BoyActors - Reviews/Ratings by diogenes

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Reviews by diogenes

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

My Uncle Silas (2000-2003)

A pleasant enough series, lightweight and fluffy; though, in all honesty, Joe Prospero as Edward doesn't really have a lot to do except ask questions of Albert Finney which display his (Edward's) naivete, for humorous effect.

My Movie Rating:

6 / 10

My Way Home (1978)

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)

Every time I've watched this film, I've liked it more.

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

Neohlížej se, jde za námi kùn (1981)

Most enjoyable.

My Movie Rating:

8 / 10

The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1999)

I am inclined to agree with Cinefan (below). (The similarities to 1996's "The Adventures of Pinocchio" with Jonathan Taylor Thomas are due to its being conceived as a sequel to that movie.) Also, am I the only person to find the fish-humans VERY, VERY DISTURBING?

My Movie Rating:

5 / 10

Nicholas Nickleby (2002)

Actually, having watched it a second time (on blu-ray this time) my estimation of this film has gone up. It is a gorgeously colourful and good-looking production, Charlie Hunnam certainly has the wide-eyed innocence necessary to his character, and Jamie Bell makes a charming Smike. Most enjoyable.

My Movie Rating:

8 / 10

Nimmermeer (2006)

If I learnt the art of film-making, and laboured for a thousand years, I would still never be able to create something with such crystalline gorgeousness as this magnificent, sombre, windswept film.

My Movie Rating:

9 / 10

Nine Meals from Chaos (2018)

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

Nocturnes (2006)

A gem of a film.

My Movie Rating:

9 / 10

Nous, les enfants du XXème siècle (1994)

My Movie Rating:

8 / 10

O (2006)

Completely breathtaking.

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

Obecná skola (1991)

Unmissable, nostalgic, classic Czech comedy.

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)

Well, all that one can say is that the boy (Cameron CJ Adams) is great - but the movie is a pile of syrupy, cloying, sentimental toss, an overdose of sugar that leaves you feeling slightly sick. Never mind. Watch it for CJ, and mourn the fact that he never got to read a decent script.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Oddballs (1984)

Surprisingly good! A fun movie from a more relaxed era, before Political Correctness and modern Puritanism. Recommended!

My Movie Rating:

8 / 10

Of Time and the City (2008)

A gorgeous elegy, mixing bitter criticism (particularly of the Church, but also of more modern trends) and warm nostalgia, a meditation on the corrosive nature of time that has something of the mood of T. S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets' (quoted in the film). Utterly unique. A work of genius.

My Movie Rating:

10 / 10

Oliver Twist (1933)

My Movie Rating:

1 / 10

Oliver Twist (2005)

Superb adaptation. Ben Kingsley should have got an Oscar for his Fagin.

My Movie Rating:

9 / 10

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

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