Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator May 30, 2023 The Color Purple is, as they say in the newspapers, 'a good night out.' Go to Full Review The Color Purple (1985) 73% 94%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Apr 18, 2023 It is of course mindless fun -- but what other kind of fun is there? Go to Full Review Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 77% 82%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Dec 22, 2020 None of this would matter -- or work on the screen -- without the performance of Catherine Hicks as Monroe. She is almost as good as the real thing. Go to Full Review Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980) - - - -

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Apr 7, 2020 Places in the Heart is not an altogether memorable film, but what strength it possesses comes from the fact that it has the courage of its orthodox convictions. Go to Full Review Places in the Heart (1984) 90% 83%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Jun 3, 2019 Mommie Dearest becomes a kind of homage to the monster herself -- the emotions are so splendid, the scenes so dramatic, the experiences so incandescent. Go to Full Review Mommie Dearest (1981) 50% 72%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 20, 2019 Wise Blood would have worked, at least as a piece of local grotesquerie, if it had remained at an impressionistic farcical level. But it tries to encompass more than this. Go to Full Review Wise Blood (1979) 89% 74%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 20, 2019 The Amityville Horror is just another indication that the trail left by The Exorcist has now become too faint to be worth following. Go to Full Review The Amityville Horror (1979) 33% 52%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 29, 2018 Everything is all right really -- it tells us -- as long as there are good guys like Melvin to add a little human decency and a touch of naive fun to the great game show of life. I found this melancholy, however, rather than inspiring. Go to Full Review Melvin and Howard (1980) 91% 60%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 29, 2018 Although the film resembles a child's drawing of a life, it is enlivened by the use of documentary material which, if it does nothing else, at least recreates that era When 'rock-and-roll' was seen as the harbinger of things to come. Go to Full Review This Is Elvis (1981) 89% 88%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 29, 2018 The development of the central theme carries its own conviction, and the acting throughout is excellent, remaining so close to the texture of ordinary emotional life that the larger statements of the film gain an otherwise elusive credibility. Go to Full Review Rough Treatment (1979) - - 70%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 29, 2018 Stylists are only interesting when they consciously choose to forego substance. Fellini can't make that choice. And, when he tries to be serious, he succeeds only in becoming meretricious. Go to Full Review City of Women (1980) 65% 75%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 29, 2018 Blood of Hussain is simple propaganda and, however well-intentioned or honourable it may be, it differs very little from Russian films about happy workers or American films about happy housewives. The only real blood spilled here is that of the truth. Go to Full Review The Blood of Hussain (1980) - - 80%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 29, 2018 Since the nodal point is Teresa herself, it is a tribute to the acting of Daysi Granados that she remains a real and even sympathetic figure throughout. Go to Full Review - - - -

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 29, 2018 It is as if Lina Wertmuller shot some comic scenes, and then changed her mind about the film; she shot some serious scenes, and then changed her mind again. In her confusion, she forgot to edit the film properly and somehow mislaid a vital 15 minutes. Go to Full Review Blood Feud (1979) - - 43%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 29, 2018 It combines French discipline and nonchalance with an American generosity and high spirits. The dialogue is precise and often witty, qualities it shares with the acting. Go to Full Review Atlantic City (1980) 100% 78%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 28, 2018 The three women rise up against the oppressive male establishment, and systematically humiliate and abuse their boss in a number of not terribly funny scenes. Go to Full Review 9 to 5 (1980) 71% 68%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 28, 2018 Nothing is left to chance; which means that the responses of the audience aren't left to chance, either. It was as if something were being put over on us. We were in some obscure way, being cheated. The director had reacted for us in advance. Go to Full Review The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) 83% 67%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 28, 2018 (Krzysztof Zanussi) takes prevailing social conditions and presents them in so cold a light that they seem harder and clearer -- in the way that water changes to ice. Go to Full Review The Constant Factor (1980) - - 75%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 27, 2018 The essential problem seems to be that it is centred around Mr Feldman himself, and he is not yet able to sustain the level of intensity and interest which is required. Go to Full Review In God We Trust (1980) - - 48%

Peter Ackroyd The Spectator Mar 27, 2018 The film lingers in the mind as an exposure of one man's illusions about himself and his world. Reality intrudes upon him like the hands around someone's neck. Go to Full Review The Long Good Friday (1980) 97% 89%