Reviews

I remember this being on British TV about a year after it was cancelled in the US. It wasn't good. The old Lucy shows are not that bad if dated. This was terrible. The main trouble was that a septuagenarian Lucy was doing bizarre physical comedy. The had her chasing ducks, skating, dancing along to Jane Fonda. Most of the time you thought it was going to end up with a hip transplant gag! The Biography channel recently showed a clip from this show in a programme about Lucy. It was a clip where she was sitting talking, and it was funny. It was a shame that her verbal comedy wasn't the driving force for this show. Sadly Lucy died soon after thinking that the public had turned her back on her due to the poor ratings of this show.

This film is on the border. The first half is so bad it's good, and then it gets to be so bad it is just plain bad. Liliana Cabal dose a good job of playing someone with no memory. But that is the high point. The rest of the acting is bad. Now a few points on Vampire Lore. Most modern film makers do not seem to take 'Buffy...' and Stoker as gospel and mess with it. I don't think this film is any worse. This film seems to be set in the same general biological area Able Ferrara's 1995 film 'The Addiction'. With the vampires okay in daylight with shades and able to suffer injury. In Anne Rice novels vampires have been known to suffer memory loss from blows to the head. So that is okay. Crosses, that one is dropped in a lot of more modern films. In 'The Hunger' the vampires also wear crosses (albeit Egyptian style ones). This film is trying to be modern and scientific about vampires, which means dropping the superstition.

One night in 1996 I switched on Turner Network Europe at about midnight, I expected to see either the 'WCW' or an old US government information film from the 40's. If it had been the former I would have gone to bed. But it was the latter. Which was then closely followed by a trailer for the feature at midnight. I was intrigued and stayed up to watch. 'Private Parts' isn't a easy film to watch at 3 am, though it is a great film. The photography and the mood created is impeccable. From the nod to Hitchcock in the bathroom scene to the oddly familiar corridors of the hotel. But to be honest I forgot about this film for a few years. Though something jogged my memory and I had to seek it out again.

I was not disappointed. The second time not hampered by fatigue I could see what a great film this is. Defiantly a forgotten gem. Turner Classic Film's has been known to show this film in the UK and it is well worth a look. Sadly they no longer show old info film. So I can no longer use the ten point test to see if my co worker is a Soviet Spy...

Jamie Oliver is the most annoying man on UK TV. Five minutes of this show and you realise why he won that vote. The camera work is fast and furious, in the third seres the BBC had to add the same epilepsy warning that they use for Sci/Fi shows. if Delia is a god then Oliver is the Anti Christ!

Having read the novel on which this film is based I expected allot more. Though I was very disappointed as I felt tat the film sacrifices some key elements of plot for style. The main one being that the motive for Erica's Attack on Anna is never explained, the hymen cutting scene is confused (this may have more to do with UK censors, though) and the ending could have been allot more moving... The film itself won a few awards at this years Cannes film festival. Which makes it doubly surprising that the brilliant 'Amelia' wasn't even selected. Perhaps the two films represent the pola opposites of French film making? I'm sure that a film like this will have it's fans. And in many ways it is well made. For me though too much was sacrificed for the style of the piece.

This film is one of those that is so bad that it is good. Though the best thing to do is watch it late at night when you have had a few bevvies and then it seems OK. Though it is perhaps one of the worst films ever made. But the ending is really worth the wait.

Eddie Izzard is a strange fish at time, and I'm sure he would be the first to admit it. But a sitcom about Cow's? Not as strange as you may think. The plot is simple enough. In the title sequence the history of cows revelling there sentience, then struggling for equality is quickly dispatched. Then it's just a case of Cow meet's girl, Girl cheets cow. and every one end's up in a nice barn. What makes this stand out though is that it was played by actors in Cow suits. Pam Ferris at the time was hugely popular as Ma Larking in the terrible 'Darling Buds of May' (the series that also sporned Catherine Zeta Douglas) but she was prepared to go Cow. This was a pilot unfortunately the series wasn't picked up, there was talk of bringing it back in conjunction with Aardman Animation, but that seemed to fizzle out. Though Izzard worked with them of the excellent 'Rex the Runt'. There was a 'Cow's' strip on Izzards web site for a while though that seems to have gone as well.

The 'Wheeltappers.' was a fictunal north of England working mens club. Each week turns wold come on, but unlike most clubs the turns were a Whos Who or 70's entertainment. From the lamentable Cranky's to the brillant Crickets. Bernard Manning is the compaire, and the mood is light but the best thing to watch for is the crowd. These are genuine people from the clubs of England at that time.

This film is magical. The way that it is directed through to the way that you really don't quite know what is going on at the end. The portrayal of Marié by Charlotte Rampling is inspiring that such a high level of acting could be protrude on film still. Her performance is one of the best I have ever seen and really drives home the subtle sub plots of what makes her do and think what she dose. The switch between scenes in English and French works well also though some of the subtitles are not so good. This alas is a constant problem. Bruno Cremer's performance is both realistic and spiritual which really drives home his characters role. I was amused to see that François Ozon thinks of Germans in the same light as his countryman Anton De Cones, as a race obsessed with nudity. As the only other occupants of the 'German Beach' were naked.