Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Twelve episodes again for this super-classic story, twelve stations on this way of the cross. That gives the director the time he needs to get down to details since he has three times more time than a normal film director. To see the twelve episodes in one go is also a great privilege because each episode is fresh in your memory when you move to the next. This dramatic suspense is essential in this story if you want to enjoy the social Deus Ex Machina used by Charles Dickens to make a bleak and sinister story into a fairy tale.The story is, at the time of Charles Dickens, about the monstrous social system and its social over-exploitation of orphans and the poor. It is the practice of municipal workhouses in which the poor and orphans are enslaved into doing simple tasks that are profitable for the businessmen for whom they are performed. Dying in that environment is a liberation.On the other hand, if you manage to evade that over-exploitation, you can find your freedom in the enterprising life of thieves organized in bands that are real businesses. The end will unavoidably be death by hanging, or if you are lucky forced labor in some distant colony, but you will have enjoyed your freedom during your short career as a thief.Dickens though always has another objective. After describing the worst social conditions possible in Victorian England, he manages to salvage his main characters, here two orphans, with some kind of artificial confession, birth certificates, medallions, etc., that provides these orphans with a pedigree that has no reason to blush or shrink away in front of the decent society of Queen Victoria who requires you to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.This particular adaptation by the BBC does not frustrate your expectations that were great at the beginning. The villains are real villains. The do-gooders are real selfless souls, the values of society are enhanced and advocated as best. The chief-thief is de-semitized and reduced to what he is a thief leading children into crime. And the children are marvelously well directed. Oliver Twist is a darling that manages some rather cold and distant attitude in situations that would have made many more cry like wimps.Jacques COULARDEAU

maksquibs OLIVER TWIST films live or die by their Olivers and this ultra-faithful six-hour British mini, dies with two inadequate Olivers. Not that the rest of the cast does much better. No one seems able to sustain the heightened characterizations Dickens needs, giving us a sort of loud, generic hamminess that quickly wears out its welcome. Even so, it's a treat to (just once) get all the story (the Artful Dodger has some surprising character turns), and it's certainly preferable to a recent mini-series which added a 'clarifying' preface. Memorable versions by Frank Lloyd, David Lean & Carol Reed each lose almost half of the story; for the better say I. With early Dickens, small sins of omission do wonders for story construction, especially in keeping Oliver in personal danger for the climax.

keith-moyes Oliver Twist is probably Dickens's best loved book. It has been well served by the movie and TV industry. This adaptation is my personal favourite, but in saying that I mean no disrespect to several other fine versions.I recently watched it almost back-to-back with Alan Bleasdale's revisionist 1999 version. It was fascinating to compare the very different approaches they took to the book.As I said in my review of the 1977 Nicholas Nickleby (you have read that, haven't you?), you can sometimes be too faithful to Dickens. That is relevant here, because Oliver Twist is one of his most preposterous stories.Oliver runs away to London. In a city of a million people he is immediately spotted by Monks (who has never seen him), his bitter enemy, and runs into the Artful Dodger.He is taken in by Fagin. On his very first pick-pocketing excursion, the very first victim is Mr Brownlow, who just happens to be deeply involved in the mystery of his birth. He is captured. Although he is apparently a thieving street urchin, Mr Brownlow takes him into his house as if he was a long-lost son.The very first time he ventures out of the house on his own, Oliver is spotted by Nancy and returned to Fagin.He is kept prisoner for weeks and then farmed out to Sikes to assist in a burglary. This second victim, Mrs Maylie, also happens to be deeply involved in the mystery of his birth. He is again captured. This thieving street urchin is embraced by a second character as a long-lost son. Is that boy lucky, or what?The whole book is a farrago of improbability and coincidence.Bleasdale tackles the issue head on. He retains all Dickens's improbable incidents but stitches them together in a much more plausible way. In his version, it is no coincidence that Monks spots Oliver; that he meets the Artful Dodger; that Mr Brownlow is his first victim; that he is recaptured when he is; that Mrs Maylie is the second victim; and that she too takes him in. From the beginning, Oliver is just a pawn in Monk's plot. Even Mr Brownlow's charity is made more reasonable. He is a philanthropist and it is not the first time he has done something like this.This is an interesting approach to the book, but for me it doesn't quite work. Bleasdale's detailed back story means that Oliver does not actually appear for over two hours and Monk's continual machinations in the background mean that Oliver is ultimately reduced to a bit-player in his own story.Alexander Baron, who wrote this version, takes a diametrically opposed approach to the book's absurdities. He just shrugs his shoulders and says: "That is the story Dickens wrote. That is the story people love. So be it!" He gives us a very faithful and very complete version of the book. It is good to see all the sub-plots and marginal characters, that are usually down-played or omitted altogether, given their full weight in the story (Noah Claypole, for example). The result is a great rendition of a classic story. Despite the ludicrousness of the plot it only confirms what a superb storyteller Dickens was. If it isn't broken, don't fix it.This series also benfits from a good Director, cast and Production Designer.Gareth Davies gets all the actors on the same wavelength so that the performances are all well-judged and consistent. Eric Porter's Fagin is as good as any and Michael Attwell's Sikes is probably the best I have seen. For once, I can see why Nancy might have been attracted to this thug.The juvenile cast are fine. The Rodska brothers are more than adequate and Oliver, in particular, is appealing without being too angelic. David Garlick's Artful Dodger is a real scene stealer.This follows through into the minor characters. We get their eccentricities without losing their reality. For example, Mr Grimwig gets to 'eat his head' an appropriate number of times, but Edward Burnham shows that he is fully aware of this potentially irritating verbal tic, so it never becomes tiresome. Similarly, Godfrey James's Mr Bumble manages to deliver his "the Law is a ass" without making it sound like a famous quotation. And so on.I doubt we will ever see a better acted Oliver Twist.Equally impressive is the production design by Michael Edwards. In a Dickens drama it is always tempting to overdo the squalor of the Victorian slums (David Lean probably did). It can leave the actors stranded in what looks like a series of Nineteenth Century engravings, rather than in real locations. This production gets it about right. The slums are suitably grubby and ramshackle but still plausible.The photography is also amazing. Most of this serial was shot on videotape but it has the visual texture and crisp editing that you usually only get with film. For once, the medium isn't the message.If you already have your own favourite Oliver Twist, but haven't seen this one yet - give it a try.You might just change your mind.

godfreye-1 This is an excellent version, well-acted, long enough to permit inclusion of Dickens' myriad confusing plots that keep the viewer guessing. It is broken into 12 28-minute episodes, reminiscent of the way Dickens serialized his novels. I dare anybody to watch just one - every one's a cliffhanger inviting you onwards. The acting is outstanding, though the strong dialect caused me to miss some lines. As Scott Funnell has noted in an earlier comment, the child actor who coincidentally has the same name does an outstanding job (and is rather adorable) as the young Oliver, as does the actor playing the larger (but according to Scott less important) role of the older Oliver.This is one of a whole series of superb BBC adaptations of the major Dickens novels, every one a gem. Like some of the others, the DVD re-release of Oliver Twist includes as an extra an excellent performance by Simon Callow as Charles Dickens, reading a lengthy passage from the novel, recreating Dickens' own reading tours that played to packed houses. Don't miss it!