Film

My Old School is a documentary exploring a true story that would have to be true as it’s too preposterous – it is absolutely nuts – for any screenwriter to have made it up. You know something is up but not what and if you’re coming to it fresh your jaw will hit the floor It’s the story of Brandon Lee, who was 16 when he enrolled as a new student to a secondary school in the Glasgow area in 1993. Or is it: was this new boy a 16-year-old called Brandon Lee? And now I’m in a pickle. If I say more it’s a spoiler. The film plays its

About ten minutes in to Thirteen Lives, Boy came in and asked me whether it was any good. I said: ‘Well, it’s quite interesting, actually. I think they’ve got the actual cave divers playing themselves, so the acting is really dull and uncharismatic and a bit unconvincing but at the same time it gives the drama a sort of echt documentary feel…’ Boy, peering at screen: ‘But that’s Viggo Mortensen. You know, Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. And Colin Farrell, who you liked in In Bruges.’ Me: ‘Oh.’ Does your main duty lie with the drama or with the truth? Director Ron Howard has opted for the latter What

It’s hard to imagine in the wake of GoodFellas, The Sopranos and Gomorrah but there was a time, not so long ago, when the very existence of the Mafia was widely dismissed as an urban myth. What changed was Mario Puzo’s 1969 bestselling novel The Godfather, which sold nine million copies in two years. You might assume, not unreasonably, that the 1972 movie version – now acknowledged as one of the greatest films of all time – was one of the most obvious commissions in Hollywood history. But it was dogged by so much controversy and plagued by so many disasters that it was very nearly stillborn. Every stage in

It doesn’t help the cause of The Railway Children Return that the original 1970 Railway Children film is currently on iPlayer. Just to test my capacity to cry, having emerged dry-eyed from the new one, I came home and re-watched the original. Yup. The 2022 sequel has three scenes of the new cohort of Railway Children – three second world war evacuees from Manchester, Lily, Pattie and Ted – waving goodbye to their soldier father as he departs for war, in the fog, never to return. Violins soar. Eyes remain dry. The 1970 film has just one scene of Daddy arriving home, in the fog of a steam train, and

Where the Crawdads Sing is based on the bestselling book (by Delia Owens) that I picked up from one of those three-for-two tables at Waterstones and always thought I’d read but for some reason never did. I can’t now say the film’s not as good as the book and send everyone involved to prison, which is a pity, as that was most satisfying. (See last week’s review of Persuasion.) Still, it’s always interesting to find out what they’ve done with a book you haven’t read and, based on this, it was a lucky escape. The film is so cliché-ridden there’s a point where an entire courtroom gasps and I laughed.

You may already have read early reviews of Netflix’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion saying it’s ‘the worst adaptation ever’ as well as ‘mortifying’ and ‘a travesty’, but I know you won’t believe it unless you hear it from me, so here you are: it is truly horrible. I would also add that everyone involved should probably be sent to prison. Not for life, but until we could be confident they’d learned the error of their ways and there was minimal risk of reoffending. A probation officer would possibly be required to keep a close eye, just to make sure. Better safe than sorry. There are ways to adapt Austen

Brian and Charles is a sweetly funny mockumentary about a lonely Welsh inventor who is not that good at inventing. That said, I reckon his ‘pine cone bag’ would sell pretty well if Vivienne Westwood got behind it. (His ‘trawler fishing net shoes’ would, admittedly, be a tougher proposition.) Then, more by accident than design, he manages to invent a robot, and a friendship develops between the two. This film won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and while it doesn’t invent much itself – it is essentially Wallace & Gromit in spirit – it is still loveable beyond all measure. The robot is 7ft tall, excellent at

The Princess, a new documentary film, is the first re-framing of the Princess Diana story since it was last re-framed, about ten minutes ago, and before it will be re-framed again, probably by Tuesday. We’ve had The Crown recently, and Spencer, and our favourite, Diana: The Musical (‘It’s the Thrilla in Manila but with Diana and Camilla’), and there are several upcoming books, one of which, R is for Revenge Dress, ‘explores the celebrated life of Princess Diana through the alphabet’. To those who say the poor woman should be left to rest in peace, I would say: F is for Fat Chance. But is this the definitive documentary we’ve

Elvis is Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of Elvis Presley and it’s cradle to grave but told at such a gallop you’ll be willing it to stay put even if it’s just for two minutes. You may even be begging: Baz, come on, just hold still. But no, we’re off again. I’ve had fever dreams that have been less delirious. But on the plus side, even if it’s never deep or enlightening, it has a fizzing energy, and because it doesn’t dwell on anything, we don’t dwell on fat, sad Elvis at the end. Which is a relief. Because it doesn’t dwell on anything, we don’t dwell on fat, sad Elvis at