Tag: crew

Mickey 17

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 6 March 2025
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Director – Bong Joon Ho – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 134m

*****

Contracted to have his fleshly body reprinted, and his memory restored every time he dies, the expendable Mickey is assigned to a ship run by a right-wing power couple who plan to colonise a distant planet – science fiction adaptation is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 7th

The snow has given way beneath his feet. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has plummeted through several layers of ice and now lies helpless on a subterranean ice shelf. His best friend Timo (Stephen Yuen) comes to rescue him. Sorry. To retrieve mickey’s his gun, but leave Mickey himself there to die. Because, after all, it’s easier to reboot Mickey and upload his memories. His friend can’t but help to ask, “Mickey, what’s it like? To die?”

Left alone in the planet’s underground ice caves, where he’s already seen a fellow crew member attacked by cow-sized, insect-mammals for which will later be named “creepers”, Mickey 17 expects to be digested alive by the alien life forms. Of course he does – that’s what happens in movies about alien life on other planets. However, the script has some surprises in store, and the creepers, who are set to play a much bigger role in the story, don’t so much play the role of unfriendly monster as that of the misunderstood race of indigenous outsiders in relation to invading, would-be colonisers.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Kensuke’s Kingdom

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 30 July 2024
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Directors – Neil Boyle, Kirk Hendry – 2023 – UK – Cert. PG – 85m

***1/2

A British boy and his dog are stranded on a desert island alongside a Japanese man looking after a colony of apes – animated adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s book is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 2nd

With his parents having lost their jobs, Michael (voice: Aaron McGregor) is sailing round the world with his family. They are somewhere in the Pacific. Mum (voice: Sally Hawkins) is the skipper, with dad (voice: Cillian Murphy), Michael’s elder sister Becky (voice: Raffey Cassidy) and Michael himself as crew. He is homesick, missing his dog Stella. Well, not missing her, actually, because he’s secretly smuggled her on board and has her holed up in the cupboard at the front of the deck. Which is why the ship’s supplies appear to be dwindling – he is sneaking her food out of them.

Michael is the misfit of the crew; you sense that the other three family members are enjoying the experience of the trip, but he’d rather be back at home. Mum and dad try to make him feel better – mum ordering him about as skipper but giving him time with her as “mum” to talk about anything that might be bothering him.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, 3D animation, Aaron McGrego, adaptation, animation, ape, beach, beacon, boundary, boy and his dog, British, capture, CG, CG animation, Cillian Murphy, cliff, colony of apes, crew, desert island, elder sister, family, Frank Cottrell Boyce, homesick, infant, Japanese, job loss, journey, jungle, Ken Watanabe, Kirk Hendry, life jacket, lift, light a fire, logbook, Michael Morpurgo, misfit, monkey, Neil Boyle, on watch, orangutans, orphan, overboard, Pacific, parents and children, pet, poachers, pulley, Raffey Cassidy, redundancy, round the world, sailing, Sally Hawkins, sea, ship, skipper, smuggle, specimens, storm, stowaway, stranded, supplies, swab the deck, treehouse, tribe, trip, UK, voyage, wildlife

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Lancaster

Directors – David Fairhead, Anthony Palmer – 2022 – UK – Cert. PG – 110m

****

The story of World War Two’s iconic Lancaster bomber aircraft, the missions it flew and the airmen who served as its crews – out in cinemas on Friday, May 27th

The constant drone-like sound, the view looking downwards moving over water, a Lancaster bomber aircraft flying the length of a lake, the camera above it titling down as it passes to reveal it crossing a dam. This sequence, impressive on a big cinema screen equipped with a really good sound system, opens this informative and compelling documentary.

The Lancaster is entrenched in the British psyche from The Dam Busters (Michael Anderson, 1955) and in due course clips from that film and a few others appear here. I can remember seeing it many times on afternoon television as a child in the late 1960s / early 1970s. Present day footage of this amazing aircraft in flight jostles with comments by present day airmen who fly in it, and their enormous affection and respect for the aircraft comes through loud and clear. They are seen touching a plaque by the plane’s entrance doorway commemorating all those who flew her during World War Two as a way of taking the spirits of those people with them on flights today.… Read the rest

Tags A.V.Roe, aerial combat, aero-engines, airmen, Anthony Palmer, Avro, Blitz, bomb sighter, bomber, bombing of Dresden, bombing raids, bombing runs, casualties, Christian, Christianity, cities, crew, damage, dams, David Fairhead, designer, Dresden, empty seats, enemy, engines, factories, fire, firestorm, Germany, gunner, Hurricane, infrastructure, interview, Lancaster, Lancaster bomber, last flight out, Mariupol, miliary history, missions, motor, payload, pilot, production, RAF, raid, railway tunnels, Ray Chadwick, Rolls Royce, Rolls Royce Merlin, Rolls Royce Merlin engines, Ruhr Valley, Russia, Second World War, Spitfire, strategic bombing, target, UK, Ukraine, war casualties, wartime production, weapon of war, weapons production, weather, World War 2, World War II, World War Two, WW2

Features Live Action Movies

White Squall

UK PAL Laserdisc review

SURROUND SOUND MOVIE OF THE MONTH

Dir Ridley Scott (1996) Starring Jeff Bridges, Caroline Goodall, John Savage, Scott Wolf, Balthazar Getty, Ryan Phillipe Dur 124min Dist Encore; £26.99 Cert 12 DS Widescreen

1961 and a group of final year High School students sign up for a yacht cruise halfway round the world and back under a disciplinarian Cap’n (Jeff Bridges), the type of leader who’ll scare a boy into climbing the rigging even though he knows the lad’s brother died from falling out of a tree and breaking his neck. They slowly come together as a crew but then tragedy strikes.

Despite visually prettified opening, Scott’s visuals capture minutiae of nautical detail building to a crescendo in the terrifying storm sequence, where amazing sound effects engulf the living room. Great cinematography, unwatchable without widescreen, is well served by the crisp image transfer. Woefully underrated on theatrical release – this is one hell of a disc!

Film 5/5

Picture 5/5

Sound 5/5

Reviewed for Home Entertainment.

Trailer:

Features Live Action Movies

Ridley, Ripley,
Thelma & Louise

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 20 August 1991
No Comments on Ridley, Ripley,
Thelma & Louise

Alien

Director – Ridley Scott – 1979 – US – X – 116 mins 35 secs

*****

Blade Runner

Director – Ridley Scott – 1982 – US – AA – 117 mins 04 secs

*****

Thelma & Louise

Director – Ridley Scott – 1991 – US – 15 – 129 mins 22 secs

*****

At the end of Alien, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), having defeated the monster, strips down to her underwear only to discover that she hasn’t defeated it at all and it’s still in the space shuttle with her in the archetypal Hollywood false ending of recent years. It begged the question, why did Ripley remove her clothing at this point if not for the obvious gratification of the male members of the audience (and, one should add, the accompanying box office returns)?

At the end of Thelma & Louise, the eponymous heroines (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon respectively), on the run after the former’s rapist has been murdered after the event by the latter, find themselves trapped between the Grand Canyon’s gaping precipice on one side of them and massed hordes of police marksmen, ready to open fire if they don’t surrender, on the other. No pandering to male voyeurism here.… Read the rest