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All reviews - Movies (89) - TV Shows (3)

And Then There Were None review

Posted : 12 years, 11 months ago on 29 April 2011 09:32 (A review of And Then There Were None)

Superb adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel, despite a slight deviation from it towards the end, in order to add a little bit of romance. I'm familiar with the story, after seeing an excellent stage version about a year back, but that didn't stop my enjoyment of this cinematic version. The cast are great ; we've got Irish actor Barry Fitzgerald turning in a wonderfully charismatic performance as the Judge, Walter Huston as the decisive but cowardly Doctor, Louis Hayward as the mysterious Philip Lombard and the lovely June Duprez (who I was recently introduced to in The Spy In Black), amongst others. Brilliantly directed by Clair, itā€™s a fast-moving, atmospheric film with a real sense of paranoia alongside plenty of subtle, black humour and an abrupt ending to rival Hitchcock. Very enjoyable and highly recommended.



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Repulsion review

Posted : 12 years, 11 months ago on 18 April 2011 01:08 (A review of Repulsion)

My first viewing, but wow! This film takes visual storytelling to a whole new level! And the use of sound is extraordinary, whether it's doorbells ringing, phones ringing, flies buzzing or knives slashing and since there's a limited amount of actual music they become the soundtrack. It's a tough watch as there are plenty of vile images (the skinned rabbit which is just left to be devoured by the flies for example) and I think there is one rape scene too many, but it's a film I definitely need to see again to gather my thoughts - I wasn't all that keen on the final third, but that could have been the coffee I'd just drank kicking in, I don't know. The cast are great, I think Ian Hendry is an underappreciated actor even if his part isn't all that big in this film, Catherine Deneuve does a great job, right down to the nervous twitch that her character has, but I think my favourite performance was from Yvonne Furneaux. Love the cut where Hendry takes a run to break down the door and Deneuve 'bounces' off it. The final shots of the photograph were quite disturbing also. A bloody well made film.



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Gaslight (1940) review

Posted : 12 years, 11 months ago on 17 April 2011 08:59 (A review of Gaslight (1940))

This was a pleasant surprise. Two decades on from a grisly murder, a house is finally newly-inhabited by a sinister Anton Walbrook and his wife, Diana Wynyard, who is supposedley 'ill' but has actually been driven mad by her husband. Frank Pettingell is the pompus fellow trying to discover the motives behind the estranged Walbrook and the mysteries that took and continue to take place in the infamous house. Cathleen Cordell plays a lustful maid in a film that has plenty of sexual undertones, that must have been quite risque in 1940's Britain. Diana Wynyard is a lovely woman and it is perhaps her genuine, appealing and sympathetic nature that carries the film, wonderfully contrasting with Walbrook's character. The tinkling piano music that is played when she has her 'dreams' is very, very creepy and adds to the surreal atmosphere that is created. Pretty damn good film all round.



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The Island review

Posted : 12 years, 11 months ago on 13 April 2011 02:45 (A review of The Island)

Not quite as bad as I read it would be, but pretty awful all the same. A horror pic from the writer and producers of Jaws, starring Michael Caine, and featuring a score by Ennio Morricone may sound like a great idea, but it's all a bit underbaked. In an unusually weak performance, Caine plays a journalist who drags his son along with him to investigate, who or what may be behind the disappearances of over 600 ships over a period of three years in the Caribbean. In a fairly suspenseful and gory first half-hour, we witness raids and attacks by modern-day pirates on holiday boaters ā€“ axes are seen splitting heads open, throats are slit and crazy bearded men with flaming headwear are briefly revealed to be the culprits. Should make for a pretty scary film, yes? Well, no. Once Caine and his son are taken captive on the island, the pirates turn out to be ridiculously-clothed, religious, democratic (well, sort of) hairy bikers who just enjoy living on their island more than anything else. Itā€™s just totally bizarre, and not scary at all. The rest of the film follows their murdering sprees (they rarely even loot the ships ), some ridiculous changes of character from the main cast and thatā€™s pretty much it. Even Morriconeā€™s score isnā€™t really up to scratch. There are a few decent shocks and Frank Middlemass is a hoot, but this is a film that Caine, in his own words would say, ā€œpaid the rent.ā€

2/5


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British Intelligence review

Posted : 13 years ago on 30 March 2011 09:16 (A review of British Intelligence)

Terrific World War I set B-movie featuring a brilliant performance from Boris Karloff. Margaret Lindsay is the beautiful German spy sent undercover as a refugee to the home of a wealthy government official (wonderfully played by Holmes Herbert) in London , in the hope of stealing the plans for the locations of British munition wearhouses and locating the agent known only as Franz Strendler. Karloff, posing as a butler to Herbert, is also a spy and as the plot thickens, with genuine twists and tricks, it is only in the final scene that it is revealed who is actually working for who. Exciting biplane dogfights, thrilling zeppelin bombing scenes and more German agents than you can shake a stick at (even the bloody milkman is a spy) make this a very enjoyable film all round. Frederick Vogeding's German baron, whilst only appearing briefly at the start of the film, makes an impression too. Fun.
Could be seen as a companion piece to Powell's The Spy In Black as both are First World War thrillers, with Karloff's and Conrad Veidt's characters bearing similarites.



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How to Steal the World review

Posted : 13 years ago on 19 March 2011 09:36 (A review of How to Steal the World)

Say what you like about The Man From U.N.C.L.E, but one thing that has always kept the series fresh, appealing and enjoyable is its villains. The Karate Killers had a badass Curt JĆ¼rgens and Telly Savalas, One Spy Too Many had Rip Torn, The Helicopter Spies had John Dehner and this film kept up the tradition with a charismatic Barry Sullivan, Peter Mark Richman as the head of T.H.R.U.S.H and Leslie Nielsen. Refreshingly, this film, the last in the series, is far lessy campy and silly but actually provides some genuine laughs - Richman and Eleanor Parker seemingly having sex at every oppurtunity. There's plenty of action and espionage too, helicopters, gunfights and Bond-esque locations (a precoursor to Sanchez's meditation retreat in Licence To Kill keeps things interesting). Unfortunately, the film is let down by a bored-looking Solo and Kuryakin (David McCallum looks especially fed up) but there's still plenty to enjoy. One of the better entries in the film series - I've now seen them all.

3/5


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If These Walls Could Talk 2 review

Posted : 13 years ago on 7 March 2011 05:04 (A review of If These Walls Could Talk 2)

The sequel to the 1996 film about changing attitudes towards abortion in America follows 3 lesbian couples throughout three eras. The first, most sensitive and by far the best segment, set in the sixties, has Vanessa Redgrave (in an excellent performance) deal with the death of her partner; she canā€™t claim ownership of her partnerā€™s belongings, their home etc, because they were not and could not have been married or had a civil partnership. The second and weakest segment follows the sexual relationship between ChloĆ« Sevigny and Michelle Williams during the time of the hippie subculture and the final segment (21st century) is a much more lighthearted tale of two women looking to raise a child- Sharon Stone and Ellen DeGeneres providing a few laughs. Not as thoughtful as the original film, itā€™s only really worth watching for the first part (or for the Lesbian sex scenes if you are so inclined) but itā€™s a well acted film.



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Topaz review

Posted : 13 years ago on 5 March 2011 10:53 (A review of Topaz)

Wow. A hell of a lot better than I remembered. Iā€™m going to be controversial and say this is the closest Hitchcock got to Bond, as much as I love North By Northwest. Whilst that film was a more light-hearted precourser to From Russia With Love, this is the thinking-manā€™s Thunderball. Frederick Stafford is Connery, Topaz is SPECTRE, Soviet/Cuban missiles replace stolen atom bombs, John Forsythe is Felix Leiter, Brandy and Scotch, plenty of gadgets, and we even have former Bond girl Karin Dor, who is damn hot in this film. The first hour is superb, love the scenes in Harlem in particular, Roscoe Lee Browne is very cool as Staffordā€™s ally. Everything in Cuba is spot on, plenty of espionage, torture, the purple dress scene etc. But itā€™s not a film without flaws, thatā€™s for sure. It shouldā€™ve ended once Stafford leaves Cuba and returns to Washington. Then suddenly ā€œoh yeah, we forgot to actually find out who was involved in Topazā€ and the film drags on for a further half hour. Not the most thought- provoking comments Iā€™m writing here but what Iā€™m really trying to say is that for the most part, I loved it this time.

4/5


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The Holcroft Covenant review

Posted : 13 years, 1 month ago on 24 February 2011 10:21 (A review of The Holcroft Covenant)

Oh boy, where to begin? One of the few films that Caine barely mentioned in either of his two autobiographies, simply describing it as "yet another bad film". Well, it certainly wasn't a successful film. But bad? Yes and no. Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum, The Holcroft Covenant is a film of two halves. The first, for the most part, is pretty good. The plot is set up after a meeting between Caineā€™s English-born New Yorker and Michael Lonsdale. Caineā€™s remorseful Nazi father along with two others left behind a sum of 4 billion dollars to use as reparations and supposedly ā€˜undoā€™ the atrocities committed by Hitler during World War II. What follows is decent espionage action, with daylight assassination attempts, murder and an appearance by Shane Rimmer as Caine goes on the run to find the other Naziā€™s offspring in order to sign the covenant. The well paced first half is followed by a bizarre second half that includes such ā€˜highlightsā€™ as a fat, topless, German burlesque ā€˜act' (that really put me off the smoky bacon crisps I was eating at the time), a horrible screechy score, Nazi incest, a laughable murder and an odd ā€˜dream that is not a dreamā€™ sequence that is shortly and randomly followed by Victoria Tennant wanting to get into Caineā€™s pants, out of the blue. Yeah. The climax and big reveal is quite good though. (Thatā€™s the ending of the film, not the sex scene by the way). Caineā€™s excellent as always. But itā€™s still a very weird film, made all the worse by the crappy VHS print thatā€™s on the DVD, full of ghosting. Yeah, just weird. There's some good dialogue in places though. Mario Adorf is pretty cool too.



1/5


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The Spy in Black review

Posted : 13 years, 2 months ago on 30 January 2011 07:24 (A review of The Spy in Black)

I reckon Bernhard Wicki must've seen this film before he made Morituri as there are quite a few parallels between his WWII film and this Orkney-set WWI thriller, the first collaboration between Powell and Pressburger. There's plenty on offer - German badass Conrad Veidt and the lovely June Duprez in a brief role to name a couple, as this tale of a German U-Boat captain on a mission to sink 16 British ships unfolds. However the whole thing feels a bit stretched and even though it's not a particularly long film, you could probably knock about fifteen minutes off. I'm a bit of a sucker for the kind of fake exteriors that inhabit this and so many other films of its era but they don't disguise the fact that the plot is pretty thin. There are good scenes mind, those with Valerie Hobson are often superbly acted and written, but the final act in unexciting. A good, but often underwhelming effort.

3/5


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