churchofsunshine Reviews

Golden Years (I) (2016)

Barely average.

[5/10 · 12 September 2016]

Nick Knowles is best known in the UK as the presenter on the various National Lottery quiz shows and as a staple ingredient of the BBC's daytime TV schedule fronting various lifestyle shows. Apparently he also fancies himself as a writer, and somehow or other, one of his scripts has managed to get the green-light and released as 'Golden Years' with the extra tag-line 'Grand Theft OAP'. It came and went from UK cinema screens without any fanfare, and isn't likely to get any larger exposure now it is available on home video.

Bernard Hill is hardly a headline actor (I recognised him only as Captain Smith of the Titanic in James Cameron's 1997 film of the same name) - his most famous work was probably 'Boys From the Blackstuff'. Una Stubbs starred with Cliff Richard in the film 'Summer Holiday' and was Aunt Sally in 'Worzel Gummidge'. Simon Callow was in 'Four Weddings & A Funeral'. In 1966 Virginia McKenna starred in 'Born Free', and like most of the cast, her career has seen better days. I guess there aren't many good acting roles for pensioners these days. 'Golden Years' tries to be a comedy but never really succeeds.

Sloppy editing - or writing - I'm not sure which, means there are plot holes you could drive a tank through. What happens to Alun Armstrong's character at the end of the movie I have no idea as he just seems to disappear, and the timing of the funeral before the big heist makes no sense at all. Unless I missed something, a character dies and is buried within two days, and that just isn't realistic. We're led to believe the characters get away Scot-free with their heist, but how can that be so when Brad Moore's character clearly had them bang-to-rights just before the final climax? Suddenly nothing seemed to make sense and it is full of unanswered questions. Besides anything else, are we to believe he went out to a caravan dealer with several wads of sealed £50 notes and paid for a top-of-the-range model in hard cash? Wouldn't something like that arouse suspicion? Wouldn't the brand-new notes be traceable by their security numbers? The police would be knocking at his door in a heartbeat. I think Nick Knowles should stick to presenting, as he clearly isn't much good at writing.

My advice is to wait for this one to hit Freeview and air on Film4. You're not missing anything by buying it on DVD. I can't believe they even got 'Bargain Hunt's real-life auctioneer Philip Serell to basically play himself in a cameo. Nothing about this film was even remotely credible. Even the 'Care Home from Hell' at the beginning was laughable, and not in a good way, and that's before I get to talking about the idea of an 'NHS Postcode Lottery'. It's the sort of right-wing nonsense you read in the 'Daily Mail' that is inevitably not true. I really didn't rate this film much at all. 5/10 is being kind.

Dad's Army (2016)

Watch the TV show instead. It's far far better than this.

[3/10 · 8 February 2016]

Doing a re-make or re-imaging of an existing iconic TV series and updating it for a modern audience very rarely works. It's hard not to feel sorry for any actor asked to play a role that was made famous by someone else as they have only two choices - to do an impersonation of the original actor or to go their own way and put their own spin on the role. The main problem with the "Dad's Army" film is that some of the cast seem happy to look and act like the originals, but others are trying to make the part their own. Michael Gambon is almost as good as Arnold Ridley was as Private Godfrey. Tom Courtenay at least looks like Clive Dunn's Lance Corporal Jones even if most of his delivery is a bit flat. Toby Jones was an acceptable Captain Mainwaring. I liked Daniel Mays as Private Walker, the rest of the cast didn't do much for me at all. I did not like Bill Nighy's take on the character of Sergeant Wilson. It was nice to see two original cast members return to make cameos, Frank Williams as the vicar, and Ian Lavender (the original Private Pike) as the Brigadier. Catherine Zeta Jones doesn't have much to do except wander the streets of Walmington-on-Sea like a femme fatale. It's just as well the writers don't make any attempt to disguise who the 'German spy' is. The entire script is lazy and not especially well written and you can tell where the plot is heading right from the word go.

One of the long-standing jokes of the original TV show was that Mrs Mainwaring was a character who was never seen and only alluded to, but here in the movie, she is not only seen, she has a large speaking role, and I don't think that was a good idea. The history of the show's characters has been re-written in other ways too, most notably in a scene where L-Cpl Jones reveals that during his time in the Sudan he never actually killed anyone and was only in the catering corps. Captain Mainwaring's very own personal Hitler, the air raid warden Hodges is in the movie but only has a few lines of no importance to the plot and that is a shame. The makers of this movie have tried hard to make it all work, but it doesn't really succeed. I'd rather watch the TV show. It was much better than this.

The Hungover Games (2014)

10/10 for effort but 0/10 for overall result

[2/10 · 28 January 2015]

I'm sat here writing this review and trying to work out which is the better spoof movie - "The Starving Games" or "The Hungover Games". It's a difficult choice. It's kind of like offering me the choice of taking a bullet to the brain or a bullet to the heart. Neither film will ever be classed as a cinematic masterpiece.

I do get the feeling though that the makers of "The Hungover Games" are actually trying. They've tried to write a good script, they've tried to give it decent production values and even the actors seem to be trying. It's a little more than can be said of the stuff that Freidberg & Seltzer keep pumping out. It's perhaps a little disappointing then that none of the jokes in the film really seem to deliver and it all seems to land off-target. I didn't laugh once.

I was sober when I watched this. Maybe to enjoy it the most you do actually need to be hungover! That's the only time I'd probably find some of this movie actually funny. A-plus for effort but C-minus for execution. Not great.

Miss Castaway and the Island Girls (2004 TV Movie)

A truly terrible offering from a director who manages to make Friedberg & Seltzer look like Oscar contenders!

[1/10 · 8 June 2014]

Director Bryan Michael Stoller apparently wrote the reference book "Movie Making for Dummies". This film is not a good advert for his book and doesn't do his credibility as a director much good at all. I had to look long and hard for a DVD copy of this film before finding a German region 2 copy available under the alternate title of 'Silly Movie 2' (Thankfully, there is no 'Silly Movie 1'). It is riding high in the IMDb database of the 100 worst movies of all time, and upon viewing it, I can say it is placed that highly for a very good reason. Bryan Michael Stoller's direction and script is so incompetent that he actually makes his nearest contemporaries, Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer look like genuine Oscar contenders. Compared to this, 'Meet the Spartans' and 'Epic Movie' are like the 'Citizen Kane' of spoof movies. The only two real questions that arise from watching this movie is to wonder how far Julia's brother Eric Roberts had to sink to headline this film, and how on earth the director talked Michael Jackson into performing what is nothing more than a three minute cameo. This was filmed in 2004 and proved to be Jackson's last work as an actor (he died five years later in 2009). The special effects are nothing short of woeful, the acting uniformly dreadful. Even lots of beautiful girls in bikinis can't save this one. As a spoof it's not even funny. See it if you dare, but don't say I didn't warn you what a pile of rubbish it is. Some films are so bad they are actually almost good. This film is just bad.

The Monuments Men (2014)

Not as bad as many critics would have you believe.

[6/10 · 17 February 2014]

I saw this on the second day of its opening weekend in the UK. The cinema screen was only about a quarter full. That surprised me. Maybe people had been put off by the lukewarm reviews by the critics. Maybe George Clooney isn't just much of a draw at the box office any more. Maybe people just don't want to see a film about "art". Maybe everybody else in Preston was up at Deepdale paying their respects to Sir Tom Finney. Perhaps it was a little bit of all of the above.

I consider myself fairly well informed when it comes to World War 2, but I have to say that although I know that the Nazis looted loads of art from all across the continent, I never knew that the real-life 'Monument Men' existed - people who's job it was to try and locate all this missing artwork, get it back, and return it to their rightful owners. To this day of course, the search for pilfered art from WW2 is ongoing. How much of this film is true and how much is fiction is open to question. The real 'Monuments Men' were of course much more than platoon strength - in the film we are told there were just eight (led on-screen by Clooney, who also wrote and directed), in reality there were a few hundred. Some of the characters are apparently loosely based on real people, but their names have been changed. A bit like "The Great Escape" in that regard. For example, for Cate Blanchett's character (Claire Simone) you should Google 'Rose Valland' for information on the real person her character was based on.

The film was good enough to hold my interest, but I can't say it blew me away, and I don't see it getting anywhere at next years Oscars. I will try and obtain a copy of the book on which this film is based, as I thought the actual story is quite interesting, probably much more so than the film. The way I see it, George Clooney has educated me that these people existed, now I will deliberately forget what I have just seen and read the truth instead! Worth a watch - not half as bad as the critics suggest. 6/10

The Starving Games (2013)

Typical Friedberg & Seltzer fare

[2/10 · 1 December 2013]

I'm a sucker for spoof movies. And although I am of the opinion that Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are a pair of talentless hacks, I keep buying their movies on DVD, in the faint hope that one of these days they will produce something half-decent. I decided to give them a fair shot this time around and actually sought out the real thing - "The Hunger Games" before I stuck Friedberg & Seltzer's offering into my DVD player, so at least I would have some idea of what they are trying to spoof.

The result is fairly typical Friedberg & Seltzer fare - grab a bunch of unknown actors who bare a passing similarity to the more talented originals, throw in a bunch of gratuitous pop culture references that are way too late ('Harry Potter', 'Gangnam Style', 'The Expendables', 'Avatar' etc.) and try to tell your story in under 80 minutes, including 20 minutes of bloopers and credits. In that respect, "The Starving Games" doesn't disappoint and nothing in this movie will come as a surprise to those of you who have seen other works by Friedberg & Seltzer.

This is their sixth collaboration as directors (sadly, there are more in the pipeline - next up is a spoof of Fast & Furious) but alas, they are not really getting much better at this sort of thing. The only decent movie they were ever involved with was back in 2000 as two of the six writers on 'Scary Movie'. Based on their career track since then, it is clear that it was the other four writers who actually had the talent.

That this film hasn't been picked up by a proper distributor and has basically gone straight-to-video says it all. I'd love to know where Friedberg & Seltzer get the money to keep financing this stuff. It's probably all my fault, as I keep buying all their DVD's! If we all stopped watching, maybe they'd go away and get a real job. The thing is though, I can't help myself. I *knew* this film would be pants. I just had to see it for myself just to see how bad it really was. I'm desperately trying to think of something positive to say about this movie. How about - "It's not the worst of the six films they've made?" A final word to Maiara Walsh - you're better than this.

Vampires Suck (2010)

Doesn't suck as badly as it could have done, but still dire

[2/10 · 5 March 2011]

Asking me which Aaron Seltzer & Jason Friedberg film I prefer is a bit like asking if I'd rather take a bullet in the brain or in the chest. Until yesterday, my answer would probably have been "Date Movie", but as of today, and somewhat surprisingly, my answer would probably change to "Vampires Suck". That's not really much of a statement though - it's a bit like saying that Colonel Gadaffi is not quite as evil as Saddam Hussein. It might be true, but neither of them are particularly nice people, and the same theory holds true of Friedberg & Seltzer's works - just because this one is only in the gutter while all their other movies are completely down the drain isn't much of a way to compare them, but its just about the only way I have.

Seltzer & Friedberg seem to be rather elusive characters, and even when it comes to extra features on DVDs, I can't recall ever having seen a picture of them anywhere. I'm beginning to think that like the infamous "Alan Smithee", that Friedberg & Seltzer don't really exist. I'd love to see them do an audio commentary for one of their films which is just a continuous loop of "We're sorry. We're so, so sorry." - it would almost make the film worth buying!! To be fair though, they have got at least one thing right this time around. Instead of trying to squeeze in about ten different movie spoofs into one film plus a random pop culture reference every other minute, the writers have taken the wise step of only spoofing one franchise - the popular "Twilight" saga. They haven't completely left out the gratuitous pop culture stuff, but it's a step in the right direction - it at least feels like one coherent movie with an actual plot, rather than ten movies shoehorned into one coming out as an incoherent mess. Also presumably, Carmen Electra didn't need rent money the month this was being filmed, as she is thankfully absent from our screens this time around.

I usually give over-promoted franchises a miss - at least until a lot of the fanfare and hoo-ha dies down around them, which is one reason I came very late to "Friends" and "Ally McBeal" on TV (and still avoid "Ugly Betty") and the same reason I avoided "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" for a long while and have never really taken to them. Unlike my sister, who has read the Twilight books and watched the films religiously, I barely know who Robert Pattinson is, and I wouldn't recognise Kristen Stewart if she walked down the street and flashed her breasts at me. The Twilight franchise probably is ripe for spoofing, but Seltzer & Friedberg probably aren't the best people Hollywood could have appointed to the role, with the result that this movie isn't half as good as it could have been. Luckily, it's not half as bad as it could have been either. And there is at least one person who deserves at least some credit, and that is lead actress Jenn Proske, although whether she is capable of anything more than Kirsten Stewart impersonations remains to be seen, but if I was to give her one piece of future career advice, it would probably be to stay away from any future Friedberg & Seltzer productions and try something more challenging instead.

I'm not really sure why I continue to fund Seltzer and Friedberg by paying to watch their movies - probably out of morbid curiosity and just to see if they really are getting any worse and whether or not they will ever churn out anything half-decent. "Vampires Suck" isn't it, but it is a step in the right direction. 2/10

Sex Through the Ages (1974)

Almost educational. Almost porn. Almost average.

[5/10 · 4 August 2009]

Director Stanley Long apparently shot this film in 1973 inside the space of two weeks with a budget of £20,000. Not even Gerald Thomas & Peter Rogers could crank out a "Carry On" film within that kind of budget and timescale. The IMDb main page on this title would have you believe that this is a "comedy", but aside from the "18" rating and copious amounts of female nudity, this is more a documentary than anything else (least of all a true "film" in the proper sense of the word), charting the history of the world's "oldest profession" right from the earliest times into the present.

Maybe one should use the term "mockumentary" to describe the film, because by and large, most of the information imparted within is pretty much correct. That would have been no easy task for screenwriter Suzanne Mercer in the 1970s without the aid of the internet and websites like Google and Wikipedia to assist her, so the fact that she was able to get any reliable research done at all on the subject is nothing short of amazing. For instance, when the narrator (Charles Gray) tells us that Roman prostitutes were made to dye their hair he is largely telling the truth (though I do believe purple was a forbidden colour for prostitutes - the colours were yellow and red), and it is also true that the Romans did indeed keep a register of prostitutes, and it is also true that once a woman was on the roll it was impossible to get off - you were a prostitute for life. As near as I can make out then, this film is largely true and therefore quite educational in tone.

Long does try to inject some comedy into the proceedings - it's quite possible that this film is the first one ever to ever pay homage to the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", but it mainly concentrates on the nudity, of which there is plenty. Val Penny is one of many 1970s young nubile starlets in the film, and gets stripped and placed in a cage and dunked into the River Thames in a 'Ducking Stool' (something that was filmed for real - the actress was apparently afraid of water, but in those pre-Health & Safety days, almost anything goes - Long does recall that he was quite worried about drowning one of his leading actresses!). Apparently though, the main problem with the BBFC censors getting a certificate was the scene right towards the end of the film when one of the customers throws cream buns at a prostitutes crotch area (though she was actually fully clothed). Go figure.

It's certainly more interesting than watching a documentary on the History Channel I guess, but only just. I did learn a few new things about the history of prostitution, even if I wasn't that entertained or amused. Watch out for ex-"Blue Peter" presenter Peter Duncan in an early film role as a gay companion of Henry III of France. Fans of 'Allo Allo' will also spot Carmen (Madame Edith) Silvera as 19th century dominatrix Theresa Berkley who invented the 'Berkley Horse' a piece of BDSM apparatus. Once again, today in the information technology age of 2009, we can Google her name to find out anything we want to know on the subject, but back in 1973, such information was much harder to come by. The makers of this film did really quite well with what limited resources were available. This is probably a film worth watching once just for its educational value, but it's not something I could watch again and again, no matter how many pairs of bare breasts wander across the screen. 5/10

Extreme Movie (2008)

One of the better "Movie" films - if that sounds like faint praise, it's because it is!

[5/10 · 23 March 2009]

There seems to be a general rule of thumb now that a "Movie" franchise film is only really half-decent if Aaron Seltzer & Jason Friedberg aren't involved with the production. The good news then, is that in this case, they weren't. The people behind "Extreme Movie" are the same people who brought you "Not Another Teen Movie" which is one of the better spoof movies of recent years.

This is not the kind of movie you'd let grandma watch. It's not really the kind of movie you'd want your parents to catch you watching either, but it is perhaps the sort of thing teenagers would watch as a 'Date Movie'. It's juvenile and full of sex and fart jokes, not to mention a fair bit of nudity, so its not really for the easily offended. A film about teenagers and sex is by its very definition going to be a bit raunchy. At the grand old age of 35, maybe I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for these kind of teen 'High School' movies, but I do like comedy and spoof films so am always prepared to give stuff like this a chance, and I did find a couple of parts of this film quite funny and I did laugh. Also for once, I was disappointed that the film came to an end after just over seventy minutes - unlike with the 'Epic' and 'Disaster' movies, my brain cells weren't starting to fry and I could easily have sat through more of the same.

This is not a movie in the normal sense of the word but a series of skits with the common theme of teenage sex. Personally, I liked the guy who went to the wrong apartment by mistake dressed in a mask to act out a kidnap fantasy with a girl he met online - "Did anyone order a rape?" - it just cracked me up for some reason - not sophisticated by any means, but funny. This is definitely a film for the Lads rather than the ladies though.

Virgin Territory (2007)

Not good, not bad, just okay.

[5/10 · 19 March 2009]

I found this film on the shelves of a French hypermarket on a day trip to Calais. Presented in the same font and style as the 'American Pie' films, I have to say that the local French title "Medieval pie - Territoires vierges" did stand out, which was possibly the intention of the DVD marketing company, trying to trade on the success of a similar and more successful series of teen comedy films. Even now, after the event, I'm still not sure whether any of the cast or crew of 'Medieval Pie' have any involvement with the 'American Pie' franchise at all. I'm doubtful. I get the feeling that this movie will be known under a variety of titles in a variety of markets, and that alone should set the alarm bells ringing in the heads of most sane movie reviewers.

There are a few familiar faces on display. Hayden Christensen, Mischa Barton and Tim Roth are the three most obvious 'names', with 'Little Britain's' David Walliams appearing in a blink-and-you'll-almost-miss-him cameo. The main problem is that all these actors are playing characters with hard-to-remember names. Barton is Pampinea, Christensen is Lorenzo (who for some reason masquerades as a deaf-and-dumb gardener in a convent where for some reason all the nuns have sex with him, a central joke that gets tired very quickly, even with all the nudity) while Roth is the main villain, Gerbino de la Ratto. I was rather more impressed with Matthew Rhys' Russian Count Dzerzhinsky, who rattled off his name and lineage on several occasions without missing a beat - I could have done with a memory like that to remember exactly who was who. It was a struggle at times.

My favourite scene was probably when the two women who get captured (Rosalind Halstead & Kate Groombridge I believe) try and escape by tricking their guards into dropping their trousers and lining up in order of size and then creating an argument about whether you start small and work up, or start large and work down (or even start in the middle!). That was fun. The main love story involving Barton and her three suitors (Christensen, Roth and Rhys) is perhaps not so successful, and the less said about the sex-obsessed nuns the better. It's an old fantasy for sure, imagining what nuns get up to behind closed convent doors, but not especially original.

I've seen worse comedies for sure - anything involving Aaron Seltzer & Jason Friedberg for one thing, but I have seen better too. I suppose for the genre it represents, this sits somewhere in the middle of the pack, so even though it did bypass the cinemas and go straight-to-DVD, it's not really that bad. It deserves one viewing at least, but whether it will hold up to multiple screenings is much less certain. I'm not sure it will. I guess what I'm really saying, is wait until the sales - don't pay full price for it - unless you have a thing about nuns getting naked, in which case this is a 10/10 movie for sure. For me though, it's just a five.

The Witches of Pendle (1976 TV Movie)

Does what it says on the tin

[6/10 · 17 December 2008]

"The Witches of Pendle" does exactly what it says on the tin - a 70 minute dramatisation of one of the more famous so-called "witch trials" ever to be held in medieval England, those of the "Pendle Witches" near Colne in Lancashire which took place in 1612. Twelve men and women were accused (mainly from two families covering three generations), one died in prison awaiting trial, while of the remaining eleven, all but one were found guilty and hanged. This is a re-telling of those events, which for the period, were quite well recorded and published in 1613 as "The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster". My own knowledge of the "Pendle Witch Trials" somewhat lacking, I referred to Wikipedia for some background knowledge of the events leading up to the trial, which is almost word-for-word the same as how things unfold in this 1976 made-for-TV production. Even the cast have local Lancastrian accents, though Hoghton Hall near Preston doubles rather unconvincingly for Lancaster Gaol, which is a shame given how well the BBC does generally when making period drama. Certainly there is nothing wrong with the costumes, even if the "script" (for want of a better word) is poor.

It's probably worth recapping the general story of the Pendle Witches for those not in the know, which begins not that long after the Gunpowder Plot in the year 1612. James is still King, and religious tension between Catholics and Protestants is still rife. The Civil War is still to come. It all begins when a peddlar named John Law met a local woman named Alizon Device who asked for some pins. Whether Alizon intended to pay for them as she claimed, or whether she was begging is open to question, but not long after encountering her, John Law was struck down. These days, we would call it a stroke, but to 17th century simple village-folk it was a sure sign of a curse. Even Alizon seemed convinced of her "powers" as when she was taken to see Law a few days after the incident, she reportedly confessed and asked for his forgiveness. Alizon Device, her mother Elizabeth Device (daughter of Elizabeth Southerns alias Demdike), and her brother James were summoned to appear before local Justice of the Peace Roger Nowell in March 1612. When questioned about Anne Whittle (Chattox), the matriarch of another local family reputedly involved in witchcraft in and around Pendle, Alizon accused Chattox of murdering four men by witchcraft, and of killing her father, John Device, who had died in 1601. Thus many of the allegations made in the Pendle witch trials resulted from members of the Demdike and Chattox families making accusations and counter-accusations against each other. When word of a meeting at Malkin Tower of friends and sympathisers of the Demdike family, held on Good Friday 1612, reached Roger Nowell, he decided to determine the purpose of the meeting, who had attended, and what had happened there. As a result of the inquiry, several more people were arrested and accused of witchcraft. The main prosecution witness would prove to be Alice Device's younger sister Jennet, who at just nine years old was judged to be young and virtuous enough not to have sold her soul to the devil and provided evidence against her own mother Elizabeth. Alizon Device, whose encounter with John Law had triggered the events leading up to the trials, was charged with causing harm by witchcraft. Uniquely among the accused, Alizon was confronted in court by her alleged victim, John Law. She seems to have genuinely believed in her own guilt; when Law was brought into court Alizon fell to her knees in tears and confessed. She was found guilty and along with all of the other defendants save one, sentenced to death by hanging. Somewhat ironically, given her involvement in the deaths of her mother, sister and brother, historians believe that young Jennet Device may eventually have found herself accused of witchcraft as well. A woman with that name was listed in a group of 20 tried at Lancaster Assizes on 1634, although it cannot be certain that it was the same Jennet Device. In that series of trials the chief prosecution witness was a ten-year-old boy, Edmund Robinson. All but one of the accused were found guilty, but the judges refused to pass death sentences, deciding instead to refer the case to the king, Charles I. Under cross-examination in London, Robinson admitted that he had fabricated his evidence, but even though four of the accused were eventually pardoned, they all remained incarcerated in Lancaster Gaol, where it is likely that they died. An official record from 1636 lists Jennet Device as one of those still held in the prison. At this point, the "Pendle Witches" seem to disappear from the pages of history altogether, though the area around Newchurch-in-Pendle enjoys a huge tourism industry based around those events of 1612, almost exactly four hundred years ago now.

It's probably about time a production company decided to re-make the story of the Pendle Witches, as frankly, this 1976 version is quite hard to follow for those not already familiar with the bare bones of the case as outlined above. The whole thing just seems so matter-of-fact. Sure, it tells the truth such as the surviving records from the period show it to be, but nothing about the characters themselves. There's no dramatic or artistic licence to allow us to get to know any of those involved. It's just a straightforward telling of a series of events that hasn't even been put together that well. Maybe the "Pendle Witches" just aren't that interesting, but I think that any dramatisation of the trial could and should have been a lot better than this.

Sex and the City (2008)

On the fence with this one - not sure which way to jump.

[5/10 · 8 October 2008]

I can't help but think that the producers of the "Sex and the City" movie were on something of a hiding to nothing. People who have never seen the TV show were never likely to pay to go and see the movie in the first place, while those who have seen every episode of the TV show might go and watch the film but would also be among it's fiercest critics. Maybe it is just the people who have seen the odd episode - the casual viewer - who might be the most forgiving and enjoy this film the most.

If you're going to make a film out of a successful TV series the usual thing is to throw more money at it and make it look like something bigger and better than the series it arose from. In the world of sci-fi and stuff like "Star Trek" it's just a matter of throwing in a few space battles, but as far as shows like this are concerned, the difference between the TV series and the movie is much less noticeable.

The biggest problem is probably the bum-numbing 2hours plus running time - and that's just the standard version, not the DVD extended edition (!) I put this in my DVD player at 8.30 at night. By 10pm with three quarters of an hour still to go, I'd had enough and switched off to watch the rest next day, and that really isn't a good sign - essentially its not good enough to watch in one viewing, but not bad enough that I would switch it off and give up altogether. At least I did watch the final 45minutes before sitting down to write this review. Apparently, this film is the fasting selling DVD so far of 2008 in the UK, due in no small part to a number of High Street retailers aggressive pricing policy on its release - retailing at as little as £8 in supermarkets like Tesco, it's no surprise this movie has shifted so many copies so quickly, but that doesn't really mean it's much good. Most of the budget almost certainly went on the costumes, and if "Sex and the City" is up for any Oscars or Emmys in the coming year, this is where they will be won - after all, there are four quite glamorous leading ladies in the cast, and Sarah Jessica Parker is something of a fashion icon. She wouldn't be my first-choice to date (that would be Kristin Davis, who I believe is the only cast member never to have actually won an Emmy during the shows original TV run), but I wouldn't say no if you get my drift. I suppose more than anything this is a chick flick, and as a male this film isn't really aimed at me either. I've seen only a handful of episodes from seasons one and two of the show, and I wouldn't go out of my way to watch this film again. I've seen it and now will probably sell the DVD on again next time there is a free listing day on eBay. It's not a keeper. Not for me at any rate - it's technically well made with good costume design, but severely overlong and not that different in scope or better than the TV series. I'm not sure why it did so well at the cinemas. Even the plot wasn't original and could be guessed at well in advance. I wasn't sure whether to give a 4 or a 5 out of 10 for this film. In the end, I gave a five. I can't help but feeling that is rather generous of me. Maybe my love for some of the female cast is clouding my judgement (!)

A Deal Is a Deal (2008)

I don't see what the train drivers union were complaining about

[7/10 · 24 September 2008]

Way back even before this film even premiered at the cinema, the main London Underground tube drivers Union ASLEF were up in arms about this film being insensitive and that people falling under trains and suicide is not something to be laughed about. I don't know what they thought this film was about, or whether they had seen a completely different film to me, but I would struggle to class this as a comedy at all. It's a serious drama about a serious subject, and although, yes, there might be one or two chuckles here and there, this isn't an all-out comedy and never pretends to be. It's a serious look at Colm Meaney's character Tommy, his relationship with his wife and daughter and how it came to be that he is willing to throw himself in front of Mackenzie Crooks train. There is actually very little of the movie set underground at all - it soon takes on a road movie type trip through Liverpool (with a (thankfully brief) cameo by Atomic Kitten's Kerry Katona) and then onto Cumbria and the Lake District, no doubt to try and encourage movie-goers to holiday in the area.

Colm Meaney is better than he ever was in Star Trek, Imelda Staunton is there because after all this is a Brit flick and it says in her contract somewhere that she must star in every new British film going, while relative newcomer Gemma Arterton (last seen in St Trinians)puts on a Scouse accent for this role and does her rising career no harm at all - the new 007 film is up next, and the girl has a promising future in front of her. Mackenzie Crook I'm not so sure about. I was never a fan of "The Office" in the first place, but he seems to do well enough here - he and Meaney make a good team, it's just a shame that nearly all the original publicity back in April 2008 was negative, focusing mainly on the objections of the ASLEF union to a film that they had obviously not seen. Agreed, deaths under the wheels of trains aren't funny - I've researched my family tree and one distant relative did die this way and the inquest report makes for grim reading - I've no doubt that this is a very traumatic experience for any driver unlucky enough to hit and kill someone and no laughing matter - but then this film is no laughing matter either. It deals with a sensitive subject matter very well. I don't really see what all the fuss was about. I'd have thought the average IMDb score would be a lot better than it is currently. Ignore all the newspaper stories and judge for yourself. If any film deserves a second chance it is this one - surely a contender for the best British film of 2008.

Invisible Mom II (1999 Video)

An improvement on "Invisble Mom 1" !!

[6/10 · 21 September 2008]

"Invisible Mom 2" (or II as it appears in the on screen titles) is set two years after the first film. Dee Wallace-Stone is still the Mom, Barry Livingston is still the scientist Dad, and although Trenton Knight has grown about 12inches in the intervening two years, he still plays their young son Josh, while Fred Olen Ray (best known for his sleaze and T&A fests rather than family films like this) once again directs, so the end product has a lot in common with film number one in the series - Ray even finds time to put in a little flashback sequence just to explain to the audience exactly what happened in the first film and how "mom" came to be invisible in the first place. It turns out that the antidote she took wasn't 100% effective, and she still becomes invisible on occasion, especially when she gets stressed.

The plot involves some old rich guy who is about to die and has a niece and nephew who stand to inherit billions, except that brother and sister duo Olivia (Mary Woronov) and Bernard (Micky Dolenz) are stereotypical evil little characters who have already bumped off other relatives so they can be first in line. Unknown to them though there is another relative - a 12year old boy named Edward (Justin Berfield) who was placed in an orphanage many years previously by his mother so that the evil Olivia and Bernard wouldn't be able to find him and arrange an accident. Thus so it is that "Invisible Mom" and her family become foster parents to young Edward (or Eddie) and get sucked into the story about Olivia & Bernard trying to reclaim him and arrange an unfortunate accident so they can inherit everything. It's not an especially original plot, but since this is a film aimed mainly at kiddies (like the first one), I'm sure they won't care too much.

Micky Dolenz and Mary Woronov don't just chew the scenery they eat it and swallow it whole by going completely over-the-top in their evil-ness, but like I said, this is for the kiddies and they will probably find this scene-stealing stuff quite fun. Even though this film is named "Invisible Mom" there isn't actually that much invisibility in it, which is probably just as well given how naff the effects were in the first film - maybe that's why this time round, they don't notice so much. I was also once again confused by the DVD video cover which featured invisible mom on an exercise bike with a young girl looking through the window in astonishment. Who the young girl is, I don't know, but I don't recall seeing her in the movie, and neither does any scene involve an exercise machine. Surely this sleeve cover is misleading and should be investigated by the trades description people. How can they use a picture like this as a cover for a film that doesn't bear even the slightest resemblance to anything in the movie itself? What are they afraid of? The film isn't that bad. Children will love it. I'm not so sure about adults, but this is what it is, we're not supposed to read too much into it. I'm not so sure I could face a third instalment in the series, but this definitely is a bit more fun than the first one. A sequel that is better than the first film. That's something you don't see too often! 6/10

Invisible Mom (1996 Video)

OK for the kiddies

[4/10 · 17 September 2008]

When this film was released in 1997 the 'special effects', such as they are, were poor. They would have been dated even for the 1980s, and even some films made in the 1970s and 1960s have had the same or better SFX work. Certainly no-one involved in the production of this film was looking for an Oscar. It's a wild departure from director Fred Olen Ray's usual stuff, most of which has the word "Bikini" in the title (Bikini Pirates, Bikini Chain Gang, Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet, etc) and are little more than T&A flicks, but here we are with a film rated "U" and aimed squarely at the kiddies. You've got to give him credit for diversifying!! This was a minor direct-to-video cult hit which later resulted in a couple of sequels - Invisible Mom 2 and Invisible Dad. Dee Wallace-Stone (whose career went downhill fast after 1982s "E.T.) plays the 'invisible mom' of the films title and would return for the sequel. Russ Tamblyn (whose career had been in free-fall even longer since 1961s "West Side Story") plays the villainous Dr. Woorter. It's probably fair to say that most of the cast were at the point in their careers where they would be prepared to work on almost anything just to pay the bills that month - except maybe young Trenton Knight as Josh. It's rather telling though that although he worked prior to this movie, this child actor didn't work again after the sequel, "Invisible Mom 2". Maybe the film was cursed. After all, he wasn't that bad in this film. For a child actor, he's pretty good - no better or worse than any of his more experienced co-stars.

As mentioned above, the "invisibility" effects are naff to say the least, the direction is poor, the writing obvious and the acting nothing to write home about. There are plenty of worse films out there though, and for anyone under the age of about ten, this film will no doubt be quite watchable. Most adults will probably want to do a disappearing act of their own while it is on though, and I wouldn't blame them one bit!

Blonde and Blonder (2008)

I thought this would be rubbish, but actually, I quite liked it!

[6/10 · 14 September 2008]

Pamela Anderson hasn't exactly set the world alight since the heady days of "Baywatch", and Denise Richard's career has pretty much gone in the same direction since "Starship Troopers", so with Anderson credited as executive producer as well as main star, the words "Be afraid. Be very afraid" were flashing inside my brain in great big neon forty-foot letters. The DVD was deep in the bargain basement bin in my local store, so I wasn't expecting much. It looked like it could be a laugh though. Mind you, Anderson is the wrong side of 40, and Richards is in her late thirties, both of whom playing characters who should really be played by much younger actresses in their early twenties.

It's not original - the girls think that "taking Mr Wong out" means taking him on a date and not doing a mob hit on him. That's about as sophisticated as it gets - Two dumb blondes who don't have a clue about what is going on around them. At least the writers avoid the use of too much toilet humour apart from the farting turtle, while most of the production money probably went on Anderson and Richards matching wardrobes and the final speedboat chase scene. What you're looking at here is basically a female version of "Dumb and Dumber". It'll never win any Oscars, but the fact they have already announced a sequel means that no matter what the critics thought, some people actually sat down and watched this film and it made a decent profit, so its clearly not all that rubbish. It helps if you switch your brain off, and if you do, you'll probably find that this film is a fair bit of fun. I do hope they re-cast some younger actresses for the sequel though. This is a franchise that could go somewhere. 6/10

Uphill All the Way (1986)

I've seen a lot worse.

[5/10 · 10 September 2008]

I'm not going to be too mean about this movie because it only cost £1.99 on DVD and because it was such a bargain I knew at the time it wasn't going to be "Citizen Kane". The thing is though, I've spent £12.99 before on films like "Date Movie" and "Epic Movie" and not enjoyed either as much as I did this film, so pound for pound and minute for minute, the two pounds I spent on this film was much better spent than the £12 on either of those "Movie" films.

It's almost a who's who of country stars and legends including Roy Clark and Mel Tillis in the leads, with Burl Ives and Glen Campbell as co-stars. No surprises then as to who sings the country and western title song. This is a comedy western set sometime circa 1916 in a sleepy Texas town. Clark and Tillis are two small-time con men and good ol' boys who lose all their money to a mysterious gambler (a scene-stealing uncredited performance by Burt Reynolds) and get thrown out of the local saloon for not paying their bill and then get mistaken for bank robbers which then leads in a long chase scene across the desert with a posse in pursuit. Acting is not the strong suit of most of those involved in this production, but like I said before, for a £1.99 title in the bargain basement bin, this comedy was actually quite amusing in places and did manage to hold my attention for the entire duration which is something that several other movies (including those named above) have failed to do.

I award two marks out of ten just for the cameo by Burt Reynolds, another one mark for the sheer number of saloon girls in corsets on display which was good to look at - even the very voluptuous and plump Jacque Lynn Colton as 'Lucinda'. The other two marks out of ten are for the rest of the acting and story in general. It's not especially original, nor will writer/director Frank Q. Dobbs ever be up for an Oscar, but it's nowhere down near the other end of the scale. No razzies here folks, just your average garden-variety comedy western film. Westerns aren't my favourite genre, but I did quite enjoy this film. As I said in my one sentence summary above - I have seen a lot worse. If it came down to a choice of having a root canal or watching this film again, I would definitely give the dentist a miss and put the DVD on again. 5/10

Be Kind Rewind (2008)

Sorry. Not impressed.

[4/10 · 2 July 2008]

Before sitting down to write my review to this film, I took the time out to look at other IMDb reviewers opinions of this film and there do seem to be two types of people - those who are film buffs who like director Michel Gondry and have seen 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', and Jack Black fans who have seen "Shallow Hal", "School of Rock" and, erm, "Nacho Libre". Anyone who catches a random trailer for this movie might think that they are about to view a mainstream Jack Black comedy vehicle, but editing can be deceiving, and the trailer for "Be Kind Rewind" is no exception.

I've never even heard of Michel Gondry or seen "...Spotless Mind", and I wouldn't describe Jack Black as my favourite comedy actor, though I do own copies of all three films named above on DVD, so I suppose I'd describe myself as a kind of fan. Certainly, the premise sounds quite fun. Who has a kid hasn't got out a camcorder and tried to make or re-enact scenes from their favourite movie on the cheap with just a couple of friends. I remember I once tried to "swede" 'Teen Wolf' - an idea that didn't get very far since I didn't have a van to dance of top of and didn't have a copy of the Beach Boys 'Surfin USA' to hand (!). I didn't have access to a basketball court either. Not that I let those small things stop me! Homages can be fun. In fact, this is just about the only point in the films 95 minute running time that I cracked a smile - when they started to spoof the movies that had been accidentally wiped from VHS.

Sadly, with each successive "sweding" attempt, the time devoted to it becomes less and less, so after an impressive "Ghostbusters" attempt, we get smaller scenes from "Rush Hour 2", "The Lion King", "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Robocop" in quick succession before a long list of titles fly by the screen with hardly any mention at all. By then, Signourney Weaver has turned up because she needed the money to pay the food bills that month and did a pointless cameo as a US government FACT agent who destroys copies of all the films.

That's when Mos Def, Jack Black, Danny Glover and co decide to make their own film based on the live of jazz legend Fats Waller. By then, I'd really stopped caring. If I wanted to learn about Fats Waller, I'd turn on the History Channel or the Biography Channel or something, not watch this. There's some kind of Hollywood "message" buried deep beneath all this "saving the old videostore from being demolished by the evil corporate developer" (a storyline that has been done to death many times before), which means that this isn't the kind of Jack Black film that some of his fans might be expecting. I certainly wasn't. I thought it would be funnier that this.

To be honest, the writing is a shambles. Jack Black's character is never really defined besides being an antisocial lunatic who lives in a trailer park next to a power station, and no explanation is given as to why Mos Def's character would count such an obvious madman as his best friend. The whole set-up of Black getting "magnetized" is complete rubbish and doesn't hold up to scientific scrutiny, but that's another argument entirely. In fact, very little of the films plot makes any sense at all, and most of that blame should go to director Michel Gondry who doubled up as the writer. Mia Farrow is wasted, and there is very little to recommend this film besides the "sweding" sequences, which most people will have seen in the previews and trailers.

To sum up, spending 95 minutes to learn about Fats Waller isn't going to do me any good at all in my local pub quiz, especially since he wasn't born in Passaic, New Jersey at all, but 10th Avenue in Downtown New York, so I've pretty much wasted an hour and a half of my life that I'm not going to get back. Fans of Gondry and his work will probably love this film, but fans of Black, although they might be amused during the middle part of this movie (the 'sweding' bits) will find it hard to stop looking at their watch or falling asleep during the first and final thirds. A film that will divide movie-goers opinions for evermore. I'm sorry people, but I'm in the "hate" camp, and can't bring myself to give more than 4/10. I hope Jack Black's next film is better. It certainly can't be much worse. As for Gondry, I won't be bothered if I never see another one of his films again. He just doesn't do it for me.

Whoops Baghdad! (1973)

If you've seen 'Up Pompeii!', then you've seen this.

[4/10 · 21 January 2008]

This TV series will probably always have a certain audience among young heterosexual male audiences, not least because of the number of well-endowed scantily-clad actresses wandering across the screen in harem girl costumes. Make no mistake, for with a central female character named Boobiana (Anna Brett), this is one TV series that you won't see being screened at the next AGM of your local Womens Lib group (!!).

This short-live series was a follow-up to Howerd's earlier TV show "Up Pompeii", with the location transplanted from Ancient Rome to Medieval Baghdad. As with "Pompeii", the set-up was little more than a backdrop for an endless series of Howerds' trademark double entendres and risqué gags, and he starts each episode with a prologue — a "to camera" that almost always never gets finished and has nothing at all to do with the main plot. The series was filmed in front of a live audience, with which Howerd interacted. When Howerd addresses the audience, the other characters don't usually take notice - he is the only one in on the joke. And that's okay, because after all, it's his show!! One for fans of Frankie Howerd only or those who have a Harem Girl fetish, but quite honestly "Pompeii" was better, and if you've seen that show, why would you want to see the entire show recycled again into this? There's a very good reason "Whoops Baghdad" only ran for six episodes. It just wasn't that good. 4/10

The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980)

Little-known fifth film from the long-running comedy franchise

[3/10 · 22 December 2007]

How many "St. Trinian's" films were made altogether (not counting the new 2007 version) ? If you said four, based on the fact that that is how they are packaged on DVD into a two-disc four-film box-set, then you would be mistaken - there were in fact FIVE films to this series, this last one coming fourteen years after the last effort, "The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery". Like that film, it was also made in colour (the first three were in black and white), but the end product shares very little else in common with any of it's four predecessors. Claiming that George Cole was asked to reprise his role as "Flash" Harry cuts no ice with me - this film is such a mess casting-wise as to be unbelievable.

At the time this was made, in 1980, the trade union movement was a lot more militant in nature than they are today (the "Winter of Discontent" fresh in peoples minds), and it's true to say that the TUC card-carrying Sun-newspaper reading working-class audience this film aimed itself at probably didn't like to see their union movements mocked on the big screen.

"Carry On... At Your Convienence" was a huge loss-maker at the time of its cinematic release for mocking the unions, and this factor probably also had some effect on the success - or lack thereof - of "Wildcats". It's not a good idea to mock your key audience demographic by making fun of trade unions. All in all though, it wasn't really a good idea to make this film, and this is easily an entry that the "St. Trinian's" franchise could have done without. The fact that this fifth film is overlooked by the other four in the series is probably a good thing. This is an interesting curio for anyone who has ever seen and enjoyed the other four films in the series (or likes ogling actresses in school uniforms - gym-slips, stockings, suspenders, heels, etc.) but is nowhere near the quality of any of its predecessors. Very few people will ever get the chance to see this film. You should probably be grateful. Not that bad, but not that good either. 3/10

Hell to Pay (2005 Video)

Does crime pay? If your name is Dave Courtney, then the answer is yes!!

[7/10 · 20 June 2006]

I would have expected this film to have attracted more than a mere two reviews on the IMDb by now. Maybe potential reviewers are somehow afraid that if they diss his film, Dave Courtney will somehow find out where they live and they will find themselves encased in concrete supporting a fly-over somewhere on the M25!! Dave Courtney is a "celebrity gangster" - a member of the old school of crime like The Krays or the Great Train Robbers. He is well out of the London crime scene these days, but makes a huge fortune on the back of his former exploits and has written a number of books. It is largely thanks to him that people get away with selling knuckledusters on eBay which are described as 'paperweights'!! He is certainly not a man to be trifled with.

His film is little more than an ego trip, produced on the back of the more popular "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels" which itself featured a number of real East End crooks and hard-men in the cast. Courtney proudly boasts that the cast and crew of this film have done more prison stretches than the cast of any other film in history!! I doubt that record will ever be beaten.

It's a bit of a shame it has yet to reach a larger audience, because although it is not the best film I've ever seen, it is far from being the worst. It is certainly well above average and deserves to make Courtney a pile of cash. Not that he's short of a few bob anyway! 7/10

Scary Movie 4 (2006)

Not great, but better than "Date Movie" !!

[5/10 · 23 April 2006]

It's not often I'll re-edit one of my reviews and mark a film upwards, but the fourth instalment of the "Scary Movie" franchise has succeeded where others have failed by appearing to be much better on its second viewing, some two years after I saw it first on a bootleg DVD. Maybe that was the problem, or maybe now, in the wake of endless "Movie" spin-offs (mostly by Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer who co-wrote the first "Scary Movie" with the Wayans brothers) such as "Date Movie" and "Epic Movie" that I realised just how good this film is in comparison.

What the studio undoubtedly have done right is removing those two talentless hacks (Friedberg & Seltzer) from the writing duties and recruiting two of the people who invented the spoof movie genre, director David Zucker and co-writer Jim Abrahams (the people behind Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane and the Naked Gun series) who also brought over their old buddy Leslie Nielson, and no-one does deadpan spoof movies better than Nielson. He effortlessly lifts every scene he is in.

In the end, this is miles better than Scary Movies 2 and 3, and far better than all of the other "Movie" franchises that are being pumped out of Hollywood at an alarming rate. It doesn't outstay it's welcome and although not side-splittingly funny in the way that "The Naked Gun" or "Airplane" are many years after their first viewings, it's not half as bad as I made out in my first review. I still can't bring myself to award more than five marks out of ten though.

Krippendorf's Tribe (1998)

Not the worst comedy film you'll ever see, but far from being the best either.

[5/10 · 6 April 2006]

I didn't walk into this film with terribly high expectations. It was in the bargain basement bin on DVD at my local store, and quite frankly, since only fifty people have bothered to comment on it on IMDb (so far) for a film made not so long ago in 1998, tells me that this comedy largely went under most peoples radar nets.

This is a Richard Dreyfuss vehicle and the basic concept is that he is an anthropologist who has taken out a grant of money from his university to search for lost tribes in New Guinea, but after the death of his wife has kind of let his research go to pot and used the money instead to keep food on the table for his three children - Shelley, Mickey and Edmund. Put on the spot by the university to give a lecture on his discoveries so far, Krippendorf invents a tribe called the "Shelmikedmu" (an amalgamation of his children's names) and gets them to dress up in native gear in his back-yard to shoot fake videos and keep the university faculty off his back. Jenna Elfman plays the love interest, a fellow professor. The villain, or main antagonist, for want of a better name - a fellow professor who tries to prove that it is all a hoax, is played by Lily Tomlin.

It is relatively amusing in places, especially when Dreyfuss puts on the body paint to become the "Shelmikedmu Chief", and there are certainly one or two good one-liners to be found within. It's a long way from ever being a perfect 10 as a film, but equally there is no way it should ever be sitting down at the bottom as a 1. There are worse comedy films out there than this, and although somewhat insubstantial and not especially memorable, it is an entertaining enough way to spend ninety minutes of your life. 5/10

Bewitched (2005)

Mostly harmless. Preferable to taking up alligator wrestling at least!

[6/10 · 20 March 2006]

Back in the late 1960s there were two American TV sitcoms that competed with other - this despite the fact they were made on the same studio lot, with most of the same guest cast and production crew and utilised each others sets. Those two shows were "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeannie". Many a ten year old adolescent boy watched these shows either at the time or in the many re-runs since, and divided themselves into two camps - fans of Elizabeth Montgomery or life-long members of the Barbara Eden Appreciation Society. I joined the latter - the pink harem pants probably swayed it for me, so if it ever came to sitting down in a room with two TV's, one playing "Bewitched" and the other playing "Jeannie", I would definitely be watching the latter. I'm still waiting for "IDOJ" to make the transition to the big screen, one of only a handful of old US sitcoms still in pre-production hell, with seemingly a new writer or director attached to the project every other month, and a different actress touted as the new Barbara Eden.

"Bewitched" has had an equally long potted production history, and up until the moment it actually started filming, absolutely anybody could have been cast in Elizabeth Montgomery's role as "Samantha" - except of course that in this film, Kidman is playing a witch named Isabel Bigelow who is playing Samantha the witch in a remake of the 1960s TV series which features Will Ferrell (playing actor Jack Wyatt who plays Samantha's husband "Darrin" in the TV show).

It's an interesting twist on the old straightforward remake a TV show idea and the Ephon sisters should be commended for trying something a little bit different here. This could have been complete pants, but somehow the whole thing is quite watchable, if a little lightweight. It's also just a bit confusing in places when the lines between 'real life' and the TV show start to get a little blurred. Isabel has an "Aunt Clara" for example just like Samantha on the TV show, and we even see "Uncle Arthur" as well to confuse things even more. "Endora" is an actress Iris Smythson, played by Shirley MacLaine, so isn't actually Isabel's (Kidman's) mother, but confusingly, does seem to be a witch. Michael Caine play's Isabel's warlock father, Nigel.

The only main problem for me was the film's ending. I couldn't help but think that this was where the film should have probably started - Kidman and Ferrell just married and moving into a house just over from their nosey neighbours, the Kravitzes. I've just spent ninety minutes of my life to see the set-up to the Kidman and Ferrell love story like the pilot episode of a TV show, and find myself wanting to watch the series proper. Maybe the Ephrons did have plans for a "Bewitched 2", but although this wasn't a huge flop, it wasn't hugely successful either. It's okay to watch once, but certainly isn't a 'keeper' to enjoy again and again. I doubt a sequel will ever happen - I'm disappointed a bit, because yes, I would probably watch such a film.

I'm still sat here waiting for "Jeannie" to get the green light. All things considered, they could hand the project over to the Ephron's and cast Ferrell as Major Nelson. They could do a lot worse. They could have done a lot worse with this film, too. It certainly didn't deserve all those "Razzie" nominations. Time will prove me right on this one. The average IMDb user ratings will probably push above the 5/10 mark, which makes this film average at least. You could do a lot worse. I mean that. My vote: 6/10

The Producers (2005)

Why re-make cinematic perfection? Completely pointless.

[2/10 · 11 March 2006]

Ask me to name my favourite movie of all time, and Mel Brook's 1968 film "The Producers" will be right there at the top of my list. I spent years hunting a copy down on DVD before it was finally released a year or so back by MGM, and although I've never seen the stage musical, I was always going to be among the first in the queue to see the 2005 remake with Matthew Broderick.

Broderick takes on the part of Leo Bloom, played in the 1968 film by the incomparable Gene Wilder. Nathan Lane does a passable imitation of the great Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock. Will Ferrell replaces Kenneth Mars as Franz Liebkind, author of "Springtime for Hitler", and Uma Thurman takes over Lee Meredith's role as Swedish 'secretary' Ulla.

It's practically a scene-for-scene remake of the 1968 original - save for Will Ferrell's Nazi-saluting pigeons, and quite frankly, although all the cast are good enough in their roles, all the original 1968 players were far better. I don't really see the point in re-making this film. Most of it's running time is taken over by all the musical numbers that later made it to Broadway, whereas the only decent songs are those from the original in any case - the infamous "Springtime For Hitler" (all together now, 'don't be stupid, be a smartie, come and join the Nazi party..' - a pure comic highlight of bad taste!) and the final comic number "Prisoners in Love". None of the other songs really come close, despite the best intentions of all involved.

I'm only giving this film a two. Maybe that's a bit mean, but quite frankly I'm of the old school who firmly believes that the originals are more often than not the best. This has it's moments, but Broderick is no Gene Wilder, and Nathan Lane will never replace Zero Mostel. Uma Thurman is good to look at, but that's hardly a recommendation to watch is it? If it were, I'd be recommending "Batman & Robin" to all my friends :-)