Tricia-15 Reviews

The Demon Headmaster (2019– )

Pretty good remake

[7/10 · 15 May 2023]

Reading of the recent death of Terence Hardiman, the original Headmaster, prompted me to see if the series was online. Sadly it wasn't, but this remake was available on iPlayer. One episode and I was hooked and binge-watched all ten episodes.

Of course the children in this series had all the 21st century tech you might expect. In one episode they find a video cassette and have no idea what it is.

The acting is excellent, as one would expect from a BBC series, and for me the acting honours go to Jordan Rankin as school bully, Blake Vinney.

So why have I given this very watchable series only 7 stars? Sadly it is because of the eponymous villain. Hardiman's Headmaster had presence and a true sense of menace. Sadly the 2019 Headmaster, played by Nicholas Gleaves, comes over as really rather banal.

That said I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon's viewing and can recommend it.

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019)

Great fun

[8/10 · 27 September 2022]

As a child in the UK, more decades ago than I care to think, I loved the Nancy Drew novels. The Nancy of this movie, wonderfully played by Sophia Lillis, is a Nancy for the 21st century. She can drive 'technically', ie very badly, but spends most of her time on her skateboard, and of course she has the obligatory cellphone. She's much less sophisticated and feels more like a teenager than the Nancy of the novels, particularly the early novels. She's fun, feisty, loyal, likeable, and engaging.

Not your grandmother's Nancy, and not a demanding movie, but feel-good fun and it cheered me up on a rainy day.

Annihilation Earth (2009 TV Movie)

Annihilation is all this movie is fit for

[2/10 · 4 March 2020]

Awful script, terrible accent from Marina Sirtis - other reviewers have commented on these, and I agree with everything they say. I'd like to mention the locations. There is a convention in film that a single iconic building or structure shows where the action is taking place: Big Ben for London, Eiffel Tower for Paris, Statue of Liberty for NYC; Golden Gate Bridge for San Francisco, etc. The advantage for film makers on a limited budget is that they can use stock footage. The ancient and beautiful city of Orléans is in the Loire valley, known for its chateaux. Did we see a chateau? No, we were shown something that looked like a Soviet era satellite town. The same dreary place seemed to do duty for Barcelona (famous among other things for the cathedral of La Sagrada Familia). I was not in the least surprised to see the film was made in Bulgaria.

The biggest surprise in this movie was the presence of Colin Salmon. What on earth is an actor of his calibre doing in this piece of drek?

I've given this film two stars because of the ending.

A Gnome Named Gnorm (1990)

Gnothing Much to Write Gnome About

[6 July 1999]

This movie did not really engage either my heart or my head. I would say that it is more appropriate for children, except some of the humour is a little too adult for a young audience. Nevertheless, a wonderful performance from Mark Harelik as the odious Kaminsky kept me watching to the end.