1. Carry on Abroad

I apologise to no-one for my love of the Carry On films. They are crass, sexist, camp rubbish and I love them. Carry On Abroad sees the best of the Carry On team (Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims, Charles Hawtrey and Barbara Windsor) travel abroad for holiday full of love triangles. The filming was all carried out at Pinewood but it’s still a great summer holiday film.

2. Dirty Dancing

This is the ultimate summer romance film and set many a teenage girl’s heart fluttering in the 1980s. Good girl Baby Houseman meets sexy older dance teacher Johnny Castle at a summer camp in the Catskills. How could you not want to be Baby? Just don’t try to recreate the romance at Butlins Minehead, I get the feeling that it wouldn’t be such fun.

3. Grease

I know it’s not strictly a summer film – the action takes place throughout the school year – but this has a light, summery atmosphere all the way throughout. In fact, despite being set during a full year I’m pretty sure we don’t see any autumn, winter or spring. And it has the ultimate summer song in the first few minutes.

4. Jaws

Not all holidays are good as visitors to Amity Island find out when killer Giant White Shark, Bruce, goes on the rampage. Spielberg’s film both created a new genre – the summer blockbuster – and demonised a mostly benign species (sharks have killed 484 people worldwide since 1580, humans kill 100 million sharks every year. Yes that is 1580 not 1980). It’s still a great film – enjoy the action, don’t let it put you off the beach.

5. Little Miss Sunshine

If you like your summer films bright and breezy then avoid this at all costs. It’s a wickedly funny story of a dysfunctional family travelling to a children’s beauty pageant where the 7 year-old daughter Olive (a cute Abigail Breslin) is determined to win the Little Miss Sunshine title. Sad, moving, funny – this roadtrip film is almost perfect.

6. National Lampoon’s Vacation

Chevy Chase stars as Clark Griswold, the patriarch of a disaster prone family in this first instalment of the National Lampoon Vacation series. Slapstick humour is the order of the day as the Griswolds encounter disaster after disaster on their road trip to the Disneyland-like Walley World. A new sequel starring Hangover and The Office star Ed Helms as Rusty Griswold is apparently in the pipeline.

7. Point Break

Patrick Swayze makes a second appearance on the summer holiday list as the leader of a surfer gang of bank robbers who wear face masks of former presidents. Keanu Reeves plays the rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah who is sent undercover to try to catch the gang. It sounds preposterous and it is, but it’s also great fun. One day I’ll learn to surf…

8. Roman Holiday

Audrey Hepburn’s first major film role sees her play a rebellious Princess determined to explore Rome free of the shackles of responsibility. Gregory Peck is the gorgeous reporter who helps her to have a day of freedom and romance. Rome looks gorgeous, Peck is a wonderful leading man and Hepburn won an Oscar. How perfect is that?

9. Shirley Valentine

Another summer romance but the heroine is no naïve teenager but a forty-something Liverpool housewife who discovers there’s more to life than being ignored by her husband and family. The romance she has with Greek waiter Costas (Tom Conti using his trademarked all-purpose European accent) prompts her to re-evaluate her life and finally put her own needs first.

10. Summer Holiday

Mock all you like but I grew up watching this Cliff Richard musical and have a soft spot for the tale of some cheeky chappie London boys who tour Europe on a refurbished double decker. Admit it, Summer Holiday is going to be your ear-worm for the rest of the day now…

Released: 1944
Director: Leo McCarey
Starring: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald

Heart-warming and charming, one of Bing’s best

As I wrote in my review of Argo I’m way behind on my viewing of films which have won the Academy Award for Best Picture. I am working on that though and making my way through the films from the 20s until today. I did try to watch The French Connection a week or so back but I turned off through boredom.  I was starting to get disillusioned so went back in time from the 70s to the 40s and 1944’s charming comedy musical Going My Way.

Bing Crosby plays Father Chuck O’Malley, a young (-ish, Crosby was 41 when the film was made) Catholic priest who is sent into a failing parish in order to resurrect the church’s fortunes. Sitting parish priest is cantankerous Father Fitzgibbon who is horrified by the arrival of a young upstart, who he fears is going to change his beloved parish beyond recognition. As O’Malley deals with a variety of issues including creating a choir comprised of a group of local troublemakers and counselling a runaway teenager, he and Fitzgibbon begin to bond.

It’s hard to find much to dislike in Going My Way, it’s one of the most good-natured, kind-hearted films I’ve ever seen. There’s not many films you’ll watch where the Catholic clergy are actually the good guys. No abuse, no cruelty – just the kind, twinkly-eyed priests that I remember from my childhood. Bing Crosby is great as O’Malley, I’m a big fan of his and this is one of his best performances. It’s warm and funny and Crosby well deserved his Oscar for Best Actor.

It’s not a one-man show though and Barry Fitzgerald as the cantankerous Father Fitzgibbon is outstanding. Uniquely Fitzgerald was nominated in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories at the 17th Academy Awards, winning the award in the latter competition. Despite his reluctance to accept O’Malley and his grumpy nature Fitzgibbon is still a hugely sympathetic character. Anyone who can remain dry-eyed in Fitzgibbon’s final scene has got a harder heart than me. And I’m apparently well known for my cynicism….

The story is fairly thin with sub-plots such the creation of the boys’ choir and the secret marriage of two of the congregation acting as filler. That doesn’t matter, each of the small stories helps to move forward the overall narrative and character study without taxing the brain too much. Of course there had to be plenty of opportunity for Bing to croon at us and there’s also some great songs in Going My Way including Swing on a Star. I seem to remember that being one of my favourites as a child and I’ve been singing it internally since watching the film.

Going My Way is a heartwarming, amiable film from a more innocent age, I’m not sure it could ever work if made these days. I imagine the kids would be violent gang members, the priests would be predators and the teenage runaway would be 13 rather than 18. Thankfully we have the 69 year old original to know and love.

Released: 1985
Director: Richard Donner
Starring: Sean Astin, Corey Felman, Josh Brolin

Still fun almost 30 years on…

One of the delights of being a proper grown-up (if I’ve actually made it that far) is that it’s ok to admit you like the things that you did as a child. There’s no need to put aside the childish things, we can instead revel in them. I was feeling a bit down one day and my lovely husband brought home one of my favourite films from childhood – The Goonies. I loved that film as a child but it was one of the childish things that I put away and I don’t think I’ve seen it in over 20 years. I was a bit nervous about finally ripping off the shrink wrap and reliving part of my childhood.

Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Richard Donner this children’s adventure combines the best of both film-makers – the sentimentality and imagination of Spielberg and the action chops of Donner combine to make a fabulously good fun film which children will absolutely love and adults will find an enjoyable piece of nostalgia.

A group of young actors including Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, Martha Plimpton and Josh Brolin (who looked about 40 then and hasn’t aged terribly much) play The Goonies – a group of friends from smalltown Oregon, entering their last days as a gang before their neighbourhood is torn down by ruthless developers. The Goonies decide to hunt for the treasure of One Eyed Willie, a mythical pirate but stumble across the criminal Fratelli family.

The young stars all put in fine performances, particularly Sean Astin as the asthmatic Mikey who leads the group on their adventures. Corey Feldman is decent but I’m pretty sure he only ever played the same role – cocky, arrogant, brattish kid. Maybe he was never the cute, talented boy I was convinced he was. While researching this review I discovered that Jeff Cohen, the fat funny kid is now a very cute Hollywood lawyer. See what your life could have been Feldman!

The bad guys are good fun, particularly Anne Ramsay as the evil Mama Fratelli. She is both menacing and over the top in her scene-chewing campness. The whole Fratelli gang is scary for children – but good fun for the adults watching. Who hasn’t wanted to put an annoying kid’s hand in a blender? Just me then… I did squirm a little at the Sloth character – the horribly deformed third Fratelli brother. I understand the desire for a “scary monster” to scare children but as an adult it just seemed a little un-necessary to depict a disabled person in such a crass way.

Donner comes up trumps with the right amount of action. The film whips along at a cracking pace but is never too dangerous for the intended audience. The children are smart, resourceful and funny and I know why I wanted to be a Goonie as a child. One of the boys though – the girls were a bit drippy and pointless. The ending is entirely satisfying with the Goonies emerging victorious over all the bad guys (not really a spoiler is it?)

I’m fairly sure I won’t be regressing to my 9 year old self and watching this on a weekly basis but it remains an enjoyable watch whether you’re nearly ten or approaching 40.

Released: 2002
Director: Phil Alden Robinson
Starring: Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman

Not bad, not great, just fine

It’s now May and my New Year’s resolution to watch all of my unwatched DVDs hasn’t exactly got off to a great start. As we’re nearly halfway through the year I think we can all agree that it’s actually had a dreadful start. I think I have to watch about five films a day if I’m going to get anywhere near catching up with myself by the end of December. This is good news for me and may be good news for you, depending on how much you’re looking forward to a tour of my extensive film collection.

Looking ahead to later this year and the release of the Chris Pine and Keira Knightley starring Jack Ryan I decided to watch the first few films based on Tom Clancy’s novels, starring with The Sum of All Fears. I find Tom Clancy novels difficult to read. The stories are interesting and exciting but the telling of the story is long-winded and dull. One part of the novel The Sum Of All Fears which lasts approximately 50 pages is dealt with in the credit sequence. But while the film makes the book more palatable does it match up to the preceding movie instalments in the Jack Ryan series?

This is a reboot of the Alec Baldwin/Harrison Ford films which introduced the audience to CIA analyst Dr Jack Ryan who becomes embroiled in Soviet submarine politics, Irish Republican terrorism and Central American drug cartels. This film stars Ben Affleck as Ryan and takes us back to the beginning of his career at the CIA as a junior analyst specialising in Russian affairs. When a neo-Nazi group acquires and detonates a nuclear bomb it threatens to spark all-out war between the US and Russia. Only Ryan believes that the Russians are innocent on the attack on America.

The Sum of All Fears has had mixed reviews and mixed is a good description of how I feel about this film. The storyline is fine – nothing original or spectacular but perfectly decent for an action film. The acting is fine too, at the time there were some questions about Ben Affleck’s suitability for the role of the cerebral but tough Ryan particularly coming just the year after the disaster that was Pearl Harbor. I don’t think that’s a fair criticism and quite enjoyed his performance, but I do wonder how much of that judgment is hindsight and knowing him as the smart director of Argo and the campaigning advocate for the Eastern Congo. Affleck’s co-stars are also all solid in their roles, particularly Morgan Freeman as the CIA director and James Cromwell as the US President.

I can’t enthuse about the film in any way but I don’t dislike it either. The script is weak and the action isn’t as satisfying as it could be. It is actually remarkably dull in the moments immediately after the major action set-piece. The only truly impressive aspect of the film is Live Schreiber’s performance as black ops agent John Clark, he offers strength and black humour. Slight weaknesses and strengths aside everything about The Sum of All Fears is just alright, or decent, or good enough.

I enjoyed The Sum of All Fears, I’m glad I scoured my collection to watch it; I’m just not entirely sure when I’ll get round to watching it again.

Published: 2012
Author: Liza Klaussmann

Evocative setting but no connection with the characters

This summer’s Richard & Judy Bookclub picks have been announced and as usual there’s a mixture of romance, crime and literary fiction. The books that the duo select are normally designed in some way to tug at the emotions and these titles look as though they are continuing in the tradition. I normally get round to reading one or two of the books from each selection. It’s never deliberate and I don’t rush out to buy the books but I normally end up enjoying them. For once though I’m ahead of the game and when the titles were announced last week I was already three quarters of the way through the first book on the list – Tigers in Red Weather.

Written by Liza Klaussmann, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Moby Dick author Herman Melville, this is the story of cousins Nick and Helena and their summers at the Tiger House in Martha’s Vineyard. The idyllic vacations of their childhood are replaced by more unhappy events as they get older and have children of their own. Family tensions are raised and secrets come to the fore when Nick and Helena’s children discover a murdered girl one summer. The story is told in five sections, each one representing a different character and covering a span of twenty years from London during the Second World War to Massachusetts in the late 60s.

I struggled slightly with this book, I enjoyed it and appreciated the evocative writing but didn’t connect with any of the characters. I’m not a huge fan of novels where the timeframe constantly jumps back and forth but it worked relatively well here. No one section tells the full story and each perspective is required to give a fully rounded and satisfactory narrative. It works well in supporting secretive atmosphere that the characters are living in. Klaussmann creates a hot and steamy atmosphere, claustrophobic and stifling for the characters and the readers.

Despite the publicity calling the summers that Nick and Helena spend together “idyllic” I found their experiences to be the complete opposite. Nick’s marriage never seems to be quite what she or her husband Avery want and Helena is trapped in an abusive marriage to a man obsessed with a dead woman. I’m unsure how any summer which includes teenage children discovering a dead body could be described as idyllic, even if the tennis tournaments and gin and tonic parties continue uninterrupted. Perhaps a more accurate description would be of summers which are idyllic on the surface but dangerous and troubled underneath.

The major problem with Tigers in Red Weather was the inability to connect with any of the characters. This was partly a result of the narrative shifting from one character to another, but more importantly it is due to none of the characters being particularly likeable. Each, with the possible exception of Nick’s daughter Daisy, is flawed to such an extent that it’s hard to care terribly much about what happens to them. Even when the characters experience events which should provoke sympathy there’s still too much detachment to care very much.

Tigers in Red Weather is beautifully written and for someone looking for an atmospheric read by the poolside this is ideal, but the characters are too thin and unlikeable for the book to be truly great.

Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussman
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
Close My Eyes by Sophie McKenzie
This Is How It Ends by Kathleen MacMahon
Natural Causes by James Oswald
The Light Between Oceans by M.L.Stedman
The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter
The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Simon Mawer
The Sea Sisters by Lucy Clarke

As usual this is an intriguing list which is specifically designed for the readers’ enjoyment. I’m actually, completely coincidentally, currently three quarters of the way through the first book on the list Tigers in Red Weather and will be reviewing it in the coming days.

Congratulations to all the authors on the list, they have been given an amazing boost to their profile and sales figures and well done again to Richard and Judy for putting the joy of reading front and centre of British every day life.

1. 10 Things I Hate About You

High school movies are always good fun and easy to watch and of all of the ones on my shelves this updated version of The Taming of the Shrew is the one I turn to most frequently. Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles have great chemistry and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is adorable.

2. Armageddon

I love mindless action films, love them. I don’t care that they aren’t highbrow, I don’t care that they are completely preposterous, I love them. Armageddon is one of the best examples of the daft action film and it really is my Saturday night go-to blockbuster.

3. Calamity Jane

If you’re ever feeling down or a bit sluggish, there is nothing better than a musical to perk you up. This is one of my favourites – Doris Day is brilliant as the tomboy-ish Calamity Jane and Howard Keel is strong and charismatic as Wild Bill Hicock.

4. Dirty Dancing

I haven’t watched Dirty Dancing much recently but as a teenager I watched it on an almost continuous loop. Friends would come to watch (I was the only one who had it on video) and we would practice the final dance for hours. I think it might be time to break it out again…

5. Dodgeball

I have a saying “When I don’t laugh at Dodgeball it’s time to take me to the Dignitas clinic and just end it all”. It’s not the snappiest saying ever but it sums up how I feel about this comedy. People being hit in the head with wrenches will always be funny.

6. Hot Fuzz

It was a choice between Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz – I love them both and rewatch them both a lot. Despite owning them both I will always watch them when they are on television, which is a lot on ITV3. I’m very much looking forward to the release of The World’s End later this summer.

7. Independence Day

This is undoubtedly my most watched film. I dread to think how many times I’ve watched it. ID4 contains some of the biggest bunkum ever committed to film but that doesn’t stop me absolutely adoring it. I don’t want to see it in 3D, I don’t want a sequel – just leave it as it is please.

8. Seven Brides For Seven Brothers

Another musical – and another Howard Keel musical at that. Keel plays Adam Pontipee who leads his brothers in farming, singing, kidnapping and imprisoning local girls in lieu of courtship. It’s not as creepy as it sounds – honest.

9. Skyfall

The newest addition to the list – while I’ve not seen the latest Bond as often as every other film on this top ten I’ve watched it a lot since its release in October last year. I saw it twice at the cinema and probably four or five times since release on Blu-Ray. It won’t be long before it’s one of the films I’ve seen most in my life.

10. Star Wars

And when I say Star Wars I mean proper Star Wars – Episode IV, A New Hope. I had this on video (probably recorded off the TV) when I was a kid and I watched it constantly, at least twice a week for a couple of years. I even tried to count the laser blasts – it never worked. I still watch it on a regular basis.

I’ve got to give a special mention to Les Misérables, it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray next week and I know that it will be joining this list soon. I was blown away by it in the cinema and if I watch the film even ¼ as often as I listen to the music then the disc will be worn out within a couple of months.

Released: 2013
Director: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch

Not original but very good

I’m not a Star Trek fan – the TV series did nothing for me and I’m fairly neutral on the films. I quite liked The Next Generation but I’ve never gone nuts over it. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the J.J. Abrams reboot in 2009 which imagined a world where the young Kirk and Spock couldn’t abide each other and Kirk was a troubled young man rather than the chisel-jawed hero. It had great performances, especially from Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto as Kirk and Spock. The supporting cast was good, particularly Karl Urban who was outstanding as McCoy. There was great action and a nice sense of humour and it was, as far as I’m concerned, the best Star Trek film by a long way. Star Trek Into Darkness, part 2 of the new, younger, more exciting franchise is released today in the UK and I was desperately hoping that it would be as good as the first installment.

Kirk is Captain of the Enterprise with Spock as his second-in-command and his faithful crew all present and correct but he’s still reckless, headstrong and contemptuous of the rulebook. His relationship with Spock has improved from the previous film, but not much and they still find each other’s decisions incomprehensible. The actions of terrorist John Harrison (a remarkably sexy Benedict Cumberbatch) and the subsequent manhunt force Kirk and his crew to face up to their positions of responsibility.

There’s a lot to like here – the cast have all settled into their roles well. Zachary Quinto is simply marvellous as Spock and Chris Pine is great as Kirk.  The pair work well together and it’s nice to watch the developing bromance. The crew are all great and I was particularly pleased to see that Karl Urban remains suitably grumpy. John Cho as Sulu is underused but does have one fabulous speech and Alice Eve was better than I expected – the trailer would lead you to believe all she does is strip off and scream but there is more to her character than that.

The action is good fun and Harrison is a worthy adversary for Starfleet and Kirk in particular. Cumberbatch is exceptionally good and brings both brain and brawn to the role. And sex appeal, so much sex appeal – sorry did I already mention that? The script, by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, is impressive and has a good sense of humour.

There are a few things to dislike here as well though. It’s not exactly the most original film you’ll ever see and much like Oblivion there are shades of a number of other science fiction films. These include Star Wars (Abrams’ next project), Avengers Assemble and, of course, the preceding Star Trek films. Abrams’ favourite visual tic, the lens flare, is used to saturation point and becomes annoying. It turns out that there is such a thing as too much lens flare.  There were a couple of nice 3D moments but they added nothing to the film and were too few and far between to make the extra cost and discomfort of the glasses worthwhile.

On the whole the pros far outweigh the cons and this is a damn good watch. It builds on a great first chapter in the reboot and it develops the key Kirk/Spock relationship well.  I really enjoyed it and I suspect that for the thousands of fans across the country who attended midnight showings it was worth the late Wednesday night and the sleepy Thursday ahead.

Today’s release of The World’s End trailer has really excited me. I love Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and the end of the “Cornetto Trilogy” is both exciting and a little sad. The trailer for the final part looks very funny – a group of friends return to their hometown to complete a legendary pub crawl but discover that all is not as it should be. There is a definite bodysnatchers vibe about this trailer – and the best part is yet another fence jump.

The World’s End is directed by Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan and is released in the UK on 19th July.

Yes, according to The Guardian a group of parents in America want to ban Anne Frank’s Diary. Apparently there are passages of offensive content. These concerned parents aren’t worried about the depictions of fear, the terror of the Holocaust and the fact that the police are to be feared rather than trusted. The offending passage is instead one where the young Anne discusses her body and her discovery of the clitoris. According to one parent this is “Pretty graphic, and it’s pretty pornographic”… a passage which is nothing more than a factual description of the young female body has been described as “pornographic”.

When I first read this book as a 8/9 year old I really didn’t like it. I didn’t like Anne, she seemed selfish and mean to her mother and her mooning over Peter was irritating. Re-reading it as an adult I realised that this was actually what made the book so heart-breaking. Anne wasn’t a paragon of virtue, she wasn’t a saint, she was a normal teenage girl. Like each of the 1.5 million Jewish children who died during the Holocaust she had the potential to be great or the potential to do nothing with the rest of her life. The tragedy is that she (and they) never had the opportunity to discover where their potential would lead.

Of course the diary contains very personal and graphic content. This was the only outlet for a teenager to discuss all aspects of her life. If anything this passage further normalises Anne, makes her more relatable to teenagers today who are making the same discoveries about their own bodies. It’s a sad day when a dispassionate description of a vagina is more upsetting than the Holocaust.

Image from USHMM

I just hope we don’t see book-burnings…

Find out more about Anne at The Anne Frank Trust