Midnight Movie (1994)

A filmmaker and his young trophy wife move into a house that neither has been before, but for one of them it feels oddly familiar.
It's a Dennis Potter screenplay adapted from a Rosalind Ashe novel, directed by Renny Rye. I don't know if the novel was changed much (and if so, was it done respectfully?), but the result is very much like something born of Potter's own fixations, though one that'll likely only appeal to existing fans.
Louise Germaine, who played Sylvia in Lipstick on Your Collar (1993), is again an 'object' of desire for more than one pair of lecherous eyes. The themes of fiction and reality overlapping recur. For a TV movie, it's unusually shocking.

3 reflecting surfaces out of 5

The Golden Compass (2007)

I thought the book that GC was based on was highly overrated; the film isn't any better. It’s a colourful mess that oozes money but lacks soul. It feels rushed and unloved. The awful set-up for the sequels that never came is embarrassingly unabashed. Dakota Blue Richards impresses as Lyra, but the character is, like the world she inhabits, much too underdeveloped for us to connect with. The danger level stutters along at a weary pace, never reaching a level where we begin to doubt that the good guys will win. It’s a children’s adventure story so perhaps the very young, the real target audience, will be more forgiving than I am.

2 bears with no hangover sore head out of 5