Category: Movies

The G7 leaders meet at a summit only to find themselves trapped in the woods following an apocalyptic event – from the BFI London Film Festival 2024 which runs from Wednesday, October 9th to Sunday, October 20th in cinemas and on BFI Player and then out in UK cinemas on out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 6th

LFF: Sun 13 Oct 15.15, BFI Southbank NFT1; Mon 14 Oct 20:30, Prince Charles CInema; Sun 20 Oct 19.13, Curzon Soho Screen 1.

Every so often, the leaders of the world’s leading liberal democracies – the G7 – gather for summits to deal with the impending global crisis. On this occasion, it’s a bright, sunshiny day. Prior to getting down to business, they are toured through some local woods and shown the remains of one of the Bog People in a deep pit, their corpses perfectly preserved, apart from their bones which have disappeared, thanks to the properties of the bog land environment in which they were buried thousands of years ago. One corpse which they are shown has had his penis cut off and hung ornamentally round his neck.… Read the rest

Tags alcohol, alcoholic, Alicia Vikander, apocalypse, apocalyptic event, bog land, Bog People, bones, bot to entrap paedophiles, Britain, burial, Canada, catastrophe, Cate Blanchett, catering staff, Charles Dance, clearing, corpses, crisis, cross the lake, dark skies, Denis Ménochet, distant, divorce, draft statement, drink, elected leaders, estate, EU President, Evan Johnson, falling asleep, fancy, fantasy, ferry, foggy, follow the rope, food, France, French Premier, G7, Galen Johnson, gazebo, German Chancellor, Germany, giant brain, gibberish, global crisis, gust of wind, Guy Maddin, horror, host, into the water, Italy, Japan, jetty, leaders, LFF, LFF 2024, liberal democracy, London Film Festival, London Film Festival 2024, mansion, metaphor, mud, Nicky Amuka-Bird, old age, penis, photo opportunity, pieces of paper, pit, PM, political system, politics, preservation, President, prime minister, protestors, relationship reconciliation, remains, representative, rescue, Rolando Ravello, Roy Dupuis, satire, science fiction, scribble, seven-year-old girl, severed penis, sex, split into groups, statesmen, summit, Swedish, table, Takehiro Hira, terrorists, text, tour, trance, trapped, trapped in the woods, US, US President, waffle, weather, Western democracy, wheelbarrow, wine, woods

Animation Features Movies

Watership Down
(new 4K restoration)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 12 October 2024
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(new 4K restoration)
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Director – Martin Rosen – 1978 – UK – Cert. PG – 92m

*****

When a young rabbit visionary foresees doom for those who remain, some of the rabbits leave their warren in search of a safer home, encountering many life-threatening perils along the way – new 4K restoration of animated feature is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 25th, following its World Premiere in the London Film Festival on Saturday, October 12th

LFF: Sat 12 Oct 12:20 World Premiere, Tues 15 Oct 12:15,
both BFI Southbank NFT1.

This opens with a mythological segment involving a powerful God, represented as the sun, and rabbitkind, specifically the archetypal rabbit El-ahrairah. It’s drawn and painted in an arresting, non-naturalistic style involving coloured lines animated against a white background to create the impression of moving, primitive drawings, due in large part to uncredited director John Hubley, whose vision for the film was at odds with that of producer Martin Rosen. The latter ended up firing the former as he wanted something grittier and less lightweight.

It’s arguable this has worked to the film’s advantage: the fable sequence works as otherworldly rabbit mythology, suggesting a race of intelligent creatures capable of constructing creation myths about their species much as human beings do.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, adaptation, animal tales, animated storytelling, animation, anthropomorphism, background, Black Rabbit of Death, British, cage, cat, children's film, children’s book, climate crisis, codified Disney style, coloured lines, countryside, creation myths, D.H. Lawrence, darkness, death, decadence, Denholm Elliot, despot, destination, dog, doom, drawing, drawn animation, English countryside, family film, fantasy, fresh food, God, Harry Andrews, hawk, illustration, in search of home, injury, intelligent creatures, John Bennett, John Hubley, John Hurt, journey, kingdom, leader, leave, leave home, lethal, LFF, LFF 2024, life and death, life crisis, life-threatening, London, London Film Festival, London Film Festival 2024, Martin Rosen, Michael Graham Cox, militarism, myth, mythology, natural history illustration, naturalism, nature, nature red in tooth and claw, non-naturalism, novel, painting, perils, power, predator, primitive drawings, rabbit, rabbitkind, Ralph Richardson, resistance, Richard Adams, Richard Briers, safe haven, seagull, sentimentality, snare, societal collapse, storytelling, sun, totalitarian regime, trauma, UK, violence, visionary, warren, watercolour, Watership Down, woods, Zero Mostel

Features Live Action Movies

Timestalker

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 11 October 2024
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Director – Alice Lowe – 2024 – UK – Cert. 15 – 90m

*****

A reincarnated woman falls for the same man in different, historical time periods – hilarious romantic comedy of errors is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 11th

Agnes (Alice Lowe) is a woman falling madly in love. Sadly, the object of her affection Alex (Aneurin Barnard from Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan, 2017) isn’t really interested. And her attempts at forming relationships seem to always end badly. Although not in the way you might expect – for instance, with her head being lopped off. Yet all is not lost: in the world of the Karmic cycle: you die one day only to be reborn in another time the next. However, Agnes seems destined to make the same mistakes over and over again, consistently falling for Alex the wrong man in each of her different lives at different times in history.

The whole thing plays out like a series of repeated cycles by the same characters in different generations. In that sense, it’s not entirely unlike The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, 2023), a serious art house science fiction costume drama mashup. Timestalker isn’t necessarily in the same league as that film, but then again, The Beast isn’t a comedy and Timestalker is really, really funny.… Read the rest

Animation Features Movies

Transformers One

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 11 October 2024
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Director – Josh Cooley – 2023 – US – Cert. PG – 104m

***

The origin story of the hero and villain of the Transformers in a long-distant past on their home planet – animated prequel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 11th

In a city deep in the bowels of his planet, one of its Transformer residents, Orion Pax (voice: Chris Hemsworth), obsessed with learning all he can about the history of his people, breaches the security of an historical archive only to be chased by guards who find him as he starts reading. Like many others, Orion is a mining bot, and as such lacks the ability to transform that is possessed only by true Transformers. Trying to do the right thing even when it’s against regulations, he is often getting into trouble on his mining shift. His immediate superior Elita-1 (voice: Scarlett Johansson) consistently covers for him.

That doesn’t stop Orion Pax from breaking with tradition and getting himself and his friend D-16 (voice: Brian Tyree Henry) to participate in a Transformers race through the city, for participation in which, benevolent ruler Sentinel (voice: Jon Hamm) promises to reward them – although as it turns out, they are almost immediately sent to a deep level waste dump for stepping out of line.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Blitz
(2024)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 11 October 2024
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(2024)
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Director – Steve McQueen – 2024 – UK, US – Cert. 12a – 120m

*****

As the Germans bomb London in WW2’s Blitz, a boy evacuated by his mother as per government instructions refuses to stay on the train and finds his way back to London – from the BFI London Film Festival 2024 which runs from Wednesday, October 9th to Sunday, October 20th in cinemas and on BFI Player and then out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 8th

(This review is a piece of writing currently in progress. Please bookmark and return to this page to see the whole review in due course.)

A five star review (and I’m unrepentant) for a film that’s less than perfect. It gets the five stars because of the incredible things it gets right.

Blitz promises two things: one, an immersive, big screen experience of the London Blitz, and two, the mother and son story of a woman sending her son out of London in the mass child evacuation and the child’s refusal to follow the plan, complicated with the racial tension of the child’s having a black father (who is absent) and a white mother.

Writing these lines, the film’s potential problem is evident; the immersive experience is probably a movie in itself, and this side of things is brilliantly realised without the need for narrative coherence.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Air America

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 7 October 2024
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Director – Roger Spottiswoode – 1990 – US – Cert. 15 – 113m

Reviewed in What’s On in London, January 1991.

Released on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK on Monday, 7th October, 2024.

One of the most accurate ways to judge whether or not a movie is worth seeing is to look at the credits. Air America‘s director is Roger Spottiswoode, whose career has spanned such diverse movies as the gripping political thriller Under Fire (1983) and the tedious Tom Hanks and dog cop buddy movie for children Turner & Hooch (1989).

Spottiswoode has Mel Gibson heading his cast, but it isn’t a great help with a script as dire as this. Worse, Gibson these days is getting more comedy roles, and he simply isn’t as good in these as he was in more serious parts earlier in his career. Here, he plays a pilot of Air America, the secret, CIA-owned airline network which flies covert missions and goods around the Far East.

This might well have been another Under Fire, but as it stands, I’m afraid, the resemblance to Turner & Hooch is more evident. Like that film, this bores rather than entertains, lumbering along without any overall sense of structure or direction.… Read the rest

Animation Features Live Action Movies

Joker
Folie à Deux

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 3 October 2024
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Folie à Deux
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Director – Todd Phillips – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 138m

****1/2

Get Happy… Get Ready for the Judgement Day! Prison movie, courtroom drama, musical… the new Joker movie is something of a wild card – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 4th

The big surprise about this sequel to Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019), if indeed it is a sequel rather than another standalone film reimagining the same character, is not one but two big surprises. In no order of anything… One, it is a courtroom drama. Two, it is a musical. This is extraordinary. Less of a surprise is that, like its predecessor, it is also a character study. More of a surprise is that it completely breaks the mould as to what a comic book superhero – or, in this case, supervillain – movie might be.

Warner Bros. / DC appear to have unearthed a unique asset. DC Comics have a long tradition of alternate histories, something capitalised on in their Elseworlds imprint which have, for example, recast Batman on different occasions in as diverse roles as an historic American Civil War participant and a vampire. Thinking about such volumes in terms of the movies, such shifts of context as a musical built around a character like Joker makes perfect sense.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Things Will Be Different

Director – Michael Felker – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 102m

****

A brother and sister go through a portal into the past, are trapped there by an unseen adversary, and must wait for a mysterious visitor – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 4th

This movie is different. It’s about philosophical ideas. It would work very well as a piece of writing (a short story? a novella?), it would work as a radio drama, and – yes – it works very well as a movie. Because what’s compelling about it is not what you see with your eyes or hear with your ears, it’s the implications of it all, the stuff that goes through your head as you’re watching the movie. Welcome to the Cinema of Ideas.

Early one bright and sunny Summer morning, Sidney (Riley Dandy) enters the diner where her brother Joseph (Adam David Thompson), who she’s not seen for a while, is having breakfast. She has the rifle. He has the two bags with the money. As arranged, they go through the woods, across the high cornfields towards the house. There are people in the woods, which are supposed to be deserted. She is concerned.… Read the rest

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Harder Than The Rock
The Cimarons Story

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 4 October 2024
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The Cimarons Story
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Director – Mark Warmington – 2024 – UK – Cert. 12a – 100m

****

The story of Cimarons, the first British reggae band, who were formed in 1967 – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, October 3rd

As teenagers, they came from sun-soaked Jamaica to the UK to be confronted with a climate that was “rain, dull and gray.” In the 1960s, one of the areas that Jamaican immigrants came to in London was Harlesden, in Brent, and it was at Harlesden Methodist Church Youth Club in 1967 where Losely Guichy (guitar), Franklin Dunn (bass), Maurice Ellis (drums), and Carl Levi (organ) first met up and started playing music together, a site today commemorated with a blue plaque. They went through s number of singers over the years, notably Winston Reedy between 1974 and 1983.

By 1968 they were gigging as Cimarons. A performance at Paddington’s Q Club saw an A&R rep from Trojan Records in attendance, which led to a recording contract, their first album appearing in 1974, recorded in part as the Jamaican studio of the legendary Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Before that, they worked mainly as session musicians, appearing uncredited on numerous singles by black British reggae artists. The film isn’t particularly clear on the matter, but it’s mentioned that they lacked management and got hardly any royalties out of all this.… Read the rest

Tags 1960s, 1970s, A&R, band, bass, Beatles, Black, blue plaque, Bob Marley, Bobby ‘Dego’ Davis, breakthrough, Brent, British, Carl Levi, Cimarons, cleaning job, COVID, Dennis Bovell, drums, France, Franklin Dunn, funeral, gig, guitar, Harlesden, Harlesden Methodist Church, immigrants, Ireland, Island Records, Jamaica, Japan, John Lennon, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Linda McCartney, London, Losely Guichy, lung cancer, management, Mark Warmington, Matumbi, Maurice Ellis, music, music festivals, Netherlands, oppression by the British, organ, Paddington, pandemic, Paul Bogle, Paul McCartney, performance, Punk Rock, Q Club, recording engineer, recording studio, reggae, royalties, session musicians, Sham 69, singer, slave trade, Spain, state oppression, Steel Pulse, Thailand, The Clash, together, Tony Platt, tour, Trojan Records, UK, Winston Reedy, Youth Club