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I'm going on a 60 year old memory here, so bear with me! This was the B film that was the supporting feature in the UK next to Norman Wisdom's "The Square Peg", which is the only reason I happened to see it.

For a B movie to stick in your mind for 60 years, there has to have been something special about it. The plot is simple enough - the rat eliminator borrows an old, broken loaf pan to mix up his cyanide bait in a bakery, goes out to lunch planning to clean up his work tools when he gets back, and is involved in an accident that puts him in the hospital. In his absence, the baker runs out of loaf pans, and uses the cyanide laced broken pan. The rat catcher regains consciousness in the hospital, and goes into panic mode about the poisoned pan. The rest of the movie follows the attempts of the authorities to track down the poisoned loaf of bread, identifiable because the broken loaf tin makes it one of a handful of an unusual shape.

There are a number of candidates for the potential victim, and the suspense builds as we follow the purchasers of each deformed loaf to discover which one contains the fatal mixture.

The final dénoument is completely unexpected.

Too many dramatic movies rely on the scary music, the constantly repeated hidden menace, the shadowy glimpses of the unidentifiable villain to maintain the suspense. "Devil's Bait" carries you from fear to fear only because the scenario is so real. It could happen to you.

Why only 8 out of 10? Because I haven't seen it again since 1959 to know if it still has the same train-wreck power to simultaneously attract and repel.

We stumbled on this by accident - a program we were watching on France 3 rolled over into an episode, and we kept on watching.

Like Columbo, each episode stands alone, though there are certain recurring characters who provide a backdrop to the investigative action. Unlike Columbo, Simon Magellan has a home life, and in general this provides the light comic relief that offsets the drama of the murder investigation.

The relations and plot twists between the various possible suspects in each murder are as tortuous as anything Agatha Christie or Erle Stanley Gardner ever dreamed up, and the frenetic pace of unravelling the tangled web in the span of a 90 minute episode keeps the viewer constantly on the edge of the seat.

The characters are for the most part highly believable, and even the bit parts and extras do a sterling job of adding credibility, especially when some of the plot propositions come across as somewhat lame. In this context, I must make mention of one young actress, Florence Coste, who played a strong supporting role in the May 2018 episode "Un Amour De Jeunesse" ("Young Love"). The ability to cry really convincingly on camera is rare. The ability to act drunk believably is almost non-existent. Ms Coste handles both with such perfect understatement that I was quite awestruck.

If I had to single out one area where the series falls short, it is in the camera work and final editing. There are jumps in the picture, badly angled shots, and a heavy reliance on a series of canned aerial views of the town to indicate that Simon Magellan is moving from place to place. But this is not an art film, it is a mystery series, and we are content to forgive the poor post-productoin for the sake of some excellent acting and fun plot.

It isn't easy to find episodes to watch. France 3 runs them from time to time in batches on successive weekends of a few weeks, but not in episode sequence, and with long breaks between. MHz Choice has the first 8 episodes available with English subtitles that are too big and too high on the screen, and therefore interfere a lot with the action. It would be nice if the copyright owners would put the existing 32 episodes on a DVD boxed set and make them available on-line.

This week I fell in love all over again, like a teenager. Rose Weissman stole my heart.

Few people even know who Rose Weissman is. Unless you've seen The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, you won't have encountered Miriam Maisel's mother, Rose. It took me a bit of introspection to figure out why I am so drawn to this character. Then I realised that she is my wife. She's the woman I wanted my daughters to grow up into. She is the girl I wanted my son to marry.

Rose Weissman is intelligent, witty, bitingly sarcastic at times, kind, generous and thoughtful. She is devoted to her home and those she shares it with. She is ferociously protective of her offspring. She loves her shiksah daughter-in-law unconditionally. She is dedicated to her marriage and her temple. She worries for her children, that they may face heartbreak and disappointment. She worries for her husband that he may lose the respect of his colleagues, or of the members of their Shul.

Her daughter Miriam said of her "My mother wants everything to be perfect. No, she wants everything to appear to be perfect." But Miriam is wrong. Rose knows that perfection is an unattainable ideal, but she nevertheless sees perfection as something to strive for at all times. She is elegant and sophisticated, running a spotless urban middle class home with skill and diplomacy. She is a strong woman. She bore and raised two children through the great depression and the nightmare years of WWII. She has learned to hide her hurts, her heartaches, her disappointments, and maintain that appearance of perfection that her daughter despises. And if on occasion she turns in secret to a glass of wine or a quack fortune teller, it is to quell her own insecurities, not to manipulate those around her.

Rose Weissman is the 1950s middle aged middle class urban housewife who epitomizes everything the feminists abhor. And she is drop-dead gorgeous.

I borrowed Season 1 at no cost from my local library, and I have to say it was worth every penny I paid. I shall not even pay that much to watch the rest.

Even if you have not the faintest idea what the books were like, or what the theology and moral principles of their author may have been, the series is bound to disappoint. I am actually shocked that an actor of the calibre of Mark Williams would have assented to participate in this ridiculous and totally unbelievable piece of PC rubbish.

If the BBC had at least remained true to the good nature of Chesterton's work, it might have redeemed the travesty somewhat. But spooky music, low budget horror movie darkness, and equally dark plot twists turn the fun frolic of the original concept into just one more pathetic Conan-Doyle imitation. I kept expecting Peter Cushing or Lon Cheney Jr to appear in the next scene.

I won't dwell on egregious faults like the City of Birmingham ambulance responding to an injury in the Cotswolds, the misplaced (Midlands or Home Counties) accents of the locals, or the permanent cast of Soap Opera supporting roles. Things like those are just the scum on the top of the foetid pond.

Give it a miss.

This is a film about climbing, about rising above, about aspiring to new heights, both literally and allegorically.

Each of the characters is stretched, as the plot develops, to become a better self. Sandra, the principal character, has to overcome her 7 years of prison conditioning and learn to trust and be trusted. Paul has a quarter of a century of hurt held inside from Sandra's mother. Bruno, Sandra's growing love interest must control his impatience to conquer the mountain, but he also has to come to terms with the reason behind his inability to commit to the girl he lives with.

In a French film, it is not unreasonable to expect all these plot lines to weave together into a tragedy of Trufautesque proportion. Instead, though, Pierre-Antoine Hiroz shows us characters rising to the occasion, opting for the nobler choice, and arriving at a more feel-good resolution. But don't expect all the 'i's to be dotted and all the 't's crossed - that would just be too Hollywood.

I took a few points off my rating for some quite weak and predictable plot lines, but primarily for all the missed cinematographic opportunities. It is unconscionable to set a film in and around the Chamonix valley and the Mont Blanc, and not let the landscape dominate the movie as it does the whole region in real life.

This is a tried and tested formula. Take three characters of the same sex, put them into a situation where they have to interact for an extended period under stressful circumstances, and then explore the relationships that develop. The formula however tends to lend itself to rapid degeneration into either the ridiculous, if it is being milked for laughs, or the melodramatic if it is played for drama. It is much to the credit of all concerned that Thelma, Louise et Chantal manages to avoid both traps and turn in a pleasant evening's entertainment.

Plenty of laughs - including some great subtle plays on words and misunderstandings. A tiny bit of slapstick. Some bathos for seasoning. And a plot development that is entirely believable from start to finish, even including the running gag of the frozen dog corpse.

Believable characters, too. As the film progresses, each of the women is forced to drop her walls of pretense, face up to her own shortcomings, and become open and honest with her traveling companions. If some of the bit parts seem two dimensional, this is almost inevitable given the size of their roles, and only serves to add body to the three middle aged women who are the focus of our attention.

I've complained before about the sound quality of French films. It appears that the studios have, at long last, learned how to process their sound tracks properly, because in this film I found nothing to criticize - interior, exterior and "in car" sound recordings were all crystal clear and intelligible. Finally!

Enjoy it. It was fun.

We came across this DVD among my mother-in-laws effects as we were clearing out her house in Gironde, and I found myself wondering how come I had never heard of it in 14 years. A film this good should have been as famous as Amélie or Chocolat!

Why did I love it? Because everything in it rang true. The basic premise sounds a bit far fetched, but in the context of the plot as it unfolds, it makes perfect sense. The boys are neither precociously adept at survival, nor pathetically incapable, but the presence of an adult, no matter how unusual his circumstances, makes their continued flight possible. There is much wry humour in the interaction between the three main characters - so much, in fact, that it is tempting to view the film as a comedy and lose sight of the fact that there is a war on, and the adult character stands to lose his life if caught by either the German or French authorities.

Maybe serendipity is stretched a bit thin in places - Antoine's skill with a catapult (no, dear US readers, it's not a slingshot, that's a completely different weapon) is definitely over the top, and the fortuitous arrival of a pair of "Collabo" at just the right moment smacks of Deus ex Machina, but life is full of coincidences, and they don't all roll the way of our heroes in this particular gem.

The acting standard was exceptionally high, even for the bit players, which enhanced my suspension of disbelief. Still, I have to say that there are very few child actors who can cry convincingly on camera, and neither of the Hubert boys managed it. Everything else in their roles they pulled off with credible artistry, and Richard Bohringer was at all times utterly believable.

I always fear the ending of French films, with their penchant for leaving as many threads loose as possible, so the sudden unexpected plot twist in the last 90 seconds of this film caught me completely off guard. My first reaction was incomprehension, then I realized that there really was no other way the story could turn out. You'll have to see it for yourself to understand why.

The more I see of Fabrice Luchini, the more he impresses me. I don't think I have ever encountered a comic actor with a better sense of timing and pathos. Chaplin was legendary for playing human tragedy absolutely straight, and making us laugh despite ourselves, no matter how much we might really want to cry. Luchini has the same incredible skill. A twist of the mouth, an arch of the eyebrow, a lowering of the gaze, and disaster is transformed into hilarity.

In his period pieces like Molière or Beaumarchais he was superb, but you have to know your French classics to really appreciate his achievement. In this contemporary gem we see him at his very best. The would be PC tolerant son of an aging radical, he has to balance his political correctness against his bourgeois ideas of family and social order, all the while dealing with his rôle as a husband, a father and a successful lawyer.

The dialogue is understated - there are no belly laughs in this comedy, but as the plot unrolls, we get a real feel of the tensions inherent in present day urban living - family demands, career demands, social requirements, socio-political issues, you name it. A sense of humour is given us to cope with the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Fabrice Luchini handles it all with impeccable restraint.

Restraint goes out the window, though, for Karin Viard in the rôle of his sister. Her over-the-top reaction to the family situation results in a torrid relationship with her partner in her medical practice that provides the near slapstick relief that the plot demands.

Supporting cameos by a couple of up and coming young child actors - Max Renaudin and Emma Siniavski serve to provide the gilding of the lily.

Watch it and rejoice.

Every so often, Elstree turns out a jewel. Unfortunately this is not one of them. The English like their humour either subtle, or over-the-top farcical, Americans prefer smutty or slapstick (hence the transatlantic popularity of Benny Hill & Fawlty Towers). "Saving Grace" has none of the above. Such humour as there is is purely situational, and consists largely of ordinary people doing completely ridiculous things due to the nature of Grace's cash crop. This is the kind of unfunny humour I associate with films from Down Under, where inane offerings like "The Castle" have huge success The plot thesis is thin, and it's development is non-existent. The main characters are simply not credible, despite superb acting from just about everyone in the cast. In fact, I would suggest that the only really believable roles in the whole film were Matthew Stewarts's girlfiend Nicky (Valerie Edmond), the Vicar (Leslie Phillips) and Quentin Rhodes, the London lawyer (Clive Merrison). Everyone else was a cardboard cut-out caricature.

I find, too, a huge wasted opportunity in the failure to exploit the incredible beauty of rural Cornwall to its maximum potential. Far too much of the movie was interior shot, or down in the narrow village lanes where it is impossible to appreciate the surroundings.

All in all, a pleasant enough waste of an hour and a half streaming it on N*tfl*x, but if I'd had to pay to watch it, I'd have been really disappointed.

I watched this film in the company of some friends who told me in advance what a treat I was in for, and then fell asleep before the opening credits finished rolling. Grossly over-caricatured stereotypes, horribly overacted rôles, impenetrable Ch'timi accents all made for a yawn-generating experience. There wasn't even a decent bit of eye-candy of either sex.

My mother-in-law is Ch'ti (complete with occasionally impenetrable accent), and she is vastly more entertaining than this pathetic attempt at humour. Heck, it even makes Woody Allen look funny! I can take most of the shortcomings of French cinema - the atrocious self conscious introspection, the endings that resolve nothing, the art for art's sake camera work, the wooden acting and ponderous plots - but not in something that's supposed to be comedy, for heaven's sake! For the first time ever, I found myself nostalgic for an Australian attempt at humour.

Give this one a miss unless you are (a) an extreme masochist or (b) doing doctoral research on moribund French patois.

Alzheimers is ugly. Watching someone struggle with its early stages is painful. La Brunante manages to make us part of Madeleine's family, willing her to overcome her condition and her determination to make a graceful exit. The parts are marvelously cast, with Monique Mercure and Suzanne Clément perfectly representing the aging Madeleine and the tortured Zoë.

What a wasted opportunity though, cinematographically. Madeleine and Zoë's journey takes place in some of the most outstandingly beautiful landscape on planet earth. as a backdrop to the action, the Gaspé peninsula could have been featured much more, and could only have enhanced the movie. -1 point for this lapse, otherwise, it was a perfect 10.

Who'd have thought that Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore could pull off something like this? Grant does his standard "I'm a complete airhead, but I'm terribly lovable" role, with his usual skill. Drew Barrymore has also made a career out of portraying airheads - bimbos who are a few french-fries short of a happy meal. At first blush, you'd expect a pair of ditzes like these to turn in a Lucy & Desi style slapstick shtick, but surprisingly, the combination works. The humor is generally understated, and Grant's funny lines spin forth with the impeccable sense of timing and delivery that he always brings to his work, while Barrymore does a very creditable job at holding up her end of the farce.

Of course, the plot is pedestrian, hackneyed and unoriginal, hence the down-grading from 10 stars to only 8. Boy meets girl; one of them doesn't like the other much, and anyway they're mis-matched; along the way a relationship develops, breaks, gets mended, breaks again. No surprises here. But the underlying thesis of an autumn-spring romance, while it, too, is far from original, does give both stars a chance to show what they are made of. The awkwardness of the situation, the slow dawning attraction, the petty generational conflicts are portrayed with a sensitivity that we would expect more from a serious drama than a fluffy feel-good comedy like this.

Top marks to the special effects crew for the retro video of the band "Pop!". The age regression techniques are utterly believable, such that it's hard to credit that they didn't actually dig out some awful archive footage of Hughie from some forgotten vault.

As a recommendation, I can't do better than report my wife' s reaction. She is a person who NEVER wants to re-watch a movie she's already seen. If she is watching a film on TV and begins to recognize it as something she's seen before, she immediately turns it off. So I was stunned, at the end of this film, to hear her suggest that we stay put in the theatre and watch the next showing as well. Is it worth paying good money to view on the big screen? Probably not, unless you're a die-hard Hugh Grant fan who wants to see him, larger than life, swivel his hips like Colin Firth in "What a Girl wants," or you're a latent pedophile who wants to ogle at giant, nearly naked Haley Bennet faking an orgasm on stage. Otherwise, just wait for the video.

I'd have to agree with the writer who said that those who think this is the greatest French movie can't be getting out much. It has none of the power of "Manon des Sources," none of the dramatic flair of "Chocolat" and very little of the poignancy of "Ponette." It is, however, a very well constructed film, and one which it has been fun to watch several times.

To those unfamiliar with French culture, some of the vignettes may miss their targets. The French obsession with collecting odd things, with bicycle racing, with sending postcards from every place they visit, their willingness to be demonstrably affectionate in public, all get lampooned mercilessly. The characters are largely stereotypes; what more can one expect in a movie with so many important characters - there isn't the time to develop each one adequately, so they remain necessarily two dimensional. But it is this two dimensionality of the characters that gives the film its surreal touch that drags the viewer forward from scene to scene, wondering what can possibly happen next.

As comedies go, it lacks the gross slapstick of a de Funes film, and this is very much to its credit. The subtlety of the emotional torture Amélie applies to Collignon the greengrocer is far more entertaining than any pie-in-the-face schtick would have been. Even the running garden gnome joke fails to pall, because it is carefully not overworked. Still, if I had to designate a "funniest french movie ever", it probably wouldn't be this one - I'd more likely go for the James Bond style "Une Chance Sur Deux" which managed a better balance of types of humor, with a wider range.

All in all, Amélie is a good movie, but not necessarily a great one. It's one that is worth plopping down the money to rent, or even to buy the DVD, but I would have been disappointed if I'd paid good money to see it in a theatre - there is nothing in the movie that could take advantage of a large screen and theatre surround sound, and nothing in it that warrants parting with $15 or $20 to see it just once, with antisocial louts making comments and crunching popcorn just behind you.

Belmondo & Delon, together again, and this time with Vanessa Paradis in tow - or is it the other way round? The basic premise of the film is that Alice Tomaso (Paradis) gets out of jail, and goes looking for Léo (Belmondo) and Julien (Delon), one of whom, it appears, is her father. On the way, she steals the wrong car - one belonging to the Russian mafia, and arrives at her destination with a gang of thugs out looking for her and the car. Mayhem and murder ensue, as Delon and Belmondo compete, not to win the girl, but just for the right to call themselves her father. In the process, they join forces, disrupt the mafia, seize the loot and head of to America for a paternity test.

The whole movie is played for laughs, capitalizing on the James Bond, Naked Gun genre of action comedy, and it works really well. The action is as fast paced, and every bit as far fetched, as any Bond flick. The understated humour, the slick gags and special effects, the subtle dialogue all make this a movie to watch, if you're a Bond fan. You won't be disappointed. On the other hand, if you want your French films to be "arty," deep and philosophical, you'd better go look for a Truffaut or an early Jeunet - you won't find what you're looking for here. This is shallow, it's slapstick, it's silly, and it's fun. Nothing special, just a good evening's entertainment that won't tax your brain (unless you have a problem reading subtitles).

It really helps to put this movie in perspective if you know a little about the author. William Douglas-Home is the younger brother of Sir Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, 14TH Earl of Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel of Coldstream, who, in October 1963 (8 years after the writing of the play from which this screen-play was adapted), disclaimed his peerages for life, took the name Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and succeeded Harold Macmillan as prime minister of England. The plot, therefore, is an insider's look at an outsider's view of the traditions, the glamour, and of course, the pain and hypocrisy of the British upper class. As such it succeeds remarkably. Sterling performances by Amanda Bynes and Colin Firth are ably complemented by a truly brilliant Anna Chancellor, who manages almost to make you like her "wicked stepmother" character, or at least feel sorry for her for being so shallow, and an excellent backup from Christina Cole as the evil step-sister-to-be.

This is billed as a teen flick, but it's well worth the price of an evening's rental as wholesome, cute entertainment, no matter how old you are.

Just for fun though, do pay attention to the gross continuity bloopers with the taxi license numbers. Someone's head must have rolled for these!

What can I say about Cameron's "Titanic" that hasn't already been said? I watched it originally against my will, to please my wife, and was blown away. I had been led to expect yet another brit-bashing epic where the wicked aristocrats trample the poor working class - that's how it had been presented to me. Instead I found a film that portrayed clearly, accurately, and, most importantly, with balance, the world of the early twentieth century with its vast contrasts between haves and have-nots.

Many have complained about the score, or about Céline Dion's rendering of the theme song. Personally, I believe that the score was as near perfect as any movie score can be. And if you don't happen to like Céline Dion, well, that's your problem. I was a Céline fan back before she ever learned English, and I still am. I still find her version of "The Heart Will Go On" (minus all the crummy DJ remixes) to be absolutely magical (especially from the top of the Las Vegas Eiffel Tower, looking down on the Bellagio fountain ballet!)

And yes, five years later, the film still enchants and impresses. Every time I watch it, I'm overwhelmed by the incredible attention to detail, the breadth and depth of the screenplay, the amazing special effects. I could wish that Cameron had eliminated the hokey scene with Jack handcuffed to the pipe, but apart from that, there's nothing I would add to, or take away from this movie. If time has jaded your tastes to the point where you can no longer appreciate it, I feel sorry for you. If "maturity" has robbed you of the ability to express your appreciation of it, then shame on you. The "Mona Lisa" is a magnificent work of art, no matter how old it gets, or you get. And so is Cameron's "Titanic."

Conventional wisdom has it that the French don't like musicals. Not true at all, as the success of this show demonstrates. Plamondon and Cocciante have concocted a masterpiece that perfectly captures all the important parts of Hugo's novel, and magnificently transports the whole thing to the stage. The handful of young unknowns who star in this production on the video tape (most of them from Quebec) are almost overwhelming in their talent as singers, dancers, and dramatic performers. Bruno Pelletier shines as the anguished, tortured priest. Hélène Ségara (the only French star in the cast) totally captures our hearts as the doomed Esméralda, and Garou (the name means "Werewolf" in French!) demands and receives all our sympathy as the hapless Quasimodo. Incredibly powerful supporting performances by Patrick Fiori as Phoebus, Julie Zenatti as Fleur-de-lys and Luc Merville as Clopin round out a cast that can do no wrong.

Imagine Riverdance on steroids, "West Side Story" meets "Cirque de Soleil", or a Paris riot set to music, and you have an idea of the scope of this incredible show. The choreography is the most energetic, not to say frenetic, I have ever seen, and the most imaginative. It's hard to decide, at times, if we are watching a dance or a gymnastics exhibition.

If you can't get to Las Vegas, Montreal or Paris to see the show live on stage, this is the next best thing. For me it totally eclipsed every rock opera and musical which preceded it, to become the definitive musical of the 20th century. And I believe it will be at least another generation before anyone can come up with a way to surpass it.

Inspired at least a little by Ivy Benson & Her All Girls Orchestra, who performed throughout the war years at the Covent Garden Opera house, this film chronicles the attempts by an elderly saxophone player to reform the (almost) all girl band with whom she played as a schoolgirl towards the end of WWII. All too brief flashbacks to the original band on stage bring us some wonderful music, and help to fill in the background to the band members, and in particular to the girls' relationships with the lone male member - their transvestite drummer (who is trying to dodge the call-up).

Ian Holm ("Lord of The Rings", "Cromwell and Fairfax") and Judi Dench turn in superb leading performances as the recently widowed Elizabeth, and the conniving, womanizing Patrick, the drummer. The late Joan Sims is perfect as the band's leader, now playing bar piano at the sea-side, and June Whitfield glows as the Salvation Army trombone player. Cameo appearances by other greats like Cleo Laine, Leslie Caron, Olympia Dukakis and Billie Whitelaw make this an unforgettable experience. The movie is a romp down memory lane, with an all star cast of what ought, by all rights, to be a bunch of over-the-hill actresses. All I can say is, I hope I look as good at their age! Leslie Caron, in particular, is still an incredible fox, at 69 years of age. She certainly still gets my pulse going! As I watched it, I was mentally berating the casting director for not using women of the appropriate age. Afterwards, I looked these girls up, and discovered that every one of them is old enough to have been performing in the London of 1944 (although this might be a bit of a stretch for Judi Dench).

If you like swing bands, thrive on nostalgia, or just want to see how good a woman can manage look with almost three quarters of a century behind her, don't miss this film.

I rented this video expecting a cute, mindless piece of fluff for a relaxing evening's entertainment. What I got was so much more than I bargained for. True, many of the plot twists are pure far-fetched fantasy, but the basic premise was solid, and worked a charm. The primary conflict of the story line was certainly original - New England conservatism vs Left Coast consumerism is not a motif we find every decade, much less every day, in a film of any genre, and certainly not in a comedy of this nature. The gradual maturing of a group of college graduates from widely different backgrounds, as they pursue their dreams and goals at Harvard Law School could have been an excuse for a morass of schtick and slapstick. Instead, it was a sensitive, if amusing coming of age for all the protagonists, including, in the end analysis, some of the older characters.

The acting was above average; it takes enormous skill to play a rôle like Elle Woods - intelligent, determined and resourceful while appearing a stereotypical blonde bimbo - and play it convincingly. And if some (most, actually!) of the serendipities of the plot were less than convincing, some great acting and quite exceptional dialog made up for the poor underpinnings. I'm not a great fan of Reese Witherspoon, but certainly appreciate the panache with which she pulled this one off. There were also some sterling supporting performances, notably by Selma Blair as the rival, who gradually evolves from a horsey country-clubber into a stunning beauty as the film progresses (with appropriate character development from a snooty bitch to a warm friend).

I was particularly impressed by some of the photography in this production. Pay close attention to the shadows in the poolside scene with the Woods family at the beginning of the film! Later, the private interview between Elle and Professor Callahan shows just how much can be conveyed in a handful of seconds of outstanding camera work. And the elevator scene immediately following gets my vote as one of the finest pieces of cinema photography of 2001.

There aren't many films that I would consider worth watching more than once, and even fewer that I have liked enough to want to own them. This one is going to find its way into my personal collection.

My experience up until now has been that movie makers could only ever ruin a perfectly good, even great, story by translating it to the silver screen. For this reason, 40 years ago, I made a pact with my best friend that if they ever tried to make a movie of Tolkien's classic, we would pay good money to be allowed not to see it! How glad I am that we agreed, in the autumn of 2001, to set aside that pact.

Watching Peter Jackson's production, the feeling was one of finally getting to meet people whom I had only heard about before - most of them didn't look anything like my mental picture, but I recognized them instantly nevertheless. In particular, Ian Holme was the perfect Bilbo Baggins. The moment he appeared on the screen, I knew him at once, and Holme didn't just play Bilbo, he became him.

From the point of view of the actual action, my impression was of watching someone else telling the tale of an experience we had both shared. Some things I would have found important, he left out, some things I thought trivial, he left in, and some things he saw completely differently from the way I did, but he was nevertheless still talking about the same incident.

On the negative side, I was disappointed with the casting of Liv Tyler as Arwen. Personally, I had looked for a more ethereal beauty than Liv Tyler possesses. I also found that leaving out the entire confrontation between the Nine of the Fellowship and Galadriel meant that parts of the subsequent story must either also be omitted, or must be hard to understand for those who don't know the story line as well as I do. We shall see, as parts II and III come out, how Peter Jackson is going to cope with this.

Overall, I must say that in this film, Peter Jackson has redeemed the film-making industry. It was a stroke of genius on his part to require that all concerned re-read the trilogy before picking up the film script. By so doing, he made sure that any rank departures from Professor Tolkien's original intent would be immediately short-circuited. I hope that others will follow his example when their turn comes to translate classic works to the screen, and that from now on, producers, directors, actors and screen-writers will work together to preserve the artistic integrity of the original works, as Jackson has now shown us can be done.

From start to finish, I cracked up with laughter at this film. Several times I had to stop the video tape and run to the bath-room, I was so close to wetting myself with laughter. I saw it as a continuous string of spoofs on all that makes movies bad, with cameos lifted straight from the absolute worst schtick from "Lawrence of Arabia," "The Gods Must Be Crazy," "Dr Strangelove," "Its A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," and a host of others.

!!!!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!!!! Just one example- the final scene with the drunken Texan fighter pilot crashing his plane into the Mother Ship to save the whole world is an almost exact mirror image of the final scene of Dr Strangelove, with the crazy Texan bomber pilot riding his nuclear bomb down to the destruction of the whole world.

This film out-Brooksed Mel Brooks by a light year. Anyone who didn't like the film must have never been to the movies before in their lives. If you're one of those viewers who didn't see this as consummate comedy, try watching it again and see how many other movies you can identify - you'll die laughing like I nearly did.

Yet another of those 60s movies dedicated to parting pop fans from their money. This was a very poor vehicle for a couple of up-and-coming young singing stars, Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan. Whilst the standard of acting was undeniably far higher than anyone could have hoped for, the plot was weak and predictable, the screenplay pathetic, and the dialogue atrocious.

Johnny Hallyday in the lead rôle demonstrates an acting ability which eclipses the more accomplished performers in the cast, but the vapid supporting rôle assigned to his girlfriend (and later his wife) Sylvie Vartan would have challenged even Hollywood's greatest, and, no matter how great an actress she later turned to be, Mlle Vartan was not, at that age (she was a mere 17 years old at the time of filming this silly piece of nonsense), equal to the task.

The whole movie is really nothing more than an excuse to get teen heart-throb Johnny Hallyday on the screen, where his adoring teeny-bopper fans can swoon over his infectious grin (one which always reminds me of Peter Noone, he of Herman's Hermits fame). In those days, with no MTV, and no video clips to wow the adolescents, this is as good as it got. Quite frankly, Johnny should have stuck to singing. Or at least have held out for a real film with a real plot to showcase his undoubted talent.

The success of Acker Bilk's mega-hit theme tune for this series completely eclipsed what was one of the BBCs better family entertainment series of the '60s. Although each episode was meant to stand alone, if you missed one, it became hard to follow the plot as Marie-Hélène gradually adjusts to the culture shock of being an au-pair in a British sea-side town. I think this was the first TV series I watched where the plot and the acting standard were both so high that I had more the impression of looking in on a slice of someone's real life, than a television family drama. The culminating anguish on the part of Marie-Hélène, when her friend's no-good boyfriends drag her off joy-riding, and wreck Penelope Gough's new sports car has yet to be equalled in my view.

Don't miss, too, the sequel series "Stranger in the City", with the same cast, and a sadly jazzed-up version of the theme tune.

Nobody watching this film can failed to be touched, moved, transported and transformed by it. Others here have already expressed the enormous power of the movie, and particularly of its star, Victoire Thivisol. If you're reading this to see if you should watch it, I'd say, drop everything and go buy it so you can watch it over and over. But buy a case of Kleenex (TM) too, you're going to need them!

As I watched the movie, I had the impression that director Jacques Doillon had simply found a real-life tragedy and somehow followed the participants through it with his camera. Nothing in this film gives you the impression of having been written, scripted, staged, produced. It is all so completely natural that you experience first hand the pain, the emotional agony of Ponette, as if she were your own daughter, your own sister, even your own self.

This is a film you either love or hate. The plot is well constructed, the acting solid, even outstanding in parts (particularly the interview between Paul Delorme and Mme Pitot), the dialogue believable. Where it strains is in the odd surrealist fades, which leave the viewer confused for long moments until he figures out what is going on. The screenplay leaves untied a lot of loose ends that the book cleared up rather nicely, but in the 95 minutes available this is not too surprising. What is surprising, given the complexity of the plot and sub-plots, is how well the characters get developed in such a short film, especially some of the minor characters with little on-screen time. Michel Piccoli and Sylvie Vartan deliver sterling performances, and Mlle Vartan clearly demonstrates that she is not just another pretty face trying to change careers, but a consummate actress with great dramatic ability.

In common with too many French films, the soundtrack is poor quality (the interiors of French buildings tend to be large echo chambers, and this is never corrected in the postproduction sound processing), which probably won't bother an English speaking viewer too greatly, but makes following the unsubtitled version difficult, even for a native French speaker.