Tag Archives: Maggie Smith

From The Vault: Peter Ustinov as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot

October 20, 2024 flawintheiris

The first of Peter Ustinov's takes on Christie's mustachioed sleuth, Hercule Poirot, was Death On The Nile, which I revisited when the Kenneth Branagh version came out — it turns out Branagh hasn't improved on the original adaptation. Since then I've sought out the other times Ustinov has done Poirot. I enjoyed both Evil Under… Read More

Downton Abbey: A New Era review — Tied in a bow for fans of the show

May 22, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Simon Curtis | Written by Julian Fellowes | 125 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Crave Another visit to the late 1920s estate of this aristocratic family— made so popular in six seasons on ITV and PBS, and more recently rerun on Netflix — seemed unlikely. I know the first feature from 2019, Downton Abbey,… Read More

Death on the Nile (1978, 2022) review — It’s worth booking passage on Branagh’s boat, but Peter Ustinov will always be the best

February 20, 2022 flawintheiris

Death on the Nile (1978) | Directed by John Guillermin | Written by Anthony Shaffer from the novel by Agatha Christie | 140 min | ▲▲▲▲△| Criterion Channel As I mentioned back when I reviewed Ken Branagh's take on Murder On The Orient Express in 2017, it was Guillermin's Death on the Nile that introduced… Read More

A Decade of FITI reviews: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I and Part II

February 8, 2022 flawintheiris

Having written thousands of reviews over the (actually more than) 10 years of this blog, I figured it might be fun to go into the vault and bring dusty, perhaps forgotten reviews back into the light. Expect these to show up around once a week for the next little while. I may lightly edit these… Read More

The Secret Garden reviews — Five adaptations of the Hodgson Burnett book

March 22, 2021 flawintheiris

Having binged the various versions of Little Women, I discovered the many adaptations of another beloved book: Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Not all the versions are available — apparently the first feature version was released in 1919 but it's been lost in time. Here are reviews of the films I was able to… Read More

Downton Abbey review — TV on the big screen, for better or worse

September 26, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by Michael Engler | Written by Julian Fellowes | 122 min | Netflix Television series that make the jump to the big screen usually manifest in one of two ways: they wrap up plot threads that the series wasn't able to knit before the show ended—the Firefly movie Serenity is a good example of… Read More

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel review — More of the same, and less

March 8, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by John Madden, written by Madden and Ol Parker If you're a big fan of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I would be lying if I told you the sequel doesn't deliver more of what made the first one a hit: A wonderful group of talented, mostly British actors working through a predictable script about… Read More

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel review

June 3, 2012 flawintheiris

Directed by John Madden Written by Ol Parker from a Deborah Moggach novel These Foolish Things With a cast like this, in this environment, it's hard to not like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I've read some reviews that criticize the picture for riding too much on the charm of that cast, with too little… Read More