It’s many years since I read the book, but I read it many times as a child, and know the story well. Lucy and Edmund, the two younger Pevensie children, are staying with their ghastly relatives, including their cousin Eustace. He is taunting them when a picture of a boat comes to life, and they are drawn into the scene, finding themselves sailing away from Narnia on a quest with their old friend Prince Caspian.

The quest is to find seven lost lords who were exiled some years previously. The crew visit various islands, with some exciting adventures along the way. Eustace is obnoxiously awful at first, but a dramatic experience improves his character enormously.

There are some rather odd extra themes thrown in – such as a green fog, the ‘dark’, which threatens to overtake everyone, and the fact that this ‘dark’ can only be conquered by seven swords being placed on Aslan’s table… a storyline which does not exist at all in the book, and seemed rather pointless.

There were other deviations from the story, but they were less significant and we could see why they were done. Afterwards we watched a few deleted scenes which were truer to the book, but which would not really have added anything to the story. I just wish they had also cut one or two of the fighting scenes that were included.

Overall, we thought it was very well done. Eustace is wonderfully done, and utterly dreadful; his eventual transformation seems quite believable. Reepicheep the mouse is brilliant too – modern technology makes the talking animals seem almost realistic, and Reepicheep’s character comes through delightfully.

‘Prince Caspian’ is probably my least favourite of the Narnia books; early reviews had not really been too enthusiastic about the film version, so it took me until now to watch it on DVD

The opening of the film works well. Caspian’s mentor was exactly as I had imagined him, urging his young protegé to escape. The scenes when Caspian is discovered by the Narnians also, I felt, kept fairly close to the book and were well done.

When we switch to the Pevensie children in London, there seemed to be some irrelevant extra parts.. but they duly arrive at the ruined castle, and gradually realise what’s going on… so far, so good.

It’s a long time since I read the book – at least twelve years – but even so, I became aware of more and more deviation from the book. Particularly irritating was the unpleasant rivalry between Peter (William Moseley) and Caspian (Ben Barnes). Still, the much-touted’ love interest’, such as it was, seemed very low-key and not actually unrealistic or unlikely in the circumstances. It wasn’t necessary, but it didn’t seem to me to do any harm.

Aslan and the other talking animals are very well done, and I was captivated by the mouse Reepicheep, who provided some light humour in the midst of some quite tense scenes.

But, alas, the rest of film was basically, a series of rather tedious battles, played out in too much detail. The book does have a lot of fighting; but one can skim the detail in a book. Some of it was rather violent, and I’d have personally given the film a ‘12’ rating rather than the ’PG" which both the UK an US censors decided was appropriate.

Worth seeing as part of the series, but if you haven’t read the book or read (or seen) the first one, this would probably be rather confusing.

The film opens with a sound-check for CC Bloom (Bette Midler) singing on an outdoor stage. Then a text alerts her to something that shocks her, and she takes a taxi to the airport. There are no seats on any planes, so she starts to drive…

CC was a precociously talented 11-year-old, already street-wise, when she met Hillary on the beach. Hillary had temporarily lost her parents and forgotten the name of her hotel. CC offered to escort her back, and a strange, lifelong friendship is formed. For years they simply correspond by letters, but eventually meet and decide to share lodgings for a while.

The film is about their abiding friendship, despite their very different backgrounds and expectations. At times the dialogue seems cliched, but for the most part it’s a very well-made film, extremely well acted, with believable people. It was made in 1988 although for some reason it feels older than that – possibly due to the childhood scenes, which were evidently meant to take place in the ’60s.

The ending did feel rather predictable, the kind of thing that seems to happen a lot in films, but I felt that it was taken somewhat out of the ordinary by the delightful Victoria, played by Grace Johnston. She must have been only four years old at the time, but acted her part to perfection. There were some very moving moments.

Recommended (rated 12 in the UK, PG-13 in the US)

This begins when the future King George VI (known to his family as ‘Bertie), who is brilliantly portrayed by Colin Firth, attempts to make a speech on the newly-popular ’wireless’. He has a bad stammer, made worse when he is nervous, and the speech is a disaster.

Bertie has a supportive wife – the future Queen Elizabeth whom I knew of only as the Queen Mother – also very well cast as Helen Bonham Carter. She comes across Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) who says that, yes, he can cure her husband but only on his own terms…

Set firmly in historical context, with snippets of actual film preceding WWII. A moving tale of a shy man, forced into situations he hated.

I was gripped by this film, from beginning to end – there’s a depth of understanding of the loneliness that can come with positions of authority. The royal family come across as real, believable people who are often deeply distressed by the responsibilities they must carry.

Very highly recommended indeed. Although there are no violent or sexual scenes, there is quite a string of extreme bad language used more than once in (as the back of the box states) ‘a speech therapy context’. Only rated 12 in the UK, perhaps due to the fact that most 12-year-olds would be well aware of these words, and there is nothing in the film that is unsuitable, content-wise. In America, however, where ‘strong language’ is evidently considered more of a problem, the film is rated ‘R’.

We were surprised to find this as old as 1960, and black-and-white. Also surprised that over half the film was in Greek, with English sub-titles (there are options for three or four other languages in the menu).

Ilya is the main character, brilliantly played by Melina Mercouri who is best known as one of the earliest women in Greek government. Ilya is a lively, fun-loving ‘lady of the night’ who goes swimming each morning to entertain sailors, and chooses her men, depending on whether or not she likes them.

Homer (Jules Dassin) is an American philosopher visiting Greece. We first come across him in a taverna, watching people getting drunk and dancing in typical Greek style. He makes a cultural error, and is embroiled in an angry fight when Ilya – who speaks pretty good English – arrives and manages to negotiate.

Homer is shocked when he discovers Ilya’s profession, but sees her as a representation of all that he considers to be wrong with Greece. So he sets out to educate and enlighten her.. in a way that seemed, at first, to be along the lines of ‘Pygmalion’.

We liked the story and the way the film was made. Ilya is quite a believable person, in a 1960s kind of way, and Homer is a cleverly satirical character, determined that his own country and culture are superior to the one he is visiting.

While there’s no bad language, explicit sexual scenes or frontal nudity below the shoulders, there’s a great deal of implied sex, as well as drunkenness and some low-key violence; besides that, the subject matter alone should really have raised the rating a little higher than PG, in my view!

This is called ‘Driving Aphrodite’ in the UK version.

Georgia (Nia Vardalos) is an American tour guide. She doesn’t really want to be; she came to Athens to lecture in Ancient history, but that didn’t work out. Unfortunately her style is to try and teach holidaymakers about the history of all the ruins and artefacts visited on their coach tours around the city. But most of them are not particularly interested…

Georgia’s co-worker (Alistair McGowan) would like to see her fired, so he and the boss arrange for her to have a difficult and motley crew in her coach, with non-working air-conditioning and a boorish driver (Alexis Georgoulis). The first day goes badly and she decides to quit; but an irritating elderly ‘wise guy’ on her bus (Richard Dreyfuss)turns out to be a fount of good advice, with match-making skills too..

It took a little while to get into this; in the earlier part of the film, the generalisations were a bit too obvious, and we wondered if it was going to be even slightly amusing… but as it progressed, we started to like the people concerned, and there were some quite funny moments alongside some deeper, more moving scenes.

All in all, we enjoyed it. Particularly recommended to anyone who has lived in Greece, Cyprus, or any of the Greek islands, and so is familiar with the culture that is somewhat satirised in this film.

On the whole, I enjoyed this film. Abby is a well-known vet who hosts a radio show answering queries about pets – particularly cats and dogs. She gets a call from a man in an unusual situation.. and after she helps him, he asks to meet her. Abby considers herself unattractive, and sets him up with her tall, blonde neighbour Noelle. A case of mistaken identity ensures and all the humour that can go with this rather cliched situation. Eventually all is resolved, and I would have liked the film very much had it not been for the added parts that pushed the rating up to 15 – a few unecessary swear words, and a bizarre, equally unecessary pseudo-sex scene via the phone. Still, overall it was an enjoyable film with a good message about the importance of personality over looks… a little puzzling since Abby, despite being short, was rather more attractive than the tall blonde.

As one who watched Doctor Who from behind the sofa as a child, and gave up altogether in the 1980s, far too tramatised by daleks and cypermen, it never occurred to me to start watching the ‘new’ series that began in 2005. However, my adult sons convinced us to buy the first series on DVD, assuring us that the ‘new’ Doctor Who was more in the vein of ‘Quantum Leap’ than the old alien defeating theme.

They were right. Christopher Eccleston makes a great Doctor, and while Billie Piper as his assistant Rose is a bit irritating at times, we got used to her, and very much liked her frustrated well-meaning boyfriend. I wasn’t happy when Daleks made their appearance – they can still incite terror in my heart – but I loved the episodes with Charles Dickens, and was amused by the ultra-thin Zoe Wannamaker alien. There’s a little humour, some pathos, and some good storylines. The final episode was rather too ‘deus ex machina’ for my liking, but I guess it had to be like that to pave the way for the re-generation of the Doctor into his tenth incarnation.

All in all, well worth watching.

Excellent! The BBC really know how to do Jane Austen. This is one of her lesser-known novels, but the adaptation brought it to life very well, with some humour where appropriate, and two very believable main protagonists. Scenery and language felt believable, close to the text of the book. Very enjoyable.

Evelyn is an overweight and rather depressed woman in a marriage which has lost all hint of sparkle. She has tried all kinds of classes to help her become more assertive, but none of them has helped. Then she meets Ninny, an elderly lady in a nursing home.

Ninny starts to tell Evelyn about events in her family’s past, beginning back in Alabama in the 1920 when a terrible tragedy marred the life of young Idgie. In classic film style, we see the events of the past as if they were happening in a parallel world – and this continues throughout the film, interspersing Evelyn’s growing friendship with Ninny, with anecdotes about Idgie, now grown up, and her close friend Ruth.

The theme is the importance of love and friendship, with subplot showing a bit of social history, as we see just how bad racial intolerance was in part of the US, less than a hundred years ago. There is a crime mystery too, and a thread about the horrors of an abusive marriage.

Extremely well done, with excellent casting, and quite poignant in places. The ending was somewhat open, but satisfying nonetheless.

Recommended.