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Certificate: 
Director: Mark Herman
Release Date: 12 September 2008
Tagline: A timeless story of innocence lost and humanity found.
Main Cast:
Asa Butterfield … Bruno
Jack Scanlon … Shmuel
David Thewlis … Father
Vera Farmiger … Mother
Set in wartime Germany, the story is seen through the eyes of a young boy whose father is a high ranking Nazi who has been promoted to a commander of a concentration camp. Forced to leave his grand home in Berlin and his friends, Bruno finds himself in a modest house in the middle of nowhere with no peers. From his bedroom window he can see what he thinks is a farm. It is, of course, the camp but he has no idea of the nature of his father’s work and his assumption is not corrected.
Forbidden to leave the front yard of the house, he becomes fascinated with what lies beyond, and curiosity soon gets the better of him. He stumbles upon the outskirts of the camp and meets Shmuel, a boy his own age sitting behind the fence.
I shall end the review here as this is a film that should be allowed to unravel at its own pace.
Simple yet so incredibly powerful, TBITSP will leave you silent as the credits roll.
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Certificate: 
Director: Steve McQueen
Release Date: 31 October 2008
Tagline: An odyssey, in which the smallest gestures become epic and when the body is the last resource for protest.
Main Cast:
Michael Fassbender … Bobby Sands
Liam Cunningham … Father Moran
I was born in 1971 and grew up with the threat of IRA terrorism every day of my life for the best part of thirty years. I avoided the Hyde Park bombing by a matter of days, and I never went to London at Christmas because the threat was far too great. I have nothing but contempt for those responsible for the deaths of so many. Let us not forget that these people were responsible for the Enniskillen Remembrance Day service bombing atrocity.However, I heard that Hunger was supposedly neutral, so, despite my reservations and being the film lover that I am I decided to watch it.
No matter how hard the director may have tried for neutrality Hunger almost ends up being pro IRA as there is no balance between viewpoints. The film seems to wish to portray the IRA (and Sands in particular) as men who were treated unfairly by the denial of the Government to grant them political status.
I do see what Steve McQueen was trying to get across, but I think that the film fails in the respect that, as mentioned above, the IRA are seen to be persecuted. The point that Sands made the ultimate sacrifice for his beliefs would have been powerful enough – there was no real need for the first half of the film. The brutality shown seemed to justify the killing of one of the wardens. I get the feeling that we were supposed to cheer when he got shot in the back of the head.
Hunger is a powerful film. I hope it has not been the cause in the recent uprising of the so-called ‘Real IRA’ who have committed yet more murders over the last fortnight.
Asking me to have sympathy for Bobby Sands and the IRA is like asking me to sympathize with Al Qaeda. It’s never going to happen.
I cannot rate this film as I am unable to remove my personal feelings.
Certificate:
Director: Peter Jackson
Release Date: 10 February 1995
Tagline: The true story of a crime that shocked a nation.
Main Cast:
Melanie Lynskey … Pauline Parker
Kate Winslet … Juliet Hulme
Sarah Peirse … Honora Parker Rieper
Heavenly Creatures is the true story of the infamous Parker-Hulme murder that took place in New Zealand in 1954. Jackson chose to focus on the intense friendship between Pauline and Juliet rather than make an historical look back at the events. This was an excellent decision, because in order to understand how they came to murder Honora you need to understand their relationship.
After the initial prologue which introduces us to 1950s Christchurch, the film starts with what should be the final scene (in much the same way as The Accused did). This scene is taken from testimony from the witness and is therefore extremely accurate.
The film takes its material not only from testimonies of those involved, but most importantly from Pauline’s diaries. Although some of it is disputed by the real life Juliet Hulme (now the author Anne Perry), it is pretty much how things happened. She claims that their relationship was not physical (although the ‘night of the saints’ is taken from the diary), and that they did not make clay figures. If the latter was indeed not the case, then I would suspect that those scenes were in the film as it was the best way of portraying the characters and events of their imaginary world of Borovnia. However, I may be totally wrong about that.
Heavenly Creatures introduced both Lynskey and Winslet and both are superb.
There is a fantastic website called ‘Fourth World – The Heavenly Creatures Website’ and it contains extensive material on both the film and the real life events. In fact, you may find it beneficial to know the background before watching the film. I have seen it twice now, and the film finds a new level when you watch it after reading all about it.
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Director: Mike Leigh
Release Date: 7 January 2005
Tagline: Wife. Mother. Criminal.
Main Cast:
Imelda Staunton … Vera
Richard Graham … George
Eddie Marsan … Reg
Deserving of all its awards, Vera Drake is another superb film by Mike Leigh. It is set in 1950s England and is about a woman who is totally selfless and devoted to her family and to humanity in general. Vera is a hard working woman who ‘helps girls out’ i.e. she performs abortions. She takes no payment and is unaware that Nellie, a lifelong friend and the woman that puts the girls in touch with her, charges them. Nellie also runs a black market on scarce goods. Although her method is the safest possible, unfortunately, one goes wrong and the girl nearly dies. Vera is then arrested and sent to prison.
Imelda Staunton is simply stunning.
One final note – giving this film a rating of 12A is ludicrous. Not only are scenes of abortion not suitable for young children, but I can’t think of many more films that any child could be more bored by.
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Certificate: 
Director: Andrew Adamson
Release Date: 26 June 2008
Tagline: A new age has begun.
Main Cast:
Ben Barnes … Prince Caspian
Georgie Henley … Lucy Pevensie
Skandar Keynes … Edmund Pevensie
William Moseley … Peter Pevensie
Anna Popplewell … Susan Pevensie
Whilst I enjoyed TCoN: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I was not a huge fan of it. It looked very pretty, but seemed a bit bland to me. I must confess though, that I dislike ‘precious’ English children in films. They always simper a lot, and invariably can’t act. The actors that play the Pevensie children are no exception and I had an equally tough time watching them in this too. I did like Ben Barnes though as he’s not at all like the others. My dislike of English children aside though, I can’t say that I liked this any more than the first. I thought that at 150 minutes it was rather too long and I found myself losing interest. I seemed to ponder on how the Telmarine men (and possibly the women too) liked having beards. Even their masks had beards. Needless to say, Prince Caspian was handsomely clean shaven. I also never cease to be amazed at how quivers in the movies are magical – archers never, ever run out of arrows.
I should imagine that children from the age of about seven would really enjoy this, but the run time would almost certainly be too much for younger children to sit through. However, as I am reviewing this from an adult’s point of view, I shall rate it accordingly. I watch many children’s films, and I generally enjoy them (as you can see by my other reviews), so I don’t think I’m being unfair.
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Director: Peter Jackson
Release Date: 15 December 2005
Tagline: The eighth wonder of the world.
Main Cast:
Naomi Watts … Ann Darrow
Jack Black … Carl Denham
Adrien Brody … Jack Driscoll
A pointless remake of a faultless classic and utterly tedious as well. Jackson claims to love the original so much that he had to make this film. To think that you could improve on the original is pretty arrogant, I think. Hell, I love Star Wars, but I’d never remake it.
It’s at least an hour too long, and the scenes of peril on the island are so totally contrived that they quickly become boring. And considering that there are a lot of them, it takes some getting through.
King Kong is nothing more than a huge ego trip for Jackson and he should have left well enough alone.
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Certificate: 
Director: John Patrick Shanley
Release Date: 6 February 2009
Main Cast:
Meryl Streep … Sister Aloysius Beauvier
Father Brendan Flynn … Philip Seymour Hoffman
Amy Adams … Sister James
Doubt is an undoubted masterpiece! A truly brilliant performance by Meryl Streep (no surprise there though, as she is one of, if not the best actresses of all time). A (main) cast of three with one setting makes for a very powerful film, and at no point did I find myself anything other than totally engrossed. If only there were more films like this.
Sadly though, Joe Public just doesn’t want to pay good money to see excellence. I went to my local Vue the first Sunday after release and they had relegated it to the back of the cinema in a screen that holds less than 100 people. I had a private screening too – nobody else bothered to go and see it. Shame.
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Director: John Favreau
Release Date: 2 May 2008
Tagline: Fully charged.
Main Cast:
Robert Downey Jr … Tony Stark
Terrence Howard … Rhodey
Jeff Bridges … Obadiah Stane
Gwyneth Paltrow … Pepper Potts
Comic book conversions… Some are good, some are bad and some are just average. Iron Man falls into the latter.
It’s shallow and very, very predictable. Now, I know that suspending belief is important when watching comic book films, but Iron Man is at times so ludicrous that this becomes impossible. Possibly the most implausible is the scene where the US Military locate Stark in the middle of the desert and don’t gun him down with friendly fire before he is identified (sorry… Can’t help myself from taking a shot at the trigger happy Americans).
I also think that it does nothing to calm the relations between the USA and Afghanistan. The ‘Jericho’ missile and the ability to wipe out the enemy through such means in the hands of the Americans is, apparently, a great thing. However, when the tables are turned, the man responsible for these weapons has a sudden stab of conscience when he realises that his own weaponry has been used against his country.
The criteria for a comic book that makes a good film are a) a strong protagonist b) great supporting characters, and c) a variety of great villains to pit the heroes against. Sadly, Iron Man has none of these.
The two best adaptations of comic books are Batman and Spider-Man. Both of these have all of the above criteron. Both Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker are characters we can identify with and warm to. Stark is just not likeable. He is a shallow character that you just can’t warm to. And Pepper is just a poor imitation of Spider-Man’s Mary Jane Watson.
The CGI is, however, very good and I really enjoyed the clever use of it.
I really can’t see how they can make a sequel out of this, but I’m sure they will.
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Director: Edmund Goulding
Release Date: 22 April 1939
Main Cast:
Bette Davis … Judith Traherne
George Brent … Dr. Frederick Steele
Humphrey Bogart … Michael O’Leary
Geraldine Fitzgerald … Ann King
Ah… Bette Davis. There is none finer. An absolute gem of Hollywood’s golden years actors and, arguably, the finest of them all.
Bette Davis was one of a kind. She took on the studios and fought for better roles and was more than worth her weight in gold to Warner Bros.
Dark Victory is not only one of her more well known roles but is also one of her finest. I prefer the grittier characters that she played (such as her marvellous portrayals of Julie Morrison in Jezebel and Margo Channing in All About Eve), but she is still magnificent in this. She turns the sentimental and somewhat average storyline into something worthwhile.
Quite why we had to endure so much of the maid in the closing scene is beyond me though. Why waste such time with an absolute nobody in the script when they could have been showing us the wonderful Bette is beyond me.
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Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Release Date: 1 July 1994
Main Cast:
Verónica Forqué … Kika (as Veronica Forque)
Peter Coyote … Nicholas
Victoria Abril … Andrea Caracortada
Àlex Casanovas … Ramón
Whilst not one of his finest, Kika is still very enjoyable. Almodóvar films are quirky and fast paced, and Kika is no exception. He has a unique way of making you laugh in situations that should not be in the least bit funny. You are never sure what’s coming next in an Almodóvar film!
I can imagine that Kika would not be to everyone’s taste, as there are a couple of scenes that are somewhat controversial, and many will not see the humour in it. If this is your first taste of one of his films and you don’t care much for it, it’s worth checking out one or two others before deciding if his style is to your taste or not (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is one of my favourites).
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