is actually a very conservative place - corrupt as hell, with church child abuse scandals aplenty and massive unemployment. THEN it's off to 2) INDIA (of course - it's where all dumb Westerners go to 'find themselves'). In this film, India is another country where no-one ever works and everyone is happy all the time - but not because of food, (which is why Italians are permanently happy), but because of praying a lot! Yes, that's it! Don't work, just pray and give all your money to a guru (who are always honest, of course). Forget the massive poverty, high child mortality rate, massive corruption etc. Just pray and meditate and all will be well. THEN it's off to 3)BALI (the far east - with lots of sun and beaches) - ah yes, of course silly American woman has to find a man and fall in love in this movie - that's what it's audience (of women who want a fantasy) demand. So she finds love to - and yes, Silly American Woman finds herself and is happy at last. BLESS. Seriously, anyone who likes this offensive stupid film (or book it was based on) should be ashamed of themselves. THIS IS EMO PORN FOR SILLY WOMEN! NO STARS!!! I wish this movie would just disappear into Julia Robert's HUGE, ENORMOUS, CAVERNOUS mouth forever! I'm sure there's room in there...

This movie reminded me of Winter's Bone - the Americans do seem to like making movies about the poorest of the poor country hicks and hillbillies, esp in Apalachian or Cajun settings. Anyway, like Winter's Bone, criminality and murder get the plot going, and the acting and pace are good - Jamie Bell's decent American accent never falters either. The big problem for me with this film is that is simply could not believe the plot - and without wanting to give a spoiler here, I'll just say that I don't think people in poverty who have the opportunity to sell something to get out of poverty would pass at that chance. It's all about the symbolism, I suppose, and some codswallop about 'paying the ferryman'. I detect some nods to Silas Marner in this movie too. Having said that, it's more Watchable than Winter's Bone for sure - and the better film. Recommended.

This is an enjoyable movie to watch, with excellently realised apes, and a simple enough storyline. Nowhere near as good as the original Planet of the Apes, but better by far that the more recent version............ One thing that I thought a shame was the Hollywood need to make the baddie British - you hear a British accent in a movie like this and you know that's tnhe villain! If they used an ethnic group like this it'd be called racism! I also thought it a bad casting choice to cast a black British actor in the role. The original POA movie and script from the 60s was full of racial references to the civil rights movement of the time and segregation/discrimination of blacks in the US - that's why all the main human characters were white. Casting a black man in this role took away from that - perhaps deliberately.........The science in this movie is all hokum, of course, and I actually laughed out loud when a character started coughing a little - this always means DEATH in any costume drama, and this movie too!..........The end of this movie screams 'sequel'. I fear there will be one because of the success of this. It will be downhill from hereon in then.......This movie has made me want to see the wonderful original from 1969 (?) again though; I watched it on TV in the 70s as a boy and did not know the twist at the end when I saw it: that movie is one of the best of the 70s. I fear no-one watching it now will enjoy that innocence. This movie is packed full of references to and lines from that film though. Maybe watch them back to back?

This film is worth 2 stars only: it'll pass an evening, but no more. It's certainly not scary or in any way frightening. Unpleasant, yes - with lots of guns and shooting. As for the theme - well, it's motherhood. But the character issues feel tacked on. I simply did not believe in these characters, or the story and the way the characters behave in it. The 'ma' character is WAY too young too - an older actress would have been better. There are also a few plot holes and some storylines that are just dropped - (Queenie...) - which is annoying. I found this dragged terribly too - I felt myself yawning and looking at my watch: this should have been 20 minutes shorter. BUT all in all, not dreadful, but not good. It'll pass a couple of hours...

How much you like this TV series will depand on how much you are into therapy and the kind of self-obsessed navel-gazing and egocentricity of the me me me generation. Americans apparently loved this tV series - but then, they are all on medication and worship therapists. If you are like me and think counsellors are mainly rip-off merchants who love nosingin people's lives and don't actually do any good at all, tyhen you'll hate it.

Also, despite good acting from Gabriel Byrne, the acting of the 'patients' was over the top. It looked like I was watching an acting lesson at some US stage school.

So, not my thing; but if you are into wallowingin your own self-pity and are interested in therapy, then you'll love it!

Offensive, smug, boring, pseudo-religious, environmentalist, green-wash trash from a director seemingly enthralled by a bizarre snese of American environmental superiority - when in fact the USA is the least environmentally friendly country on earth.

Funny though: I never realised blue people on a distant planet could look like African Americans or have perfect teeth.

Stoopid and offensive - and proof, if any were needed, that money will buy you Oscar nominations.

This movie is the definition of dumb.

This film was SUCH a disappointment. It is essential a heavily adapted version of a novel which owes a great deal to Adrian Mole and other coming of age books and films (400 blows; 50 days last summer). However, the film was clearly not filmed in Swansea; the locations were picked to look small seaside town-ish, and are no way where the novel is set! No Gower either! Also, the film is trying way too hard to be quirky - in such a slef-conscious and 'cool' way that it fails utterly to be funny OR quirky. It's a rather dull piece of whimsy - and I was watching my watch several times. The biggest issue, however, is the lack of any sympathetic characters and the fact that neither I nor anyone watching the film with me laughed out loud - not even once! It simply IS NOT FUNNY! This movie is trying SO hard to be whimsically quirky and thinks it's so clever and funny - that makes it just look smug. And it's SO derivative of US indie movies too - an erzatz model of those types of US indie movies that are also irritating. Submarine is a real diappointment. I hope it sinks without trace. If this is where our taxes go, thank goodness the Film Council has been abolished! Two stars is being generous - I liked the music and could location-spot!

I HATED this film. Mike Leigh gets far too many plaudits from the cinephile crowd - his films are often dull leftwing rants. Also, he tends to hate working class people who try to better themselves (most of his films show this) but lately he has been trying to redress the balance: that is why here Jim Broadbent and his wife Gerri - the most irritatingly smug woman in the world - are shown as working class persons 'made good' - all caring sharing and wonderful. Only a middle class son of a wealthy doctor like Leigh could come up with such nonsense! The more I think about this film the more I hate it! It is outrageous that Leigh gets taxpayers' money to make this crap when far better filmmakers and writers can't get funding. This should have been a BBC2 drama - at best. I'd rather pay not to watch this drivel again.

This is a wonderful film - highly entertaining and unusual. It keeps up the pace and has a cracking twist ending - though the writer of the novel should get the credit for all that! The acting is top notch - the drunk assistant especially - the flashbacks work well, and the scenes are interesting. My only gripe would be the romantic subplot - this kind of thing works better in novels than films. When that plot strand came along it intruded a bit into the story - but not enough to spoil it. Why can't more films - from anywhere - be like this? Five stars!

Well, what can I say? This film is French, so obviously it's pretentious piffle, as is the tradition. I would have given this flight of fancy 1 star - but the animation sequences are good, as is some acting, and there are a few good one-liners. And Paris looks pretty. Otherwise, this is only for lovers of Gondry and cinematic Frenchiness. At least it's not as bad as 'Tokyo', another load of prententioua French faffing about and nonsense.

This is that rare beast: a French film that is actually entertaining. OK so it's all very soapy and family-orientated. But it is entertaining and there are some great lines in some funny dialogue. I think this is French trying to be cool American - but perhaps no worse for that. Not brilliant but it passes the time happily enough.