Frankbill

Some decent performances here, including Paul McGann and the excellent Philip Davis . But what hopeless miscasting, it was embarrassing watching Dawn French, she was less convincing in her role in this as she is when doing one of her French & Saunders spoofs. What were the casting people thinking of? "Fill it with stars to get the viewers in"? No disrespect, but how on earth are we to believe she was the femme fatale to get all the men buzzing around her? Although I like Geraldine McKewen, she just isn't Marple, she does not think, deduce, rationalise and have hidden sceptism and knowledge of human nature. She just potters about grinning. Could be poor direction but Joan Hickson must have turned in her grave Although I usually get exasperated by unnecessary plot changes in dramatising books, here I can understand it, if you've seen a few Agatha Christies, at least a few plot changes keep you guessing a bit.

Overall this was a shallow, and in places, amateur effort, best avoided.

Well the Oscar crew went wild for it because it was a bit different and a bit more thoughtful. Bill Murray and the cast do a great job, there are lots of clever moments and funny ones too. American Beauty seems to have kicked off a trend for more meaningful films from Uncle Sam but the probability is that Big Business in movies will always want "blockbusters" with "stars" to get maximum profits. So this type of film will always be a quirky minority film which the Oscars will flirt with now and again, but not too often.

A pretty good film but there are loads of good films being made all the time outside Hollywood that are just ignored, this film was fêted because it was American.