Reviews

A good movie, with a stunning performance by Heath Ledger, but not really deserving of the rave reviews it's been getting. I'm guessing it's been overpraised because it's a "brave" film that breaks taboos. About 20 years ago on TV I caught a heterosexual equivalent starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. It was called Same Time, Next Year and was, I think, adapted from a stage play. In any case, it covered much of the same ground, i.e. two lovers take the occasional break together while carrying on a family life with someone else. I should mention that I find Ang Lee's films awfully slow for the most part, and lost the will to live during Ride With The Devil. By comparison, this one's fairly compelling.

Had the plot not got livelier in the last half hour, I would have given this 1/10. Seriously, it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It's boring, pretentious, stilted and insanely implausible, with wooden acting and the worst dialogue this side of George Lucas (who at least has the excuse of making fantasy movies). Less than two hours after I left the cinema, I'm still wondering how the man who made one of my top 25 films – Sweet and Lowdown, in 1999 – could have been responsible for this drivel. Woody, you have lost it, mate, and you clearly have no ear for how the British speak. So many unintentionally funny lines! "I grew up in Belgravia – maybe I could show you around London?" (Oh, and it borrows from Crimes and Misdemeanors, a film I would recommend without hesitation.)

This was a failure because of (i) the join-the-dots script, (ii) Alfred Molina's valiant but doomed attempt to recreate a comedy legend and (iii) the hilariously bad portrayal of the inimitable John Le Mesurier. Read the biographies instead.

A couple of the comments I've read here are mistaken. For a start,

the film wasn't a flop at all. Producer Joseph E Levine, who used to

finance films out of his own pocket in the days when that was still

possible, spent $22 million on it and saw it earn $4 million profit

before it was even released! (Don't ask me how - something to do

will selling to distributors country by country.)

And to those who say there are inaccuracies, don't tell that to the

screenwriter, William Goldman. He says he researched the story

meticulously and had to leave stories out because there was so

much more he could have written about.

How do I know this? From his marvellous book Adventures in the

Screen Trade and its sequel, Which Lie Did I Tell?

When A Bridge Too Far was released in America, a lot of the US

critics questioned its veracity: for instance, in the scene where

James Caan threatens the doctor. Some also remarked that Ryan

O'Neal was too young to play a general, when in fact he was the

right age for Brig Gen Gavin. But if Goldman had written dialogue

into the script to explain that Gavin was the Allies' youngest

general, it would have been like saying "don't think of pink

elephants". In other words, viewers would have assumed he'd put

it in to explain away O'Neal's casting.

For anyone who loves movies these books are required reading. If

you can, also check out Hype and Glory, half of which is about

Goldman being a judge at the Cannes Film Festival.

Broadcast when BBC Radio 1's new controller was merrily axing half of his star presenters for being too old and stuffy for a pop station, the most effective parts of this show are the thinly disguised reminders of British DJs' most embarrassing moments. At times it's more cruel than funny, and Enfield later apologised for his parody of Tony Blackburn's marital breakdown, which a distraught Blackburn shared with listeners in the 1970s.

I've been addicted to films all my life.For several years I've made a point of seeing at least 100 on the big screen each year, as well as those I watch on TV, DVD etc. Then about three months ago, while I was watching Bulletproof Monk, a thought occurred to me. Why do I sit through so many dismal movies like this? Are films getting worse, or am I getting too old for the standard Hollywood "product" now that I'm in my mid-30s? It was an epiphany for me... and as a result, I haven't been to the cinema all summer.

Writer Lee Hall's story will stick in my mind purely for forcing me to relive my father's death from cancer 18 years earlier. I was roughly the same age as the kid in the movie, and living in the North-East of England where the film is set, so I identified with him all the more. For me personally, then, the latter stages of the film were very upsetting indeed - but two year on, taking the film as a whole, I regard Gabriel and Me as mediocre and otherwise forgettable, all told.

If it had been on artistic merit alone, I'd have given this film a 1, but for all the laughs I've had from it, I'll give it a 7. It has the funniest sex scene ever committed to film, and don't get me started on the "there's only one doctor who can save Winona" stuff...

Before he made Billy Elliot and The Hours, Stephen Daldry

directed a strangely baroque revival of this play for Britain's

National Theatre which won truckloads of awards, was hailed as

the theatrical event of the 1990s and went on to enjoy a very long

run in the West End of London.

I only wish I'd been more impressed with it when I saw it in 1999.

The unusual set design - having the Birling residence look like a

giant doll's house - was undoubtedly striking, but the whole thing

was a bit too clever-clever and postmodern for my liking and the

not very well known actor playing Inspector Goole at that time

simply didn't possess the requisite charisma.

When I caught this movie on TV the other day, it occurred to me

that Guy Hamilton's straightforward telling of Priestley's morality

tale packed a moral wallop that Daldry's version patently lacked -

and that the presence of the incomparable Alastair Sim helped

immeasurably.

I wish this film had given me the same pleasure it has clearly given so many others, but to tell you the truth, it made me cringe! I come from a Billy Elliot-type area - a lot of it was filmed just up the road, in Easington - and all I could see were the tired North-East England cliches of "hard" men, the miners' strike, salt of the earth, blah blah blah. I wasn't convinced at all when Billy's dad, having spent half the film calling him a poof, suddenly changed his tune. And Julie Walters' accent was atrocious! Wasn't she nominated for an Oscar for this performance? Crazy!

Laurel and Hardy's better shorts are priceless and timeless, but I'm afraid this isn't one of them. Their "don't annoy the landlord" routine was put to much better use in the classic Laughing Gravy.

I have fond memories of watching this when it came out. It's one of those films that you know is rubbish, even when you're a kid, but at that age you overlook the ludicrous acting, special effects and plot (so there's a race of big-busted nymphets living underground, huh?) and just enjoy the campy monsters for all they're worth.

I spent about three months travelling around South Africa in 2002 and watched a video of this on a Greyhound bus going from Kimberley to Cape Town. It was entertaining enough, and occasionally very funny, but what sticks in my mind is the way some of the black people who were victims of Jamie Uys' practical jokes were patronisingly presented as Stepin Fetchit-like morons.

A workman who thinks he has blown up a building, for instance, thinks he can undo the damage by turning a switch back to where it was. But if blacks were being given a sub-standard education, what did the whites expect? While I wouldn't expect old movies to be banned in the "new" South Africa, it felt weird to see this throwback to a less enlightened age being screened on public transport. (Oh, and on a lighter note, look out for a young Arnold Vosloo, later to find fame as The Mummy!)

For the most part, this is a pleasant enough comedy with a few good scenes along the way (namely the bit in the sushi restaurant, the bit in the graveyard and the bit in the hospital). The denouement in Westminster Abbey, however, is one of the funniest things I've ever seen, and worth the price of admission alone. As I left the cinema I was still laughing at the thought of it.

When I was in Santa Monica last year, a politics major from New Jersey, staying in my hostel dorm, asked: "Do you have any royal blood in you?" The people who made this film exhibit an equally sophisticated understanding of British culture.

Now that Steve Martin is no longer funny I can understand him wanting to branch out in other directions, but Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern have no such excuse. I didn't believe a word of the script and the acting was too hammy for words. I've seen better TV movies than this. Root canal work would be preferable to watching it.

I agree, this film is terrible. But I was wondering why the players didn't just go on strike in front of a global audience to protest at what was happening to them. Then again, that wouldn't make for a violent ending, would it?

"If they want me to play, I'll play" (or words to that effect). Puh-leeeze!

This is the best British film I've seen since Secrets and Lies. It's much funnier than Nick Hornby's novel - and unlike the book, which just sort of peters out, it boasts a superb feelgood ending that almost moved me to tears. Acting, script and direction are all top-notch - plus it's bloody funny.