Rozinda

Spoilers throughout Most of the acting is fine. But I had a problem with the later Kidman scenes. Kidman needed less of the weeping and more anger or deviousness, to keep herself away from her vile husband as much as possible. Instead she is a typical victim, inviting his spite and weeping when he exerts it. She even lets the thug hit her.

Clearly Isabel was heading for a fall right from the start of the story. She's quite convinced there's no point in marrying her decent suitor Goodwood, she wants as people often do to live it up for some years before marriage. Unfortunately, she isn't nearly as clever as she thinks she is and it's not long before she's met the devious Merle and has been hoodwinked into marriage with Merle's vile lover Osmond so that the pair of them can live on Isabel's money.

Standard Henry James type of theme. American girls take people at face value but expect value for money. Europeans are devious and will say/do anything to get an American heiress's money as they are always had up but want to live the high life. Isabel is naive - totally fooled by Osmond's pretence to be an aesthete. Osmond is a self-satisfied, conceited, totally self-centred and selfish jerk who thinks he's a wonderful and admirable aesthete whom everyone should admire but we audience see through him right from the start. Even his long-time mistress and mother of the child Pansy, Merle, is deceived by him until he finally, at the end, tells her he never cared about her either and she realises she has wasted her life on him and suffered from having to hide the true identity of her child for nothing.

Osmond's method is the well-known "Whatever happens it's always your fault, I am perfect and blameless, I am a saint and you are selfish/thoughtless/stupid/venomous/a liar/hiding the truth/whatever along with the ruthless Victorian head of the family you do as I say nonsense that women had to put up with in that period. The jaw dropping thing is that Isabel becomes totally witless - seems to believe all this drivel from her vicious husband and begs his forgiveness every time. She becomes aware gradually that he is being unfair but hasn't the guts to tell him so to his face and then walk out - it would be difficult but perfectly possible for her to have fled with her American lover Goodwood who is at his wits end why it is she won't be with him even though clearly she has feelings for him.

Osmond's daughter falls for "the wrong man". Isabel tries to help Pansy, by helping to deter the suitor her father wants, but Osmond soon finds out, accuses his wife of being treacherous and sends his daughter to a convent to "think about her errors and her future". Pansy proves to be like her father - treacherous. She tells Isabel dismissively, "I have learned that I must always obey my father." So much for Isabel trying to help the girl to be with the man who loved her - Pansy is revealed as shallow like her parents. Isabel is a fool - she has allowed herself to be brainwashed by a jerk because she thought he was glamorous (though anyone less glamorous than this Osmond would be hard to find, I disliked him on sight, quite correctly).

Isabel's kindly cousin Ralph has the sadly not unusual consumption, and now is dying and Isabel goes to him in England in spite of her husband refusing to believe Ralph was that ill, ie a means to again force his wife to his own bidding through trading on her loyalty. But Isabel is more loyal to Ralph and goes to him.

Ralph dies. Goodwood is there and at last we think it is his time. Can Isabel is well away from her Florence-based husband. She can now go back to the USA with devoted Goodwood? In an outdoor scene, she finally makes clear she now loves Goodwood and kisses him, but then she runs away from him back into the house. The movie ends with her standing at the door of the house looking towards the camera. You can't tell for sure what she'll do next but there's a feeling of foreboding.

Beats me why the movie didn't finish the story. Goodwood calls next day only to discover that Isabel has gone straight back to her husband. We are told her friend who has been Ralph's companion has "taught Goodwood how to wait". How long, the reader wonders? Presumably until Osmond dies, but that man I would suspect will outlive everyone and Isabel will never leave him because if she did, she'd betray her own original conceit that she wanted to live an exciting and meaningful life.

Basically, Isabel is a silly, self-destructive woman. She could never make any man happy. She needs, it seems, to be bullied.

I hoped this would be good on the lines of The Full Monty. Carlyle played his part very well at first but towards the end goes off the rails, I assume because the script forces the actor to make the character become such a jerk that the wife's final decision and even more the astonishing behaviour of the child attempt to make some sense.

Ifans was a crashing bore. The daughter's hostility to her father was totally inexplicable. One understands she's upset that apparently he hasn't been in the habit of seeing her much if at all since the parents split, but her complete disinterest in her father and complete devotion the rival is simply unbelievable in my view.

Carlyle's character is ultimately disappointing since he fails to achieve what he has decided he wants just now, ie reuniting his family. If Ifans' character had anything dynamic or even interesting about him, I could have lived with the finale when the wife chooses the new lover instead of the ex-husband. But Ifans' character is just a colourless wimp.

I feel that what really spoils this film is how the child is acted. Where's the trauma at seeing her father again if she genuinely loathes him. Or if she's scared he'll interfere between her and the substitute father she's apparently chosen (though in no way clear why), ie Ifans' character? Instead, the child is measured and calm and appears to have no doubt she'll get what she has decided she wants, and sure enough she does.

The wife is also confusing. She appears to want to be with Ifans. Then Ifans moves out (GOOD ! I said. Him and that ridiculous pink vehicle, it was dreadful). Then suddenly Carlyle's character after arousing all my sympathy (and especially because of his daughter's near total blank feelings for him) suddenly gets silly. The wife is totally unreadable at this stage, you can't see any conflict, she just seems to accept whoever's there.

Carlyle character's thug friends are also a muddle. It seems they are all crooks and Carlyle has helped beat up some guy and steal money to make the trip south. The thug friends follow and all of a sudden with no clear explanation invade the ex-wife's home and terrorise those inside. I never made out why they did this. It was ridiculous. Perhaps the idea was to tell us that the Carlyle character was a violent thug too so don't support him. But this isn't at all clear.

Then all of a sudden, when you think maybe Carlyle's character has redeemed himself somewhat in spite of his sudden silly behaviour, the child makes the decision and then the mother suddenly goes along with it.

A very confused script in my view. Especially a loopy script for and direction of the child who might as well not have been in the story at all as she doesn't contribute anything to it really until suddenly she near enough says to her mother, I'm going with "Ifans" and Mother runs out to do the same.

Plenty of spoilers, be warned! But I was really annoyed with this movie. that said, Sandra Bullock was as always splendid. But ultimately, wasted.

I give this 4 stars solely for Bullock's fine acting as always. She's always worth watching, but pity about the script and the lead male actor.

Well I don't have to "like" the sickeningly annoying ending just because some think it's "brave" etc. Of course it depends what you like and when I read an ending is "brave" I immediately suspect that means I won't like it at all. And I didn't. On the other hand...... someone else may feel it was the right ending. After all the guy was supposed to be getting married, and after behaving like a jerk, he finally does.

Once you see the ending, you realise what an annoying twerp the hero Affleck plays actually is. My extreme disappointment turned to "Serves the pair of them right, him and his wife-to-be right, she'll regret that marriage." Fortunately I didn't much like the fiancée and I didn't think much of the hero either. He definitely led Bullock's character on, he was weak, and you can see this recurring later in his life with other women, especially if they are predatory which Bullock's character is not. She was far better without him so in that respect the ending is the right one, but the way it's achieved, and Bullock's resigned acceptance, these are so annoying.

I imagine the "point" of the story was that the hero would waver but end up still true to his girl. This could have worked if he and his girl had been interesting and moving characters and Bullock had lost patience with him and told him to do the right thing and go back to her. But no, Bullock's character had to be humiliated.

So I felt very let down because Bullock was led on by this guy and then he changed his mind and dumped her and she grieves over this jerk. One can imagine him doing the same to his wife in some later year and assuring himself it's not his fault.... I see a weak-minded serial adulterer there. Which is partly due to the actor's portrayal of the character, of course. It could have been so different if the actor had been better at his job.

So as in some others of Bullock's movies, the leading male actor is a disappointment and the story isn't as good as it could have been. This could still have ended as it did without leaving a very sour taste in the mouth or having to call the ending "brave" to perhaps avoid having to say "urk".

The problem with many kidult movies is they can't get the balance right and this one frequently fails. I really cannot abide the silly Ewoks type nonsense that keeps invading the movie - the humour works when it's subtle but when it becomes twee and the characters start over-acting (far too often), it becomes seriously irritating.

For kidult moves that work perfectly, this film crew needed to take a look at some of the very best kidult movies which include -

Nanny McPhee - immense fun, never puts a foot wrong. The delightful French movie Donkeyskin (starring Jean Marais) in which an old and often highly unpleasant fable is presented in a way to instruct children as well as being simply beautiful and fun to watch. The simply wonderful movie Hugo Inkheart - a story for children that is endlessly entertaining and never insults your intelligence. Harry Potter.

There's plenty that's good in this movie - the story idea, the inclusion of Julia Roberts who does very well as the Wicked Mother-in-Law. But it needed someone to do some drastic cutting of the Ewok stuff and to consider whether a Prince as stupid as this one really is worth having as Snow White's eventual husband. And what happened to the Prince's much wiser friend. He appears briefly near the start, warns the Prince not to be hoodwinked (which of course the nit-witted Prince promptly is), and that's the last we see of the wise friend.... Total waste of a character, irritating loose end. We aren't told "who" is in the Mirror - how does the Wicked Queen's double get in there, who is she since she keeps warning the Queen of consequences so can't be the Queen herself, but in the end she just blows up along with the Queen - another irritating loose end.

I should think most people can enjoy watching this movie once, but you may well find as I did that by the end you feel it's ultimately a failure.

What fun this movie is! And splendidly restored. Ivor Novello is such a charmer, and the story very entertaining. To anyone interested in 30's movies or especially the great Ivor Novello, this surely is a must.

Yes, it's strange that the son of the family vanishes early on, as though the radio spirited him away to another continent! I wonder if it was the same in the original stage play - perhaps the young actor had to leave early to get to bed at a sensible hour! Why would no-one notice the youngster was missing when this film was edited? Perhaps there was to be some vital broadcast on the radio that we've now missed?

Well, I didn't even notice the youngster went missing, I was so enjoying the rest of the movie.

Spoilers throughout You realise very early on I think that the young girl is going to be trouble. She never seems lively. She rarely smiles, or if she does it doesn't seem from happiness. She's very intense, as is the whole movie. This movie decidedly is not a barrel of laughs. In fact, I can't recall if there's a single laugh to be had from it. Don't let that put you off! It's well worth watching.

The President of the selection committee is most definitely ill-mannered and indeed a disgrace. To allow someone to come into the audition room and then to sign a photograph during the young girl's playing is utterly disgraceful. Mme President is sitting right in the view of the young girl - the disturbance was unmissable. Even more curiously, we saw the associate with the photograph earlier, and Mme President dismissed her when she could have done the signature then if it was so urgent. Well, something has to happen so that the girl is disturbed and this is how it's very awkwardly contrived, it makes the selection committee as a whole seem totally incompetent (ie no-one seems surprised at Mme President's behaviour), and I felt it was a major weakness in the plot.

However, it happens, and everything that follows is done splendidly. It's even clever that you think the young girl is out to commit a murder, but in the end she doesn't. Did she intend to and change her mind? Hard to say.

With her revenge completed to her satisfaction, the young girl makes off leaving her victims in a suitable mess. Marriage broken up. Son with injury that has adverse implications for his piano-playing.

Someone else remarked on the stiffness of the characters physically. Yes, I've also seen it before in French movies. It does seem to be a mannered form of acting liked by some directors. It doesn't detract from the acting, but it always seems very strange. No-one slouches naturally, nor even walks normally. They all seem to have sticks up their spines so they have to stand bolt upright and never relax. Well, you either like it or you don't but you sure notice it.

I watched an earlier update of this film years ago, bought the video, bought Lang's wife's fascinating book based on the movie or vice versa. The story is a classic two strongly contrasted worlds/two very different social classes meet and hero from one world/heroine from the other fall in love and save the world and convert the villain too. But it's never sentimental or silly. Widely conceived with a huge cast, after all they could afford it in those days and they didn't need CGI. A mad scientist of course. A fascinating robot. An intriguing futuristic city. Another attraction was the music used for this silent movie - Freddie Mercury and others sing some lovely songs. But frustrating that here and there it's clear a bit of the movie is missing.

The next update with possibly a little more footage but also a second disk of goodies was good to have too. They changed the music to something more classic and it works very well but I still prefer the earlier music.

So now I'm waiting to see this latest version with all the extra footage. It must surely be simply wonderful.

One of my most favourite ever movies.

I thought this might be "watchable" if I had nothing else to do so I recorded it. But right from the start, I found myself intrigued because the actors are all so good. It's not a case of "Wow, aren't they gorgeous guys and girls," but "What an intelligent story this is." Idler Hero and responsible-job heroine have a drunken one-night stand much of which they don't remember and heroine ends up pregnant. But the tables turn when the idler decides he must be a proper dad. The story comes and goes quite a bit as we go through the pregnancy and the couple are sometimes together, sometimes apart, as each is insecure with the other and the heroine isn't at all sure a future with this guy is the right answer. The hero gradually becomes more and more responsible, taking charge. The heroine learns to ask for help and support. Problems of pregnancy aren't glossed over and hero proves he is going to be a great husband and a great dad from a rather unpromising start. The final part of the movie is really delightful as hero and heroine, currently living apart, are both preparing for the birth in their separate premises now that the hero has bought his own place after years of squatting with friends. All you need to know after the birth is which home will they live in! I never went, Oh this is amazing, it isn't the kind of movie I'd rave about, but I couldn't stop watching and enjoying seeing two people become mature and learn to love each other. A child may be divisive but not in this case, it makes these two people grow up.

Why the title? Because they said Whisky when we'd say cheese for a photograph smile. I wonder if that's true or just for the movie? The factory owner Jacobo needs a wife and it seems to me this is because he actually has one and his brother will expect to see her, but we only hear of her once - when Marta is at Jacobo's home and "his wife" phones asking for him. Marta puts down the phone and that's it for the wife - enough to explain Jacobo's need for Marta's co-operation.

Spoilers follow It's not too difficult to guess how the story ensues and it isn't a story for startling surprises. It's sort of every day and yet not, and poignant. Marta makes a mistake that may just indicate to the brother that she isn't Jacobo's wife - one time Jacobo said they honeymooned in Brazil, but later Marta says if she could afford it she'd have a holiday in Brazil. Unlike cold, emotionless Jacobo, the brother is a nice guy who clearly loves his chilly brother and comes to like Marta too. I felt this significant once we'd reached the ending.

As for the ending, don't read on unless you want to know it but I just loved it. Every day, several times in the movie, Marta waits for Jacobo to open the factory. After the brother has gone home and Jacobo has paid Marta (rather a lot of money that his brother gave him out of guilt as well as friendship), Marta doesn't thank Jacobo by continuing in her job. She doesn't turn up. Are we surprised? Jacobo used her with cold ruthlessness whilst she was I would guess fond of him. But we reckon we know where's she's gone.......... spending the money in Brazil. Good for Marta! You can be used just once too often and then you rebel, that's the moral of the story.

Splendid movie, very pleased I watched it.

After seeing delightful movies like Stardust and Inkheart, I thought this one might be similar so we spent money to see it. What a waste of time and money. The story's fine. The script isn't bad. Cage is OK. But oh dear, the location is a completely disaster and the sad nerd who plays the hero has zilch charisma. He's a (very) poor man's Harry Potter. It's unfair on the actor really to give him this part.

It's bad enough that the "new" sorcerer is so totally mediocre and cringe-making, but the location, awful. It's no good, America, you can't get away with setting a Dark Ages tale in some modern US city and expect us to take seriously miracles etc happening amongst skyscrapers or Morgana or whoever it was prancing about doing sorcery tricks in an uninteresting modern fountain. It's ridiculous. Highlander suffered a bit from the same kind of problem, it was impossible to take seriously the two deadly enemies coming to our time to have a fight with swords in a New York car park! But Highlander had the brilliant music above all else but also good actors, and the earlier part of the story is entertaining and well situated, so it has much going for it. This Sorcerer's Apprentice needs a complete revamp and some imagination by the film-makers.

One of the reviews said give it a chance, it's for kids. I can't see that makes any difference to the problems this movie has. Why would kids be any more delighted with sorcery in the middle of skyscrapers and a totally disastrous young male lead? A shame. A totally wasted idea and script. Not worth paying to go and see but if you love the heavily built up and uninteresting (in this movie anyway) city, whichever it was I forget, you might like to see the buildings filmed for this movie, I suppose.

4 for the story. 2 for Nicholas Cage's and Morgana's acting though the latter must have had to struggle not to laugh much of the time, 0 for the dire setting.

There are spoilers in this review.

Extreme sports can often lead to tragedies, so surely one of the rules is to take every possible precaution against disaster. These four climbers in one of the most famous and dreadful tragedies of Alpine climbing made a number of basic errors, but their desperation to be the first to make this dangerous climb drove them to continue regardless.

I read Heinrich Harrer's famous book "The White Spider" many years ago. The moment I saw this movie in the library, I thought, I wonder.. and then I saw the name Toni Kurz and I knew it was that nightmare climb.

I've stayed in Grindelwald to ski, and passed Klein Scheidegg on the train and seen the infamous North Face. It's a lovely, peaceful place, seemingly, when the sun's out and the snow glistening as when we saw it. But as every skier knows, the weather can change very quickly and become a hell. Such is the situation these climbers, already in difficulties due to their mistakes as well, found themselves in.

This story isn't just about the climbers, but about people who would go to the village just to see people attempt this infamous climb in which a number had already died and the ghoulishness of some of the media is depicted strongly - the media doesn't want an easy win in any endeavour, easy winners are boring to the media, it wants drama and change.

Setting out one early morning, the first couple found when some way up that their crampons were missing. Later, after two groups of two were more or less climbing together, the last climber up removed the traverse rope that might later have saved their lives - he said, we won't be going down, the idea is to go up. One of the second couple had been badly injured on the head by a rock fall but couldn't be persuaded to descend, so greatly did he want to do this climb, so he put all the others at risk. But for him, it's possibly they might have succeeded and they should have forced him to descend, but I suppose they all felt they'd want to continue if in his place.

It was a race to be the first to do this climb and others were camped below ready to try so every time there was a serious problem they still continued upward. Further up, when they were in some trouble and the weather had turned to a storm and the injured man was becoming a serious liability, Kurz lost a glove and it seems had no spares, or none left perhaps. If Kurz's hands hadn't been near-useless with frostbite by the time the rescue team was near and all he, the sole survivor by now, needed to do was come down on a rope, he might have reached safety. Instead, his hands couldn't help him and the rescuers couldn't reach him. Such are the mistakes that are made due to that spirit of wanting to win overcoming being careful. But at the same time, isn't it human nature that we don't want to go back? All the time I was watching this movie, I was remembering the book, so thank goodness I knew just how harrowing it was going to be. You are up there on that face, you are experiencing what it really was like. A nightmare.Uplifting and tragic and such a waste of four young lives.

The Swiss rescue team who eventually set out to help had to wait for the weather to clear somewhat. As they said, some of them dying wouldn't help anyone, but I can imagine someone not local wanting to say, how selfish of them. Not so. They live there, they know their mountains, and they can despair of visitors who don't really appreciate all the dangers and put local lives at risk trying to save them.

This is as much a warning as a wonderful movie.

Why not 10 out of 10. Well, I reserve 10 for the most exceptional movies, ones that I *must* buy and rewatch frequently and simply adore. This one is just below that level. It's great and funny and full of typical wonderful Irish farce and humour, and I shall definitely buy it eventually as it's very rewatchable.

Everyone acts perfectly. The many moments of farce are to treasure but it's consistently funny and often moving. Sally Hawkins and the youngster who plays her determinedly wilful under-teen daughter stand out in a cast that stands out anyway. There are some surprises along the way - I was certainly caught out by the main one and I'll bet many others will be.

It's two weddings on the same day, with the reception at the same hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel had double-booked which causes quite a bit of chaos and some truly crazy events that ensue just have to be seen to be believed. Yet what's so clever is it's all eminently believable and all results from one unfortunate moment.

This is a major spoiler as it gives away the ending .........

I love the moment at the end when Sally Hawkins' character says to her delightfully interfering daughter, "He's a bit of a loony, but......" Oh yes! Aren't they just going to be perfect together, and the daughter knew it all along of course.

Spoilers throughout.

Well, it's not awful but it hasn't much merit either. The story's OK in itself but developed rather weakly, and the heroine's stupidity in revealing the location of the safe house to the crooks is breathtaking - the plot needed a better means than this idiocy to bring the crooks to the safe house.

5 stars because Hugh Grant's in it and I always find him engaging. Without him it'd merit 2 or maybe 3.

I couldn't see any spark between the leads. This was a major problem because the script is so forgettable that even though I watched this movie on DVD only last weekend, I can't remember anything much at all about it now.

Not worth going to see at cinema or buying the DVD. Wait for it on TV if you like Hugh Grant, who is the best thing in it by a long way and does his usual best in spite of the poor script and the "wrong" leading lady.

What's the plot? Well, as I said, I can't remember much at all. Grant and the female star are separated, he wants back together, I forget what she wants but she appears to be an obsessed workaholic or something like that. They are unfortunate enough to be witnesses at a nasty crime, are sent by the police to a safe house. The woman is a complete idiot and gives away their location to the pursuing crooks, I mean the audience are surely yelling, what on earth did you do that for you half-wit? You can guess the rest.

I think the couple get back together at the end but really I can't remember for sure and I'm not sure it was ever worth them trying again but it's all so anodyne that I didn't care one way or the other.

A major waste of Hugh Grant.

There are two spoilers in this review. If you don't want hints, don't read this.

I was hooked from start to finish, greatly moved. The young, badly abused and herself abusive girl with genius in her hands, and the old woman unwillingly discovering this aggressive young girl is a true prodigy and then doing everything she can to get that girl a chance. The conflict between the two over what kind of music is best. The hints that arise from this conflict about the past of the older woman. The irony of how that concert performance may finally be achieved. And somewhere in the movie, I won't say where, the most astonishing piece of music is played - so very exciting.

I've twice seen particularly wonderful pieces of music performed within a movie, that is pieces I can remember that stand alone in their excellence whilst written as I understand it just for the movie. One is within Ladies of Lavender for the mysterious young violinist who seems to come from nowhere, the other for the young misfit in Vier Minuten.

This movie is unrelentingly grim much of the time, but there is great beauty too and wonderful heartwarming moments. The moral seems to be that even people who appear to be vicious, abusive, murderous, completely lost causes, may contain the most amazing gifts if only someone else has the ability and then the willingness to draw them out. Would this girl ever escape from the emotional prison of her past and the physical prison of her present? I don't know but it would be nice to think she could.

I was predisposed to enjoy this adaptation even though I'd seen reviews that indicated it was not a faithful adaptation and some that did not rate it at all. However, I was quickly annoyed by the disgraceful attack on our Queen Elizabeth I. I can only assume the scriptwriter is descended from a disgruntled Scots emigrant and doesn't know the truth. Whilst the view of our great Queen as a brutal persecutor of Mary Queen of Scots may delight some disgruntled Scots, it is totally inaccurate. Mary was a foolish woman although also in a difficult situation as she was a staunch Catholic in a country that had turned mostly Protestant. After her third very stupid marriage failed and she was on the run from her own nobles who had no respect for her - which is significant - she hoped England would give her protection. Yet at the same time she continued to insist obsessively that she was Queen of England and plot and scheme to do away with her "Protector" Queen Elizabeth. Unfortunately for her, the usual rule of winner takes all applied. She had to be imprisoned as she was encouraging sedition. Elizabeth should have had her executed long before she actually did after enduring many years of Mary's interminable plotting against Elizabeth's life, but Elizabeth held to the view that a Monarch should not be dishonoured. It is a pity her cousin Mary of Scots didn't have the decency to honour Elizabeth similarly. Mary didn't it seems care about the fact that England had had an appalling experience under the brief but manic rule of Catholic fanatic Mary I who introduced the vicious Spanish Inquisition with horrendous results into England. Thank heaven she didn't last long. The Inquisition is totally alien to English ways. There was no way England would stand for another Catholic ruler either - which is partly why later James II later was slung out, and rightly. There is no way Fanny - or Jane Austen - would insult Queen Elizabeth as in this movie. I must assume the movie isn't British or the scriptwriter would know better.

The Slave Trade... Jane Austen did not get into politics. Fanny wouldn't have dared to criticise. Tom is a selfish arrogant drunkard and I don't remember him ever complaining about slavery. Did he? Fanny was quiet and careful not to offend and very well aware of her lowly status. Her Aunt Sir Thomas's wife was very fond of Fanny though imposed greatly on her - why isn't this bond shown? Fanny and Edmund were rather insufferable prigs by our modern standards but not by theirs. This movie's Fanny is far too feisty by far.

If the scriptwriter hadn't chosen to get into politics and smear England's great Queen, this movie would have gained 8 stars from me. I don't mind a loose adaptation, but do get the facts right. If the story had been written by a Scot resentful of the treatment of their Catholic Queen Mary and about Scots of the time who might have been equally annoyed, the view of Mary and Elizabeth it expressed would have made sense.

This is a simply lovely movie and Bullock deserved that Oscar. She is so consistently good in her movies, even if some of the movies are poor, that it's time she had an Oscar anyway. It was amusing she had a Raspberry at the same time but so what? I'm looking forward to seeing All About Steve too - our local cinema pulled it because they had "too many other movies to show and it was a turkey," they said. I said I'd have liked the chance to find out, thanks, and I don't believe anything Bullock does can be that bad....

She took that Raspberry with her usual good humour and charm, what could do better than that to promote it?

I don't have a lot to say about the story of Blind Side because everyone's said it already. It's a wonderful, heartwarming, feel-good movie. So nice to see Bullock in a "normal marriage situation" instead of struggling with a nasty husband/partner who doesn't appreciate her or treats her like dirt as is the case in some of her movies. Beyond that, it's all about the talented but neglected boy who needs love and help and my how he repays it big time. So good to hear this was based on a true story, I'd like to read the book sometime.

A movie to savour and see again. I can't comment on the football, it isn't what we play over here in England and anyway I don't like football at the best of times, but each to their own, it's clearly a popular and lively game and you don't really need to know how it works to enjoy the movie. I could endure the football because the rest of it is so moving and lively and well-crafted.

I recorded this just to see if it was any good as the idea sounded amusing. I endured about 5 mins of drivel. I moved forward quite a bit, still drivel, and the guy who was I assume going to do some mind reading hadn't yet it seemed learned how and also he was a complete anodyne bore so far. The "conversation" and general events were mindless boring too - nothing much at all was happening.

I flipped on once more to way into the movie. Still no sign of mind reading or any action of any interesting kind and the boring so-called mind-reader was still on the screen apparently doing nothing much still. So when does he manage the mind-reading which was the only reason I recorded the movie, ie hoping for some laughs? I'd had enough of the uncharismatic "hero" Was he Mel Gibson? If so, no wonder. I never noticed until this website for my comment that Gibson was in the movie. If I'd realised I wouldn't have wasted my time recording it, as I can't abide Gibson. I didn't recognise him.

I didn't even bother to watch the ending which I usually do with movies I record that are too boring to keep watching.

I give this 5 out of 10 for the good acting and the original idea. I'm not so impressed with all the ways the idea was developed - 4 only for that - and the crude and childish toilet humour spoils the movie. However, British humour is of course rather different and in this movie there is a clear humour culture gap. Depends what you like.

I also soon got bored with Loki's inclination to gratuitous bloody slaughter whenever he felt inclined although I could see the point of why he does it and Damon acts the part splendidly as a kind of perverted Bourne but the final mass slaughter is totally going too far.

Damon and sardonic Rickman as the sardonic Voice of God are the best things in this movie and one of the Voice's best cracks is that they had to make 5 Adams before working out why the earlier ones exploded. Mostly the movie is just quite fun, but Rickman's far too few appearances lift it to a higher level for a bit.

If you can ignore the frequent toilet humour and just concentrate on the story, it's worth watching once to see how the theme is developed. The send up of the Catholic church mostly works. The loophole is very neat. I felt the depiction of God was weak although a good try. The finale for the heroine of the tale is clever.

Worth watching once. But I couldn't sit through that toilet humour again.

I doubt if many of us find drunks and druggies entertaining so it's sad to see two very personable people behaving so badly as the characters Jason and Gwen do. Gwen's period in rehab as the alternative to jail is very convincing and at times very moving. It's not the kind of story I ever want to watch and I wouldn't have watched it but for the star Sandra Bullock. She does a splendid job in this movie as Gwen slowly learning to live a normal, decent life and finally ditching her useless addict boyfriend.

Viggo Mortensen is also excellent as the baseball player Eddie in rehab. We first see him as the Knight in Shining Armour when he has picked Gwen up after she's fallen out of a tree through trying to get at her drugs. He's missing for much of the movie even though flagged as a major character. He acts as the guy who clearly likes Gwen and she likes him - there's great empathy between them - and makes Jasper jealous when Jasper turns up unexpectedly and sees them standing very close - one of the best moments in the movie is when Eddie justifiably socks objectionable Jasper on the jaw for insulting Gwen, and it's amazing Gwen doesn't cheer Eddie on instead of withdrawing from what had seemed to be on the way to a good friendship, much to Eddie's obvious disappointment. But it's clear Gwen is faithful to Jasper the jerk right up until, after assuring her he'd change just as she has, he tries to get her into another drink-drugs situation. At last, with great dignity, Gwen dumps him.

I was totally mystified by just what the purpose is of the Mortensen character. He and Gwen seem to get on very well, but suddenly they are totally estranged and he's clearly feels unable to approach her. I just couldn't see why! Finally, as she leaves, he does approach her and points out, wisely, that Jasper is no good for her. Next time we see him is as the titles play when a new guy arrives for rehab, acting just as Gwen did initially not at all keen to be there and convinced he's amongst freaks. Eddie says hello to the newcomer, who glares at him as though Eddie had made some disgusting approach and flounces off ill-manneredly, leaving Eddie looking upset. If there was some nuance in this that I ought to have comprehended, well, I didn't! This was I thought the most interesting relationship in the movie and I wanted to make sense of it and can't.

A couple of other characters are particularly interesting - the foreign young man (German?) who Gwen meets post-rehab in a most moving little scene, and Gwen's room-mate who so tragically overdoses.

An amusing sideplot is the take-off of a simply dire soap opera. Eddie's the only addict to start with - it had to be the most unlikely person, but once his secret is out, day after day more and more people are riveted with deadly seriousness to this utterly awful (but to us viewers hilariously funny) drivel. A brilliant touch, showing how people do indeed get to the stage where they just can't stop watching even if they know it's awful.

It's very watchable so gets 4 stars but not as good as the earlier movie even though that wasn't particularly good.

Hugh Grant is as brilliant as before as the caddish Wickham part, but Bridget is far more off the mark as the "Elizabeth" character even than she was in BJ's Diary. As for "Darcy", what on earth is he with this Bridget for? I doubt it's all Zellweger's fault even though I think she's totally miscast for the original very English wry humour of the newspaper Bridget - Zellweger simply can't do it. I can't understand why a British actress wasn't selected for this part or at least someone who could put over the humour as per British. But give Zellweger her due, she does try very hard and if I hadn't known the original BJ and Austen's P&P before it, she'd do as a different type of Bridget - a bit dim which Elizabeth and the original BJ weren't. No way, however, is this Bridget Elizabeth Bennet, but then the whole idea is that she isn't yet somehow the amazing Darcy adores her...

There are some very funny sequences, especially out in Thailand and Zellweger's failure to be right for Bridget isn't a serious problem with the movie. The problem is why Darcy has ever fancied her in the first place - I'm not trying to insult this Bridget, just to point out that the relationship between these two characters is, as it was in the earlier movie, completely unrealistic. They are chalk and cheese! Possibly Firth is to blame for this - he is just too priggish and his whole lifestyle and career are so apart from hers that when he unbends to admit to wanting to be with/loving Bridget,it's not possible to believe him. Strange how this relationship fails because of the actors whilst Firth's excellent in a romantic theme in Love Actually.

Bridget in this movie is even more embarrassing to stuffy Mark than she was in the first movie. It doesn't make sense that she makes a totally unnecessarily complete ass of herself in front of his clients time and again, and yet his career isn't suffering and he doesn't seem to mind! Whereas Hugh Grant as Daniel - brilliant! He always seems to know exactly how to put over a part. Is that he always acts the same part? I don't know or care, he's just riveting and so funny and charming on screen no matter what he acts in. Every time Bridget rejects him I wonder why as they are far better suited than her and that stuffy lawyer even though Daniel's a jerk! The theme of Daniel introducing cities/travel in his own womanising way is a very clever idea, I loved it. He'd make any travel ad thrilling! Bridget's experience with parachuting was scary. Neil Pearson is very amusing as her ruthlessly unsympathetic boss.

One big surprise at the end is the girl who appears to be having an affair with Mark. What a brilliant twist! Marvellous! I never expected it for a moment. It lifted the movie's otherwise very ordinary ending!!

Our local cinema had a poster up after Christmas for this movie. About a month later, waiting to see it, I noted the poster had disappeared. The movie had by then been released here in the UK. I asked when it was coming to our cinema to be told they didn't yet have a date for showing it. I asked again a week later or so to be told they'd decided not to show it after all. They have too many movies to show, they said, and of course Sherlock and Avatar have been hogging two of the three screens for weeks.......

So I had to wait for the DVD.

I enjoyed the movie, though it isn't quite to my taste. Bullock's crossword creating character is interesting and seems to be a real misfit. Too academincally informed and clever for the men she fancies, and unable to see it if they don't fancy her. Bullock acts this slightly strange character with great skill and sympathy and the point is made at the end of the movie that it takes all kinds to make the human race. Bullock's character is kind and caring which is more than can be said for some of the selfish people who think they are fine and she's weird.

There are certainly some strange events, such as when a group of kids fall into a hidden mineshaft. That really is the "scene" of the picture, it's brilliantly filmed and a total surprise. Then Bullock's character falls in as well, and of course she becomes the heroine of the day, not only finding a child who'd been left behind by the people who rescued the others but also working out using her exceptional memory and calculating skills exactly how to get out of the mine with the kiddie whilst the people above are milling around useless like witless idiots and we viewers are wondering if these so-called normal people have anything at all between their ears.

I think this is a movie to see once if you like Sandra Bullock and find out what you think of it. I enjoyed it though not passionately. I can't agree it deserves raspberry of the year, not by any means, yet at the same time it was pretty prestigious I think for Sandra to win raspberry of the year at the same time as her Oscar!! So perhaps it was worth this movie happening! I see she's also had an award for best screen kiss in that lovely romcom The Proposal..... quite a year for Sandra.

I loved this movie, and therefore I had to read the book. That led to a whole set of sequels and a prequel which I'm still reading as there aren't any English translations and I have to read other stuff too. What a splendid story the original book is! How frustrating that not one of the four DVD's I've managed to get so far of this story can include the whole story as in the book. The Marais version gets the essence perfectly although Marais is just a little too old and a bit stilted with the heroine - but otherwise he looks the part. However, the financial drama with which le Bossu bankrupts Gonzague is completely omitted. Auteuil in this version is also a bit too old and not right at all visually as Lagardere has fair hair but the financial stuff is portrayed excellently. However, it changes the lovely Spanish sequence in the book and instead uses a sequence in the Prequel (re the hero's childhood) which is very entertaining in the movie, but the heroine is far too "modern" throughout. A TV version from awhile back has the best representation of the story, well cast, is this my favourite of the 4 I've seen, it includes characters omitted from the other versions, but it also completely omits the financial drama (unless this was in the TV version which was cut I heard for the DVDs). A recent TV version gives us something of Spain thought it's not quite right, however the hero does pursue those ambush hirelings as per the book and the heroine's friend Fleur has a good part. This version changes the ending so that the hero marries the dead duc's wife instead of the daughter - I suppose trying to avoid the question of incest. I prefer the original as per the book.

This incest issue is noted in some other reviews. If people have only seen this movie, I can understand them being concerned. You do need to read the original book, in which Lagardere is in exile with the duc's daughter for many years, brings her up properly with maid and educates her and so on, there's nothing dodgy at all going on, she knows he's not her father but instead her guardian, and he's often away (pursuing the hirelings in the ambush). It's only when she's grown up that she falls for him, and he falls for her.

They aren't related at all!! What's the problem? But yes, in this Auteuil movie, they are so close as father and daughter and she only finds out he isn't her father when she's 16 and then pretty well the next day demands he kiss her as a lover and assumes they will marry. His protests get him nowhere as she pretty well seduces him in the final frames! It does seem incestuous.

Nonetheless, a great fun movie and full marks too to the duels and most especially to Vincent Perez as the fun-loving Duc who does decide to marry the lady he gets pregnant - more because he's thrilled at having a son than for the lady, I think. What a surprise when the hero discovers the child is a girl. You can't help laughing at his confusion over how to bring up a girl! Ros

This is a good, engaging movie in which Sandra Bullock plays an IT worker who is trapped into a plot by accident. A gang of crooks out to cause havoc by tampering with IT systems fix on her as the person they'll replace with their own criminal operative, and Bullock's character gradually discovers how her identity has been stolen and the identity she's been given labels her as crazed and wanted by the police. Fortunately she is able to counter this plot against herself and the US by interrupting the work of the criminal operative and regaining her identity.

I watched this movie Jan 2010 on TV and of course it's dated now as computers have advanced greatly, but it was a timely warning of the type that concerned people then re computers and is still with us now. As computers become more and more sophisticated, so do the criminals in spite of all the safeguards set up against them. So this movie is a little piece of history, in its way.

It wasn't nearly as good as I'd hoped. Far too much fighting and explosions and the like as Holmes & Watson get involved in endless chases or being chased etc. I grew bored with all this. I'd expected more time to be spent on tricksy clues and challenges for us to solve. On the James Bond angle, neither the script nor the scenes of violence and so on quite convince even though on a superficial level it's very slickly done and you have to get used to this dirty, dreary London that's depicted as Victoria. I've no reason to doubt the authenticity and I imagine many filmgoers liked that a lot, but am I glad I didn't live then in that grimy sepia city. I wanted to get away from it but even Holmes couldn't allow us a clean room to escape into for a short time. Ugh.

I quickly guessed who was behind it all and I imagine most others did so that's no secret - in fact, I'd expect anyone who knows anything about Holmes to guess quickly. I was surprised Holmes didn't immediately get that too but I guess they wanted to preserve the secret as long as possible! Downey acted Holmes well enough though I felt he was a bit too young for the part. Jude Law I had noted was in the cast and I didn't expect him to be anything special in whatever part he had - I didn't even realise until the credits at the end that Watson was Jude Law!! He was simply splendid, definitely the star of the show.

I won't be surprised if there's a sequel since there's the option given the end of this one. It should be worth seeing.

This is a movie I recommend you to see once, but whether you'll want to see it again depends I think on what kind of movies you like. I wouldn't watch it again, not even on TV, because I feel that "I've seen it, I know what's coming, there aren't any mysteries to puzzle over, so what's the point?" Perhaps in a sequel they could challenge us more?

This is entertaining enough to watch once and perhaps even twice - because Hugh Grant is so good in it.]

Anything Hugh Grant is in is worth watching in my experience, whether he's sending himself up farcically, which he does so well, or acting a serious part as in The Man who went up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain. HG is a real charmer. Even playing the caddish Wickham part in this Jane Austen sort of take-off, Grant manages to make Wickham likable in spite of being equally caddish!

I used to read the original B.Jones column in the Independent. It was fairly entertaining although eventually I got tired of her endless problems and moans and stopped reading it - it went way past its sell-by date, I felt. The movie isn't nearly as good as the column, mainly because Zellwegger is so badly miscast althuogh the actress clearly does do her very best. I just can't imagine Bridget Jones like Zellweger, nor does she as scriped and acted have the slightest connection that I can see to sparky, clever Elizabeth Bennet.

The original idea of having Mr Darcy and Wickham in the story was always amusing. If you can be tolerant of a very weak Mr Darcy and a completely non-Elizabeth, you may well love this movie.

6 stars mostly for Hugh Grant. Without him, it would have been only stars. The movie might have worked better for me if Zellwegger had been Elizabeth Bennet's silly younger sister Lydia and ended up enforcedly with a resentful Wickham! Hugh Grant could have done a great line in greed!