benosler

I am a big fan of the 1970s series but was nevertheless determined to watch the new one without prejudice. I've now seen the first two episodes and must admit to being pleasantly surprised.

Yes, I did feel it was over produced and there certainly were moments of flashbacks with meaningful stares by the lead character set to music that were reminiscent of an after shave advert but in spite of this and the shaky-cam and head cutting in the post production, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

The character of Poldark himself was aesthetically too much of a "pretty boy" and I became irritated by the fact that he'd seemingly never learned to use a comb. His hair was constantly threatening to form dreadlocks.

Supporting characters were all very good and on the whole believable but what did seem odd was the over familiar conversation between Poldark and his housekeeper Jud which I felt had been inserted to try to portray a degree of humanity between master and servant away from the public gaze of a class system. Stuff and nonsense and typical of the BBC's desire to whitewash history.

It's fun and I'll continue to watch it but when all is said and done I'd still advise a complete Poldark novice to go for the boxed set of the 1970s series over this one.

WARNING: This review DOES contain spoilers.

I've just finished watching the last episode of the series and I feel utterly and completely let down.

I'm a fan of the original but approached this re-imagining with an open mind and was pleasantly surprised. Gone is the camp 1980s vibe, the cheesy Visitor Willy, the big hair and the unbelievable over-acting of Diana.

The new Visitor's leader Anna is believably evil and the central plot has been updated to be more believable also; the Visitors do not want us as a source of food - which one would have thought could be cooked up by any hi-tech alien culture in a laboratory, instead they want to cream off the best parts of our DNA.

In fact all of it was enjoyable watching with good strong characters developed over time until, that is, I came to the last episode which ends the series so abruptly and inappropriately.

I feel robbed! Why did I waste my time on this? It's like you are reading a really good Agatha Christie novel and you finally get to the bit where all the guests are assembled in the library, you turn the page and you see "The End".

This is a show that was abruptly cancelled it's true but not wanting to spoil it I didn't read about it's cancellation and watched it on DVD believing there'd be some kind of a satisfactory outcome. The DVD case should have been marketed with a great big red sticker over the front of it reading "Warning: This is an unfinished work!".

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

This production of Priestley's classic play is billed as a "TV Movie" on IMDb; it's not. It is really more of a Television Play of the type that we saw with "Play of The Week" or ITV's "Armchair Theatre" in the 70s and 80s. If you want to see a film of this story then you are better off watching the 1954 version with the very wonderful Alastair Sim in the lead role. This is not meant as a criticism of this production. I like that sort of thing myself, a staged play that one would see in the theatre with the slight difference that instead of seeing it from a static point of view one sees it through the camera's lens albeit a fairly static camera.

The cast are all good especially Bernard Hepton who plays The Inspector and Simon Ward who has the role of Gerald Croft. Neither Sarah Berger who plays the young daughter Sheila Berling nor Margaret Tyzack who plays her mother Sybil Berling are names that I recognise but they both do a good job of acting as do Nigel Davenport and David Sibley who play the father and son respectively.

All in all it's a very entertaining production. Generally I've found Priestley's work to be politically questionable and morally objectionable however and this play is no exception. It might appeal to a Collectivist but Libertarian Individualists like myself are not so easily fooled.

Priestley's main point is that we are all responsible for what happens to others and I think this is socialist-Marxist collective clap-trap. We are all individuals. The girl who is supposed to have killed herself was given more than enough help to have pulled her own socks up. Why when she was set up in a flat and given money the first time around did she not take the opportunity to start up a small business or other entrepreneurial venture so that she had something for the future and even after having another affair out of wedlock and becoming pregnant when she is given money by the would be father she apparently spends it on a holiday at the seaside "so she can remember the good times" and then refuses to take more because she knows it is stolen.

Birling dismisses her for being a "trouble-maker". Well as an employer wasn't he perfectly within his rights do do so? Maybe she was a trouble-maker. Then Gerald Croft sets her up in "rooms" that he has at his disposal, rent-free and generously gives her some money. True - he eventually takes that all away at the conclusion of his summer fling but she knowing that that would happen, why didn't she put something away for a rainy day? Why didn't she look for any old job and more humble accommodation so that she could be self sufficient after the gift horse has bolted? The Inspector's "holier than thou" attitude and suggestion that everyone at the dinner table that evening was in their own way morally responsible for the girl's downfall is nonsense and it's interesting to note that the first production of this play was staged in Soviet Russia in 1945, five years after Priestley had broadcast left-wing propaganda for the BBC that (according to Wikipedia) had "...influenced the birth of the Welfare State".

Also interesting is the fact that "Priestley's name was on Orwell's list, a list of people which George Orwell prepared in March 1949 for the Information Research Department, a propaganda unit set up at the Foreign Office by the Labour government. Orwell considered these people to have pro-communist leanings and therefore to be inappropriate to write for the IRD" (Wikipedia). How's that for the pot calling the kettle "black".

The play is supposed to be a critique of the class system but this is unfair and twisted. The rich Birling Family are cast as the "baddies" who pray on the poor working class girl when in fact the opposite is true. Mr Birling, a mill owner, is providing employment and goods at risk of his own capital and the "poor working class girl" makes trouble for him so she loses her job and then she is generously provided for by not one but two young men. In short she looks for a handout, gets it twice over and blows it just like many of today's scroungers who complain about their lot as they sit in furnished council houses in front of 42 inch colour televisions all paid for by the Birlings of this world.

Politics aside, this is still a most enjoyable production and well worth watching if it's not taken too seriously although getting hold of a commercial copy from mainstream sources doesn't seem possible. It has not been released on DVD and probably never will be.

I've just watched "Calamity Jane" and it really is one of the most lovely films I've ever seen.

I am by nature suspicious of "musicals". In fact I'd normally say I don't like 'em. But although the characters in this film do burst out into spontaneously synchronised and practised song somehow the songs they sing are short enough to be less than a mild irritation and pertinent enough to keep the story moving.

I'm a straight guy but must admit to being a sucker for women with their feet firmly on the ground and that's why I find Doris Day's portrayal of the character so intriguing. Some might say that this is an "ugly duckling" film but in this case and for me the "before" look is much more interesting than the "after" one. She prances around in scruffy attire, walks like a man and often sits or poses with her legs wide open but however much she plays the tomboy and tries to hide her femininity under a bushel she fails. Why? Because she just is a very beautiful woman; heck you could cover her in mud (and this actually happens at one point in the film) and she wouldn't lose her femininity.

I've seen lots of cabaret in Berlin - Victor, Victoria type stuff and this film is reminiscent of that although not quite so refined but all the same it's a woman dressed as a man and looking good for it! The film verges on homo-eroticism at times although it never features as a central theme. There is about 10 minute's worth of pure homo-eroticism however that takes place in a log cabin that would do Barbie proud but the main themes focus on a woman who doesn't know how to be one and learns as well as people who are oblivious to the fact that they are in love perhaps because they are such good friends; then Cupid strikes suddenly. As I say, I'm a straight guy but although a part of me appreciated the "ugly duckling" changing her spots another part of me ended up wishing that she'd stayed the way she was.

The sets are wonderful as are the lush costumes.

This is not a film to watch on a small monitor. If you have a projector then fire her up for this one. Lovely colour and sound just as one would expect from a musical of this era.

Firstly let me say that I'm a big "Pete & Dud" fan. The right film I like. I have nothing against the right film. The trouble is... This is a hum-drum affair. Yes, it's worth watching but only to see a bit of Pete & Dud if you know and love them. If you want a funny, flowing film with a good plot and lots of laughs then forget it. This film, like Mr. Spigot, hops about on one leg and doesn't entirely stand up for itself. It's farce without the funny "mistaken identity" bedroom scenes and interaction between anyone other than Pete, Dud, and a drunkard servant (well played that man), ooh... and one dippy woman. On the plus side if you like coffin-based farce (a sort of maxi-episode of 'Allo, 'Allo - the one with the coffin), then this is for you. They did marginally better with their "Hound of the Baskervilles". Dave Allen's coffin sketch was better than this. The overall impression is "in through one ear and out the other". Worth watching from a "Pete & Dud" history POV but not much else going for it as a film in its own right.

This is a fun film for children I suppose but it is lacking in imagination or creativity. It's "in one ear and out the other". The plot is quite lame although for a young adolescent boy, the "what if it was me" factor is there and will probably push the right buttons just like the instant sugar rush from a cola drink. I just think it's a shame that the acting is so bad and the budget wasn't used for something more worthwhile. This film borrows so much from "Flight of the Navigator" but the unrealistic teen banter and focus on impressing the girls being the be all and end all for teen boys lets it down. My advice for parents... it's harmless but also a bit mindless. If your children haven't yet seen "Flight of the Navigator" then turn them on to that instead. It has so much more going for it; a much better plot for one thing and it's still relatively un-dated for a film that was made over 25 years ago. "Skyrunners" is a poor copy and not nearly so "wholesome".

What amazes me more than anything else is the fact that there are so many to sing the praises of Peter Ustinov in the character of Hercule Poirot. I'm a big Ustinov fan but Poirot he is not. He is unconvincing and sports the most artificial voice. He really sounds like an Englishman trying hard to speak with an accent and failing miserably.

Now to the actual film itself. I can honestly say that I couldn't find one single piece of outstanding acting from any of the cast. "Ham" is the word that hits you when you watch this film. The most amusing scenes are over acted but many are hardly acted at all. So as a whole, all this should add up to a bad film right? Wrong. It is sheer enjoyment from beginning to end.

Ustinov plays a of camp and totally unbelievable version of Poirot and Jonathan Cecil plays a wimpy Hastings who hardly says a word but just stands there looking like a fish throughout the entire film. Both of them have somehow been transported by time-machine to the 1980s where they interact with a McGuyver look-alike on a modern motor yacht, contend with men in badly cut suits and meet brainless women sporting big hair and large dollops of sponge sewn in to their shoulders. The secretary of Lord Stubbs (I don't know the name of the actress) is the strongest woman in the film but all belief in her crumbles away when she goes way over the top in an overacted declaration of love for her boss.

The other Ustinov Poirot films are just bad but this one is the cream that has floated to the top of them all and is so truly and abysmally bad that it must be seen to be believed. If you want a real portrayal of Christie's Poirot and an intelligent murder mystery then run a mile but if you want to just put your feet up and have a very good laugh then this is the film for you.

Geraldine McEwan was a young looking 70-yr-old woman when she started making this series. For this part she was trying to be older which is all too obvious. She also speaks in a most peculiar and affected way; as though she is trying to put on a crusty accent but failing to do it without looking as though a great deal of effort is involved. It all adds up to terrible acting which could be forgiven were other actors pulling their weight. Unfortunately this is not the case. There are many "guest actors" (putting it politely) throughout the series who come from other backgrounds. Russ Abbot is a terrible comedian but a truly dismal actor and almost the same can be said for Dawn French. The whole series is rife with "jobs for the boys" (and girls) and this does Agatha Christie's stories a gross injustice. Don't bother with this series. It is absolutely abysmal. Yes, production techniques had improved by the noughties and yes... there are many lush flashback scenes that one doesn't find in earlier adaptations but this is not enough to make up for the sheer lack of any acting worth its salt. Instead of wasting time watching this series I'd urge anyone to watch the 1980s production instead with Joan Hickson playing the main part. It may be a bit dated but it's full of real actors who take a pride in their profession rather that egotists who are all trying to steal the limelight at the same time.

This film has to be regarded as a hilarious one-man-act by Peter Sellers. I saw it on its first run UK cinema release in 1969 and I've seen it at least a dozen times since. I would gladly watch it another dozen times; it always makes me laugh. The supporting cast perform adequately but Peter Sellers does all the work. He is simply one of the all-time greatest masters of great comedy timing. I was surprised to read so many negative comments on this site in association with this film. I can only surmise that they have come from a younger generation who have had their sense of humour surgically removed due to a force fed diet of unamusing US sitcoms. If you can't laugh at this film you must be birdie-num-num!