The Belles of St Trinians
Dir: Frank Launder
1954
****
The original St Trinian's is also the best and most innocent of the series. Based on an idea by cartoonist Ronald Searle, St Trinians is a girls school run by a likable but ever so slightly corrupt school mistress and over run with wayward, out of control girls between the ages of 6 and 19. The teachers come across as the children while the children come across quite adult like, to the point of even having their own bookie. It's made even more gloriously absurd by the fact the headmistress is played by lovable favorite, Alastair Sim in drag. The cast is a pretty impressive array of old favorite including quite a few Carry On cast members in early roles. It's silly and fun and very British. The modern versions don't come close!

The Dark Mirror
Dir: Robert Siodmak
1946
****
The Dark Mirror is a brilliantly written noir crime thriller that is terribly overlooked. Olivia De Havilland plays twin sisters, one of which has committed murder but the audience is kept guessing right until the end as to who. Olivia De Havilland supposedly drew inspiration from her now well known rivalry between her and real life sister Joan Fontaine in her contrasting performances. The situation has been reused in several films since but I don't believe any of them have been as well written or are as clever as this. The direction is beautiful, with the clever split screen shots bettering many that have come since and the mirror work is the stuff of noir greatness.

Blood and Chocolate
Dir: Katja von Garnier
2007
**
Blood and Chocolate, because why should Vampires get all the miserable fun? Seriously though, this film really does seem to be a Werewolf film that wants to be in competition with your common Vampire film but fails by almost copying every element, with all the same miserable teenagers, poncy night clubs, arrogant long haired boys, moody 'you don't understand me' story-lines that even the most miserable of teenage goths is bored of by now (although they do get bored quite easily). It brings nothing new to the idea of werewolf-ism apart from the fact that these Werewolves are more pure, which is pretty handy as it means the film makers save money on special effects and can just get a couple of trained Dogs in instead. Seriously, I want my Werewolves to be big, scary and to rip people to pieces, I do not expect them to mope about making chocolate and drinking absinthe because they think it's cool. Werewolf films are not meant to be this boring. The transformation scenes are good though in that they are camp as hell and unintentionally funny.

The Cruel Sea
Dir: Charles Frend
1953
****
The Cruel Sea is a classic War film but unlike many of its contemporaries. It's remembered as a propaganda film but I would say that wasn't really the case. It never seems particularly pro or anti war but simply showed it for what it was. The script is brilliant and the film is well written. We see the different classes mix and not always favorably to either end. We see how many of the senior seamen had no nautical experience whatsoever and we see how devastating it can be to come back home to civilisation. Many of the characters story-lines are heartbreaking, especially when you consider that many of them happened to many solders throughout the war. The haunted memory of difficult decisions also ring true. An honest and brutal truth about the second world war through the eyes of a U-Boat crew and a terribly underrated and unappreciated classic.

No Way Out
Dir: Roger Donaldson
1987
****
No Way Out has become a bit of classic thriller. It's dated even for 1987 as I'm sure the Pentagon's technology was a little bit better than that shown. I'm not even going to go into the clothes, fashion, attitude and language, it was the 80's. The story however is still clever. The build up of tension and suspense is still thrilling all these years later and the twist, no matter if you love or hate it, is still something pretty special. It didn't need to happen but somehow I'm really glad they did. It's quite a statement on retrospect. Not only has Roger Donaldson fooled his audience, he's also made a statement about the state of politics and that of trust. There are no good guys! It's rough around the edges and cheesy as hell but you've got to love it. The script is good and the performances, particularly the maddening Will Patton are great.

Mr. Bean's Holiday
Dir: Steve Bendelack
2007
**
Seventeen years after the television series first aired and ten years after the first film comes Mr. Bean's Holiday. A bizarre decision seeing as the character had been pretty much forgotten and deemed unfashionable (not to mention no longer very funny and nothing but a cheap money making scam thanks to the memorabilia that never seems to sell in most greetings card shops). Even more surprising is that it's not that bad. The direction at times is nothing short of beautiful. Bean doesn't talk too much and the comedy is focused more on the physical, like it always was. The story is a bit shoddy but there are some great stand alone scenes that make up for this. I still don't love it but it's a masterpiece compared to the first film.

Bean (AKA Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie)
Dir: Mel Smith
1997
*
I enjoyed Mr. Bean when it was first broadcast back in 1990. It was simple, universal and I was a fan of Rowan Atkinson. It was pretty much the only thing I found funny that I could enjoy watching with my parents. The joke wore a little thin though after a while though and by 1995 when the show ended it had lost most of its original appeal. Thankfully for those involved, the fact that it's all physical comedy and no dialogue mean't it translated quite well across the globe. So it seemed logical to the rest of the world when Bean the Movie turned up but not so much in England whereby we were all pretty sick of it by that point. The Film was purely for the American audience. All the jokes are repeats of Bean's 'Greatest hits' but not as good. There is far too much talking and the list of cameos is ridiculously long and unnecessary. It's a deformed version of Bean that made loads of money but had little of the charm of those first few episodes. Why did Bean become more popular and successful then Blackadder?