If you have been busy on Sunday evenings, or if just want to see it again or know someone who missed it, I cannot recommend the Blue Planet II series more highly.
Of course the programme is made all the more fantastic by the flawless narration of David Attenborough but it has to be said that the work of the whole team of specialists who have produced this series deserves the highest of accolades.
Watching an octopus hide, using shells it fashioned as cover, from a shark makes you appreciate the intelligence that is required for survival in the underwater circle of life. More fascinating was watching the gender reassignment from female to male of the Kobudai, in the waters of the coast of Japan. I particularly loved the boiling sea, where lantern fish are on the menu for larger sea predators.
Verdict
Amazing - admiration for the team and the marine life they exposed.
Christopher Nolans epic war film depicts the Dunkirk landings of allied forces in 1940. Nominated for the Golden Globes and Critics choice awards as well as highly predicted for a 2018 Oscar, the film captures the intensively terrifying nature of war from the perspective of the brave forces on board ships in cramped conditions crossing treacherous seas facing air bombardment from the dark spaces within the vessels. Starring little known Fionn Whitehead and Glyn Carney alongside Jack Lowden and Harry Styles (one direction), these young actors cross swords with the experienced Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy and Tom Clancy. The films focus is on witnessing the scenes rather than the intensity of dialogue and relationships which often sanitize war movies, not always allowing the full appreciation of the horror of experience.
Verdict
For anyone who loves period drama's Victoria season 1 and 2 are a must. Jenna Coleman is superbly cast as the young queen. Beautiful and headstrong, the relationship between her and Albert is explored from the perspective of their intimacy, friendship and intellectual diversity of interests. For example, Albert is fascinated by the beginning of new technologies such as the steam railways carry Victoria along in his enthusiasm. Albert ensures a new sewerage system and closet toilet is implemented at the palace improving living and working conditions for the Royal Household and their staff - demonstrating the impact royal approval on the industrial revolution. Look out for the Royal couples visit to the Highlands in season 2 with an extra special romantic episode spent roughing it in an old Scottish bothy - apparently it really happened! Some great horsemanship on display by Atkinson Action Horses too!!
Verdict
Excellent period drama without the usual stuffiness and just a little bit sexy
Car Share is a bit like Faulty Towers - even though you have seen it, you just love watching it again and again. I particularly loved the scene where Kayleigh (Sian Gibson) tells John (Peter Kay) that she just went out dogging last night - absolutely priceless laugh out loud comedy genius! If you have never seen the series, it is simply two colleagues, Kayleigh and John, who share a car to get to work together, and is the conversation they have on their journey. Everyone wants them to get together, and who knows with a future final series announced anything is possible. The two disc box set includes all 10 episodes from the series that won best scripted comedy in 2016. Definately buying this for Grandad for Christmas!
Verdict
A simple idea celebrating the comedy of every day life.
This autumn nights draw viewers to the fireside for a good old fashioned family drama. Doc Martin blends the cheerless middle aged General Practitioner who is a throwback from a bygone era, with the a setting in a Cornish fishing village, another relic from a time when everyone in the community knows each other business. Martin Clunes plays the former surgeon, who because of developing haemophobia (a fear of blood), moves out into a rural practice to operate as a GP. The Doctors lack of humour and indifference to the fears of his patients creates the perfect parochial centre point for life in the village. Season 8 focuses on typical modern family life, where work and juggling the baby bring challenges to the married couple, Martin (Clunes) and Louisa (Caroline Catz). Some new arrivals to the village include missionaries, an American tourist and a vet.
Verdict
Good hearted family entertainment with much to make you smile
Who would ever think you could have too much cash? Barry Seal literally finds himself digging holes in the garden to bury it and coming up against a bag already buried. A very lighthearted take on a disturbing true story of political intrigue on a global scale.
Despite the lightheartedness, there is a more sinister undertone in relation to the way the US government is involved in arms deals; Israel picks up Russian guns, sells them to the US, who secretly send them out to the Iran and 'the Contras' in South America. For fans of aerobatics, some hilarious flying scenes, such as Barry taking off from a dodgy Colombian airfield, while his paymasters place bets on whether he makes it. The action shots are excellent and the story is an interesting one. The filming is made to look suspiciously analogue (maybe to make Cruise look younger) and in a digital age is a bit irritating at first. I did stop noticing after a while though.
Verdict
Fascinating story and some great laugh out loud moments!.
Christopher Nolans epic war film depicts the Dunkirk landings of allied forces in 1940. Nominated for the Golden Globes and Critics choice awards as well as highly predicted for a 2018 Oscar, the film captures the intensively terrifying nature of war from the perspective of the brave forces on board ships in cramped conditions crossing treacherous seas facing air bombardment from the dark spaces within the vessels. Starring little known Fionn Whitehead and Glyn Carney alongside Jack Lowden and Harry Styles (one direction), these young actors cross swords with the experienced Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy and Tom Clancy. The films focus is on witnessing the scenes rather than the intensity of dialogue and relationships which often sanitise war movies, not always allowing the full appreciation of the horror of experience.
Verdict
Movingly realistic and unsentimental - amazing cinematography
An amazing and unmissable DVD album, with very moving music coupled with hard hitting lyrics and effective dialogue. Even a couple of lighthearted pieces (which is usual in any West end or Broadway production) cannot fail to excite, and the whole show with it's Strong cast, will definitely mesmerize both watcher and listener. It certainly captures the imagination. The Rock songs are superb, and the characters both vicious and flirtatious, especially HeathCliff with his seductive streak, Cathy with her non plus 'Keen to be different' attitude, and Isabella who lives in a fantasy make believe world until 'after' her disastrous marriage to HeathCliff. Stunning Background scenery & Meticulously prepared choreography add to the fascinating spectacle of the Magic that is: HeathCliff. An effect Visual Realisation was used as a Bonus by the time the show was filmed. The Interest and Impact of the show is Greatly Enhanced by selecting LYRICS ON. (SUBTITLES throughout the whole show) from the Main Menu.
Before Inserting this DVD you may feel you are 'not in the mood' to watch (and hear) a passionate, tragic, moving story of obsessive love, betrayal and revenge, but you will find the music grips and the story holds you, as it unfolds with excellent support from such a great 'spellbinding' cast. After only 10 minutes you will be hooked ... *
The Songs Written by Tim Rice with Music by John Farrar - who wrote ALL the HIT songs from Grease, are as Fascinating and Terrific as All the Actresses and Actors: EVERY SINGLE ONE! Not to Mention the Brilliant Production and Stage Crew. NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN CLIFF RICHARD AT HIS MOST FABULOUS UNTIL THEY HAVE SEEN 'ALL' SECTIONS OF THIS DVD. How MOVING it ALL is.
THE COOLEST ROCKINEST ROCK MUSICAL EVER!!
The Best Music DVD Ever! Sara, Helen, Sonia, Nicky, Jimmy, Gordon Giltrap, Sir Cliff, and All the Cast and Production Team are Fantastic!!!!
Sir Cliff's Greatest 2 Hours on DVD!!!!
The theme of time running out runs right through this movie, from time lapse photography to images of clocks speeded up or without hands. The second of S.E.Hinton's books translated to film by Francis Ford Coppola translates well. Filmed in Black and White for greater effect and the first soundtrack for Stewart Copeland, he went on to do The Equaliser and Spyro. Mickey Rourke provides a brooding performance of subdued quality, I read in an interview at the time that for the first two weeks he thought he was going to get sacked. Motorcycle Boy and his father are clearly educated with the discussion on Cassandra in two terms. This goes over Rusty James head. He's not stupid, just not educated. Early performances from Nick Cage, Chris Penn and Diane Lane. With the quality of Dennis Hopper, Tom Waits and Laurence Fishburne thrown in for good measure. It's a quality piece. Enjoy.
Hero Worship, Impetuous Youth, Time, Black and White (filmed), Stewart Copeland Soundtrack.
I have just watched "Shades of Love" shown on Channel 5. Having already read and seen the film "September" I was absolutely fascinated by this film. Rosmunde Pilcher has excelled herself in a superb follow up. Bringing all the characters up to the modern times. The plot was greatly entwined with September. I would certainly watch this again. Is there a book as I cannot seem to find one?
A John Ford Classic, easily John Wayne's darkest role. It is not beyond his character to desecrate a Native American grave. He is driven by hatred and contempt, his Neice is kidnapped and his mission is to find and kill her as an insult to his heritage.
Martin Scorcese would go and see this as a kid and be influenced by it's quality.
There are lighter moments of humour but the darker undertones of a ruthless age in an unforgiving land are evident. Heartless men to do soul-less jobs of work.
It's really a big screen film, it's not for the tablet or phone, filmed in Vista Vision only the big screen will do. The landscapes equal if not surpass the Cinematography of The Hateful Eight on outdoor shots. Quite frankly it's stunning and if you've not seen it your throat will catch towards the end. It's a must see for any film fan.
Kidnapping, Revenge, Violence, Frontier Western, Redemption
Verdict
A wonderful, dark comedy written by the incredibly talented Will Sharpe and starring Olivia Coleman
I am completely hooked on this series. Cillian Murphy is undoubtedly brilliant as the enigmatic Thomas Shelby. I keep asking myself why I like him. He is capable of such extreme violence but I think because corruption is so endemic in the society of the time, there is something about his sense of justice which is morally superior to the people who are supposed to represent the law. The Shelby family are from a gypsy heritage and it is the sense of family loyality that is so appealing, even though they are utterly ruthless when given a job to do. Thomas experiences the pain of love and loss in series 3, and Cillian Murphy shows his distress in a typically male fashion. The shows creator, Stephen Knight has managed to create more episodic cliff hangers than George Mallory, but that is the essential ingredient to a story about a family who live on the edge. Each season, shows the environment, dress, and costume becoming more genteel, and the family try and fit the image but know they are not accepted, and its fair to say, question anyone who would accept them for their ulterior motives. The violence and language is shocking throughout,each series and some may find this offensive, but without this intensity, the story could not be adequately appreciated. Some great use of 1920's cars, and some good horse and carriage scenes too.
Verdict
I cant wait for season 4 - has me on the edge of my seat!
"Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?"
It's a simple premise from which a true masterpiece was created. As plot-lines are layered upon each other to create a multi-stranded storyline that intrigues as much as it entertains. Filled with high-brow humour and high-concepts Back to the Future is the quintessential 80s movie that lays a genuine claim to being one of the best movies ever released.
The difficulty with any time travel film is getting the continuity right, yet Back to the Future does it faultlessly, so carefully plotted that it stands up to repeated viewings and analysis, always offering more on each viewing.
Brilliant inventor, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) retrofits a DeLoren car as a time machine, using the 'flux capacitor' that he dream up after falling and hitting his head. But at the initial test he is killed by a group of angry Libyan terrorists who want their depleted uranium back that the Doc stole from them to power the flux capacitor.
"Are you telling me that this sucker is nuclear?!"
Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) jumps into the DeLoren, floors the accelerator and guns the DeLoren up to 88mph - which unwittingly triggers the time travel circuits and sends him back in time to the 50s. Once in the past and without an energy source to power a return trip he must track down the younger version of Doc Brown to help him get back to the future.
Written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale and directed by Zemekis, the plot is inventive and funny as well as flawlessly written and acted. The lead actors, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd work so well together riffing off each other beautifully. The supporting cast of Thomas F. Wilson (Biff Tannen) Crispin Glover (George McFly), Lea Thompson (Lorraine Baines) are so perfect for the roles that they'll forever be known for these performances.?
What are you looking at, butthead? Why don't you make like a tree.? and get out of here!
Not only does Back to the Future perfectly capture the zeitgeist of the 80s (skateboards, Star Wars), it also recreates the 50s with love and affection (diners, rock 'n' roll). This gives the film a warm nostalgic feel that's hard to beat. And after the extremely high standard set by the first film, it was always going to be a tough task to make the second and third film measure up. Shot at the same time and released fairly close together, the second film takes Marty and Doc Brown to 2015 (and then once again back to the 50s) and the third film takes them all the way back to the Wild West of 1885. They are both, sadly not as powerful as the original, proving that it really is difficult to predict when lightning will strike (unless you know it's going to hit the clock tower, producing 1.21 gigawatts of energy).
Despite this the sequels still offered fun and humour. But how do you recreate perfection? Recent attempts to reboot or remake the film have been blocked by Zemekis and Gale who say they will fight against remakes even after their deaths. Such love for their movies is testament to how wonderful they really are and the amount of respect they so richly deserve. They'd never be bettered and how do you ever remake Back to the Future without Michael J. Fox or any of the original cast? You quite simply don't. These films will live on forever as examples of film making at its absolute highest.
Watching Michael J. Fox play Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. it gives me chills just to writing about it.
"It's a Blue's riff in B, watch me for the changes and try to keep up"
And as he tears into the opening riff, made so famous by Chuck Berry it's a true movie delight. one of the highlights of a film packed with great scenes. Back To The Future is one of the finest examples of a cast and crew that came together at the peaks of their respective careers and really made the best film that they could. I can't think of a film that really deserves higher praise than Back To The Future.
"Hey, Doc, we better back up. We don't have enough road to get up to 88. Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."
This has got to be one of my all time favourites. Escape into another world - very funny and totally absorbing, with a great soundtrack too. Can't wait for the next one!
Great entertainment
Great fun western werewolf romp.
Jake Gyllenhaal puts in an excellent performance as gaunt, awkward grifter; Louis Bloom, in screenwriter Dan Gilroy's directorial debut; Nightcrawler. Passive-aggressive, down-on-his-luck chancer, Bloom, stumbles into the dark world of TV news: a stringer that turns up at crime scenes; films them and sells his footage to whomsoever will pay for it; which, in his case, is local news producer Nina (a brilliant comeback role for Rene Russo). Nightcrawler works as a suspenseful, character-driven drama and a scathing satire on the media industry. Louis Bloom talks like a self-help seminar, sells himself to his employers and reproduces corporate spiel ver batem; he hires naïve hobo; Rick (a subtle, convincing performance by Riz Ahmed) as his second cameraman, buys a police scanner and embarks upon a serious of nocturnal misadventures that push him ever closer to the edge: Whether its hauling an injured car crash victim to a place where he can get a better angle or engineering deadly encounters to snare that all-important footage, Bloom is as ruthless as his job demands.
Nightcrawler checks all the boxes when it comes to indicting the socio-economic paradigm that creates men like Bloom; cynical, careerist lone-gunmen encouraged to embody the worst traits of humanity in order to keep their heads above water. Gilroy throws a few singing jabs at everyone and everything in the industry: from the intern-as-desperate-exploited-patsy to gore-hungry news bosses. For as Rene Russo's character explains: "We like crime; not all crime: a car-jacking in Compton isn't exactly news, now is it?.our viewers are interested in urban crime creeping into the suburbs; what that means is a victim or victims; preferably well-off, White, injured at the hands of the poor or a minority: Think of our newscast as a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut". Nightcrawler is a well directed, fast paced, superbly acted, very well written film that ought to be considered a modern classic in the months and years ahead. A must see.
It's almost obligatory to open a review of a Billy Wilder film by mentioning what a versatile director he was. Eureka's Masters Of Cinema Blu-ray series has included classics like The Lost Weekend, Ace In The Hole and Double Indemnity, all of which testify to the wit and panache that are synonymous with the director while all being vastly different from one another.
Even if you've only been catching up with Wilder's oeuvre through these remastered releases, it's not hard to imagine how he'd become your favourite director and Stalag 17 will top up your admiration nicely. Adapted from an autobiographical Broadway play about American airmen held in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II, this 1953 gem is at once a prison break movie, a whodunnit and even a prototypical summer camp comedy.
The plot centres on Barrack 4 in the titular prison, a barrack that appears to the rest of the compound to be cursed. There's a lot of loose information flying around between the prisoners, but somehow, this one seems to have the worst luck. A failed escape attempt leaves two men dead, which finally spurs a reckoning amongst the inmates- there must be a spy in their midst.
The prime suspect is J.J. Sefton, (William Holden) the barrack's resident spiv, for whom no luxury seems to be out of reach. He's the one who has a distillery to serve schnapps to the men, a telescope to peep on the neighbouring female Russian prisoners and a lucrative horse-racing racket where all the nags are mice- all open to any man who'll trade cigarettes to partake, even the Nazi guards.
Sefton is a cynic, but he's no spy, and it becomes all the more crucial to identify the real traitor when a new arrival, Lieutenant James Dunbar, (Don Taylor) is accused of sabotaging an ammunition train. One of the men in Barrack 4 is more than willing to sell Dunbar out to the SS, and as the only man under suspicion, Sefton is the one who has to smoke him out.
1953 was good timing for a POW movie, but it was no accident. Paramount Pictures held the film off from release for over a year, unconvinced that the subject matter would bring out audiences. When American prisoners from the Korean War were released, the studio decided to release the film and take advantage of good morale. As it stands, the film might have made a decent morale booster all by itself.
While the situation is very bleak, the film has a canny line of dark humour running throughout, pitching ahead of its time and landing somewhere between The Great Escape and Stripes. In particular, comic relief characters Harry Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck) and Stanislas "Animal" Kuzawa (Robert Strauss) provide a lot of laughs as Animal veers between obsessing over beautiful women and abject depression, while Shapiro is always on hand to cheer him up.
In one sequence that could have come straight out of a summer camp comedy from many years later, the motley duo sneak over to catch a closer look at the showering ladies on the Russians' side of the compound by painting a white line in the road, all the way past the guard. The resolution doesn't come with a summary punishment by firing squad but with a Looney Tunes-style flight from the bespectacled guard after slapping whitewash all over his face.
Layered on top of this, for contrast, is the absurdity of the Stalag guards' attitudes. The film is set in the week before Christmas 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, and the guards are keeping morale down amongst the Allied prisoners by withholding news but cheerfully telling them that German victory will soon be forthcoming. With hindsight, there's obviously plenty of dramatic irony there, but the Nazis themselves are ridiculous figures.
As Barrack 4's "alarm clock" and personal guard Sergeant Schulz, Sig Ruman keeps telling the inmates he's their best friend while also laughing in their faces, whether they're "visecracking" about their plight or showing barely veiled contempt for their captors. Otto Preminger wields a little more malice as camp commandant Colonel von Scherbach, but even he's made to look ridiculous in a scene where he puts his boots on just to answer the phone to a superior, clicking his heels with each barked affirmative response.
The best example of the film's dark sense of humour comes when a Dear John letter arrives in the post. Edmund Trzcinski (the original playwright, playing himself) receives a letter from his wife telling the implausible story of how she has found a baby on their doorstep, who just happens to have her eyes and nose. Trzcinski may have figured out what that really means when we did, but the film keeps cutting back to him, telling himself that he believes it. It's a bittersweet reminder of the cost of the men's internment, even while the tone is more upbeat and defiant elsewhere.
That branch of witty comedy never subsides, but it doesn't prevent us from taking the whodunnit seriously either. Holden won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Sefton (and famously delivered one of the shorter acceptance speeches of all time- "Thank you") and as our protagonist, we march to his beat. He's flippant when the film is messing about a bit earlier on, but after a brutal confrontation, he steels himself to find out the truth.
Unusually (and more expensively,) Wilder shot the film in sequence and made extensive rewrites during filming in order to preserve the identity of the spy from even the cast, and whether this helped or not, it makes for an effective air of mystery and paranoia. It's ambiguous enough that you can even suspect the most innocent inmates, so that when the truth comes out, the accumulated tension makes for an electric climax.
On top of that, the new Blu-ray restoration looks marvellous, making Wilder's crisp black-and-white photography look better than ever before. The camera moves as if Wilder was shooting a suspense thriller, particularly as and when plot twists arise, and there's one haunting shot of the men of Barrack 4 staring at Sefton as it's time for lights out, and the darkness doesn't even faze them.
Stalag 17 is yet another reminder of Billy Wilder's endless versatility, with his knack for dialogue and characters enlivening the bleakness of the setting and giving us one of the all-time classic prisoner-of-war movies.
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