Miss Marple: 4.50 To Paddington (1987)

I like these BBC adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries, including this particular one based on What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw, because I like the opening credit titlecards and the jaunty Antiques Roadshow music that kicks in every time a body or scandal or an excuse to have a cup of tea turns up, and I especially like the 80-something Joan Hickson's Miss Marple, THE Miss Marple in my mind, who here enlists a young friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow to infiltrate the Crackenthorpe Manor to investigate a claim that a woman was strangled on a nearby train.

★★★☆☆

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45 Years (2015)

In the week leading up to a party marking their 45th wedding anniversary, a couple receive the news that the frozen body of the man's former lover has been recovered from a Swiss mountain fissure vent, which is the melodramatic premise not of an icy Scandanavian psychological horror-thriller about the past bringing into question matters of love, memory and truth, but an extremely gently - no, glacially paced British drama about the past bringing into question matters of love, memory, and truth.

★★★★☆

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47 Ronin (2013)

47 Ronin mostly disappoints viewers who watch it expecting i) a remake of an historical feudal Japan classic, ii) a big budget Gladiator-style war epic, or iii) a Lord of the Rings-style adventure fantasy full of witches and magic, which is a pity because if you watch it expecting a fairly routine Boys Own adventure, it doesn't seem so bad.

★★☆☆☆

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