Reviews

This Christmas special doesn't come close to the original series, it made me wish they left it where it was back in 2010.

I don't think I laughed once.

I know this will get a ton of dislikes from aficionados who think that any criticism is tantamount to blasphemy but there it is.

This was really poor.

Sorry.

Bearing in mind that Malcolm McDowell knew Lindsay Anderson for nearly 30 years, I was amazed when watching his one-man show that he couldn't come up with better anecdotes than the ones he shares here with a courteous but hardly riveted audience.

Lindsay Anderson was a respected but relatively obscure figure in cinema, he only directed seven feature films and none of them achieved sufficient commercial success to put him on the map. As Anderson's fame and recognition could never be the justifications for this project, you would imagine that there must have been a wealth of fascinating detail that got this the green light.

But there isn't any. This is just a dull affair performed in front of an American theatre audience who most probably came to see Alex from A Clockwork Orange and didn't mind the fact that they would be listening to reflections on someone they knew little about and whose work was barely acknowledged in the United States.

Unfortunately, there is little of interest, the stories aren't worth recounting, they're not funny and polite laughter is the most powerful reaction that comes from an audience whose lack of rapport with McDowell makes for awkward viewing.

Worst of all, McDowell leaves a very bad taste in the mouth with his decision to end the chapter about the late Rachel Roberts with a truly vulgar, demeaning story from the 1973 Cannes Film Festival that mocks the mental illness and despair that would eventually culminate in her suicide.

This is nothing more than a tedious scrapbook of unmemorable memories.

I Clowns is yet another film that left me scratching my head at why Federico Fellini is considered one of the greatest directors of all time.

After watching 90 minutes of more Felliniesque drivel (to go along with Cabiria, Juliet of the Spirits, Roma, Casanova, And The Ships Sails On and The Voice of The Moon) I was in no mood for the accompanying DVD item, Fellini's Circus.

However, I decided to plough on, and thankfully there were already more points of interest in the first couple of minutes than in the whole of Fellini's film.

It is obvious from watching his films that Fellini had a love bordering on obsession with the circus, it's a recurring stylistic theme, but he never comes close to explaining the appeal the circus had for him in I Clowns - so it's difficult to view his film as anything other than a failure.

I suppose the greatest indictment of I Clowns, and of Fellini as a film-maker, is that I found this modest, hastily assembled companion piece to be far more interesting and informative about the circus.

So, and not for the first time in a Fellini DVD, the extras completely eclipse the main feature.

Ciao Federico.

I've never really understood the praise that Federico Fellini received throughout his career and continues to get 25 years after his death. For me, many of his films are mediocre, a few are very bad, some are good but none are masterpieces. He had his own distinct cinematic style but it can be argued that is a weakness in a film-maker rather than a strength.

But it's always interesting to see an established director at work and this documentary on the making of Fellini's final film, The Voice of The Moon (one of the very bad ones, sorry) is so much better than the movie itself. Unlike The Voice of The Moon, this documentary had a structure, a direction and I understood what was going on.

Maybe Fellini should have called it a day after Ginger and Fred which, although by no means a classic, would have been a far more fitting and poignant swansong to his career.

I thought this film really shone a spotlight on the sad consequences of a career decision made by Leon Vitali and was one of the most severe indictments on Stanley Kubrick as a person.

A few years after appearing as Lord Bullingdon in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, Vitali abandoned what we are led to believe was a promising acting career to work full-time (and then some) for Kubrick himself.

Whether Vitali did have a promising acting career ahead of him is not really the point, my own feeling is that if his performance in Barry Lyndon is anything to go by then an illustrious career in front of the camera was by no means guaranteed.

The real story here is the level of devotion that Vitali gave to his new career and the price he paid for it; neglecting his family and the detrimental effect the extreme workload had on his health. Vitali looks like a walking corpse and has done for many years.

This problem could have been easily solved if the very wealthy Kubrick had dug a little deeper into his pocket and employed another two or three assistants to share the workload but apparently this never happened. And the fact that Vitali has had to rely on financial support from his children clearly indicates that not only did Kubrick pay him a low salary he also left Vitali very little, if anything, in his will. Kubrick comes across as a modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge.

At least Dolores Claiborne was eventually rewarded for going above and beyond the call of duty, Vitali just seems to have been exploited and taken for granted by Kubrick for 20 years.

Kubrick must have had some special kind of charisma to treat Vitali this way and still have him coming back for more. Or maybe Vitali is just downright stupid.

Viewers will decide for themselves.

And thank God that his segment was last because it rescued what until then had been a dull, pointless film.

If his piece had been set at the start of the train journey, the other two sections would have seemed even more disappointing and excruciating.

I've always admired the way Loach has continued to use cinema as a means of social commentary. I don't always agree with his message particularly when it is surprisingly naive and unfounded (Bread and Roses being a prime example) but his films are always worth seeing.

Thankfully, his piece about a trio of Celtic fans travelling to Rome is the standout in this film in the same way as his contribution had been to 11'09''01 - September 11.

What had gone before it was pretty dire. First of all, there had been the story of a Roy Scheider lookalike Professor and a PR lady who inexplicably has the hots for him.

As he is about to board the train, he says to her that they have never met before even though she was with him earlier and booked the tickets! Maybe there was something going on there that I missed...

The next section involved an incredibly annoying old battle-axe, a General's widow, a man on community service who accompanies her and a whole series of boring, pointless discussions and encounters. One such encounter was between the man and a 14 year old girl he had known several years earlier that made me worry a little about where it was going.

In fact, it didn't lead anywhere at all; it was as tedious and unnecessary as the rest of that story.

Loach's work isn't one of his best but it was good enough to improve something that was pretty dreadful and leave us with a mediocre film that ended on a high note.

I would recommend skipping the first two stories altogether and just watch Loach's instead. Everything that went before it is really not worth the bother.

I saw this film on the strength of how Tarantino raved about it as some kind of unknown classic on the Not Quite Hollywood documentary.

The 92 minutes it took to watch Long Weekend seemed like 3 weeks.

The film is well made but as it is such a thin, boring story with poor dialogue, bad acting and two main characters who are so unlikable that it was impossible to care about them, this was destined to be a real drag.

I usually write longer reviews than this but I'm not prepared to give up any more time on this film.

Avoid it.

George Lazenby said that after doing the excellent On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he doubted that the James Bond era could continue much longer with the arrival of new films such as Easy Rider.

This could well be among the worst predictions made in movie history but its an interesting one that goes some way to explaining the thinking behind Lazenby's next project, Universal Soldier.

This film has the influence of Easy Rider written all over it and in trying too hard to copy the style of what was a cinematic one-off, Universal Soldier is prevented from developing into a coherent story.

Very little happens in this film and too little is clearly explained. From what I can put together only a couple of hours after seeing the film, Ryker (Lazenby) is a mercenary soldier in some kind of deal with an African group, represented by Mbote played by none other than Rudolph Walker, better known in the UK as Patrick Trueman in Eastenders. At night Ryker is haunted by the images of violence he has seen in his career.

The accidental shooting of a dog and its subsequent merciful (or is it bloodthirsty?) slaying during a bit of fun target practice seems to trigger Ryker's conscience as he loses interest in the African deal. He rents a basement flat, goes to parties, attends a political meeting, starts dating a schoolgirl(!) whilst his group members wonder what has happened to him.

Once he is found, it is too late. He has decided upon another way of life...

I'm actually making this sound better than it is. For the most part Universal Soldier is incoherent with jarring and misplaced musical interludes (the Easy Rider influence) and it is very difficult to tell what, if anything, is going on.

Despite this, it remains watchable throughout mainly for two reasons; its curiosity value in seeing how Lazenby followed up being 007 and the sheer strangeness of the whole film.

Anyone with an interest in either of these points would be recommended to try and track down this film although it isn't easy to get hold of.

Fans of Open All Hours may also want to watch this as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel makes an appearance and I'm sure its Mr Bronson from Grange Hill working in the airport in the first scene.

I bought this film for its curiosity value as a belated, little known sequel to the 60's classic that established Michael Caine as an international star.

As the film progressed, I found myself becoming curious about a number of other things:

If the film is close at all to the source material, then why did the author, Bill Naughton, have Alfie revert to his old tricks when he had obviously learnt a painful lesson and finally grown up at the end of the first story?

Was the character/personality of Alfie totally transformed in the new story by Naughton or by the bizarre casting of a third rate actor who should have stuck with being a second rate musician?

Why did those responsible for this decision choose a Geordie who can't act to take on a role that remains synonymous with probably the world's most famous Cockney? A Geordie who, in fact, was unproven having never before played a significant role on screen and had none of the charm or charisma that is an essential ingredient of the central character's appeal.

If Alfie is such a master of seduction, why does he constantly make childish sexual comments like a schoolboy trying to convince his friends that he's lost his virginity?

Why was the bizarre mating ritual car chase included when it seems so artificial and contrived? I'll attempt to answer this one. Maybe there was a preview screening and the unanimous feedback was 'Good film, well done! Stick in a car chase and you may have an Oscar contender on your hands...'

What was the thinking behind the unnecessary 'tragic' ending? Was it an attempt to match the gravitas of the first film or to establish Alfie as a man who behind the shallow exterior has feelings like the rest of us?

Does the quality of the film justify the time it would take to consider these points?

No.

Does it justify the few minutes I have spent writing about it?

Probably not, unless it persuades those that read this review not to make the same mistake I did i.e. allow their curiosity to get the better of them and end up buying a film they will watch once and never want to see again.

P.S. The kind of people (like scarecrow-14) who dismiss as 'idiotic' any comment they disagree with say far more about themselves than they will ever do about the people they are trying to criticise.

The argument for Alan Price NOT being a second rate musician is that he is right up there with Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum.

In their 43 year career, how many number 1's did Procol Harum have in the UK singles' charts?

The answer is...

The same as the number of times I will watch Alfie Darling.

Compared to the viciousness of 'Network' which not only attacked television but also, quite justifiably, people in general, 'Broadcast News' is merely a mild satire on the standards of news coverage and our attitude and even disinterest toward current affairs. It can also be seen as a Rocky-like inspiration for those of us who feel that we are in a job that demands abilities that we can not provide as we may be able to thrive on our good looks and personality, if we have them.

The film is about a handsome, likable news reporter, Tom Grunick (William Hurt) who unexpectedly enters the serious world of network news after humble beginnings covering sport for local television. Grunick has little talent but, nevertheless, gets to the top extremely quickly.

It would seem that I have spoiled the film but as the movie spoils itself in its opening scenes, I don't think that makes an awful lot of difference. This is one of several flaws in an otherwise enjoyable film.

The three central characters in the film of Grunick, Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks) and Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) are introduced at the start as children and already their personal traits are firmly established. The fatal mistake is that the opening tells the audience the destiny of each character. It does this in an attempt to make a witticism about talent counting for little and style triumphing over substance. However, this is unnecessary as this point is made continually throughout the whole film and it therefore detracts from much of the drama and supposed uncertainty about each of their careers particularly in the latter half of the story.

The other flaws have one thing in common, Holly Hunter.

She completely ruined this film for me.

When she makes her first appearance, speed-walking into work, I knew her role would irritate, I just had no idea how much. It could be said that this is down to an irritating character being performed very well.

It isn't.

Her mannerisms really are irritating, her acting is irritating and, most of all, her voice is like listening to someone running their fingernails down a blackboard.

Although you hear her voice in 'The Piano' it is somehow fitting that for that particular film, she scooped the best actress awards at the Oscars, the BAFTAs and the Cannes Film Festival playing a mute.

There are two very poor scenes, one with Grunick and Craig in a hotel room on the night they first meet that has no narrative flow. Incidentally, it is impossible to believe that the shallow Tom Grunick's feelings for her could ever extend beyond respect for being good at her job.

The other scene takes place on Grunick's first day when we are given an example of what he has let himself in for (even though we KNOW he's going straight to the top). The team is frantically trying to complete a piece in time for the evening news and we are treated to Joan Cusack screaming with anxiety, sounding as if she is going into labour and Hunter being as irritating as ever.

The audience is also subjected to some pretty feeble attempts at manipulation. How on earth can Tom Grunick be handed the position of emergency anchorman when we have examples of how clever Aaron Altman is where he not only sings in fluent French but he can also sing whilst reading 'The Fall of Mussolini'? However, these are ONLY a few poor moments in a good film that would have been much better if the aforementioned scenes had been changed and if an actress such as Frances McDormand had played Hunter's role.

The film also fails to make us believe that Holly Hunter is attractive. When her character sees Altman, just as she is ready to go to a correspondent's dinner, Altman says 'you look like this porcelain thing, you look beautiful'. In actual fact, she looks like a six year old girl who, when alone in the house, has raided her parents' wardrobe and dressed up like 'mommy'.

There is one possibility, though. Maybe we were being invited to laugh at how ridiculous she looked and director James L Brooks was being far more subtle and cunning in his criticism of Holly Hunter than I am. If this is the case, then this film is one of the shining beacons of the 80's and I take back everything I have said. Leaving Holly Hunter to one side (which is probably the best place for her), the terrific William Hurt merely has to look good in order to succeed, just like the character he is playing. 'Broadcast News' was made during the most successful stage of his career ('Children of a Lesser God', 'The Accidental Tourist' and the wonderful 'Kiss of the Spiderwoman') and this is by far his least demanding role of that period.

So the acting plaudits for this film must go to Albert Brooks as the wise-cracking, talented but doomed Aaron Altman. Although his is the supporting role of the three, he has the most difficult part. He is excellent, maybe not Oscar-worthy, but certainly more deserving than Sean Connery who won the award for playing an Irishman with a Scottish accent.

Final tip for maximum enjoyment of this film: you should buy a copy of the screenplay before seeing the movie and press mute every time Ms Hunter opens her mouth

Its such a shame that an important film like this is virtually unknown.

I don't think Alan Bates has done a better film than this.

Its never shown on television. The only time I can recall it being shown on British TV was in the summer of 1998. I have it on tape but sadly the quality isn't great due to a dodgy aerial at the time...

I remember wanting to see this film for some time before it appeared on TV. It was shown on Channel 4 in the early hours of the morning, thereby ensuring that it still remained unseen except for a very small audience.

I was living in Bristol at the time and it was ironic that, when I finally saw the film, I realised that I had walked past the VERY house where it was filmed several times before!! The film treads a fine line; a married couple attempting to make light of their tragic predicament of coping with their severely mentally handicapped daughter by laughing about it and even involving the child in their jokes.

The direction and the acting are so superb that the film is always compassionate and moving and is never in danger of lapsing into bad taste.

A couple of years ago I saw a clip of the filmed theatre production with Eddie Izzard in the role of Bri and Victoria Hamilton playing Sheila.

It showed Izzard improvising and larking about and Hamilton jokingly telling the audience to ignore him when he's being like this.

I maybe taking this out of context as I only saw a brief clip but having read the play and seen the film this is clearly such a delicate subject that such an approach is both insensitive and disrespectful.

Izzard was praised for his performance but I felt uncomfortable with what I saw.

It is perhaps surprising that such a successful play failed to find an audience when it was finally filmed.

This is one of the best British films of the 70s and hopefully it will be released on DVD one day.

Unlike other reviewers I haven't read the book and can't comment on its success as an adaptation.

The story is very, VERY basic. A mysterious young man, Bartleby (John McEnery) applies successfully for the position of audit clerk at a small accountancy firm in London.

At first he works well but doesn't socialise at all with any of his colleagues. Things start to slip when the Accountant (the fabulous Paul Scofield) asks him to do a task and Bartleby replies 'I would prefer not to.' This becomes Bartleby's response to every request from now on and the Accountant becomes increasingly exasperated with his new employee. Instead of dismissing him, the well-meaning accountant shares Bartleby's work amongst his colleagues and hopes to get to the bottom of the problem.

In allowing him to stay, the Accountant sees Bartleby's behaviour become more bizarre as he takes up residence in the office.

Even after dismissing Bartleby, the Accountant is unable to get rid of him and he re-locates the firm to a new office in the hope of getting away from this curious young man.

If The Accountant felt he would have heard the last of Bartleby by this stage, he is sadly mistaken.

A story like this could result in an extremely dull film but the inventive direction from Anthony Friedman (why hasn't he done any other films?) and Scofield's superb performance prevent this from happening.

Scofield is one of the more enigmatic figures in cinema history. Primarily a stage actor, and a highly distinguished one, he has made relatively few feature films, less than 20 in fact.

However his limited filmography has not stopped him from winning an impressive array of screen awards including the Best Actor Oscar and three BAFTA's.

It is very typical of Scofield that, having already won the Oscar, he turned down the Robert Mitchum role in Ryan's Daughter (a part he was better suited for than Mitchum) and opted to do a tiny little film like Bartleby.

Although McEnery is very good in the film, he has fairly little to do and it is Scofield who carries the picture. His portrayal of a kindly yet increasingly bemused employer is excellent and the delivery of his lines e.g.

'You're living here; you're ACTUALLY living in my office!' is superb and adds the humour needed to make this film succeed.

I can't imagine this film getting any kind of publicity when it was first shown, no premiere at Leicester Square and subsequent nationwide release. In many ways it resembles the American Film Theatre productions of the 1970's but with a little more cinematic flair.

Its difficult to see how this film could be expected to turn a profit and although there have been 3 subsequent film adaptations of Melville's story, I doubt very much that movies of this style and small ambition would be given the go-ahead nowadays.

But I'm glad that Bartleby was made and that it is now available on DVD (but not yet in the UK), it's an amusing little curio that deserves to be better known.

I waited 17 years to see this film, having first heard about Hu-Man on Mark Cousins' BBC TV programme Scene By Scene in 1998 when he interviewed Terence Stamp.

Cousins, although occasionally irritating, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema yet even he admitted that he had never seen Hu- Man and didn't even know anyone who had.

From that point it became number two on the list of films I most wanted to see behind Hitchcock's The Mountain Eagle and the original version of this review written 10 years ago was a request for help in getting hold of the film.

At one stage Hu-Man was even rumoured to be a lost film before a 25 minute version was shown at the British Film Institute in 2013.

Then an 86 minute version suddenly became available in 2015, I got a couple of responses to my original request and my long wait was finally over.

Having now seen the film it isn't really surprising that it proved to be a disappointment.

A film with Terence Stamp and Jeanne Moreau that hardly anyone has seen... There has to be a reason.

The story really doesn't help.

Stamp plays an actor called... Terence Stamp who is still coming to terms with the death of his wife three years earlier and is approached by his former lover Sylvana (Moreau) about the possibility of appearing on a live TV show. The object of the show is to convert the audience's emotional responses into energy that can be stored in a time dome and later used to propel Stamp into the future.

No attempt is ever made to explain how this is done which is perhaps a good thing.

But then again there is very little attempt to explain anything that is going on such as Stamp's sudden transportation to a glacier or why a trip into the future would also include a complete of change of location to the edge of a very active volcano.

There are however some memorable scenes such as Stamp being trapped on the bay of Mont St Michel during a live TV broadcast as a tide approaches from all angles – the attempt to harness audience emotions – and the unexplained shot of our hero gliding through the air during the glacier sequence is as impressive as it was undoubtedly precarious for old Terence.

But the film, clearly influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey, suffers from having very little plot or dialogue and often appears as sparse as the landscapes to which Stamp is transported.

It isn't very good but I'm glad I finally saw it.

I don't have an awful lot to say about this sorry romantic drama.

A hugely uninteresting story about a transatlantic romance between two very dull characters.

Edie is a hard-up yank who has been in a relationship with a complete loser. Michael Antonioni (yes, MICHAEL ANTONIONI) is a hard-working, hard-living obscenely well-paid Brit with a heart of gold under the tough exterior.

I don't want to be too hard on this fella cos he really is a nice chap (no really, he is) but for a guy in a dynamic, highly paid job where image counts for so much it was something of a mystery why he always wore the same suit that was at least one size too small for him....

To be honest, from what I saw (because I gave up after episode 4) Rashida Jones was OK as Edie but Stephen Moyer was uncharismatic and simply dreadful as MICHAEL ANTONIONI.

Some people may admire split-screen drama but ever since watching The Andromeda Strain and The Boston Strangler ages ago, I have always felt that the use of the split-screen is simply a flashy tool with the sole purpose of glossing over a director's inability to edit scenes into a coherent story.

Ny-Lon used the split screen a great deal and I found this incredibly annoying.

The romance between the two lead characters fails to convince purely because there is no chemistry at all between the actors leaving viewers totally disinterested in the supposed drama of their love life.

Worst of all was the embarrassing reference to Italian art-house cinema in the characters names of MICHAEL ANTONIONI and his nephew ANGELO.

I was almost expecting Michael's chums Frederick Fellini, Bernard Bertolucci, Luke Visconti and Peter Pasolini to be introduced at some point.

Thankfully this did not happen, at least not in the first four episodes...

A modern television classic set in the Eighties, A Rather English Marriage tells the story of two recently widowed men; a brash World War Two squadron leader (Albert Finney) and a retired milkman (Tom Courtenay) who form an unlikely alliance as they come to terms with their bereavements.

The two men miss their wives for totally different reasons, Roy Southgate (Courtenay) is a loyal, devoted husband who spends hours with his wife when visiting her at hospital. Reggie Conyngham-Jervis (Finney) is a philanderer who relies on his wife mainly for her cooking and cleaning skills and sees his hospital visits as time that could be better spent in the pub.

When a social worker sees that each man could be the solution to the other's problems, these two characters (complete opposites plagued by personal problems they try to keep hidden) who were hospital waiting room acquaintances are now brought together full time.

This is the sort of charming, well-written television drama that nobody seems to want to make anymore, the two leads forming an even more effective partnership than they did in The Dresser fifteen years earlier where Finney stole the show.

Courtenay is superbly understated, Finney is more powerful and boisterous and probably the more versatile actor. Their contrasting styles complement each other perfectly.

Although this is mainly a double-act, Joanna Lumley also excels as the gold-digger who has her eye on Reggie's wallet.

However this drama belongs equally to Finney and Courtenay. The final scene with these two grand old men of film and theatre dancing to Glenn Miller's 'Moonlight Serenade' will surely prove to be one of the most lasting and endearing moments in British television.