Great Expectations (12A)

Half decent film, well representation of the novel, all except Estella. I mean, ginger? That character lost me the three stars.

This is interesting beuscae my view is that if I am to win the bet, it will likely be before QE3 is announced unless the initial amount of purchases is small and/or the recession turns out to be severe. My view is based on the Sumnerian reasoning that (in addition to the fact that the Fed is always late) aggressive easing will tend to push up yields in expectation of stronger economic conditions ahead rather than causing yields to fall. Looking back at QE1, I see that the collapse in the 10-year yield from 3.82 to 2.07 occurred between 13 Nov and 18 Dec 2008. QE1 was announced on 25 Nov, by which time yields had already hit 3.14. And QE1 did not include any purchases of Treasuries before 18 March 2009. You could argue that an expectation of MBS purchases caused a portfolio effect that benefited Treasury prices in late 2008, but I think it more likely that people were just buying bonds in Nov 2008 beuscae they thought we were going into a depression. I see that Treasury yields did fall half a percent on 18 March 2009 when the Fed announced a doubling of QE1 including $300bn of Treasuries. But yields by then were already well up from their late 2008 lows. QE2 was similar yields had nearly hit their lows by the time Bernanke hinted at QE2 on 27 Aug 2010.

This is interesting beuscae my view is that if I am to win the bet, it will likely be before QE3 is announced unless the initial amount of purchases is small and/or the recession turns out to be severe. My view is based on the Sumnerian reasoning that (in addition to the fact that the Fed is always late) aggressive easing will tend to push up yields in expectation of stronger economic conditions ahead rather than causing yields to fall. Looking back at QE1, I see that the collapse in the 10-year yield from 3.82 to 2.07 occurred between 13 Nov and 18 Dec 2008. QE1 was announced on 25 Nov, by which time yields had already hit 3.14. And QE1 did not include any purchases of Treasuries before 18 March 2009. You could argue that an expectation of MBS purchases caused a portfolio effect that benefited Treasury prices in late 2008, but I think it more likely that people were just buying bonds in Nov 2008 beuscae they thought we were going into a depression. I see that Treasury yields did fall half a percent on 18 March 2009 when the Fed announced a doubling of QE1 including $300bn of Treasuries. But yields by then were already well up from their late 2008 lows. QE2 was similar yields had nearly hit their lows by the time Bernanke hinted at QE2 on 27 Aug 2010.

Average movie with generally less-than-good acting, particularly from child actors and Walliams. Fantastical portrayal of eccentricity and insanity by Bonham-Carter and sterling, convincing performance by Fiennes. Average movie with less-than-good performances particularly by child actors and Walliams. Magnificent portrayal of eccentricity and insanity by Bonham-Carter and sterling performance by Fiennes.

Painting by numbers stuff but enjoyed. Anne covers biggest gripe but must raise the old lovely teeth chestnut...plus did we HAVE to have Williams in it? VERY distracting. 6/10

Worthy film. Looked good. Acting very good except silly faux west country accents when the action is in the Kent marshes. Do wish people would get accents a bit more authentic

To be honest I don't really go in for this genre of film but it was preferable to Madagascar 3D! Not seen too many adaptations of GE so open minded about this version really. It was well shot and the acting held up well. It did seem to drag at times, might explain why the audience were quite muted? Overall if you have a couple of hours to spare then this film hits the spot. A classic but not a classic......

Sad waste of great talented stars in a pointless remake waste of licence payers money. Overlong and downright filthy portrayal of Victorian society. How the hell we climbed out of that pit of filth to the (relatively) civilised society we are today puzzles me. I had no expectations with this going in (no pun intended) but quit after an hour as it just failed to impress me one bit sadlu for the great stars present.

Why? Why did the BBC sign up to make a film adaptation only a year after the in depth tv adaption. Agree with some of the reviewers there surely must be other stories to make. Fiennes is excellent and Bonham Carter is good and Flemying shows signs of becoming a fine character actor as the put on Joe Gargery but apart from that the acting is really rather poor. Walliams seems to ham it up even more than Robbie Coltrane, if that is possible, and neither Irvine who seems to have been picked more for looka and hopes to bring in teen girls than his acting ability nor Grainger really convince in their roles. A story filmed much better before and as the reviewer says it doesn't hold a candle to the Lean classic. If you see that with John Mills as Pip and Jean Simmons as Estella then you realise just how average this is, Two stars I am afraid. It looks lovely but that is about it.

Yeah this book had so many adaptations so what's the point in another one? It's not like it's Shakespeare where you can change era, country or actors and see something different. This is almost always the same no matter how you put it. Here's an idea for filmmakers: make a movie based on a book that has not yet been filmed! There are a lot of books like that, not to mention events in history that also have never been put on screen. Or even plays like for instance Arthur Miller's "Finishing the Picture" which I would like to see/read but it's not available in either format. Or for instance I heard there was an interesting play called "The Jerusalem Syndrome" by Joshua Sobol - why isn't there movie about that or published work?