Change Your Image
noplace_likehome
Reviews
Swallows and Amazons (2016)
A complete, total mess of a film.
It takes guts to remake a classic film. Unfortunately it takes talent too, and from the "writer" downwards the bunch behind this particular remake are sadly lacking in talent.
Honestly, it makes you wonder if they ever read the original stories. Sure, they're perhaps a little dated now, but I'm convinced it would have been possible to update them without ignoring everything that was good. They certainly did *not* need to rename poor old itty, or make the teenagers a bunch of inept yobs.
Ignore this, go watch the original 1974 version, then hunt out Sophie Neville's beautiful diaries of "The Making of Swallows and Amazons" (it's on Amazon) and let the love and respect for Arthur Ransome's work envelop you.
The Beiderbecke Connection (1988)
Whimsical, gentle comedy
I think Keno27 saw a different series rather than "The Beiderbecke Connection"!
*** Spoilers ahead ***
No communists to be seen, the film features Jill (English teacher; once a candidate for the Conservation Party in the local elections) and Trevor (jazz loving, easy going woodwork teacher who can really "hear the music").
Meeting up with old friends Big Al and Little Norm, little wheels in an enormous underground economy, they offer a safe haven for Ivan, a supposed refugee but in fact a man who has relieved banks of £3M with the aid of nothing but a computer.
Jill & Trev's school colleague Mr. Carter, whose life peaked in excitement some years ago, becomes more disillusioned with his lot by the day as their stories of attempts to smuggle Ivan across the Yorkshire and Lancashire borders unfold.
Stitching all this together are a trio of inept policemen, an almost-reformed school tearaway now trying for a career as child-minder, a chance meeting with Jill's ex-husband Peter, and of course the music of Bix Beiderbecke and others, as skillfully arranged by Frank Ricotti (who gets a short cameo).
It's a very whimsical, Yorkshire comedy by a great Yorkshire writer. The cast just shines with quality - and the interplay between all the characters is a triumph both of writing, and of direction.
The tragedy, though, is that this trilogy was made by a once great British television company in the days when television drama was made to be enjoyed. It would never, ever get made in the UK today.
Gritta von Rattenzuhausbeiuns (1985)
Amusing and visually spectacular
Gritta vom Rattenschloß (also known as Gritta vom Rattenzuhausbeiuns) is the amusing tale of a young girl whose father, an inventor of bizarre and spectacular machinery, remarries.
Gritta doesn't get on with her new stepmother and so runs away from the home she shares with father's inventions and some friendly rats - taking refuge in a convent.
There she makes friends with a bunch of other waifs. They all break out of the convent and learn a few survival skills, including evading capture and cow-milking, before Gritta eventually finds her way home and back to her young love.
Sumptuously filmed, much higher quality than your usual East German children's story. A classic which is regularly repeated on German children's television.