Jim Carter Archives

Haunted Honeymoon (1986)

Rating: ★

Jan 11, 2003Old Dark House Comedy

Both directing and starring here, Gene Wilder attempts to revive the Old Dark House comedy. By the 1980s, this was datedly creaky, while Wilder's comedy mugging histrionics are excruciating to sit through

Director: Gene Wilder

Actors: Gene Wilder, Dom de Luise, Gilda Radner, Jonathan Pryce, …

Category: Horror

11 January 200317 March 2026 by Roog

The Singing Detective (1986)

Rating: ★★★★★

Jun 10, 2024Meta-Fiction/Detective Story Daydreams

One of the most extraordinary works ever made for tv. From the pen of Dennis Potter, a mini-series that blends film noir, meta-fiction and autobiography

Director: Jon Amiel

Actors: Michael Gambon, Joanne Whalley, Patrick Malahide, Bill Paterson, …

Category: Fantasy

10 June 202413 November 2025 by Roog

The Little Vampire (2000)

Rating: ★★½

Oct 29, 2000Children's Vampire Film

The film version of a popular series of German children’s books about a buy who befriends a young vampire kid. The proves lightweight and likeable enough

Director: Uli Edel

Actors: Jonathan Lipnicki, Jim Carter, Richard E. Grant, Alice Krige, …

Category: Fantasy

29 October 20003 July 2026 by Roog

Arabian Nights (2000)

Rating: ★★★★

Jul 2, 2005Tales of Arabian Nights

Hallmark tv mini-series adaptation of the classic tales has been granted a decent budget that allows the stories to emerge with lavish spectacle and the fantasy to fly with exceptional regard

Director: Steve Barron

Actors: Mili Avital, Dougray Scott, Jason Scott Lee, John Leguizamo, …

Category: Fantasy

2 July 20053 July 2022 by Roog

Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story (2001)

Rating: ★★

Feb 12, 2005Revisionist Fairytale

TV mini-series co-produced by Hallmark Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company that offers an intriguing deconstruction of the fairytale that reverses the traditional sympathies

Director: Brian Henson

Actors: Matthew Modine, Mia Sara, J.J. Feild, Jon Voight, …

Category: Fantasy

12 February 200512 May 2026 by Roog

Dinotopia (2002)

Rating: ★★

Sep 1, 2007Lost World of Intelligent Dinosaurs

A TV mini-series based on the popular illustrated books by James Gurney about the discovery of a lost land where dinosaurs have evolved into their own civilisation

Director: Marco Brambilla

Actors: Wentworth Miller, Tyron Leitso, David Thewlis, Jim Carter, …

Category: Science Fiction

1 September 200718 January 2026 by Roog

Ella Enchanted (2004)

Rating: ★

Dec 12, 2004Revisionist Cinderella Comedy

Excruciatingly awful take on Cinderella, which overruns the fairytale with hip contemporary in-jokes and pop culture references, shredding any suspension of disbelief in its desire to appeal to a modern teen cool

Director: Tommy O'Haver

Actors: Anne Hathaway, Hugh Dancy, Cary Elwes, Aidan McArdle, …

Category: Fantasy

12 December 200430 January 2026 by Roog

The Thief Lord (2006)

Rating: ★★★½

Jan 11, 2009Orphan Thieves Fantasy

Children's film made with care and attention, written and produced to an adult level, far superior to 95% of the US studio efforts

Director: Richard Claus

Actors: Rollo Weeks, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jim Carter, Jasper Harris, …

Category: Fantasy

11 January 200911 April 2025 by Roog

The Wind in the Willows (2006)

Rating: ★★½

Jun 15, 2008Talking Animals/Absurdist Adventures

Amiable live-action adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's classic children's work made for the BBC with an all-star cast

Director: Rachel Talalay

Actors: Matt Lucas, Mark Gatiss, Bob Hoskins, Lee Ingleby, …

Category: Fantasy

15 June 200810 June 2025 by Roog

The Golden Compass (2007)

Rating: ★★

Dec 27, 2007Epic Fantasy Adventure

The attempt to create another Lord of the Rings went astray with this adaptation of Philip Pulllman's fantasy series, which cut many of the core elements of the books so as not to offend religious conservatives

Director: Chris Weitz

Actors: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Sam Elliott, …

Category: Fantasy

27 December 20075 March 2026 by Roog

Red Riding (2009)

Rating: ★★½

Jan 31, 2017Hunt for a Serial Killer

Depending on how you saw this, this is either a UK tv mini-series or three separately released films. Taking place over a decade, the three stories have a common locale and overlapping characters in the story of the hunt for a serial killer and the battle against a corrupt police department in Yorkshire

Director: Anand Tucker, James Marsh, Julian Jarrold

Actors: David Morrissey, Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Hall, Sean Bean, …

Category: Horror

31 January 201725 February 2025 by Roog

The Little Vampire (2017)

Rating: ★★

Aug 5, 2021Animation/Children’s Vampire Film

Animated film based on the popular series of children’s stories about a kid who befriends a vampire boy. The same stories had previously appeared as a live-action fllm

Director: Karsten Kiilerich, Richard Claus

Actors: Jim Carter, Tim Piggot-Smith, Alice Krige, Miriam Margolyes, …

Category: Fantasy, Horror

5 August 20215 August 2021 by Roog

Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

Rating: ★½

Sep 23, 2017Live-Action Transformer Robots

The fifth of Michael Bay's Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet

Director: Michael Bay

Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock, Josh Duhamel, …

Category: Science Fiction

23 September 201722 July 2023 by Roog

Wonka (2023)

Rating: ★★

Feb 3, 2024Willy Wonka Origin Story

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has become a cult classic. This offers a Willy Wonka origin story but seems to be far too nice a work that is missing the dark bite of the original

Director: Paul King

Actors: Timothee Chalamet, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant, Jim Carter, …

Category: Fantasy

3 February 202416 July 2026 by Roog