glenn-299 Reviews

Miss Marple: Sleeping Murder (1987 TV Movie)

Competent ...but oh, that accent!!

[4/10 · 21 February 2024]

According to the story, Geraldine Alexander's character, Gwenda, was raised in New Zealand from the time that she was a small girl. Why then does she have an outrageous Australian accent throughout the film? That's the equivalent of saying that a character is Irish and then having them wandering around saying "Jings and crivens! Och aye away the noo!". It may seem like a trivial point but every time she opened her mouth and another Dame Edna Everage inspired comment came out it made me cringe. New Zealanders sound NOTHING like Australians so either she's a limited actress or she thought 'what the hell, they're only 4,000km away from each other, it doesn't matter. It does.

Having said that, this is a competent but largely uninspired retelling of a slightly unusual Christie in that not only do we not find out who the murderer is until the end, we're not even 100% sure there is one. Joan Hickson is an excellent Marple and the supporting cast, Alexander apart, are fine, especially the under-rated John Bennett.

Star Trek: The Lights of Zetar (1969) Season 3, Episode 18

Wot? No Backup?

[3/10 · 2 August 2022]

The Federation takes all the knowledge of all the planets under its aegis and stores it all on one planet sized library and not only provides no shield protection but .... NO BACKUP? No USB hub the size of Chile that they could stIck a small portable planet in to to make a copy?. The Fed's I. T. dept has failed them badly. And it's a boring episode.

The Vault of Horror (1973)

One small point regarding the damned.....

[8/10 · 2 September 2021]

I love these Amicus compendium films and this is one of the best but....regarding those poor chaps damned for eternity... Daniel Massey ... murderer Michael Craig ... fraudster, planning murder Curt Jurgens ... murderer Tom Baker ... murderer Terry-Thomas ...obsessively tidy

Hardly seems fair on poor old Terry.

Don't Let It Get You (1966)

A low budget Hard Day's Night

[4/10 · 7 May 2010]

There never was much money in the New Zealand film industry in the 1960s and the lack of budget shows alarmingly in this cheap beat musical. The plot is as simple as they come - two drummers vie for the affections of the same girl and a place in the band at the same gig, featuring New Zealand icon Howard Morrison. The humour is laboured, the script and acting are weak and the cinematography and direction are ordinary but this curio is worth seeking out for the rare musical performances from Morrison, Australia's Normie Rowe, Kiri Te Kanawa, Lew Pryme and, best of all, the fabulous Quin Tikis. But, like the cheap American rock and roll musicals of the fifties, the tunes are the only thing that hold the film together.

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars (2009) Season Unknown, Episode Unknown

Zombies

[4/10 · 17 November 2009]

What we have here is your basic traditional zombie film plot. The doctor and sundry others are trapped in an environment from which they cannot escape; first one person is infected, then another - the heroes barricade themselves in, anyone touched becomes a zombie - jeez, its just Night Of The Living Dead all over again. This could work if the dialogue was witty and interesting and if the characters were better defined and developed but it isn't and they aren't. There's an interesting attempt at the beginning to create some friction between the captain and her second-in-command but it doesn't go anywhere. When Dr Who is at its best it features intricate, interesting well written plots - this ain't one of them. Fresh writing blood is urgently needed.

Walkshort (1987)

A few minutes of fun

[7/10 · 24 August 2008]

This is a fast, clever ten minutes of fun with a nice ending. Written and performed by just two men in multiple roles, all the action takes place on Auckland's K-Road. There's very little that is innovative and the filming itself is little more than adequate but the movie doesn't need to sustain over any length of time so this really doesn't matter.

The title is something of a play on words as 'walk shorts' are those awful shorts that NZ businessmen wear with long socks instead of proper trousers, on hot days. Along with safari suits, they were one of the 1970s worst fashion statements. I believe Dan McGlashan went on to front the fabulous Mutton Birds.

Confessions from a Holiday Camp (1977)

Of It's Time

[2/10 · 23 August 2008]

I saw this film in 1977, aged 21, stoned, sitting up the back of the Odeon High Street Kensington, with some friends, smoking. And we laughed. We laughed a lot actually. Seeing it on DVD, in my lounge at home, aged 52, on a cold Friday night, by myself - well, surprise, surprise, it wasn't funny anymore. Not only is it of it's time but also of it's place in history. It's cheap, written without much imagination, with no real laughs and with some (by 2008 standards) cringe inducing racism and sexism. But for all that, like Carry On and Doctor films, it is remarkably easy to watch and has a fascinating British charm all of it's own. I suppose the appeal, at it's basic level - is simple. It says that even if you're ignorant, thick and ugly, you only have to smile and sexy women will fall all over you, even to the extent of lining up, five at a time, to hide in your wardrobe. If only real life were like that.

Came a Hot Friday (1985)

Excellent fun

[8/10 · 30 October 2007]

This is an an enjoyable, pleasant, simple romp through the New Zealand country side and bush in the 1940s; Marshall Napier steals the show as the bad guy - Billy T James would have done, for his eccentric performance as the Tainui Kid, but you need subtitles to understand him. The script is crisp and has some great one-liners but some of the acting is a little on the amateur side and Ian Mune's direction, as always, lacks any real spark. The quality of the story lifts the film above that. Incidentally, for the benefit of a previous poster, Billy T James, as the Tainui kid, is a Maori, not an 'Aboriginal' which is not a socially respectable term anyway. Aborigines are found in Australia, a couple of thousand miles away.

Flyboys (2006)

Great aerial shots, pathetic story

[3/10 · 10 March 2007]

Why oh why, do we have to endure 140 minutes of dross just to enjoy some fabulous flying sequences? The characters in this movie were straight out of the Hollywood Book Of Clichés - the hardened, bitter veteran, the crusading Christian, the 'nice and reasonable' black man (with no faults because that would be politically incorrect - some inverse racism here), the one with something to prove to his daddy (yuk), the one who loses his nerve, the dirty Hun who kills defenseless pilots on the ground and, of course, the all-American square jawed hero who gets the French girl. Yawn. Three stars for the aerial shots but if they'd cut half an hour off the running time, brought in a decent script writer and tidied the whole mess up, it could have been a classic.

Rocky Balboa (2006)

What nonsense!

[2/10 · 21 February 2007]

It would be easy to dismiss this film as a piece of whimsical, illogical, overblown nonsense.....so I will. It's a piece of whimsical, illogical overblown nonsense. The notion that a seedy over-50s man who used to be a boxer twenty years earlier, could last ten minutes, let alone ten rounds, with the heavyweight champion of the world is just too preposterous for words. Now if Stallone had written a film in which Rocky is flattened within a minute of entering the ring and is carried off to hospital it would not only have been realistic but would have given the writer/director a unique opportunity to explore the effect that this type of humiliation would have on his character. As a result, we might have ended up with a remarkable human drama instead of another dreary, uninteresting and completely unbelievable sports film.

The Cat and Claudia (2005)

Deliciously dark and inventive

[10/10 · 9 February 2007]

This 14 minute gem is an amusing but unsettling look at the netherworld between life and death, beautifully shot with stark, bare lighting and intelligently acted by Clare Redenbach. Claudia's experience with her cat, which both causes and benefits from its mistress's misfortune, is a highly original and deftly handled tale that manages to be chilling and entertaining at the same time. While the concept is one that has been investigated many times in movies and literature, the slant that Lily Coates gives to her film ensures that it will stand out and while it explores its themes in a unique way, it does so without pretension. This is a wonderful little film that showcases some remarkable talent and it shouldn't be missed.