British Film

Brilliant acheivement. Few ofther films capture the feel of Dickensian London so well, and none have dared what this film does - to tell a love story from the view points of both parties. Wrapped in social commentary, the film relates the love between Mr Clennam and Amy Dorrit, in a story arcing two films: the first from Clennam's view and the second from Amy Dorrit's view. Fantastic, riveting, and rewarding.

One of my all time favourites, this is a movie that has not only influenced a lot of people to take an interest in Cambodia, but has been used in parts of the world as a teaching aid to illustrate the aftermath of civil war.

Although I've given it 5 stars here, it does have one fault that still grates on me (one that is quite well known now, I guess): The ever-controversial song at the end. I agree with the producer, David Puttnam, that the film needs something at the end to lift the audience from the weight of the events, and the song (which was #1 around the world at the time of Pran's escape) may have played well amongst preview audiences, but its message is wholly inappropriate. Leaving that aside, the film's understated manner gives one of the greatest visualisations of a dictatorial regime from our recent history. And, even though it's now more than 20 years since I saw this in a theatre, the film still reduces me to tears whenever I see it. Sam Waterson's portrayal of Schanberg is incredible, and the film gains merit for not flinching from showing him in quite a poor light. But how many of us would have emerged cleanly from that situation? That Schanberg was more concerned that the truth be told than that he was seen as a hero (which he certainly wasn't) is a credit to him, because I have to admit, I sympathise a lot with Al Rockoff who believes that a fair amount of responsibility rests on Schanberg's shoulders.

Many people now know that the person playing Dith Pran was a Cambodian refugee who also endured a similar experiences under the Khmer Rouge, and it must have been painful for him to revisit his experiences.

This is a moving story that never descends into hopelessness, and I'd love to see the original edit of this with the footage of the Vietnamese involvement and Schanberg's breakdown. Ah well, maybe sometime it'll happen.

Unforgettable opening sequence. It always amazed me that a simple biopic about 2 runners could be so riveting. There's a fair bit of historical inaccuracy in it in the name of drama and politics, but the film certainly carrys you along. Who can forget, "They will run and not grow weary. They will ride with wings of eagles." after seeing this film? [Isaiah 40]. It is notable that not only does the US version lack the cricket scene at the beginning of the film, it also adds an introduction to Cambridge absent in the other version, though it's a Cambridge that frankly scares the pants off me it is so full of mutants (post war injuries and all that).

Solid biopic of William Wilberforce, and the Christian faith that drove him to undermine the slave trade in the British Empire

Beautiful to look at. Really. And the music? Wow. But I had no sympathy for the characters at all. If only "K" hadn't been married. How can this be a story about love transcending boundaries when it's an affair! Surely that's just lust! A story of rival suitors would have been fine. As an adaptation it is actually better than the book - a poorly written exercise in dumping research on a page.

Despite the opening statement, this film's only factual content are the policies of Amin.

A majestic sweep of a film! As befitting Choruses' opening speech, the film begins on stage in the Globe theatre, but as it progresses it slowly morphs into the real world, until finally we have the huge expanse of the charge at Agincourt.

A remarkable film in many ways. The concept of slowly adding to the realism was perfectly done, and the staging fantastic. However, what lets the film down a little is (in my opinion only) the acting. I'm well aware that there are some who regard Olivier as the greatest deliverer of Shakespearean lines ever (to quote one, he was fluent in Shakespeare). I'm not going to argue with that... but the problem is that the acting is a bit stagey, and worse, is so focused on delivering the rhythm of the poetry, it fails to elucidate the meaning of the text. For this we must turn to Brannagh's version, smaller in scale, but clearer in intrepretation.

This intimate adaptation of Shakespeare's play is quite a contrast to Olivier's version that builds in Technicolor grandure. Ooh - I loved it. Passionate and gritty, the actors deliver their lines for clarity rather than to emphasise the pentameter of the text, and this aids the narrative flow no end. Derek Jacobi plays Chorus wonderfully as he wanders around the events like a modern historian commenting on the distant past. It's a great translation of a character to the screen that could easily have been dropped. But so many of the actors are well cast in this its hard to comment on them all.

Sexist? Yep. But I enjoyed the smaller scale story of this bond film.

Whenever I think of rating this movie my feelings fluctuate. On one hand it's a hilarious little caper, whose various tributaries coincide wonderfully by the denouement. On the other it is a sordid and cynical tale of misery and conniving. Actually, I'm fine with that, though on one-or-two places it goes over the edge, because it's trying to precariously balance the action, humour, gangster and Cockney lowlife genres, and sometimes the nastier elements tend to overwhelm the humour.

The whole thing is shot in sepia tones as if to emphasize its misery (and to make cheap locations look slightly less cheap), with an intrusive narrator and various camera techniques taken from the advertising industry and manga comics. I made this last bit up, actually - but compression and decompression narrative techniques in manga were influential in US comics, and you can see some of the techniques used in movie story telling. so I thought I'd crowbar this in, while it was on my mind.

Generally I like the movie, and it has moments of great comedy. But it just seems so parochial. Putting aside the deliberately obtuse conversation constructed in Cockney slang in the middle of the movie (and subtitled), the large majority of the film is riddled with Cockney that most will never get (despite living in London there were a couple of words I had to guess, or rather, derive - rhyming slang being that way inclined). It just seems self-indulgent.

Fine.

I just yearn for contemporary British movies that reach higher than the gutter. And I don't mean that other British genre: period drama. Much as I have a deep love of history, sometimes I think these people live in the past too much (and I might add, a past reinterpreted with a left-wing agenda).

Obviously done on the cheap, it works... but only so far ... the ending remains in my mind as a fairly desparate effort.

Eminently quotable sillyness. Once or twice it goes over the edge a bit, but it has better production value than its predecessor and on the whole its pretty funny. In terms of its anti-religiousness it doesn't say anything that hasn't been said more viciously before (anyone read Christopher Marlowe's diatribe?).

Serb, Croates, journalists and nationalists travel a road of redemption starting from the Balkans.

I followed the news of the Rwandan crisis closely as it unfolded, and knowing about this event, I still found this film harrowing to watch. It's not a bloody film, but the events that occurred in the country are hard to see put in front of your eyes again. Very sad.

Despite the opening claim of 'the film's factual content, the Western characters in this film are fictitious - and while I appreciate the roles they play here, I have questions about the precise suitability of the nature of the characters chosen, in light of a number of allegations made at the time. As a result, to some extent the film ends up feeling like the audience is rubbernecking an accident.

So, before talking about the story and stuff I feel I need to say something about one of the messages in it: it states pretty clearly that happiness is more important than truth. Okay, fine. If there is no existence beyond our physical death, then this may indeed an escape. That's for you to decide. Logically, though, it's total rubbish.

The story itself seems to contain the odd anachronistic element, including some of the dialogue. But I'm not going into that here. The broken chronology of the story, with the typewriter soundtrack attempt to bring a sense of literacy to the plot (which essentially is quite straightforward). At times this works, and at times it doesn't, and I've not read this particular book, so I can't comment on how well it's translated. But I can say that I thought the general mise-en-scene shoddy: the poor staging of the dolly shots on the beach, the passée use of starlight-filtering, are examples. Overall I wouldn't bother with it.

Released in 1943 it would be surprising if this were not to some extent jingoistic. And indeed it is. Yet it is also so much more. It is a film that is quick to introduce us to a German soldier who acts throughout the film as a voice of sympathy for Germany. He impassions in the audience the pain of defeat.

The narrative sense of the film is so very keen, driving forward the story by the simple addition of an animal head to a wall, or the flickering pages of a journal. More than anything else it is a truly tremendous essay on growing old.

Following on from the success of "Shallow Grave" Danny Boyle was catapulted into the limelight with this great piece of work.

To be honest before I saw it, I'd heard Boyle state he wasn't making an anti-drugs film, and I was suspicious about the film's message. But the story was portrayed brilliantly - showing the appeal of drugs, particularly amongst those in despair, and the effects it has on lives. And it manages to be hilarious too. It never drops you into the doldrums, but trots along at a smart pace with a cracking soundtrack and black humour.

I'd almost say it's a must see film - except that there's no question that there are scenes in it that will make many people squirm: the scene most talked about being the one where Renton (Ewan McGregor) dives down a diarrhoea-filled toilet to retrieve his drug-suppositories. But the sequence maintains a sense of humour throughout its going's on, and for me isn't the most disturbing scene (mind you, there's a lot to chose from: Spud's morning-after moment, Begbie's rages, the high-school sex...).