Reviews

This picks up the story of James Herriot a country vet and his new wife just before the commencement of the Second World War.

They live with his eccentric vet partner Siegfried in his practice and we see many little stories of goats chewing elastic britches ,mysteriously sick cows , lumps on cows backsides , choking vomiting dogs , dead budgies amid the onset of a world war , a running theme throughout this film.

Simplistic storylines without a doubt and maybe a tad drab for some but they work wonderfully well here and blended in with some great performances from the cast and some lovely photography of the Yorkshire countrywide together with a great musical score this is a film that stays with you.

So many great scenes , some funny , some extremely moving and at the end you are left with a nostalgic feeling and a sadness because they don't make films like this anymore.

Few sit coms through this era moved comfortably onto the big screen and the majority were very poor.

It's very difficult to think of any that were actually better than the actual TV series and I can only think of the steptoe and on the buses versions , both actually were good enough to get further versions made.

This one transfers to the big screen easily with great writing and acting and also a very good plot and set in a real prison location.

Fletcher has to organise a prison football match versus celebrities under orders from the prison gangster Harry Grout and there are also some good side stories also , lost teeth and a new prisoner called Rudge.

The scenes in the prison and the wider locations give this film so much and it's seems to get better every time I watch it.

The writing of this film is just so good and the acting even better from the great cast.

There is little doubt that this version would have lead to a further film being made had it not been for the untimely death of Richard Beckinsale who played one of the lead roles Lenny Godber.

An easy 10 out of 10 and by far the best film version of all of the sit com spin offs in my opinion.

I caught this recently and felt I needed to give my opinion of this wonderful little play from 1982.

Willie played by Paul Freeman is a jobbing roofer desperate for a mid life fling to brighten the mundane existence he feels he has in his life with his wife and family.

This involves scratching to make a living and trying unsuccessfully to attract lonely housewives through the course of his working day.

We also see drudgery of family life and the drabness of the local pub with his other mid life crisis hit pals and also the desperate plight of unemployment .

He is desperate to break free of this life and when his wife gives him licence to roam around his old haunts one Friday night he takes it with both hands.

He finds the pubs of his youth have all changed and we see a long scene of him trudging the streets and the images of the pubs he has visited in the same way a stage production would display this.

He then returns to the local and finds the middle aged landlady with her partner on a golfing trip is up for a fling and flattered he stays back for a 'lock in'.

As this is a play most of the action takes place in the pub and the main drama is mostly the various characters gassing about their lives or lack of them.

It doesn't take anything away from this well observed play and if anything adds to the drama however it does contain language and themes that some people would find offensive today.

A great cast is on fine form and there are some strong and relevant scenes throughout this drama.

Play for today was brilliant at observing ordinary people in day to day situations and making watchable and memorable dramas as well as giving breaks to scores to budding playwrights and fledgling actors and actresses.

I think the BBC needs to get back to showcasing new talent as it did with ' Play for Today' and when you think the likes of Mike Leigh , Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell contributed to this fantastic series i don't think I need to say anymore.

The film is adapted from a play and at times it is very evident and like most plays it doesn't transfer well to film.

The story is a simple one about a family who adhere to strict rules laid down by their strict father played by James Mason and when one rebels over an uneaten herring it causes consternation amongst the rest of the family.

James Mason gives a good performance but the film is set in the late sixties and the play the mid fifties and references to hunger marches of the 1930s date it very badly and I feel they miscast the mother as she looks far too young to play that part.

A decent watch but could and should have been much better with good writing and casting.

First watched this in the early eighties when TV movies were a burgeoning market given the demise of the cinema and the arrival of the video player.

This one either turned up on channel 4 or I caught it on a video tape I can't quite remember however on watching it again just recently remembered fondly how enjoyable it was.

The story is a simple one , a dead gangster stuck in hell is reincarnated in the body of a boring District attorney and this man goes from a stiff but well spoken man to a boorish yob with an Al Pacino/ James Cagney swagger to rubbish the angelic DA obviously.

It doesn't quite work out as the gangster Eddie played well by Peter Strauss charms all of his peers and even does some good work in the local community as well as romancing the office girl played by Barbara Hershey.

Of course nobody calls in the mental health people which is surprising given the dramatic change in the main character however this is fantasy and comedy after all.

An entertaining feature film that could easily have made the big screen and with only mild violence and profanity is one that any family could sit and enjoy.

Good performances from the cast and I enjoyed watching it again and it's still just as good as the first time.

This is a classic Minder episode with all the features that made the series great. Dodgy Arthur scams , Terry punch ups and Terry womanising and bedding a female without any effort whatsoever which was very standard in Minder.

The story involves Arthur selling rather suspect watches and Terry minding a gay partner of a hospitalised pal of Arthur's.

Terry has to mind the gay partner on a live in basis and also deal with the threats from the heavies single handed and also deal with his own issues with the man he is living with.

We see lots of jokes around this and some of the language used would be certain to offend somebody watching this today.

A shame reallybecause this is one of the finest episodes and the scenes are very funny and very much of the time this drama was set in.

Marvellous little scenes throughout this episode in fact so many it's impossible to mention them all .

An easy 10 out of 10.

Terry gets to look after the flash home of a ageing singer and finds his drunken brother squatting on the premises.

There is bit of a spat to begin with but gradually Terry starts to bond with the large squatter who essentially steals the whole episode.

There is a lot of laughs in this episode especially around the dream house story but we also have a sideline story involving Arthur and a amusement ride scam in which Arthur gets a loan off a wealthy window with designs on him.

The story is light hearted and played for laughs and offered a nice respite from the many gritty storylines throughout series 3.

Great supporting performance from the actor playing the rotund brother in fact so good he's another character that could and should have appeared again in some way like Scotch Harry , Des or Maurice Michaelson.

If you watch this expecting any realism forget it because from start to finish it feels like a cartoon romp.

George Caldwell a writer gets on the train Silver Streak to attend a wedding in Chicago and travels the silver streak to read because he want to be bored.

He meets a lady in the dining car and then gets mixed up in a crime plot involving a vile art dealer played by Patrick McGoohan and his gang.

To say the film is far fetched is an understatement but I think that was the plan all along anyway.

Caldwell brilliantly played by Gene Wilder leaves the train three times and comes out unscathed even though all three of the departures would surely have killed him .

He also jumps on the roof a couple of times and also uncouples a moving train.

Add on the various shoot outs where the bullets seems invisible and also the hapless police chiefs and what you have is pure fantasy.

If you watch it in this context and enjoy the comic banter between Wilder and Prior then it is a brilliant watch.

I won't spoil the plot for anybody other than to say had they toned down the racist and bad language and also the love scene then it would potentially have had a much wider appeal in the same way as some of the James Bond movies did back then.

All that said this I'm my opinion is the finest movie these two ever appeared in and I never tire of watching it.

The story hear follows the miserable life of Dixie Dean and his wife and teenage family.

This involves his trips to the dole to be interrogated by the arrogant DSS man and his home life involving plenty of shouting and conflicts.

The main story though involves Dixie and his night shift on the docks as a security guard. He inadvertently gets involved with a gang of thieves who threaten him to cooperate and in many respects these are the best scenes of the episode.

The acting of Tom Georgeson is superb though and the scenes of the dark silent docks and the wet windswept streets add so much to this episode.

Worth seeing for the great scene involving a monologue Dixie and one of the robbers that was arguably the most memorable of the whole series.

Terry and Arthur get involved with a slimy fashion agent who asks Terry to look after his garments in his back street operation.

As always something dodgy is afoot and involves the theft of one of his designers rack of creations .

We get some silly scenes as Arthur has to stand in for Terry who is minding an Irish pub called obviously ' the Blarney Stone'.

The side story involving the Irish pub is ridiculous and every stereotype is used , drunken Irish people who then fall out and fight and then smash up the newly built pub but all I good humour obviously.

The scene with the fashion agents doesn't hold true however Terry does fail to get the fashion designer which is probably the most real but if a daft episode. The.

Backstreets , wasteland , little chippies .", grotty social clubs with 'turns' and coal pit wheels set the scene of this brilliant Alan Bleasdale play.

The story is a very simple one , a young women played by a very young Alison Steadman has an affair with a young neighbour when her husband goes to work.

The husband is a typical slob who works down the pit and says to his wife lines such as " get mi some breakfust " before sliding off to work.

Shot on a low budget around the Wigan area it provides a very good time capsule of a period long gone and the performances of the cast are excellent.

The husband played by Johnny Meadows gives the best performance of all combining a rough edge with genuine charm .

Great low budget classic of the type we never see now , mores the pity .

Terry and Arthur get involved with a young wide boy called Justin who puts his idol Arthur in touch with a failing footballer with connections in dodgy tickets.

Shades of an earlier minder episode in series 2 and we get some nice shots of Terry at the now defunct empire stadium , Wembley and also what I think is Leyton Orients ground.

They all head north to Scotland in a ridiculous battle bus van and Arthur inevitably by this point in full charge of affairs.

There are some good one liners and Mark Farmer playing Justin has good on screen presence with the main characters and he steals this episode.

The story is ok but not great and the series relied on its witty one liners by this point rather than the storylines.

Dennis tries to keep secret his relationship with the building site administrator Dagmar.

He rushes around the swimming baths and the city centre but keeps bumping into the lads thwarting his weekend.

A funny episode with a good twist at the end however I have only given it a seven due to the ridiculous Wayne and Barry scene involving Swedish air hostesses.

They meet oh so briefly at traffic lights on Barry's bike and exchange only a few words however in the set up at the hotel involving Oz we are supposed to believe they gleaned Wayne's surname from this very short exchange.

Maybe the extended scene was cut out however it disjoints the episode of a very gritty and realistic series.

Two series were produced of ' Early Doors ' and each episode is a gem of dialogue and wit.

Set in a back street pub of the type that have been replaced by faceless convenience shops or even worse flats.

Ken is the landlord of a failing brewery public house with a cross section of locals chattering away about life and the mundane lives they all lead.

Every scene throughout this series was memorable and each episode generally had a pay off which was always wonderfully set up.

Very hard to pick a favourite scene but if I have to pick one it's the one when they all go to the races and as they leave the camera leaves the pub in daylight for a slow camera to pan around the empty silent pub as night starts to fall in just a few moments.

They then all return to the pub after the day out, beautiful scene and in a strange sort of way very moving.

They don't get any better than this .

I am not a James Bond nut by any stretch however like many of a certain age i was brought up on the films as a youngster particularly on bank holidays and the festive seasons.

If there is one that could be viewed and enjoyed by the whole family then Moonraker fits that bill but it's as far fetched as you could ever get.

Bond investigates a bearded David Brent lookalike despot called Drax who wants to kill off the entire planet with nerve gas and create a super race of perfect specimens.

He sends up two space shuttles to drop nerve gas bombs across the globe and then send his own people to create a new master race.

The film is full of cartoon stunts of the Tom and Jerry variety and fantastic locations across the world.

Its strangely the best Bond movie of the lot in my opinion because it is so action packed you cannot take your eyes off it for one minute.

To say it is far fetched is an understatement and we get Drax concocting weird and wonderful scenarios to murder Bond and his sidekick rather than just shooting them.

Great action scenes particularly the space ones and my favourite is the incinerator scene , he really wouldn't have survived that in any way shape or form.

Pure fantasy but great comedy and ten kat memorable one for me.

A gang of stags and hens end up in the same nightclub the night before a wedding with obvious and dramatic results.

Throw in a travelling band and a lead singer ( Con O'Neill ) who is an old flame of the bride to be and you have a very powerful mix indeed.

Most of the drama takes place in the toilets and themes explored previously by the writer are displayed here.

Class and escaping from the drabness of your lot like in his previous works are once again the main themes of this film .

However away from all this are some great comedy moments from a very good cast and also a great soundtrack.

All I will say is if you need cheering up watch this film and revel at some of the weird and wonderful scenes .

My favourite is the angry husband who come looking for his Madonna lookalike wife who has hooked up with one of the stags.

He turns up shouting whilst eating an apple and then drags her out. Quite what the relevance of this scene is I have no idea but it adds to the quirkiness of the whole thing .

Very good drama series that gave some good food for thought during a gloomy period for football back in the late 1980s.

A good plot involving a women manager of an unnamed lower division football team played by the excellent Cherie Lunghi.

She has many challenges to face with problematic players , a drippy husband and the irascible chairman played really well by Warren Clarke.

The stories are simplistic however I watched them again recently and there are some very good observations on pay per view football and out of town stadiums , something not commonplace back then.

The football match scenes are some of the best I have seen and you have to pinch yourself this club doesn't exist they are so realistic.

This was a great series and well worth a watch all these years later if you can acquire it.

In the decade that gave us ' Get Carter ' and ' Sweeney' this one runs along the same lines and with a charismatic cockney playing the lead and one easily up there in the same company as Thaw and Caine.

Bob Hoskins plays gang boss Harold Shand who is looking to do a deal with the mafia to host the 1988 Olympic Games in London.

A plot involving Irish gangsters goes horribly and this has nasty repercussions for Harold and his henchman.

Harold is a nasty violent character In his work however has charm in abundance and a turn of phrase so good it could almost be deemed a very dark comedy given how well Bob delivers his lines.

The final speech given by Harold is so good that I can remember every line verbatim and it's delivered with such passion and venom it's little wonder this actor was Soon rubbing shoulders with Hollywood's elite a few years after this Film was made.

I won't say any more other than if you haven't seen this film then make sure you do because it is easily one of the finest gangster films ever made here or abroad.

One of the early Tv spin offs of popular television sit coms and most certainly one of the best.

Set around Fenn st school mans it's hapless teacher Hedges and his colleagues and his class 5c made up of many lively characters.

The plot is around a school camp and some gypsies they meet as well as a sub plot involving a pupils scruffy abusive father .

The jokes and script are superb and everybody looks to be having a great time that adds so much to the film.

Not many other films of this type bettered this one.

Given the riches on television around this time this series had a lot to live up to when it first aired in 1983/1984.

The first and most memorable series was set on a German building site and the scenes involved a POW style lodging hut to house the foreign itinerate workers.

The drama at this point largely focused on the Geordie workers hence the title and the main back stories involved the characters Dennis , Neville and Oz .

They are thrust together with a number of other workers from various parts of England and the stories around the seven of them unfold.

This series is without a doubt the most memorable and the various themes of mass unemployment are played out along with the difficulties settling in a foreign environment.

Every episode is superbly written and each character is developed throughout each episode resulting in a wonderful final episode.

I would say to anybody reading this who hasn't seen this series to go and watch It as it hasn't dated in any way shape or form.

Series 2 had a very tough act following this first series and the gap of two and a half years made it very slow going at the start.

The drama sees the lads reunite first Barry's marital home to do it up and then on to a Derbyshire mansion to spruce up the place for an old folks home.

This is being done for a local criminal who Dennis owes a large of sum of money to and he then gets the lads out to Spain to do up his Villa.

The criminal is played brilliantly by Bill Patterson who blends in so well with the group that he almost steals the show.

The story weaves along strongly especially in the final Newcastle and Spanish based episodes and again to a fantastic climax however the tragic sudden death of the actor Gary Holton whomplayed altered the script and his absence is sadly very noticeable near the end.

Is this one as good as the first , absolutely not however it is still very good despite its very sluggish start.

It has many flaws which cannot be ignored notably Oz has changed into a sanctimonious type which is something he never was in series 1. Dennis seems to also have endless money for beer and cigs and nights out despite being supposedly in massive debt to the criminal he works for .

Oz has also become a bit of a ladies man in series 2 despite the fact he must have stank to high heaven in his sweat stained filthy clothing.

Other than that the series is good and well produced and achieved huge ratings when it went out.

Series 3 which went out nearly 16 years later on the BBC is completely different and beyond comparison to the first two series.

It moves to quickly and rather than tidy up what happened at the end of series 2 dives straight in to a bizarre storyline involving the Middlesbrough transporter bridge and an Indian tribe who wish to purchase it.

The characters have altered so much that it is difficult to engage and they must have struggled to find the characters after so long .

Oz now becomes the leader which is something he never was and the other characters bar Moxey have altered so much it is very difficult to reengage with them.

The final series 3 and 4 are very difficult to follow and beyond far fetched and a far cry from the brilliance of series 1.

I saw this again recently and despite its flaws I'd Say it's probably gained cult status in the 30 years or so since it was released.

Swayze is hired as a trouble shooting bouncer in a run down ranch style bar. It is full of rough brawling characters , slimy doormen and thieving bar staff and in a small rural area with seemingly no police force.

He basically goes in and starts fighting straight away with an array of skills that would put the great Bruce Lee to shame.

The story is ridiculous involving a harmless looking middle aged gangster who runs the entire area which isn't very much and looks about as threatening as a dead bee.

As swayze threatens the whole ' enterprise' he sends his stereotypical thugs into the bar to sort him out again and again.

It's essentially fight after fight and hilarious scenes that surely were played for tongue in cheek humour.

We get full brawls and then ridiculous ends to them like when Swayze having been badly beaten up and then saved by his long haired rock star bouncer pal just claps his hands around his neck and then goes for a beer.

This happens on many occasions and to a point where you cannot take any of the fights seriously.

A film so ridiculous that if you'd cut out the heavy blood soaked violence , sexual scenes and bad language could have fashioned a film that would have had wider appeal to all age groups and arguably would have been a major hit.

The cartoon Tom and Jerry fight scenes are choreographed superbly and alone are worth watching this film for.

The story and love interest back story are paper thin however who cares it just gets in the way of all the madcap fighting .

One to watch and enjoy for it's cartoon style brawls and old western style storylines that wouldn't confuse or trouble a ten year old.

Cult status without a doubt and an enjoyable blast.

A very memorable episode from arguably the best run of episodes of series 2 sees a young boy named Peter dumped in his doorstep by his mother an old flame of Terrys from up north many years previously.

Terry being the kind hearted type he always was takes him in believing him to be a long lost son.

Given his likeness to Terry and also the maths of when he was in Warrington he really begins to believe he is is son.

We see some very touching and poignant scenes and see Terry display a fatherly side never previously seen although a couple of typical 'Terry sorts out the bully ' punch ups are thrown in for good measure.

The whole thing wraps up happily and hastily for my liking and a real chance was missed by the writers with this storyline .

A later storyline could have resulted in Peter returning to say he was Terrys lad after all and they could easily have fitted the character into the storylines.

A very good episode with a fine ending but a tinge of regret of what might of been with future episodes and what might have developed Terry far more especially as he aged.

Reasonable but not a great episode involving flash but rather grating on the nerves gambler Maurice played by Anthony Valentine who appeared in series 1 episode 'Aces high and sometimes very low'.

He is running a syndicate with a strange collection of people and Terry gets roped in to mind them against some unconvincingly nasty casino owners.

Maurice's wife goes awol and then we have a weird scene involving Terry and Maurice scouring a shopping centre trying to find her.

You do leave the episode wondering why and how Terry puts up with Arthur's horrible ways and the way he always seems to rip hard working Terry off.

I'd say this was Arthur at his most vile in this episode and slightly out of character as he wasn't ever as bad as this ,poor writing .

His airline girlfriend Penny also makes an appearance but has very little to do in this episode.

Not the best episode spoiled by poor casting of the casino bunch And weak writing.