Reviews

I love "Nobody's Baby". I saw it when it first came out on video when I was about 12 and I loved it then. When I saw it last year I loved it still more. I thought it hilarious, heartwarming and exciting all at once. Yet nobody has heard of it. Nobody is raving about it. Why?

The basic plot is that an escaped convict rescues a baby from a car wreck (that he was partly responsible for) and grows deeply attached to it while trying to find it's family. He is completely clueless about what to do with a baby and is fortunately befriended by a friendly woman living in a trailer park. He moves into the trailer park with the baby, meets several very wacky people and gets in to lots of trouble whilst trying to do the right thing for his charge.

There are many insanely funny moments and are also shocking and dramatic scenes. The supporting characters are fantastic. What makes the movie work however is the relationship between Billy, the escaped convict, and the baby. He is immediately touched by the baby's innocence and helplessness and her presence provides him with a purpose, which he has been lacking his whole life. He was brought up in an orphanage himself and was never expected to make anything himself. He wants the baby to have a better chance in life than he did. His affection for the baby in turn affects the other characters in the movie as they see that love and selfless affection do exist. Billy himself is such an endearingly clueless character and is brilliantly played by Skeet Ulrich.

It's a heartwarming film but not void of pain or truth and it has a wonderfully touching ending.

Son of Rambow is an incredible film. It is so fresh and full of energy. It is about a boy, Will Proudfoot, from a strict Plymouth Brethren family getting to know a young rebel, Lee Carter, from his school and being suddenly introduced to things he has no knowledge of. The boys friendship creates problems for Will with his family and church.

What the film does very well is getting the viewer to understand the mindset of the two boys; we see things through their eyes. This is made possible by the two young actors who play Will and Lee. They are exceptionally good and make the characters completely believable and sympathetic. The actor of Lee, Will Poulta is particularly impressive. Because we are seeing events through their eyes events and situations are often exaggerated yet still appear natural.

The film has a lot to say about friendship and family but perception and reputation are also major themes (how perceptions differ and reputations form). There is a subplot with a french exchange student which I thought was very apt.

It is touching, uplifting and has many very funny moments.

Little Miss Sunshine is just an amazing and original film.

It is about what it means to be a family, how things don't usually work out the way we might hope and how that can be exactly what brings people together. It's a Comedy Drama and is extremely funny. However it is also emotional, honest and deeply moving. The characters all seem very real and believable; the young actress Abigail Breslin who played Olive was particularly good and really made the character something special.

In places the humour seems quite dark and the tone bleak but ultimately the film is hopeful and uplifting.

Few romantic comedies are really about relationships. They are instead about people falling in love, they tend to end with the couple confessing their love or getting married. "The Philadelphia Story" is one of those few Romantic Comedies actually about relationships and in my opinion it is the best of the group.

The main themes in my opinion are: 1. What makes relationships work or fail?/Why do people who are right for each other separate? 2. The changing modern world (the ease of divorce, woman's independence) and it's effect on relationships and family. 3. How people need to understand weakness if they are to relate to others. 4. Not judging a book by it's cover – or a person by their job or social standing.

It's a clever movie and has a lot to say but what is so surprising is how relevant and apt it still is today. Honestly, you could change a few things about the setting and the superficial character quirks and remake it set it in the present day. Not so much has changed.

And of course it is very, very funny. It has a very witty script, you can tell it was based on a play, and the cast is amazing. Three of my favourite actors; Katherine Hepburn (my absolute favourite actress), Cary Grant and James Stewart (probably my favourite actor), all in one place, and they all sparkle in this. I also really like the characters of wise and quietly sarcastic photographer Liz, played by Ruth Hussie and Tracey's wonderful, precocious, scene-stealing little sister Dinah played by Virginia Weidler. It's really very much an ensemble film.

A warning - The film relies heavily on dialogue, subtle characterisation and good acting. The plot is relatively minimal and there is not very much in the way of visual humour or action. If you can enjoy a film like that you'll love the film, if you don't you won't.

If you like this film check out "High Society", it's musical remake. It's also an amazing film and also has a great cast!

Personally I think "Bringing Up Baby" is the best romantic comedy ever written! It is completely hilarious; the dialogue is so witty and fast paced and the story is so mad. Every time I see it I spend the entire movie laughing, although it is exhausting to keep up. But what gives it the momentum is the romance, these two very, very different people are being brought together through the craziness and that is the most ridiculous and wondrous part of the it, that is what draws you in.

She is the one to chase him, deciding early on that she loves him and doing everything she can think of to keep him near her. There is something quite striking about that both because she is a woman, and it is men who usually do the chasing, and because she is richer and of a higher class than him. Mostly again, in fairy tales and Shakespeare for example, it will be the character of lower class who falls desperately in love with someone from a higher class and has to prove their worth. Even in more modern movies ("Titanic" and "the Notebook" for instance) it is the poorer characters (who are in fact also male) who first notice and woo the richer characters.

The leads; Katherine Hepburn, my favourite actress, and Cary Grant are just incredible and work wonderfully together. The leopard, Baby, is also lovely to look at.

I, honestly, cannot understand why anybody wouldn't like this film. I can see why some people would like it more than others, being more enchanted perhaps by the romance, but how someone couldn't like it I do not know. Surely anyone, of any age(I watched it first time when I was 10 with my 8 year old sister and we both loved it), would find it funny?! I have discovered through user comments and reviews on IMDb that there are people out there who don't like it and think it's dated. At the time of release it was a commercial failure. I think there must be something in the humour which produces positive reactions among some and negative reactions among others. I have yet to actually meet someone in person who did not enjoy the film if they had seen it.

This was really good fun! It's a really good children's adventure series! It started off very like "Survivors" but with kids. Like in Survivors the protagonists have to learn to survive after everything changes, in this case all the adults, and teenagers over the age of 15, in the world disappear. As a result there is no internet, no phone networks, no police or any sort of governing body and no one to make them dinner.

So kids in their early teens have to take on the role of parent to children they hardly know and the children all need to take on adult responsibilities in order to protect the world.

Unlike Survivors the catastrophe is something that most of the children imagine is reversible. There is a mystery to be solved and once it's solved hopefully everything will go back to how it was before. Before then however they have to cope alone.

After the first few episodes the group of children we have been following splits up, one group staying behind in the hotel they have found to live in, one group going off in a camper-van on a quest to bring the adults back.

So we have two story lines each episode. One is about the hotel kids setting up home and a life, the other is about the questers meeting other groups of kids and seeing how children in different areas are adapting.

As such it becomes more like "Madigan's Quest" or "Star Trek" with imaginative one episode story lines about other groups of people. Although it continues very much focusing on how the children are surviving in this new world and tries it's best to stay realistic.

There are some mystical elements with one of the younger children developing psychic powers.

I really did think it was very, very good; very good fun, exciting and intelligent. The one episode story lines were very inventive and all sorts of consequences of the adults disappearing are explored which many viewers, particularly the intended child audience, will probably not think of right away; nuclear power plants going out of control, hospital patients etc.

The characters are all developed rather well considering there are 10-11 main characters and the episodes are only half an hour.

Although it is definitely a children's show, it can definitely be enjoyed by older people. I started watching it with my little brother but I got quite hooked on it myself (I'm 22) and made the effort to watch it even when my brother wasn't around. I think it's a good show particularly to watch as a family as it's a show children will really enjoy, adults will find fun too and a lot of the ideas and scenarios are fun to discuss later and will get children thinking about things.

It's a very positive show. Children everywhere see the need to work in groups and so tribes are formed all over the country. There are some children who react badly to the crisis and misuse their newfound freedom but the majority of the children we see are very concerned with helping each other and particularly looking after younger children or children less able than them. The different tribes are willing to come to each other's aid and most children we see have been very resourceful in adapting to a changed world.

It's about time we had some really good and intelligent kid's dramas again. With "Sarah Jane" still running and "Just William" airing over the holidays and now "The Sparticle Mystery" things are definitely looking up for children's TV!