BoyActors - Reviews/Ratings by diogenes

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Reviews by diogenes

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350 reviews/ratings - 18 pages (20 reviews/ratings per page)

Oliver Twist (1997)

Well, this is a 'Disneyfied' version of Oliver Twist. Fluffiness abounds. There is nothing here that is authentically Dickensian. The attitudes of the characters are very much those of the 1990s, and the London of Dickens with its rich characters has been replaced by a chocolate box image. It's as though the director believed that it is enough to put people in funny 19th century clothes and give them funny hair-dos and funny hats and bonnets, in order to make them authentically 19th century. All the characters in this version are shallow, one-dimensional, clearly sorted into 'good' and 'bad' - and utterly uninteresting. Nothing is subtle; everything is laid on thick, just in case you didn't 'get the message'. So, for example, when Bill Sikes appears for the first time we get some menacing music just so you know that he's The Villain. Elijah Wood's attempt at a sort of cockney accent (it sounds more like an Oz accent to me) is up there with Dick van Dyke as one of the very worst. And although in other films Elijah Wood has displayed a certain amount of talent, it has to be said that in this film he rattles off his lines with about as much nuance as a man reading through the telephone directory. Besides which he looks, frankly, weird, with his overlarge eyes and chipmunk cheeks. He's no London boy, and is hopelessly miscast as the Dodger. With all due respect to the other reviewers, as Aristotle said, one swallow does not make a summer - and one highly personable actor (i.e. Alex Trench) does not add up to even a passably decent movie.

My Movie Rating:

3 / 10

Oliver Twist (2007)

Well, this project was doomed from the start, because the BBC decided that, instead of telling Dickens' story, they would 'update' his novel, 'for the modern era', or some such guff. This hatchet job fell to soap writer Sarah Phelps. Unfortunately, she has replaced Dickens' characters with grotesque stereotypes, and everything about pre-Victorian society itself has been absurdly exaggerated. The effect of this caricature, of course, is to congratulate the audience on its moral superiority to the pre-Victorian era, as though we now live in some sort of utopian society, from which pinnacle of moral Enlightenment we can look down on the pre-Victorians as a bunch of vicious, racist, sexist bigots. Oliver himself has been transformed in this production into an assertive, self-righteous and moralising campaigner against the injustices of his society - a privileged 21st century boy dropped into the 19th century. The scene where he is brought before the parish Board is typical - the Board is presented in a completely grotesque fashion, and Oliver is presented as talking back to them and criticising their moral judgement from his loftier moral standpoint. When finally at the end of the last episode Oliver turns to the camera and smirks like a cat that has got all the cream, one just longs to drown the nauseating self-righteous little prig. Indeed, from the moment that Monks declares, at the end of the first episode, that he wants Oliver wiped off the face of the Earth, I was rooting for Monks! Dickens' character of the Dodger has been scrubbed in favour of a stroppy teenager; and Timothy Spall plays Fagin as slimy and creepy - certainly not Dickens' character. The script insists on making a point about anti-semitism in an incredibly heavy-handed way - in this version, Fagin is hanged because he refuses to renounce his Jewish faith to the courtroom - thus becoming a Jewish martyr! In 1985 the BBC produced a perfect miniseries of Oliver Twist, a stunning piece of television. What a pity that the Beeb is now so dominated by its PC, progressivist, pseudo-liberal ideology, that it is incapable any longer of producing a decent historical drama.

My Movie Rating:

1 / 10

Oliver Twist (1982)

Oh gosh, you just must see this - it's so hilarious! In Nancy's death scene, after Sikes delivers the first blow against Nancy, the latter gets up from the floor and complains that she is now blind - this is shown by the actress going cross-eyed. Then Sikes delivers a mortal blow. Outside in the street, Sikes is haunted by visions of Nancy - except that it's the cross-eyed Nancy! It's so wonderful. You keep seeing Nancy in soft focus - but cross-eyed! - saying things like 'I'm still your girl, ain't I?' I was laughing so much I was getting a stitch! It really is shockingly bad. As for the rest of the film... well, Martin Tempest (who was later in such staples of British television as 'Minder', 'Grange Hill' and, um, 'Mapp & Lucia') made a really quite excellent Dodger. He was a very good-looking lad. His scene in the courtroom is the best thing in the whole film. There were also some nice boy extras in many of the scenes. Fagin in this movie bears absolutely no resemblance whatever to Dickens' character. Sikes is an ineffectual alcoholic. He doesn't seem nearly menacing enough - indeed, he hardly seems menacing at all. Oliver himself is just a little too goody-two-shoes and uninteresting, and scarcely ever seems to be in any real danger. Still, having said all that, the film is a decent and entertaining romp, and is definitely worth a view.

My Movie Rating:

7 / 10

Oliver Twist (1999)

Bleasdale, who wrote this four-part miniseries, took it into his head that he could 'improve' Dickens' original story, in particular by explaining away a couple of plot twists in the novel which otherwise seem like incredible coincidences; but the result is a somewhat tortuous and over-lengthy rewrite, made worse by his adding a tedious and uninteresting back story, which occupies the whole of the first episode. The casting is not quite right either. I'm sorry, but Robert Lindsay just isn't Fagin, and never could be. In Bleasdale's version, Fagin is a conjuror who does tricks, but this gets rather wearisome after a while. As for the Dodger, they really did find the most unprepossessing boy imaginable to play him! And Bleasdale has transformed his character to make him quite unpleasant (this comes out more strongly in the final episode). On the other hand, Sam Smith makes a lively and appealing Oliver. And some of Bleasdale's decisions are certainly very interesting - for example, his decision to give Monks a more rounded character and to present him in a much more sympathetic light. I rather liked him, and was glad that Bleasdale gave him a happy ending. I also quite liked the idea that Brownlow is in the habit of taking in boys off the street. And the narrative definitely picks up considerably in the second half of the series, as Bleasdale settles in to Dickens' story. Worth a view, I think.

My Movie Rating:

7 / 10

Oliver Twist (1985)

An absolutely stunning BBC TV series, absolutely faithful to the novel. Scott Funnell plays Young Oliver for the first episode (he's the one whose photo seems to be in all the publicity, perhaps because it is he who goes up to ask for 'more'); and then, ten minutes into the second episode (after a 'passage of time' sequence), Ben Rodska takes over as Oliver, for the remaining 11 episodes. He is an absolutely wonderful Oliver, perhaps the best there's ever been. Indeed, all the performers are wonderful - it is difficult imagining this miniseries being bettered.

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

There is no doubt that this film seems disappointing, and I was recently trying to think why this is so. I think there are a couple of reasons. First, this is billed as "The Final Conflict" - so by now you would expect Damien to be President of the US, or at the very least Vice-President plotting the murder of the President, and preparing for World War III. But no. Instead he's a rather humble diplomat who gets sent off to sodden old Blighty! - where, incidentally, he spends a considerable portion of his time having rough sex with a journalist and trying to recruit her son as one of his minions, despite the fact that the boy in question is even more powerless than he is! (Actually, the first time I saw this movie I mistakenly thought that the boy, played by Barnaby Holm, was a girl!) Second, there is at least one lengthy scene in a room where he keeps his general clutter (including a fascinating reverse crucifix thing - it's amazing the stuff you can get off ebay), involving a monologue where Damien attempts to justify his evil, and wraps himself in the mantle of victimhood. Oh dear. You know, I really think that if he were Pure Evil he wouldn't bother with the tedious handwringing of "justifying" himself. Perhaps the scene is supposed to invest him with the nobility of Milton's Satan, but he just comes across as a whinger. At the climax of the film, Damien bafflingly goes to some ruins where he is supposedly to find the reborn Christ Child. But what does Damien think the baby is doing there? Does he think that His parents just deposited Him there to be brought up by wolves or something? I'm not sure I understood this. And then (after he finally realises that the whole thing was just a ruse), Damien stamps about calling to Him, saying things like "where are you? Show yourself!"...um, but isn't the reborn Christ at this stage still a baby? At this point I completely lost the plot, but then so did the screenwriter, so it doesn't matter. The best thing about this film was the inadvertent humour of the "assassins", who are clearly incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery, let alone dispatching the Anti-Christ, and just end up wrapping themselves in burning plastic, etc. Hilarious! In fact, I'm going to give it a 6 for this reason alone!

My Movie Rating:

6 / 10

The Omen (2006)

Strangely lifeless retelling, with lots of dull, greyish colours. The original version is better by far. There really was very little point to this film.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Onán (2002)

My Movie Rating:

9 / 10

One Day I'll Become... (2017)

Way better than any of the actual Star Wars prequels. Beautiful cinematography.

My Movie Rating:

9 / 10

El Orfanato (2007)

An engaging mystery and a serious, cerebral 'ghost story' with a poignant conclusion.

My Movie Rating:

8 / 10

Our Gang Follies of 1938 (1937)

One of my all-time favourite Our Gangs.

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

Our New Errand Boy (1905)

14-year-old Tom is more a force of nature or a mischievous imp than a human being - a sort of amoral boy-deity, who causes mayhem without the slightest sympathy for those he torments. A lesser director would have turned the tables on him at the end in order to deliver a moral lesson. But in this film, he joyfully outwits his pursuers, and we end with him laughing uncontrollably at his victims' misfortune. And the wonderful thing is that we side with the boy, we share in his delight, so that the whole film becomes a celebration of irrepressible vitality. A truly extraordinary work.

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

Our Time (2014)

My Movie Rating:

2 / 10

Le P'tit curieux (2004)

Not at all what I was expecting, which was something a little fluffier... Fluffy, this is not! I like the conceit of the film, which is that a child naturally thinks that the adults have the answers and he's frustrated because it seems that they are hiding the answers from him. Clément gradually learns that actually the grown-ups are pretty miserable much of the time. Writer/director Jean Marboeuf deserves credit for portraying a nine year old's thoughts without the sentimentalising lens through which most adults view children. Milan Argaud completely steals the show as young Clément. N.B. A lot of the entertainment of the film arises out of word play, so fluency in French would be helpful.

My Movie Rating:

8 / 10

P'tit Quinquin (2014)

An oddity, but it definitely grows on you.

My Movie Rating:

8 / 10

Padre Padrone (1977)

I'm surprised at some of the comments on this film. Far from being either "surreal" or "unrealistic", it seems to me very earthy and realist. I see no reason for having a moral spasm just because it depicts things as they were. As for the bestiality scene - this was how things were; boys were horny, and the available options were either farmyard animals or each other. I don't suppose the animals suffered more than mild discomfort at most. As for it being 'disgusting', my feelings are the same as Terence, "Homo sum; nil humani alienum mihi puto." In any case, the film definitely scotches any notion of peasant life as a bucolic idyll - the Taviani brothers side more with Marx's "idiocy of rural life". The protagonist's father isn't demonised, though - he is simply an outcome of his own upbringing; if anything is to blame for the brutishness of it all then it's the poverty and insecurity of peasant life. I found the whole film wonderful and enlightening. A definite 'must-see'. (Get the Arrow Academy Taviani blu-ray set whilst it's still available!)

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

The Paper Lads (1977-1979)

With excellent, thoughtful scripts, superb acting from the whole cast, and plenty of outdoor filming, this was definitely one of the better kids' TV series of the 1970s. My favourite character was Gog, played by Peter Younger. Highly recommended.

My Movie Rating:

9 / 10

Pelle der Eroberer (1986)

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

Penrod and Sam (1937)

My Movie Rating:

7 / 10

Penrod and Sam (1931)

Absolutely the best thing about this movie was Billie Lord as the 'sissy' Georgie Bassett - he was great! (Georgie's father - played by Johnny Arthur - was also marvellous.)

My Movie Rating:

7 / 10

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