THE GOLD DIGGERS no stars

Minimalist, visually innovative and distinctly art-house Sally Potter's "The Gold Diggers" is all of these, meaning its audience is also distinctly limited. You might even go so far as to say it's the kind of pretentious twaddle that gives art-house movies a bad name, though Potter did manage to draw an Oscar-winning actress, (Julie Christie), into the proceedings. There is little in the way of plot. (as you might expect), and typical of Potter it can be read as some kind of feminist tract, that is if you have to 'read' it or see it at all. Highly regarded in some quarters, largely dismissed in others; personally I found it intolerable.

VICEROY'S HOUSE **

A history lesson but a good one. Gurinder Chada's "Viceroy's House" is about the British withdrawl from India and the eventual partition of the country and it's a highly intelligent picture, full of good talk. In order to sell it to a wider market there's a 'Romeo and Juliet' style love story between two young Indians that makes up a fairly substantial subplot though it is the divisions that exist between the Hindu and Muslim staff that provides the film's real interest.

Cast as Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Hugh Bonneville brings more than a touch of Downton Abbey to the Viceroy's House though Gillian Anderson is outstanding as Lady Edwina while the entire supporting cast deserve kudos. Hardly likely to set the multiplexes alight on a Saturday night this is still well worth seeking out.

PAWNO **

Minor, small-scale but really rather likable tragic-comic ensemble piece from Australia, "Pawno", as its title suggests, revolves around a day in the life of a pawnbroker's shop in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray, focusing not just on the two guys who work there but on their customers and neighbors as well. It's a little too lightweight to make a major impact but it's well written, (by Damian Hill who also plays the pawnbroker's assistant and who died tragically young a few months ago), and pleasingly acted by everyone. The director is Paul Ireland who, with more substantial material, could go far.

GOODBYE, CHRISTOPHER ROBIN ***

It could have been sick-makingly sentimental but thanks to a couple of terrific performances from Domhnall Gleeson as the author A.A. Milne and a remarkable child actor named Will Tilston, making his debut as the boy who 'becomes' Christopher Robin, Simon Curtis' film "Goodbye, Christopher Robin" is, instead, moving, intelligent and very likable. In fact, this is one of the best films about childhood I've seen in a very long time.

It's simply the story of how Milne's relationship with his son not only inspired the Christopher Robin and Pooh stories but also helped him recover from the shell-shock brought on by his time spent fighting in the Great War, an experience that also turned him into a pacifist. It's also a great film about celebrity which, for a child, isn't necessarily a good thing. The success of the stories turned young Milne into a kind of superstar of his day with the line between reality and illusion becoming a rather tricky one to walk. I doubt if any royal baby ever received this kind of adulation. Excellent work, too, from Margot Robbie as the boy's somewhat distant mother and from Kelly Macdonald as his beloved nanny. A real treat.

BLEAK MOMENTS **

Seldom has a movie been more aptly titled than Mike Leigh's debut "Bleak Moments". It's the story of Sylvia, (an excellent Anne Raitt), an attractive but lonely spinster who lives with her mentally challenged sister and whose life is indeed a series of bleak moments in which nothing very much happens. Most of Leigh's early works have been bleakly funny and, more often than not, uncomfortably so as if we are being invited to laugh at the sad sacks who make up his world rather than empathis
e with them and "Bleak Moments" certainly sets the tone for what was to follow. This is a grim and not very pleasant picture chock full of grim and not very pleasant people. It's brilliantly acted, (Leigh has always been a great director of actors), but it's not an easy movie to like.

THE HUMAN COMEDY no stars

Clarence Brown at his most pious, some might say at this most sick-making. "The Human Comedy" was his film of small-town American life in the early years of World War Two, (the film was made in 1943), and was based on William Saroyan's story, (he won the Oscar for it). It's unbearably sentimental, (did families really live like this in the 20th century or is it all just a fantasy?). It's told, presumably from Heaven, by the dead Ray Collins, head of the Macauley clan. He left behind saintly widow Fay Bainter and kids Van Johnson, Donna Reed, little Butch Jenkins and Mickey Rooney who was nominated for the Oscar, as indeed were Brown, Cinematographer Harry Stradling and the film itself. It's dreadful but it was a big hit. Watch it if you must but make sure you have a large bucket handy.

THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS *

More dystopian futures, more post-apocalypses and more pro-feminist takes on a genre long dominated by men. This sci-fi/zombie movie seems at first glance just more of the same old same old but with women as the strong dominant characters while the men all act in the same dumb way that men act in all movies of this kind but the premiss is original while Colm McCarthy's direction and the performances of a fine cast, including the always reliable Glenn Close, are a cut above the norm.

Unfortunately. once the zombies go on the rampage the picture quickly degenerates into just another monster movie with all the cliches we have come to expect from films of this kind which is a pity since it starts off quite brilliantly. Still, fans of the genre should get a kick from all the blood and gore and visually it is never less than impressive.

THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS no stars

I'd never actually heard of "The Girl in Black Stockings" until I saw it and now that I have, I'm not surprised why. This atrocious Z-Movie is the kind of thing that its cast would rather leave off their CV's though I doubt if it would have done much harm to the careers of Lex Barker, John Dehner, Ron Randell, Marie Windsor and a certain Miss Mamie Van Doren who also appeared in "The Navy Vs the Night Monsters" and "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women". However, I think leading lady Anne Bancroft, a few years before stage-fame and Oscar-glory in "The Miracle Worker", would rather we forget she was ever associated with such drivel. Actually, the whodunit plot, (party-girl is murdered at a posh resort and everyone's a suspect), isn't that bad but the dreadful script, inept direction, (by Howard W. Koch), and appalling acting by everybody, Bancroft included, make this a Grade A turkey that should be avoided at all costs.

A WOMAN, A GUN AND A NOODLE SHOP **

Did you know that Yimou Zhang remade the Coen Brothers' "Blood Simple" in China? In some quarters it's known as "Yimou Zhang's Blood Simple" while elsewhere it has been rechristened "A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop". Yimou, of course, was at one time a director to be reckoned with, perhaps more famous internationally than even the Coens are now, (his "Raise the Red Lantern" is one of the masterpieces of world cinema), so we had every right to have had high hopes of this remake of what was a brilliant, if minor, Coen Brothers classic. Unfortunately, this is much closer to a black farce with none of the terror of the first "Blood Simple". 

Visually it's a terrific looking film, which is as we might expect from its director. Few directors in the history of cinema have used colour as expressively as Yimou but there's no substance here. This is just a piece of pulp fiction Chinese-style with the comedy falling flat and the suspense singularly lacking. Today the Coen Brothers' film is now considered one of the great debuts in American film and it will be remembered as such long after this is forgotten.

FIRE DOWN BELOW *

No-one would ever accuse "Fire Down Below" of being a good film but photographed in Cinemascope and Technicolour on location in the Caribbean it's certainly a handsome one, Throw in Robert Mitchum, Rita Hayworth and Jack Lemmon and it becomes a film with star quality as well. The plot is as old as the hills as pals Mitchum and Lemmon fall out over Hayworth, the woman they are transporting 'from nowhere to nowhere'. The film generates a little excitement, (though not much), when Lemmon gets trapped in a ship that is about to blow up. The terrible dialogue is courtesy of Irwin Shaw from a book by Max Catto and director Robert Parrish was hardly the man to turn a pig's ear into a silk purse.

PATRIOT'S DAY no stars

One of the problems with a film like "Patriot's Day" is that the individual, personal stories of the victims and those caught up in the terrible events of the day in question mean very little to people outside of the United States, but more significantly should we even be making movies like this, films that deal with recent real-life tragedies where there is no historical perspective? The film may claim to honor the memory of the victims and yet "Patriot's Day" is filmed in such a way that it becomes simply a very well-made suspense movie with a strong sentimental streak running through it.


There's no denying it's very well crafted but I also found it offensive; this isn't fiction like the disaster movies of the seventies. These people really lived and died and here is a movie that is being sold outside of America as if it were nothing more than a disaster flick, (and even in America I can't see people accepting it as anything other than that). It is certainly exciting and for that very reason, it also leaves a bad taste in the mouth. A good cast do what they can with a cliche-ridden script and I would hope it was made with the best of intentions but this is a movie that needed a much more documentary-like approach than the one it gets.

LADY CAROLINE LAMB **

Robert Bolt won two Oscars back to back, (for "Doctor Zhivago" and "A Man for All Seasons"), as well as penning that most literate of epics "Lawrence of Arabia". Indeed for a time he seemed to be David Lean's writer of choice until his script for Lean's elephantine "Ryan's Daughter" and that films critical failure, severed those ties. In 1972 Bolt not only wrote, but also directed, "Lady Caroline Lamb". It wasn't really a success and, as may be expected, is a very literate-minded costumer but also, as may be expected, is highly intelligent and very nicely played.


It is, of course, an account, for the most part, of the title character's scandalous and disastrous affair with the mad, bad and dangerous to know Lord Byron, seen here as some kind of 19th century rock star. As Lady Caroline, Sarah Miles is quite splendid, (she was, of course, Mrs Bolt), I've always felt Miles was a much better actress than she was ever given credit for, though her tremulous style wasn't to everyone's taste. As Byron, a somewhat surprising Richard Chamberlain acquits himself somewhat surprisingly well, while Jon Finch is more than adequate as Lady Caroline's husband. The supporting cast are made up mostly of the great and the good of the British acting establishment, (a superb Margaret Leighton, John Mills, Laurence Olivier as Wellington, Ralph Richardson in an excellent cameo as King George IV, Michael Wilding), and the production overall is extremely handsome to look at. (It's obvious, on the whole, no expense was spared). Indeed, as historical dramas go, this one is a cut above the rest with Bolt displaying a keen sense of the cinematic in several scenes. Hardly ever revived, it's worth seeking out.

ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE *

The only film ever directed by James William Guerico "Electra Glide in Blue" has naturally become something of a cult movie. It's a rambling, virtually plotless picture about a motorcycle cop, Robert Blake, roaming the vast expanses of Arizona imagining himself as some kind of white knight on a motorised steed. As we say back here in Ireland, he doesn't always come over as the full shilling. He's permanently spaced out on nothing but the vibes he radiates from himself, continually self-conscious about his height, (he claims he is exactly the same height as Alan Ladd was down to the nearest quarter inch).

Guerico, who also produced the film, was something of a jack-of-all-trades and his film alludes to the likes of"Easy Rider", "Five Easy Pieces" and other counter-culture movies of the period. You could call it something of a character study but Blake doesn't give us a character we can relate to. It's an underwritten role that Blake fleshes out as best he can. On the plus side, it's a great looking picture. DoP Conrad Hall fills the widescreen with some beautiful landscapes and gives us something of a legendary closing shot. Nevertheless, it isn't an easy film to like. There is nothing here to get to grips with; finally it is as empty as the Arizona desert.