I, Daniel Blake- That's Entertainment?

Oh dear, the director Ken Loach really has made a lot of people very cross. (By a lot of people, I mean of course, the right wing press.) 'I, Daniel Blake' is a cracker of a film, telling a difficult story with humanity and wit. What should a man do when he's had a heart attack, been told not to work by his doctor, but is then told by the Benefits Office that he has to find work if he's going to receive financial assistance? Doesn't sound like great entertainment, does it?

‘The Girl on the Train’ vs. ‘Under the Shadow’

How can you make a film about women resisting violence, without wallowing in the experience of the violence itself? Two new ‘thrillers’ set me thinking. ‘The Girl on the Train’ and ‘Under the Shadow’ both share a feminist sub-text, but one was infinitely more successful at exploring the dilemmas without brutalising the senses, although you’ll have to search hard to find it at your local cinema.

‘We’re all Doomed!’ (… or why the remake of Dad’s Army was never going to work)

This evening, my wife and I wasted some hard-earned money going to see a film that was so bad, we walked out after 35 minutes, a new personal record. What’s puzzling is that:

a    1) In all the hype and publicity and nostalgia for the original show, no-one in the 2016 film  production team thought that giving a bit of time to creating a new decent script was worth it, because:

      2) They hoped that enough idiots like us who enjoyed the original would pay out hard-earned cash, and what’s worse,

c     3) Those hard-bitten cynics and bean-counters were absolutely right, curse them.