lesallen-68268

IMDb member since April 2020
    Lifetime Total
    25+
    IMDb Member
    4 years, 1 month

Reviews

House of Last Things
(2013)

Paint Drying
There's only one positive here - Kelly is some tasty eye candy. Otherwise an absolute and utter turkey. If you endured this in a cinema they'd have to wake you to give your ticket money back.

Sarah Beeny's New Life in the Country
(2020)

Oh Dear.... Poor Somerset
It's hard work watching celebrities invade the countryside... Even more so when the continuity editor let's a white truck turn into a red truck.... Full truck white... Empty truck red... Just about sums it all up... Celebrity invaders... Now You See Them.... Then They're Gone... Hurrah!

The Millionairess
(1960)

And They Lived Happily Ever After...
How far things have changed in humanity's sensibilities since the swinging sixties... Absolutely and totally incorrect on so many woke levels.... but divine all the same!! Funny and clever.... Ludicrous plot but the chemistry between Sellers and Loren is magic... Two fine actors enjoying their work to the max... Great Sunday afternoon viewing...

Now You See Me
(2013)

Incroyable
Watchable but silly. Decent pace... Good cast... Story too far fetched...

L.A. Confidential
(1997)

One Cool Movie
All the ingredients... Fine cast... Great sets... Fantastic set pieces... Perfect pace... Top quality production values... crime, sex and violence... all in all one classy glamorous film.

Punch-Drunk Love
(2002)

Just A Mistake
I've sat through some turkeys.... And, despite an overwhelming sense of guilty failure, I admit I have even had to give up on a few... This, sadly falls into that elite group of totally unwatchables. In my defence, I laboured at it for an hour. I'm not proud to admit I've given it a one simply because of Emily's sex appeal. To summarise - best avoided.

Magnolia
(1999)

Paint Drying
Magnolia - a bland, insipid wall paint used by builders in the UK....

Cloud Atlas
(2012)

Automatic Writing...
David Bowie was once reported to have written a song by randomly putting words together... So.... The theme is re-incarnation... Gather up a posse of 'A' listers.... Make maybe four, possibly five, perhaps even six shortish, average to good movie-ettes, each starring the same actors.... Cut them up.... Splice them all randomly back together into one opus in the editing suite... Et voila.... three hours of pick 'n' mix viewing... Must have cost a fortune. Sadly not all experiments are a success....

Find It Fix It Flog It
(2016)

Cheap Labour?
These guys turn up some quirky and interesting items for upcycling. Their ideas are often very good, and similarly the results, but there's no way in 21st century UK that those results could be seriously achieved at their declared costs. The outlays they claim to have spent are just plain ridiculous, and that sadly undermines that whole idea of the programme. The achievements remain worthwhile even if the format is badly flawed.

Bringing Out the Dead
(1999)

"Bearing witness.... A Grief Mop"
An understated classic in the mould of Catch 22, Apocalypse Now... The dark, grim, sordid underbelly of New York portrayed so realistically by a fine cast under a Masters' direction... Bleak, black humour the only means of surviving the insanity of the paramedics' life... A great movie

Plenty
(1985)

A Study...
Set against the backdrop of a 1940s / 50s costume and period drama , the story is one woman's life and, more importantly, mental journey and disintegration... A fine cast, near perfect production values... Yet not quite totally at home on celluloid. It is, essentially, a character study, and one that perhaps shines more on a stage... Nevertheless a classy performance from the lead player.

Breaking and Entering
(2006)

Big Screen Soap
A cast of 'A' listers living out their fairly (dull) predictable lives in The Metropolis.... Not particularly compelling... No pace... No excitement... No pain.... In fact rather dull and pedestrian... Only saving grace is the eye candy - Jude et Juliette...

The Revenant
(2015)

CGI Masterclass
Its the wild, wild west... But not as we know it! An unbelievable (and sometimes laughable) survivability from the protagonist... Glass makes James Bond look like a real pussy... Far removed from The Man With No Name.... And even further from McClintock... Brutally grim and 'realistic' (there are NO redeeming heroes in this tale), but lacking the charm and wit of those earlier incarnations of the genre. Watchable in a punishing way....

Tôkyô monogatari
(1953)

Marmite
Sadly this one passed me by.... One for the true movie buffs...

Get Rich or Die Tryin'
(2005)

Poor Boy Makes Good...
From the perspective of a middle aged white male in rural UK, I am hardly best placed to decide if this was simply a self-promotion piece or a true insight into the lives of people far far removed from my own. As other reviewers have observed it was watchable.... Poor boy turned bad makes good... My curiosity piqued I checked out 50Cents bio and it might be that the star took some artistic licence in his portrayal of his life.... Nevertheless a decent movie.

Apocalypse Now
(1979)

"Your Methods are Unsound"
Based loosely on the Conrad novella - Heart of Darkness. The quintessential anti-war project examines American invasion and "colonisation" of mid 20th century Vietnam, much as Conrad's original work studied the European version in 19th Century Africa. Man's inhumanity to man, ideological hegemony, and the ultimate distillation of evil, are the essential ingredients of the piece. But as Kurtz immortally observes... "THE HORROR". .. is not a pretty sight This is not "the banality of evil" favoured by the Nazis. But the victims remain and suffer just the same... I recently viewed the Redux version, and unlike some other reviewers, I enjoyed the French Plantation scenes.... Apart from the "light relief" of a gorgeously erotic bedroom scene.... The perspective of these other "colonisers" added depth to the story... All in all a useful antidote to the technical wizardry of 1917.

1917
(2019)

The Horror
A harrowing tale of the futility of human conflict and comrades in arms.

The Messengers
(2007)

A Decent Workaday Horror
As another reviewer has already observed... "I enjoyed this movie... does what it says on the tin". Credible cast, proficiently directed and shot. The movie holds your attention and maintains a good pace with adequate suspense and surprises. I wouldn't have demanded my money back.

The Big Sleep
(1946)

"What's wrong with you..." "Nothing You can't fix..."
Classic film noir... Shamus Philip Marlow takes on a case that is convoluted, to say the least! Nevertheless it romps along, and if you hold on tight enough it's just about comprehensible... Story aside, it is worth watching simply for the scenes between the two stars... the iconic phrase "like Bogart and Bacall" shines through in their performances. A real, and gloriously risqué, chemistry. They are THE ultimate screen duo... As well as the electricity buzzing between these two, there are the humorous moments . The dry humour and wit of the hardened private eye add sparkle to the legendary dialogue of the genre... Mr. Bogart is Mr. Cool

The Astonished Heart
(1950)

And love fades from kiss to kiss....
This is the eternal story of a man destroyed by passion... Take away the Received Pronunciation and the black and white production, and this film could have been made yesterday. Fine, studied performances by all the cast together with some clever shooting for the period, comfortably holds the viewers' interest throughout. Mr.Coward definitely understood people - their subtleties, weaknesses and complexities. And this gives the characters real dimension. The dialogue is sharp and intelligent - exactly to be expected from one of the greatest of wordsmiths. Perhaps not a classic, but a dreadfully good watch all the same.

Stan & Ollie
(2018)

Poignant and Sad.... Life-affirming.
An aura of impending doom permeates from the very outset... And lasts long into the movie. It is not until the 'bedroom scene' that the true depth of mutual friendship, admiration and love between these ageing stage comrades is finally revealed. From this point on the story becomes, despite the poignancy and sadness, essentially life-affirming. And this, for me, redeems the whole project. Technically faultless, the casting, sets, music, costumes and structure of the work are exactly what one would expect from such an intelligently crafted movie.

Village of the Damned
(1960)

Pure Class
Black and white. No CGI. Celebrating a 60th birthday - and confirming that true quality never deteriorates. And the world was given that immortal phrase - "Village Of The Damned"

The World Ten Times Over
(1963)

The "Swinging" Sixties
Gritty is an overused word, but in the case of this black and white gem set in sixties London, it fulfils. The two young women making their way in the seedy metropolis come into contact with equally damaged male characters - the millionaire's son trying to escape the dominion of his father, and Bella's strait-laced school teacher father... This film certainly grips the atmosphere of the period and the casting is well honed... The thoughtful Bella and her slightly crazy flat mate, the downtrodden poor little rich kid, and the confused father all reveal their frailties and failings. I found it powerful and moving. This movie could have been made yesterday - the characters and their blighted city lives no less real almost six decades ago than today. A must see for students of dramatic theatre...

Wakolda
(2013)

Complex and Disturbing
A tense and gripping portrayal of a German doctor discovered living in the midst of a normal family in Patagonia in 1960 - this whole piece is woven with sinister and disturbing undercurrents from the very outset. To say the portrayal is sympathetic is probably going too far, but the motivations of the Nazi fugitive are complex. His cold, detached and forensic precision is weighed in the balance against fragments of 'decent' humanity that are revealed in a desire to 'help' this family. In the final analysis the inhuman monster inside is exposed, but even this most evil of men reveals a complex, multi-faceted personality. One that is ultimately overshadowed by his atrocious war crimes committed in the name of advancing science.

The Hateful Eight
(2015)

Marmite....?
Tarantino.... You either love his work or hate it. What a breath of fresh air were his early works. Pulp Fiction broke the mould... Similarly Reservoir Dogs. This, his eight offering, had many similarities to the latter. But even Post modern blood fests lose their novelty factor if repeated often enough... Well made without a doubt, five star craftspeople coming together from every corner of film-making. But, as a dispassionate viewer, its tempting to wonder just if The Emperor Has A New Movie... Worth a watch... Wouldn't be asking at the box office for my money back on the way out... But a bit more left on the cutting room floor wouldn't have hurt the end result. Aficionados of the director might want to watch John Ford's Stagecoach as a warm up....

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