Reviews

In one of the most *60's* films that I've ever seen Charlton Heston plays a disillusioned space explorer who is effectively the lone survivor of a crash on an unknown world. A world of very talkative Apes. Highly talkative. Endlessly talkative!

Heston has to get a bit snappy with them because they natter his ears off all through his characters captivity with the Apes. He was a bit short with his chatty colleagues in the first half hour of the film and the Apes antagonise him even more by caging him up and using physical violence and threats against him whilst also chatting on and on and on.

There is a remarkable amount of male nudity and semi nakedness, on the part of Mr Heston in particular, but he doesn't have any good clothes worth wearing anyway.

What is there to make of this film on a more serious level? There is a very interesting effort at production design work: sets, costumes, makeup, effects, locations and props are impressive for their craft. The cinematography and imagery is sometimes imaginative and wonderfully captures much of the locations and sets. The action sequences are inventively enough shot. With some placings of camera and editing compositions being notable.

Charlton Heston gives a committed lead, in an incredibly "then" character of late 60's America. There is an array of good support from some unrecognisable co-stars!

The score is imaginative and has memorable moments and the sound recording is well mixed. The sound effects are of a lesser merit however with little but the score and some dialogue having audio audacity!

The director and the film editing is usually happy to dwell on a scene and let long sequences and passages play out: this is usually a boon but does sometimes let the film slow down and sag in the middle and latter runtime.

The issue is the premise and the treatment of the story however, here is the main merit of 'Planet of the Apes' even more than the locations and sets design, the makeup and props. Even more than the score, and the visual language of action, and the cinematography of location shooting.

The themes are the gist of this film, to it's credit, and to it's detriment, as a filmed story. They so overbalance 'Planet of the Apes' and are so dominant compared to the brush strokes of the film that they leave it saggy in places, they introduce occasionally unspeakable dialogue, and they distort the narrative sense with obvious plot holes and a misplaced focus; this all dullens the piece as a dramatic treatment.

The themes are overarching and overtly 1960's in content and style, don't let Charlton Heston the man blind you to the nature of the protagonist that he's playing or the tale that he's playing in. He's a disillusioned, liberated, discontented, drifting contrary character, on exploration duty out of disgust and despair! He's not an astronaut or a space scientist, he's an unhappy 60's man. That's Heston's character Taylor.

The Apes are stand ins for political conservatives and Christian conservatives and their society is colonial and illiberal. Their encounters with Taylor are disruptive to their tyranny of elders and lore masters.

They speak back unpleasant truths of humanity in their own turn. Ultimately Taylor must encounter the unpalatable truths of all these themes in a very personally deflating climax.

I rate at 7/10 because this film is too unbalanced by it's hefty abstract moralising. It's a sermon that borders on the polemic and all done in an oh so 60's mitre.

There is so much good in this film however that I can not rate lower and I recommend to fans of the lead and sci-fi of the 60's Star Trek and Dr Who varieties.

The first half of this 'Apes' instalment is an 80's Conan film, with talking apes, and the second half is an 80's Mad Max film, with talking apes. But no cars. 'Waterworld' from the 90's would be another obvious structure. But with talking apes.

Both halves are too long. Far too long. They take too long because they are slow and by being slow I mean they lack pace and because of this they are a slog to sit through, and the result is that the film is far longer than it needed to be, if it had been faster and therefore shorter, it would thereby be better.....etc etc etc......

In all seriousness, this almost two and a half hour movie has probably got a great 80 minute B-movie treatment contained in it. At almost 150 minutes it is frankly frustrating.

This seems to primarily a fault of the writing: indeed I suspect that several oddities of the film as it's narrative precedes are due to savage editing decisions. The director clearly can't direct the actors in this *unalive" live action film. It's hard work. They're apes after all. And apes don't act hasty!

The cast is uniformly boring as a result and the director is lost at sea with this script and these shooting conditions. The editor really seems to have worked hard on this inefficient genre mix up.

The film climaxes in a ridiculous and hilariously awkward and unbelievable set piece which has to be seen to be believed. It's gibberish to the fullest extent.

The film score isn't worth commending and the sound design is largely a blah. The CGI is impressive but the facial expressions are missing any convincing effect.

The story is stale and repetitive and obvious.

I rate at 3.5/10 which I have rounded up to 4 on IMDb due to the underused efforts of William H Macey which I appreciated seeing. Briefly.

Elegant and forceful, actorly and grungy, crusading and storytelling in balance, 'Call Northside 777' has an ungainly and awkward name but the film is completely the opposite. The film is carried calmly and carefully by James Stewart with able support from an understatement but vivid Richard Conte and a medley of supporting actors provide well rounded scope for a true life inspired film focusing on the inevitable limitations and problems of criminal justice.

With interesting locations and characters, a compelling scenario, and a reasonably developed sense of suspense and anticipation there is a valuable look into justice and journalism in this film, inspired by a true life criminal miscarriage from the dark years of the 1930's.

There may be few surprises but there is a well drawn out sense of suspense and momentum, human emotions and sensibilities, and there are vivid moments of lowlife and duplicity to spice the drama.

There is very little in the way of music, very little to mention in the sound design at all: 'Call Northside 777' is an example of the realist school of film and it prospers for it.

Ably directed, with full focus on the actors performances, with well chosen locations and sets and good costumes it provides a good stage for its performances.

I rate at 7.5/10 which I have rounded to an 8 because of the valuable performances from the whole cast.

There may be a few little hiccups; Lee J Cobb gets a rather obscured characterisation to play which doesn't quite hang together and Helen Walker's wife character gets progressively marginalised by the screenplay having initially had a limited but decent part as James Stewarts other half. The film is perhaps a little long and perhaps has a few too many happy endings. There are a few scenes in the prison hearings which are too wordy and stagey as well. These issues prevent me from rating any higher but I recommend it all the same. Fans of police dramas and realist filmmaking will find a lot to admire, as will fans of the cast members.

Richard Conte and Lee J Cobb, with able support from Millard Mitchell, and a remarkable part from Valentina Cortese really lay into this slimy film noir from the late 40's peak of the genre.

It's an actors film, the direction holds the actors in high esteem with long takes, and well timed allowances for the actors performances, whilst it also provides well constructed scenes and sequences of action and jeopardy.

The film is shot on location and in marvellous black and white cinematography, well lit and carefully composed, with lively crowd scenes and a real sense of place.

All things considered 'Thieves Highway' is a top rate film noir where some flaws in scriptwriting can be easily forgiven.

It is absolutely thematically and tonally true to it's genre with an dwelling on swindling, scheming, base motivation and characterisations throughout with greed and sex being it's most fundamental currencies. It is full film noir even if it's situations are sometimes removed from the typical fare of the genre.

Accordingly I would like to recommend this film to all fans of the genre, the director, and the main cast.

It is most pertinent in its second half - discounting the last couple of minutes where the obligatory, mandated "happy ending" inevitably draws some of the sting out of what has preceded.

The crux of the film's real value is in it's sexual content which climaxes in the latter scenarios having been only carefully and slightly prefigured in the earlier scenes. Richard Conte plays a sexually active protagonist and this thrust of the film makes it stand out from the crowd. He is matched, and then some, by his female equivalent in Valentina Cortese. Their sexually motivated interactions centre the action and the character drama of the piece.

There are flaws along the way, notably some vagueness and forthright niceness about the protagonist and his family, the characterisation of two wannabe trucking competitors, and the ending of the film is rather neat and tidy and also too full of gladness, but this film really should be seen by anyone who appreciates the genre in the best possible presentation.

I rate at 7.5/10 and I recommend, warts and all, to all film fans who crave finding good older movies.

On the surface 'The Red House' is a poor man's Hitchcock mystery thriller which runs too slowly and hasn't got enough twists or surprises but there is a significant element of the fairy tale to this film tale which gives a little bit more substance to the structure.

By fairy tale I mean original folk tales: rural and nasty, with a strong focus on human wrongs and threats to women and children, most particularly unwary, disobedient or unguarded children.

As such 'The Red House' is most satisfyingly watched not as a mystery melodrama, and certainly not as a film noir crime melodrama, but as a teenage fairy tale: it has rural reclusiveness and hidden ills. It has generational conflict and almost the wicked step parents. It has nastiness and coming of age angst. It's a fairy tale of the older, more serious sort: a cautionary tale of danger to youngsters and females from wildlife and wild men.

The tone and style of the film perfectly keeps pace with this theme with locations, cinematography, effects, editing and sound design all contributing in harmony.

'The Red House' could almost be Red Riding Hood. Almost. And it is given a marvellous work over by the production team to hold its mood of nasty country folk tales.

There are some well created sequences and some excellent individual shots. Obviously there are some moments of 1940's B movie shortcomings too and this can't be ignored.

The acting is usually sound, but does at times become wooden or over arched, and the cast were not quite in the groove with the authentic nasty fairly tale vibe that the director was creating.

Really it is in this area that I find 'The Red House' struggles the most. This and it's overlong narrative which lets the thing down whether you are watching it as a poor man's Hitchcock, or as an oddball film noir, or as an earthy folk tale.

I rate at 6/10, I think, I can't quite decide on 5 or 5.5 or 6 so I'm going with the highest of that range, I'm not completely convinced to do so, but I usually find that if I watch a film a second time I feel that I have underrated it so I'm giving some benefit of the doubt to this film today.

I recommend to fans of films such as 'The Uninvited', 'Isle of the Dead', and 'I walked with a Zombie', it feels like the kind of film that Hollywood would have plonked a Gail Russell type into: Allene Roberts does her part just the same. Julie London has a nice pert part and Judith Anderson completes a fairly meaty quota of significant female players.

Oddball 70's action comedy; a discordant, disordered, deranged and disorientated effort at an interesting take on a goofy premise of basing the scenario of a feature film on a gimmicky song. 'Convoy' barely rates as a conventional film at all: the plot is so slight that it barely feels sketched out, characters are hardly present and never fully formed, the motivation of the story isn't developed and the whole point and purpose of it is equally unclear to everyone involved and to everyone watching.

The acting is uneven, the direction fluctuates between decisive and cogent to barely existent, the sound effects and score are variable, the whole thing feels unprofessional and slapdash, the editing is at its best in action scenes and the closing credits - which perfectly sums up this "film".

Honestly though I quite like it: it's almost like a short story or a narrative poem in film form: the particular illuminating the general; albeit the poet was mentally unstable when making it and the promise of the piece exceeds the virtue of the completed form.

Certainly this is no proper film. It's so incomplete, and underdeveloped, and slackly handled. It's infuriating if you are taking it remotely seriously. Frankly, it's easily charged with being an example of style over substance, of incomplete pre-production, of unprofessionalism, of incompetence, and of over ambition resulting in diminishing returns.

I can see it that way, but it is enjoyable to me anyway. I think it's because I can see it as an alternative, as a filmed poem instead of a filmed novel or stage play. Almost, it's liked a filmed pop song with extra visuals. A pop music video in the post 80's world but unprecedented in the 1970's!

There is a bit of humour, there is a bit of fighting action, a bit of stunt work and lots of daring do. It has plenty of distractions. It has mainly middle-aged protagonists and antagonists which is a different vibe from the norm. It feels grungy and 'unrespectable working class'.

I rate at 6/10 and it reminds me of another Sam Peckinpah film of the era: 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid'; but it is much less frustrating than that film: in that instance the director made a film that was 50% greatness and botched it with 50% gibberish and gruel, which makes for a horrifying "what if" or "if only" scenario; which 'Convoy', with it much less fully formed structure and it's less ambitious source material or personal statement on American, Americans, Americana and Americanism doesn't generate anywhere near so much.

Here we have a song brought to film as an impressionistic interpretation due to its complete incompleteness. As such, I find it watchable and enjoyable because it is so styled and so insubstantial: but isn't that a great combination for a pop song video?!

What a remake, what a show, what a spectacular, what a turn, what a confused enterprise! This version of 'King Kong' has a tough act to follow and it can't perform.

The themes of the piece are updated, along with the filming technology, but neither results in any kind of useful output on the screen. The actors are wasted and the practical effects and production design are simply uninspiring and unconvincing. That's not the way to do a straight remake of 'King Kong'; a spoof would be made like this.

The sound effects aren't anything special either, neither is the score, and neither are the credits. Indeed, nothing worked here.

I find that the narrative is paced to be unexciting and unsuccessful in building suspension or anticipation in the earliest scenes and unexciting and unimaginative in the pay off scenes towards latter stages.

Scripting and direction can be marked down for this. The editing is fairly brisk in the chatty dialogue scenes, which may really be the single best professional production credit on the film.

The costumes and makeup departments do solid work too.

The film is reasonably photographed with well lit interior, and well composed exterior, cinematography.

Considering these pluses I can't rate lower than a 3.5/10 score because there are also a few moments of enjoyment to be had from this teleplay, and not all of the effects work and production design is a miss: a few hits are scored.

Overall however this is a disappointment of a remake/updating and I can't consider that I will ever be inclined to watch it a second time. The updated themes and tonalities are blandly handled, the updated technology is a flop, and the narrative fails as a credible fantasy in build up and payoff.

I recommend to fans of Jeff Bridges, and monster suit film fans can get a few kicks too. Perhaps.

This film is a remake of the Hitchcock classic film of the 1930's and not a new adaptation of the original novel: it has two claims to notoriety: firstly it updates the story to the contemporaneous late 1950's with a slightly different attitude to sexual politics and significantly different attitude to geo-politics, and, secondly it took all of the virtues of it's predecessor and neutered them.

Hitchcock's original had suspense, action, mystery, jeopardy and comedy and crucial sex appeal! A young handsome male and a sexy and sexually competent young female forced together by scandalous circumstances.

This version has a well aging but strictly middle aged Kenneth Moore and a far younger wooden blond with whom he shares no on screen chemistry whatsoever. In effect it turns this scenario into a comedy of manners instead of a comedy of sexuality.

The only virtues of this version are the scenery and mid 1950's colour location cinematography, and some of the vignettes provided by our protagonists meetings with the various local characters. If you are a particular fan of Kenneth Moore then his performance has all the elements that you would want: he has his thing well in hand here and if that grasps your attention then you will be well rewarded by his turn in this film.

These are all slim pickings however; the film does make a virtue if its locations and there is therefore a small added historical interest of seeing northern Britain in its period apparel; this is not an intrinsic value of the staged drama however, merely a circumstantial boon of the location filming.

I rate at 4/10 because this is a failure on its own terms as a remake of Hitchcock, and a failure generally as an adventure film: it isn't thrilling, it isn't suspenseful, it isn't captivating and it isn't funny or sensually alluring .

There are small gains from it however: the narrative is just barely sufficiently paced to prevent stagnation, and the efforts of the support cast to deepen and enhance the tale with their local characters can be applauded. The cinematography and the costume department can be praised also.

Direction and editing, casting and lead acting less so, unless you are a Kenneth Moore addict. If you are then this will be a solid 5/10 film: I appreciate his form but I'm not a devout and I rate a star less according to the films overall merits.

The cast and the director equally struggle to develop the protagonists and the antagonists, and really this is carried by the photography, Moore's standard schtick in the lead, and the supporting casts' best efforts.

I recommend to Moore fans primarily, and perhaps to those fans of Hitchcock who want to see his work mishandled to better appreciate the original effort. To general audiences a lot will depend on how much you value conventional cinematic thrills and excitements: if you don't mind a gentler tableaux of escapades then you may derive more value from this version than I do.

As a final comment I do wonder what the producers were thinking with this: how did it come to be made, and made in this manner, with this cast? That might be more interesting as a documentary than this film is as a drama.

'Unusual, interesting, and not overly entertaining' would be another variation of film title wordplay when reviewing 'The world, the flesh and the Devil'.

This is a careful film, telling a careful story very very carefully: it has a solemn tale to tell involving racial worries and social mortality through the opportunity afforded by having a microcosmic cast, introduced to each other by deliberate instalments, caused by an imaginative end of the world scenario whereby all human, and apparently animal, and even temporarily vegetable, life has been ended by an atmospheric atomic weapon. All life that is except for a healthy, handsome, young black man and a healthy, beautiful and perky white woman in New York. Into which, eventually, a somewhat less handsome, tall and young, white man is introduced in an injured condition.

This leads to romantic entanglements and social strife in this empty city and microcosmic society. Gunplay and competition between the males. Romantic confusion and mental angst for all three.

All this imaginativeness and oddness and careful and considered development doesn't really get very far however. The stark images of abandoned and empty New York, photographed in loving black and white, and the passable performances from the cast contribute to the carefully considered effect but not much in the way of invigorating or stimulating the audience.

Ultimately, we are forced to ask, is this believable? It isn't. None of it is. The whole thing is utterly unbelievable and therefore unengaging and undramatic. It's actually absurd and silly. Every step of the way, every character decision, every interaction and every scene is unbearable unbelievable. It's just that this is hidden beneath a carefully developed and interesting treatment.

The careful and considered approach is matched by the clear limitations of budget and production which leaves this film struggling with static and sedentary scenes and scene progression.

Overall 'The World, the flesh and the Devil', is a film to be viewed by a sympathetic audience: to those willing to suspend disbelief and critical thoughts, there is much to admire in this unusual, odd, imaginative and, above all, careful film. To such an audience the overall parable will unfurl itself carefully and deliberately: the funny joke, the highlight of this film, that the male antagonism of the final act, will be "world war 4" hits the nail on the head. It's a bullseye comment on the film itself. Set in New York, home of the United Nations, in a post apocalypse cold war world, and centering on a racially problematic three person romance which drives them to new conflicts and strife: this is microcosmic interrogation of the world that caused the apocalypse that created this scenario.

Not only does the audience need to be sympathetic to the message to be receptive of this film but also to the format of it: it is very carefully contrived and controlled. It's a film made on a budget and those limitations on the scope of the film are also obvious.

I rate at 6/10 and I think that there is a lot to appreciate here. It just isn't very accessible and it's easily rejected by anyone unsympathetic to the cause, just as it's own drama is too easily resolvable and soluble. If it was that easy, it would be that easy! Clearly it isn't. Clearly the film is unrealistic and unbelievable right up to the end.

This is an unhappy situation for a film built on careful and considered development rather than excitement and thrilling entertainment. This is why I can't rate higher than a 6 and why I can't recommend too widely to other film fans.

There is a bit of comedy, a bit of action, a bit of mythological mumbo jumbo, a bit of creepy ghoulies, a bit of nostalgia, and a bit of character development; but there isn't a lot of anything much in 'Frozen Empire'.

A franchise built on one famous film, (from 40 years ago now.) a passable but greatly inferior sequel, and a fun kids cartoon series, and a few computer games and tie in paraphernalia doesn't actually seem to have enough ectoplasm to reanimate itself at this stage.

'Frozen Empire' can't quite settle in as a 'Ghostbusters' part 4 or as an 'Afterlife' part 2 and certainly not as both. The original cast is too old and the new cast isn't really capable, certainly not with the material they are given to work with. The writing isn't strong enough and there is an obvious issue with finding the right vein of comedy at this point.

I quite enjoyed the small measures of goodness on offer here, I'm glad that I went to the cinema to watch but I'm not able to see a further way for this franchise to go.

Indeed it's stuck in the wrong time: forty years ago this was fertile ground for a comedy treatment type ghost film: paranormal investigation as an "occupational" was possibly at its most credible and comedy horrors were popular with audiences in the 80's. Why not a comedy ghost film? Four decades later and not only is this franchise old but so is the cultural hinterland that spawned it.

I recommend to fans of the 80's Ghostbusters and to fans of McKenna Grace most of all because her character is the undoubted lynchpin of this effort at repossession of a Ghostbusters series. Paul Rudd and Dan Aykroyd get a bit of focus for their characters, but hardly any comedy.

I fully commend the first twenty minutes; frankly that contains really quite good dark comedy material with a bit of action, and hokus pocus, and grisly flashes. After that it's rather meagre measures.

The acting is passable but the cast don't have much going for them with this writing, the direction is ok in the action sequences but quite basic in character scenes. The production design is mainly a plus with some nice props and sets. The effects are fine with a nice mix of good practical and CGI components. The sound design isn't much in either the effects or the score, which is a terrible shame for a 'Ghostbusters' film: even the basic sound recording and mixing isn't particularly clear!

I remember wondering what all the runtime had really amounted to at the end as the credits rolled. I think that a film that either focuses on its new demi god antagonist or on the teenage angsts of the youngest Ghostbusters might have made itself more useful with this runtime. As it stands, some threads for the younger characters are left undeveloped and others are too neatly and tidily wrapped up by the end. Much the same can be said of the main menace character and plot.

As for the veterans, there isn't much to say because there isn't much to consider.

I rate at 4.5/10 because that first twenty minutes or so was good, and the small doses of merit can't be ignored but this film and this franchise might need to be laid to rest.

'Gilda' has a love triangle to extremis plot using a story structure riffed off of 'Casablanca' with added mystery plot elements and negative sexual tension. Indeed it is almost an inverted reimagining of that film.

It's also considerably slower paced, with much less colourful characters, and more over produced with sets, costumes, set pieces and props almost glistening with Hollywood gloss. It's a gilded fancy, bedecked in ornamentation and repleat with unhappy sexual tensions.

That's the whole of it really. It's about two people who have an unhappy and imbalanced friendship based on mutually assured protection in a dangerous world who both love the same woman, who in turn hates both of them, but also loves Glen Ford's character, who also hates her back. Increasingly all three are distrustful, desperate and dangerous to each other in a negative love triangle spiral as the story inevitably progresses.

The third point in the triangle, the husband, the cold and determined leader, is embroiled in a plot to dominate a Tungsten cartel thereby making him a genuine global VIP. His ownership of a semi official illegal gambling operation is small fry in comparison. This is ripe Hollywood melodrama, a plot decision to highlight that this man is VERY dangerous to the other points of the triangle whilst giving him cause to strain the triangle with his comings and goings and his fracas with rivals. Undoubtedly it utilises concerns of the time regarding Nazi German overspill into Latin America and general German escapees running from the righteous victors with ill-gotten or ill owned spoils. But it is really a story structure to push the love triangle into fatal structural failure whilst embedding the notion that the husband is genuinely a tiger that the others are hanging onto by the tail and forcing a recalibration of behaviour by the other two.

This is the film: it is gilded gloss, it is over produced, it riffs Casablanca in a negative inversion, it uses a mystery plot, and it harkens to 1940's Nazi scares but it's functionality is as a love triangle melodrama with obvious sexual tension absolutely to the fore and fully accentuated by the negativity of everyone's emotional state and the wide scope of the "love triangle" collapsing actions by the husband.

Rita Hayworth gives a good part, Glen Ford has one of his best roles, the husband is played with complete conviction. There are a couple of quirky side characters who animated scenes with a little levity, who are well played by reliable character actors.

The direction and editing are subordinated to the production design, and show stopping set pieces, and the script is clawing at the limits of believability which leaves it oddly paced and unnecessarily obtuse to follow, and challenges any suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer.

I rate at 5.5/10 because of the frisson of excitement from the deeply negative and sexually charged love problem at the heart of the film, and for the conviction of all the cast and the elan of the production design. I can't rate higher because it's all gilded and glossed nonsense really with a narrative bogged down by implausibly and a plot that defies examination on almost all it's points. Finally, the happy ending is more than normally disappointing for a film of this era, when happy endings were mandated: this one stinks more than some others. The script being gilded gibberish is probably the reason.

Godzilla and King Kong don't work. They don't match; they are a bad couple. They place an unbearable burden on a screenplay that tries to include them both. As such the Monsterverse surely can't continue: it needs to pick a focus and relegate the other co-lead to a guest star, or 'recurring character' status. Either that or pull the plug entirely.

The 'two couples' matchup isn't dramatic because it isn't plausible because it is completely contrived and blatantly impractical.

The plot and characters suffer heavily because this film is entirely stymied by it's central miscasting, which is the miscasting of the whole Monsterverse: this franchise ain't big enough for the two of them.

It ends up working like a two hour trailer with a storyline held together by a humanised Kong story about his loneliness and aging being parallelled by his human friends. Apart from that tenuous connective tissue the film is all made up of character entrances, a quick distinctive skit, and then cut. Just like a trailer. Or, if it has less overall thrust to it, a "best of" highlights reel.

There is also an effort to further expand the Hollow Earth issues but that barely registers as a success because it isn't very interesting.

The cinematography and direction are mediocre at best, with murky and unappealing photography of the cast in almost all human character scenes.

The sound design barely registers except in an effort to portray the monsters calls.

I rate at 3/10 because the film doesn't work. The Monsterverse doesn't work because it's an odd couple of stars. Too odd. I recommend to confirmed fans only.

Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Robert Shaw each contribute a star to this film from their 'star power' alone. Without them this would be an exercise in form over function, style over substance and storyline over character but add those three in and this makes 'The Sting' a success.

A testament to the clout that a genuine leading actor can add to a film, and even more so when you have three of them. This film takes a tale that could have been a comedy or a b movie exploitation vehicle and provides a production scale and panache to pull it off with spit and polish.

The production standards are rounded out with stylish production designs with nice costuming, hair and make-up, plus sets and props and even a few locations.

The sound mix is a bit repetitive with both score and effects but the crisp sound recording allows the actors time and space to give very "actorly" performance through diction and fluctuations.

At times this gives an acceptable "stage show" effect which genuinely seems to accord with the chapter cards used in the film, and amusement rides, and the whole notion of grifting and hoaxing being based on sleight of hand and character performance: like a stage magician's tricks.

I recommend to fans of the actors and director, and this is a film that I'm happy to give a solid 6/10 'Good' rating to. It isn't a repeat watcher however, at least to my mind, so if you like the sound of it make a good effort to properly watch this film whilst its fresh to you.

What a diminished story. A picture may be able to paint a thousand words but not with this director in charge. Not in this film. 'Dune: part two' taken together with 'Dune -part one' amount to over 5 hours combined runtime for a film treatment that is basically an old fashioned romantic adventure film told with modern technology and modern sensibilities.

You could call it "macguffin the spice story" as the essential elements of the tale have been reduced to plot mechanics to tell a very slight story about fraught relationships and the importance of latent feminine reproductive capacities in an adversity and adventure context. Good old fashioned film making with a modern twist.

On balance it seems that this isn't really a film, it isn't really part two of a film: it's simply a franchise cradle and as such it is mind numbingly diminished. If it births a franchise, which isn't certain, I won't be bothering with it; not with parenting like this film and part one.

I do rate at 4/10 on IMDb, which I have readily rounded up from my considered rating of 3.5, because the first hour of this film is a bit better than a film rated less than a score of 4 deserves to be. The actors are more in tune with their performances, better at interpreting and portraying their motivations in situations. The first action set piece is the best of the film: it's interesting designed and competently delivered. I would say that it's the only well constructed action scene of the whole film. Which is a shame. I enjoyed the action sections of 'part one' far more than anything else in that film; in 'part two' however it's the opposite: the action is very poorly staged, filmed, choreographed, performed and edited whereas the efforts at dialogue and behaviour scenes are certainly better, at least in the enjoyable first hour.

I am still surprised by how lacking this film treatment has turned out to be and I can only speculate that the studio wanted something unadvisable: they wanted a franchise from source material considered by many to be unfilmable. What a mistake. Over 5 combined hours and this is the sum effort? This does not reflect well on the creative and production teams. The professionals have turned in bad work. The cast, on the other hand, have done rather better. In this sense 'part two' is truly the inversion of 'part one': in the first film character scenes were bad and action scenes were good, in the second film the action is almost all poor but the actors get more meat to their characters and hence give more comfortable and effecting performances which make for more watchable dialogue scenes. This is not to suggest that the cast is blameless in my disappointed rating: they are all much better than in 'part one' but they all miss their beats, or hand in flat scenes, and appear in need of more writing, or more direction, at certain points of the narrative, but overall they are improved.

Essentially, this is a sci-fi romance macguffin film and little more. It's sun bleached and parched of substance. It's "Star Wars for everyone" which puts it into an unfortunate contrast with it's source material.

The sound design adds nothing in either effects or score, although the sound mix is better than in 'part one'; the cinematography is unsuccessful, as is the makeup and costume design and the lighting and editing hardly help with the formation of a visual pallet of moving images.

Ultimately this isn't well written, and it is so diminished by that limitation that it isn't worth any more than a low rating and no further attention from myself going forward, if there is a "going forward" on the big screen.

If you take the Dune novel, and end up with a sci-fi plot macguffin vehicle providing plot service for a romantic adventure film then you are not writing a valuable film screenplay.

Such macguffins include: Spice, Sandworms, female reproduction, dukal politics, eugenics selective breeding; how can a screenplay reduce such enticing elements to this level? Incompetence or studio interference for a franchise, or both, I'd say.

I rate 3.5/10 which I have happily rounded up to 4/10 on IMDb because I undoubtedly enjoyed the first hour and I thought that the cast all handed in improved, if not unblemished, efforts from 'part one'. The writing is risible and the production standards are not worth further discussion on my part.

This is possibly the least accessible film from 'The Archers' that I have seen; both in the sense that it is a relatively rarity on TV or dvd and as a viewing experience once you have run it down.

It has very little plot, a very broad and languid narrative style, and characters who are both particularly drawn and generalised; almost as though they reflect several levels of meaning beyond just a few fictional people involved in a fictional situation: they are the war population, the English population, the allied relation; also they are the characters of history on a small scale, just as The Canterbury Tales are often about random small people of historical times having incidents of everyday small life and coming to terms with it as they proceed on their pilgrimage progression.

As such it is hardly to be thought of as a film with a story, a plot, a tale; ironically the tale of 'A Canterbury Tale' is unimportant to the viewing of the film.

The messages and the mood of those messages are what are important.

Allied to this, the director-writers managed to get engaging, or at least lively and animated, performances from a cast of hardly known faces in both the principal and minor roles.

The sound design and cinematography combine with the writing to good effect in building a style, and from that style, a film tonality in keeping with the film's themes of history, and historicism, and small people and the passage of their events and lives within a bigger picture. That picture is England, or the Second World War, or the Anglo-Atlantic alliance of that war, or all of those things together.

In effect the physical journey is so perfunctory because it is a time journey that the characters are really travelling. I think that this is the contrast that the parsimonious plot ration is meant to build up: as time is eternally echoing in these characters there is no great thrust to the story, and therefore no great thrust to their journey, their "pilgrimage" as it is alluded to.

On a technical level, I can hardly think of a film from 80 years ago that has so much genuine outdoor and location filming. It is well handled by the crew and the directors. Sound recording has suffered slightly as a result but the film was made with 1940's technology and the filming achievement is commendable I think.

I rate a 7.5/10 and I think that this film is only a fraction away from that status which some declare openly for this film: that of a masterpiece. For myself I don't quite follow the pilgrims that far; I do not seek penance or healing quite that much. Perhaps if I was an Anglican Christian I might find that last measure to rate this film to the heavens; but as I personally find it, there doesn't seem to be to be quite that much of a film here.

I can't say exactly what it is that I think is missing but there is a little too much British blitz spirit, British reserve, British stiff upper lip, and middle class niceness. It's terribly nice. Frightfully nice. Nice with a capital 'N' is this film, 'A Canterbury Tale': I don't think that '*The* Canterbury Tales' can have quite the same said of them!

Richard Attenborough and John Hurt have a lot of acting to do and they do it well in '10 Rillington Place'. They are in almost every scene between them and neither misses a beat in creating two memorable performances. They are ably supported by a well handling supporting cast.

The director and producer chose a documentary and realist style and the availability of the actual crime scene is very well utilised and adds a great deal to the downbeat mood of the piece.

Beyond this there's little to say: the desperation and vulnerability of people, in this case all working class women, to Richard Attenborough's John Christie's killer ways is adroitly emphasised and the introduction of the legal processes is almost ad-hoc, an artistic interpretation of the real life criminal process.

This film had small ambition in it's storytelling and it clearly shows through. It's the topic of capital punishment that preoccupies the interest of the narrative not the plot points of the persons behaviours or motivations or interactions.

The low mood is well sustained and the drabness of the settings and costumes and makeup choices made in the production aid in the documentary style, but perhaps not quite so much in the quest for realism: there isn't enough noise and there isn't enough bustle for working class environs.

I rate a 6.5/10 and I recommend to fans of both starring actors and to those with an interest in the issue of capital punishment. This film is probably one that has lost something with the passage of time but it has two well delivered lead performances which elevate it's status.

A less is more take on Loch Ness, small in scale, made on a budget that suggests that the three principal cast members took most of the money, this is a charming family friendly romantic fantasy of the mid 90's.

Aimed at primary school aged children and their families 'Loch Ness' keeps things simple and it's attention closely focused on a small cast of dependable actors.

Ted Danson has "Dad Danson" hair all the way through which is initially distracting in itself, then the obvious shot blocking, framing and lighting by the director and cinematographer, to try and minimise it's obviousness becomes a distraction in itself; but by the end of the film it seems to fit this tiny tale.

There are sparing uses of CGI animation effects in the final reels but otherwise it's all small scale practical film making and depends on the actors, the director, and the crew to do a professional job with limited resources. They really do rather well with what they've got.

The writing is strictly for primary school consumption which leaves a lot out and relies on the actors and director to put a lot of meaning and performance back into scenes based on professional craft.

For those who are romantic, and most little children are highly romantic and searching for meanings in all patterns and moments, this is a charming and enjoyable film.

I struggle to rate this film: strictly for little kids it's genuinely rather good I'm sure, but now, almost thirty years later, I suspect that the audience age range for films which are so character driven and yet childish in writing is ever smaller even amongst little'uns.

I rate 4.5/10 because it may be too much a beasty of it's own time, stuck in a time capsule, cut off from the ocean now, but for receptive children who enjoy characters and romance and fantasy, I think it would rate much, much, higher.

Kirk Douglas gives a typically commited and physical performance in the lead of an interesting cast of character actors in an action/war/melodrama/problem picture 50's western.

There are lashings of brilliant location settings and crisp but muted and naturalistic cinematography which emphasise the natural and environmental tapestry that the human characters act upon.

There are melodramatic happenings based on lovesick, horny, jealous courtships and on friendships and familial relations. There is action and adventure and there are stunts and shooting galore at times.

The supporting cast of very excellent virtue are sadly underused, their characters being often less important background for Kirk Douglas than the physical surroundings. Even the primary antagonist, played by Walter matteu, is lost in the background and given less than satisfactory form for large parts of the film.

The Indian Fighter can't quite put all this together into a complementary whole and it feels as though the plot, the characters, the themes and the action are unable to coexist harmoniously. Much like how the family relatives can't and the 'white man' settlers and native "red skins" can't, and obviously will never be able to.

In this way 'The Indian Fighter' accidentally holds fast with it's artistic themes as a dramatic piece: the love story "chase" causes the climax of bad intentions to boil into open conflict by displacing the attention and energies of the protagonist from his professional mission but its 'culmination' offers the eventual avenue for resolution of that conflict. Also this love story unbalances the film as a drama for most of it's length but finally wraps up it's narrative to elucidate the film's theme of the reluctant warrior men and survivor women, and the unstoppable gravity of violence that their peers construct about them.

I do not believe that this is anything but unintentional however, it is simply that the film fails to build itself up, brick by brick, course by course, steo by step, until it's clear and convenient love story success introduces us to "The End". So the art form does indeed follow it's thematic subject. But that's the problem. It shouldn't follow it ....it should lead it!

This is why I have mixed feelings towards 'The Indian Fighter': this film has a powerful lead actor, a lovely supporting cast, great location cinematography, a skilled genre movie director and it has themes and moral issues that it wishes to put forth. The execution is the let down. The whole is less than the sum of it's parts. That is a regrettable outcome.

I rate at 5.5/10 and I want to round that up to 6 on IMDb but I can't this time. I recommend to fans of 'problem westerns' and 'anti-westerns', maybe even to fans of revisionist westerns, if they can hold to a 50's temper and timbre. Otherwise it's main credits to the general film fan are it's cast of faces, it's attempts at depth, and mostly it's wonderful photography.

Well mounted and well directed 'Let the Right one In' fails to convince as an adaptation and has a gaping hole within it's plot as a result; this leaves it as an unfulfilled and sadly unfulfilling watch.

With an interesting and well presented premise, and an initially well developed treatment, the film starts well and draws in the interested viewer.

The direction and editing are sharp and focused and the young actors in the principal roles are both fine. The cold cinematography is perfectly suited to the material and the sound design is highly complementary.

As it progresses however the whole film becomes increasingly hollow and unsatisfactory with more than a hint of "cop out" to it. This film refuses to fully commit to itself or it's source material and the overall production suffers increasingly as the runtime proceeds.

There are genuine moments and scenes of memorable and impactful filmmaking contained within 'Let the Right one In' and it is certainly a wonderfully technically created film and it's built on an enticingly different story hook for this vampire genre.

It fails overall because it can not grapple with the guts of its own tale: it can not seriously delve into any of its characters because it won't tell their complete sexual stories and dynamics.

The further that this film progresses the less effective it becomes after a marvellous first third, despite occasional sequences of artful explicitness, and well rounded technical credits to the end.

I rate at 5.5/10 because as much as I am unsatisfied by the film in total I can't forget it's many virtues along the way.

I recommend to film fans, with reservations, but only to those who have a liking for Nordic noir or dark horror, because, whilst there isn't a huge amount of graphic gore or jump scares, or sustained suspenseful terror, the whole film is dark and dismal and depressed in tone.

This is my least favourite of the revival 21st century BBC 'Ghost Story for Christmas' TV specials with very few admirable qualities but a range of unsatisfactory elements.

Characters are boorishly two dimensional and played with an according simplicity by the small cast. The production fails to generate a sense of authenticity which leaves it unable to function as a ghost story of a personal experience of the intrusion into the world of a malignant "other" force.

It is written in a way that suggests that initial on paper cleverness did not translate to the finished screenplay with ideas that should have been jettisoned after writing them up to a complete script being retained into production.

The mangling of a Sherlock Holmes cameo where Holmes fails dreadfully, indeed completely, at aiding a friend in need, unable to meet this request in any way leaves an odd smell behind. This is due to writing that should have not gone past a first draft.

This series seems to be running out of steam and this installment was so close to unwatchable that I couldn't imagine ever making a repeat viewing whereas some of its stablemates could sustain a second watch.

There are signs to me that the BBC can only make drama by rote, or by checklist, and that it is now a defacto Sunday School whereby the plebs can receive positive reinforcement from their social betters in the form of social morality parables delivered as inane TV programming. There is little other explanation for the writing and production decisions made in this adaptation that I can fathom, or speculatively guess at.

Certainly there is no sign of a ghost story motif in this: no sufficient effort is made to establish the normal, or natural, tempo for the world on view, as such inauthentic invasions don't seem weird and unsettling, we are just told that they are by explicit character exclamatory expositional dialogue. Without this sense of creeping weirdness into a hitherto normalcy there is no sense of growing fear, threat, menace for the suffering characters to endure in their mental experiences until the monster is finally made manifest to them and causes their ultimate dred and possibly expiry.

There is however sign aplenty that this has been put together to satisfy production criterias instigated in order to create a morally satisfactory cumulative effect on the audience: cognitive reinforcement of good and bad values. Sunday Schooling by TV drama.

As such it is both dim and dreary.

I rate at 2.5/10 because there were a handful of moments when the actors did enough with the dreck they were playing to hold my interest and suspend my disbelief enough to anticipate what will happen next in a scene. This seemed to me to be an occasional virtue of the actors rather than the writing or direction.

This is an odd film. I enjoyed 'Godzilla minus 1': as a war film it's quite interesting.

The title for a start is strange and unconvincing and uncomfortable, it's probably an obvious reference to it being one year prior to the 70th anniversary and to it being a chronological prequel-sequel to the original, but it has some studio explanation about destruction in the aftermath of the Pacific theatre of the second world war then being worsened by Godzilla attack. Oddness.

The CGI portrayal isn't very effective: less engaging than the incarnations of Shin Godzilla, less imaginative, and less convincing as a radiative monster creature. Action on land is very awkward and doesn't communicate any physical sense of Godzilla to me. Suitmation and miniatures conveys more than this film, Shin Godzilla carried more physical immediacy and tangibility.

The design is hinting at previous designs, and also at a godlike physical majesty to Godzilla which is a well thought out approach and the marine encounters show the overall design and animation to much better effect than the terrestrial sequences. Godzilla looks best in this film when all at sea.

The overall period design is a bit sloppy on land but firm and forceful in nautical moments: in 'Godzilla minus 1' the best visuals and production design and cinematography is over, in, and under water.

The acting is quite broad, but the characters as written are very broad, and this seems to be because this film is referencing its own franchise canon and its own nation's cataclysmic past. I enjoyed the performances and thought that the cast gave their characters the necessary portrayal that such roles required.

The sound design is mainly good, accompanied by a score that includes nice snippets of classic numbers from the character's many films.

Apart from this being a slick example of franchise rebooting and remaking and reimagining, it is also a very thematic, and very masculine, film.

The two are hand in hand, with themes of loss, honour, respect, obedience, value, war, defeat, resilience, conflict, and burdens being interpreted through historical events and through male characters perceptions.

This masculinity is focused on Godzilla and his final confrontation with Japanese veterans: it's a very daring do type affair with linear planning and functional operational levels along with engineering and systemic processes.

Godzilla is a manifestation of nuclear onslaught and the failure of Japanese menfolk to stop the attack is akin to the failure to stop American attacks by A-bomb and firestorm air raids during the war by Japanese armed forces and government.

As such, Godzilla is really the continuation of the war experience of Japanese men, particularly men in uniform and the forces that fought in the Pacific theatre: overwhelmingly naval with some aviation in support.

This is the film's crux as to why it is a chronological prequel: it is a "still in war" film for its characters and their private citizens, scientific, and casualty avoiding assertive response is the act of their own demilitarisation, their own demobilisation. The final dialogue of the film demonstrates this aptly. The studio explanation of the titles meaning makes more sense when one considers this to be a war film, with Godzilla as late war making made manifest, and it's human characters completing their 'still in war' story.

What then, of this as a Godzilla film? I think that I prefer 'Shin Godzilla' and the original 'Godzilla'. This film is teetering far too closely on being a remake, reboot, "companion piece" to the original from 1954. It has similar tonal and thematic and character notes and, frankly, it is an obvious commercial avenue for Toho after 7 decades of the franchise, the novel departures of their previous film 'Shin Godzilla', and the escapades of the American Legendary Monsterverse character which have happened in the recent past.

I rate at 6/10 in appreciation of the effort put into making a "Godzilla war film" like this. Its a very very good example of a reboot remake, and when thought of from the Japanese experience, it's clearly a sympathetic and balanced reinterpretation of the original in the aftermath of the second world war and Pacific nuclear testing. Including hints of lingering atomic death and loss.

As an aside, on this point of this being a Japanese Godzilla-war film, the complicated and highly unlikely planning for the nautical countermeasure to Godzilla attacks was very fitting and historically appropriate. I enjoyed that art imitated life there.

I recommend to Godzilla fans with some qualifications: the film is a remake, it's very Japanese, incidentally and generally, and it's very broad because it's carrying a lot of franchise and thematic weight on its shoulders.

For spectacle I found the oceanic encounters most fun; moreso than the more heavily previewed city attacks so there is some action for monster mayhem fans.

A failure, a misstep, a mistake; 1998's Godzilla hasn't got a lot going for it. There are some decent enough 90's computer animation effects and some very nice practical special effects to enjoy and most of the actors give ok turns considering the writing that they were having to deal with.

In every other way this is a bad effort: it simply fails as a western Godzilla film and it really wouldn't be much more than a Jurassic Park rip-off even if it was just a generic monster movie.

The storyline is staggeringly stupid and unconvincing, the characters are bland and uninteresting, and direction and cinematography aren't able to add much visually.

The monster design - for it isn't remotely Godzilla like - is goofy looking, like a CGI Disney cartoon character, and it has adventures which could be from a Looney Tunes cartoon.

That's the film. Disney meets Warner Bros. Looney Tunes, ripping off Jurassic Park along the way.

There isn't much to say for the sound design or score and the film isn't pretty or inventive to look at.

I rate at 3/10 with professional work from a poorly served cast and good work from the special effects teams. Mainly just watch it for the effects sequences. In fact, just watch a cartoon instead. Interestingly this films greatest claim to fame is a cartoon spinoff series. It figures.

The millennium era of Godzilla films opened with a very uneven and unexpected instalment from 1999, just a year after the release of the shambolic American '98 flick. This proximity of two subpar efforts is unfortunate but there was better to come from the anthology styled millennium series.

'2000' suffers from mainly poor special effects and action scenes, and basic characters and story structure, plus a sound design that combines a lackluster score with unconvincing sound effects, audio recording and mixing.

There isn't much to complement in terms of production design, costumes, makeup, or hairstyling, and the acting is no better than the script deserves.

There are grains of goodness in here though which give me enough enjoyment to merit watching this 'Godzilla' film. The way that Godzilla has been redesigned was effectively different but still obviously in keeping with the Godzilla form. The way that he has a keyed up personality in this one, without being too anthropomorphised is fun. The alien antagonist is a bit different and the idea of their intentional and unintentional copying of Godzilla gives the latter parts of the film more interest and drama and fun than it would otherwise have had.

I rate 4/10 and I feel that this is a film for Godzilla completists but it isn't just a chore to watch through if you have a genuine liking for Godzilla or monster features.

A superb 1940's dark fantasy with elements of horror and literary gothic 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' is a film that any fan of the era should see in the best available print.

Extremely well produced and photographed in marvellous black and white cinematography there is a well formed visual and artistic interpretation of the source material here.

The cast mainly plays it's parts commendably well and is meticulously directed, the editing follows the natural story beats of the characters and the themes of their scenarios, in both individual scenes and the whole narrative, which gives a very slow and deliberate feel to proceedings.

There is a literary and multilayered approach to the thematic horror of the story which could be interpreted as "wordy" and indirect, or "off screen" and implicit, and this will probably decide, along with the pacing of the piece, whether a viewer enjoys this film or does not.

The sound design is essential to the film with well recorded audio and mixed sound effects and a score which is almost entirely internally generated by the characters within scenes and is therefore a literal story telling element rather than a story aiding form, as with a traditional accompanying music score.

Watching 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' is rather like watching a stage play, or viewing a novel by somehow watching someone else's visualised imagination of the story as they read.

This is an unusual experience and one that I commend to interested film fans.

The art direction and the "paintings" themselves are exquisite and well judged, in both black and white and colour.

The themes of the work are it's ace, it's zenith and it's pinnacle: mortality and immortality, youth and experience, morality and immorality, worldliness and spirituality are all alludes to in multiple characters, dialogue, names, props such and sets and music; in why it's characters generate it and when they do so: if you wish to fully appreciate this film you must listen to it's music as closely as you do it's dialogue; don't tune out!

Overall there seems to be a thematic association between youth and innocence vs experience and age and worldliness and temptation and immorality.

The focus on immortality versus mortality at the outset is a tool to describe this real thematic inquiry.

Consequently I rate this film very highly due to it's polish, it's substance and it's mindfulness and I rate a truly "superb" rating of 8.5/10.

However I can not rate higher because this story treatment seems, in the end, to become something of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde companion piece, but with the focus on the degenerating Dr Jekyll and with Mr Hyde made more abstract and indirect in the form of a manifesting portrait.

The vulgarity is downplayed and rather the wanton destruction of third parties is shown as the crux of immorality and why fun is bad and immoral when it is selfish fun as it causes a cascade of human damage by the association of others with one who is undertaking self harming indulgence.

Here the theme is complete: aging equals temptations suffered which equals experiences gained which equals harm to oneself and then to others if the temptations were selfishly pursued. Whilst the aging brother of the wronged woman has selflessly aged and so his intercession at the end brings a moral reckoning on the immoral Dorian Gray. That he is 'immortal' once he has wished his aging upon his portrait is actually irrelevant because his sins of immorality are stored in his portrait and they still hang to him regardless.

I recommend to fans of gothic horror, but with some caution, and more so to fans of literary horror and fantasy. To those film fans who prefer a more brisk narrative, or more forceful editing and directing, this may not be a film for your tastes.

Full of heady ideas Scanners is a cracking fun 80's sci-fi body horror with plenty of funky ideas and marvelous practical effects and a nicely established sense of place and time.

The acting is hit and miss and the direction certainly builds some scenes more successfully than others but the sound design is a credit and the effects are often vivid.

'Scanners' might meander as the runtime proceeds and its characters bland together and the scenarios and plot points become a touch predictable and derivative, but its opening act and its visual designs are to be highly commended. Really highly commended.

An unusual computer hack is a late on treat in its own "genre funck" way. Aside from this memorable passage however it has to be admitted that all the best of Scanners is in the opening act with its fresh ideas and the full on visuals.

There is a cynicism towards business and "suits" which gives Scanners some character edge but otherwise it's not very marked with human interests. The film is all about its sci-fi horror premise and visually stimulating scenarios.

I rate at 6.5/10 and I recommend to all genre film fans; if nothing else, the visual effects, and the opening act are essential viewings for cinephiles and if the rest can't quite live up to it that's because its a high bar to reach.