Jean Phillips

This British film popped up on the BBC at the weekend and I must say it really intrigued me. It's fairly common knowledge that there were members of the establishment and aristocracy who thought appeasement was the best way of dealing with the rampage of Hitler and Naziism in the late 1930s and this film features a fictional family who were in favour. However, their desire for peace goes too far as their opponents begin to die in awful and mysterious circumstances. Ramolai Garai plays the adopted daughter who stumbles upon her family's secret and fears for her life and sanity as they continually gaslight her. As ever, Bill Nighy as her father is superbly understated with Eddie Redmayne, Jeremy Northam and David Tennant in supporting roles. Acting royalty in the form of Christopher Lee and Corin Redgrave feature as tge storytellers.

Cracking WW2 film starring the wonderful Burt Lancaster as the determined resistance fighter trying to stop Paul Schofield, the Nazi colonel hell bent on getting some of France's finest paintings to Germany at the end of the war. Lots of typical resistance ingenuity, explosions and bravery while the Nazi gets madder and madder and increasingly violent. Well worth a couple of hours viewing. No special effects, Lancaster did all his own stunts and the trains are just fantastic. What a hard, physical job it was to drive them. Highly recommended.

Good performance from Jacob Fortune Jones in the lead role, with good support from Emily Watson and Eddie Marsen as Brian's parents. The film captures the era well and tells Brian's tragic story adequately. It certainly highlights the difficulties gay men faced in those times and how lonely their lives could be. The Brian we the public saw was suave, sophisticated, well-spoken and well educated. I don't suppose many of us guessed the truth. I didn't like the actors playing the Beatles. Yes, they were good facial lookalikes but John was too short, George too tall and they all looked too young to me. John especially never looked that young. The Liverpudlian accents were appalling, only Cilla got anywhere near. Nor did I like the way the band were characterised as rude and sloblike. True they weren't posh, but they'd all had good upbringings and despite their humour, knew how to behave. It's a shame there was no Beatles music in the soundtrack; maybe for copyright reasons. And I wonder if Paul and Ringo were consulted in any way about the film.

It was OK. Not a particularly stellar cast. Really quite an unbelievable story that plodded along with bland characters and none of the several twists I anticipated materialised. It lacked drama and such with a damp squib of an end.

Wonderful adaptation of a wonderful book. A stellar cast bring the eccentric residents of Cold Comfort Farm alive as Robert Poste's child Flora sets about bringing order from chaos. Quite marvellous.

You can't beat a beautifully filmed British film with a standout cast! Wicked Little Letters seems to have really polarised opinion but I don't think it deserves the one star reviews. There's a lovely feeling of period, the locations, costumes and make up add to the mood of the piece. Outstanding performances from the whole cast, it looked like they were all having a marvellous time. I've awarded 4 stars as I wish the producers didn't feel the need to virtue signalling by inserting black and Asian characters where they're not needed. It gives a completely wrong impression of what society would have been like back then. But it seems mandatory these days. Other than that I highly recommend.

Didn't enjoy it. Joaquin Phoenix didnt impress and was completely outshone by Vanessa Kirby as Josephine. It felt like it was just a series of chapters in France's history and we gain no real perspective on why Napoleon went to war so often. The dialogue was unclear at times and I didn't like the murky and smudgy colour palette of the film. Lots of blood and gore for those who like it. Came away feeling I know no more about Napoleon than I did before and I'm pretty sure it's historically inaccurate.

Just back from seeing this and feel like I've run two consecutive and slow marathons. So slow I nearly left halfway through but decided to persevere as it's a story that needs to be told. I found a lot of dialogue difficult to follow due to the accents and muttering - subtitles would have been useful so wasnt always sure what was happening. Also found it a little disjointed and really had no idea of the period of time the film covered. But's it's beautifully filmed, the nods to vintage film reels and radio shows very clever and the performances just super. Would have given it 3.5 stars but that's nit possible.

Thoroughly enjoyed this film. Robert Duvall and Robert Diwney Junior were just superb and the supporting cast excellent. Although quite long at 2 hours 21 minutes it held my attention all the way through. The script is witty, biting, dramatic and poignant. The scene where Robert Duvall gave his testimony in court is spellbinding. Well done to all concerned.