Doctor Who series 8 (Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman)

(Amazon UK link)

Although I have enjoyed some of the ‘new’ Doctor Who series in recent years, I wasn’t too certain whether to continue acquiring and watching the DVDs after yet another time lord regeneration. I very much appreciated David Tennant as the tenth doctor, but never quite believed in Matt Smith as the eleventh. The story-lines, too, became more and more complex with a lot of fast action, and although I enjoyed series 7, it was stressful to watch, in places.

We then managed to see the TV specials ‘The Day of the Doctor’ and ‘The Time of the Doctor’ via someone’s i-player system. I thought them clever and well done, but was a little dubious about Peter Capaldi becoming the twelfth doctor. He was excellent as a Roman citizen in Season Four, but I couldn’t quite envisage him as The Doctor.

Still, those who watched it in the UK said that Season Eight was excellent. So once the DVDs were available as a boxed set at not too great a price, I put it on my wishlist, and was pleased to be given it for Christmas six months ago. We’ve just finished watching it, an episode or two at a time, with our son. And I’m a convert. Peter Capaldi is excellent as The Doctor.

Clara (Jenna Coleman) remains as the assistant in this series, and does so extremely well. There’s an ongoing story arc involving her working as a teacher and falling in love with another teacher, called Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson).  Danny and The Doctor don’t trust or like each other, and the tensions play out in many of the episodes giving a nicely human and ‘real world’ touch.

There’s also a story-arc concerning a mysterious woman called ‘Missy’, who seems to welcome people into an afterlife. This seemed to be an addendum to just a few episodes and I kept forgetting about it, until all was revealed in the finale…

While it’s hard to recall every episode in this series, watched sporadically over six months, I particularly liked the one called ‘Robot of Sherwood’. The Doctor is determined to prove to Clara that Robin Hood never existed, only to find themselves caught up in the band of ‘Merry Men’ and an archery contest. I liked ‘The Mummy on the Orient Express’ too, a clear nod to Agatha Christie, with quite a spine-chilling storyline. My favourite, though, was the gentler ‘In the forest of the night’, which involves a party of school children, led by Danny Pink, and some huge foliage that starts to spring up all over London, causing chaos.

The finale, in two parts, involves some of the Doctor’s classic arch-enemies, but once again with a new twist and a storyline which was clearer and less rapid than some of the other season finales. I thought it was very well done, with a bittersweet ending as the Doctor and Clara each try to hide something from the other, leading - one presumes - to their not travelling together in future.

There are of course plot holes, inevitable in time travel stories, and some bizarre ideas that seem contradictory to some of what went before (a 'good' dalek? Cybermen with emotions...?) but all in all, we thought it an excellent season, one that I can envisage seeing again in a few years.

I’m looking forward very much to seeing Series Nine at some point!

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews

Liberal Arts (Josh Radnor and Elizabeth Olsen)

(Amazon UK link)

I don’t think I had come across any of the actors in this film. So I think it must have been one of the many that Amazon recommended to me, based on my previous wishlist and reviewed DVDs. The blurb sounded interesting, so I put it on my list, and was delighted to be given it for my recent birthday. Last night our twenty-something son suggested that the three of us watch it together.

‘Liberal Arts’ is mostly based in a university campus in the United States. We first meet the newly-single Jesse (Josh Radnor) who is in his mid-thirties, and evidently an academic type. He doesn’t do well with practical details, as is amply demonstrated in the first scene. He seems to find books more interesting than people.

Jesse is wondering what to do with the rest of his life, and why everything goes wrong when he gets an unexpected phone call from Peter (Richard Jenkins). Peter is one of the professors he particularly admired when he was an undergraduate. He asks Josh if he would say a few words at his retiring banquet.

The story moves quite slowly at first, but that sets the pace nicely for a character-based story which doesn’t have a great deal of plot. That suited us ideally; we wanted something undemanding and light, and this more than adequately served its purpose. Jesse spends time chatting with Peter and some friends of his, including their 19-year-old daughter Zibby (Elizabeth Coleman). She is mature for her years, and finds herself very much attracted to Jesse. She persuades him to start listening to classical music, and then they begin a correspondence using pen and paper…

It could have been a predictable rom-com so we were pleased that in fact it wasn’t. Unusually for modern films, moral issues were considered, and the romance as such is quite low-key. It’s a pity there had to be an intimate bedroom scene (nothing overt, though, and with a couple of unexpected great lines) but there are many subplots. Jesse finds himself mentor to a geeky intellectual, and befriended by a red-hatted bohemian, as well as having lengthy discussions with both Zibby and Peter.

Our favourite scene was the one where Jesse tells Zibby exactly what he had thought of the first of the Twilight series of books, after being persuaded that it was unfair to judge without reading it himself. We loved the way that most of the characters, one way or another, were readers and related through books.

Recommended to anyone who likes gentle, mildly intellectual character-based stories with great acting. Much of it felt so real that I sometimes forgot that it was entirely fictional. But if your taste runs towards thrillers or fast action films, then you might find this slow-moving and possibly even a bit dull.

The rating is 12 which seems fair; it wouldn’t be of much interest to anyone under the age of about fifteen or sixteen anyway. There are plenty of suggestive comments but no nudity; minor bad language, but nothing major; no violence at all.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews

The Lady in the Van (starring Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings)

(Amazon UK link)

I had seen mixed reviews on this film, and the DVD price was such that I didn’t want to add it to my wishlist yet, not sure if I would like it. On the other hand, anything that stars Maggie Smith is likely to be worth seeing, and my father has a copy, so when I was staying with him for a few days, he suggested we see it.

The ‘mostly true’ story is about the writer Alan Bennett, played as two separate halves of his character, by Alex Jennings. He lives in a quiet street in London, and meets the eccentric, elderly Miss Shepherd who lives in a van. She smells bad, she is ungrateful and rude, and she is clearly saddled with enormous guilt for something in her past.

Alan invites her to park her van on his driveway for a month or two, until she has decided where to live next… and stays there for fifteen years. During that time he becomes more and more frustrated with her, but can’t bring himself to turn her out. The film is about their relationship with its ups and downs, and while there are parts that are fictionalised, the basic plot is true.

I haven’t read the book, and am not sure I want to: while I usually like books better than films, I can’t believe that any prose could match up to Maggie Smith’s flawless performance. The direction, too, was excellent. Having two Alan Bennetts - one who writes, one who lives - works brilliantly. We gradually learn more and more about Miss Shepherd’s varied life and career - she is not a school drop-out or from an impoverished family, but once had a stunning career, and then spent some time as a nun, attempting to quell her personal ambitions and loves.

While the story itself is not all that riveting, Maggie Smith is wonderful and Alex Jennings makes an excellent foil. There were a few places when I almost laughed aloud, but most of the story is bittersweet, portraying realistically the oddly liberal attitudes of the 1970s, the harshness of some Catholic institutions, and the plight of the homeless.

Alongside the main story is a subplot about the tragedy of dementia. This is not related to Miss Shepherd, despite being bizarrely eccentric with some delusions of grandeur, but in the author’s own mother.

The ending could have been depressing, although inevitable, but reveals the last of the puzzles in the story, and ends in a surreal scene that, somehow, despite the ‘mostly true’ story, seems appropriate in its oddity.

Rated 12 (PG-13 in the US) and I think that’s about right. There are a couple of instances of ‘strong’ language, and several mild ones, and one unpleasantly gory (albeit brief) scene at the end, but nothing else that would be unsuitable for children, although I can’t imagine it would hold the interest of anyone under the age of about 15 or so. There are implications about Alan's lifestyle, but it took me about half the film to realise what was going on; there's nothing explicit, and nothing that most children would notice.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews

What we did on our holiday (David Tennant, Rosamund Pike)

(Amazon UK link)

‘Hilarious British comedy’, the blurb said. One of the stars is David Tennant, who’s pretty good value in anything. The second is Billy Connolly, whom I’ve only recently begun to appreciate as a character actor. The third is Rosamund Pike, who was one of the Bennet sisters in the 2005 version of ‘Pride and Prejudice’. 'What we did on our holiday' was an obvious film to add to my wishlist, and one that I was pleased to be given at Christmas.

We weren’t so certain about it when it started. We meet a family who are clearly under stress. The parents - we quickly learn - are separated, putting on a united front for the sake of an elderly and terminally ill grandparent. The three children are caught up in this, the eldest asking for clear lists of lies which should be told, and what information must not be revealed to the extended family. The youngest, meanwhile, has a passionate attachment to a collection of stones, all of which must travel in the car on their lengthy journey into Scotland.

The journey is long, dogged by traffic and parental bickering. The eventual arrival is overshadowed by the evident frailty of Grandpa, and the shallowness of the children’s uncle, who is organising a huge party to celebrate his father’s imminent 75th birthday.

It’s hardly the theme of a ‘hilarious comedy’. It could have been maudlin, even devastatingly tragic. But somehow it works. The acting is superb, and the characters are believable despite some increasingly bizarre scenes. Even the inevitable tragedy and parental obliviousness manage, somehow, to feed unexpectedly humorous lines and situations.

And yes, we laughed. This was no schadenfreude: our sympathies were with the children. We felt for them in their difficult decisions, and their determination to honour their grandfather. The parents, caught in the middle, with their petty, sometimes selfish concerns, were the ones who were the butt of most of the humour.

The children reminded me forcibly of the three ‘Railway Children’ at times, in the way they pulled together, and their general chemistry. We didn’t watch the extras so I don’t know if their parts were closely scripted or more spontaneous: it doesn’t matter. They were exceptional in their parts, believable as a family unit. They pulled together in the face of unreliable adults, and their comic timing was superb.

I wondered in the early stages - and towards the middle - whether this film would be disappointing, or depressing. But despite the bittersweet and potentially tragic theme, it was a thought-provoking, uplifting, and thoroughly enjoyable film.

Rated 12 for some bad language and innuendoes, and a potentially devastating scene that could disturb younger or more sensitive viewers. But, with those provisoes, I would definitely recommend it. 

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews

Hotel du Lac (Anna Massey)

(Amazon UK link)

I saw some positive reviews of this film, and it sounded like my kind of thing: gentle, about a writer, and with a hopeful ending. It went on my wishlist and I was given it for Christmas two years ago. For some reason, we never selected it when sitting down to a DVD evening.

However we finally picked out ‘Hotel du Lac’ and watched it last night. It was originally made for television, by the BBC, and is only 75 minutes long in all. That was part of the reason I decided on this film rather than any of the others we were thinking about, as we started rather later than usual. It was evidently a bit dated in style. We discovered afterwards that it was made as long ago as 1986 and based on a book of the same name.

Anna Massey stars in this as Edith Hope, a middle-aged writer who has been quite successful in her field, although her personal life is more of a problem. We quickly learn that she’s been shipped abroad to stay in a hotel in Switzerland because of some ‘crime’. The nature of this becomes clear later on.

Edith is quiet, unassuming and rather dowdy. But she has a quick and lively mind, even if she’s not very good at reading people. She get to know the other long-term residents of the hotel - mostly well-known actresses. They are all rather caricatured, slightly ridiculous in their way, and yet played to such perfection that I almost believed in them.

The story is character-based. Edith has to make some decisions, but she’s in no hurry to do so. Those who prefer action films would probably find it slow, even tedious, but I found it relaxing and enjoyable. There were one or two moments of pathos, and a few places where we smiled, though the humour is understated, in the people and their attitudes rather than anything more overt.

No bad language, no violence; intimacies are hinted at but there’s no actual nudity, as far as I recall. The rating is PG but I can’t imagine it being of the slightest interest to anyone under the age of at least twelve, probably older.

The scenery is attractive, the pace just right - all in all I thought it a pleasant evening’s viewing.

There are no extras on the DVD, other than the option of a commentary from some of the production staff. It's remarkably expensive at present, so I would not recommend buying it new; however it's the kind of film that's sometimes found in charity shops.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews

The English Teacher (Julianne Moore)

(Amazon UK link)

I don’t know why the DVD of 'The English Teacher' was recommended to me, but it sounded good from the reviews. I was given it for Christmas just over a year ago and it’s taken us this long to decide to watch it.

Julianne Moore stars as Linda, a single teacher in her forties. She lives on her own, and - according to the introductory voice-over - mostly enjoys her days, living vicariously in the novels she devours. She’s an inspiring teacher whose students enjoy her classes, and she’s fiercely independent. So much so that when an ex-student happens to see her, she rather over-reacts at first…

Michael Angarano co-stars as Jason, a young man who has graduated from university and written an incredible - if dark - play but has been unable to find anyone interested in performing it. His widowed father, he tells Linda, wants him to give up on his dream of being a writer and study instead to be a lawyer. 

Linda is determined to help out, and convinces her school to put on the show, no expense spared…

On the whole it’s light-hearted, the school production being caricatured and full of its own drama on the sideline. The main cast - including Greg Kinnear as Jason’s father - are excellent and believable. While the ending is somewhat predictable, there is an unexpectedly sordid incident - done with humour but still rather cringeworthy - that made me less certain about the likely outcome.

The storyline is not particularly original, but it’s nicely done on the whole. The rating is 15 (or an even more cautious R in the US) which I think is right: there was a fair amount of ‘strong’ language, which I could have done without, as well as a bit of violence and the rather obviously sordid scene mentioned above. I can’t imagine that this would appeal to anyone still at school; I would have found it embarrassing in the extreme when I was a teenager.

Still, we liked it, and thought it made a good light evening’s entertainment. So on balance I would recommend it.

The film is around an hour and a half long, and the only extras are some cast/crew interviews.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews

Elsa & Fred (Christopher Plummer, Shirley MacLaine)

(Amazon UK link)

I didn’t really know what to expect of this film, but it has an all-star cast, and Amazon recommended it to me as a gentle light romance. So it went on my wish-list and I was given it for Christmas. I realised that it was about an elderly couple, as the main title roles are played by Christopher Plummer and Shirley MacLaine. But I think it’s a positive move that films are being made about those in middle age as well as those beyond it.

The story starts as we meet Fred’s rather bossy daughter, who is helping him to move into a small apartment. He was widowed some months before the story opens, but although he’s not really grieving, he’s a bit lonely, and quite a hypochondriac. His daughter arranges for someone to cook, clean and provide company for him, but he’s cantankerous and prefers to spend his days in bed…

Then his neighbour Elsa comes into his life. She’s lively and imaginative, although we quickly realise that she has a habit of embellishing the truth, or even making up stories entirely to suit her purposes. She’s a dreamer, but she and Fred soon become friends…

It would be hard to say more without spoilers. It’s not a fast-moving plot, nor is it particularly original. But it’s nicely done with touches of humour here and there, and I found it mostly very engaging. I can’t say I particularly liked Shirley MacLaine’s character; I felt it would have been better played by one of the other well-known actresses in their early 80s, but on the whole the pairing works, and it’s a nice back-to-front touch that their younger offspring were the ones worrying about them, telling them what they should and shouldn’t do, and generally disapproving.

Since I associate Christopher Plummer primarily with ‘The Sound of Music’, I found myself expecting him to break into ‘Edelweiss’ when he picked up a guitar… and there was a bit of cognitive dissonance when Scott Bakula appeared as Elsa’s reliable accountant son; I’ve only known him as the star of the lengthy ‘Quantum Leap’ series. But he was believable, as was his artist brother, whereas I had a hard time believing in Fred’s controlling and unpleasant daughter and son-in-law.

Rated 12, which I suppose is about right; I did notice one instance of ‘strong’ language, and perhaps a couple of minor words, and there are several implied bedroom scenes, although nothing at all explicit. I’m a little surprised it’s not PG from the legal point of view, but the storyline would be of no interest to a child, or even a teenager; indeed, I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone under the age of about forty.

The ending is bittersweet, as was inevitable almost from the start, but nicely done. Overall it made a pleasant evening’s viewing even if there wasn’t much that was memorable or thought-provoking.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's DVD Reviews