Tag: fuel

The Road to Patagonia

Director – Matty Hannon – 2022 – Australia – Cert. 15 – 90m

****

A keen surfer and former ecology student from Australia sets out on a motorbike journey from Alaska down the West coast of the Americas to Patagonia – out on digital on Monday, July 28th

The family of Australian moving picture diarist Matty Hannon moved around a lot during his childhood. He left home as soon as he could, and studied ecology at university, where he became fascinated by the book Shamans of Mentawai about tribes living in Indonesia’s Sumatran Islands. A keen surfer, he went out to one of the islands, rode the incredible waves, embraced a simple lifestyle and felt he’d arrived in a utopia where people lived in harmony with nature, assigning spirit gods to rivers and mountains. He began to wonder if by concentrating on data in his studies, he’d been missing something. He stayed five years, from age 21-26.

On his return to Melbourne, he was hit by culture shock. Everything was commodified. He sat at a computer for work. He was now in a culture that referred to its people as consumers, where national success was measured in terms of how much they bought.… Read the rest

Tags 14 months, abattoir, age 21-26, Alaska, alternative lifestyle, Amazon rainforest, animism, Australia, Baja California, Baja Peninsula, bike, bike theft, biker, book, breathtaking vistas, butcher, California, Canada, ceremony, Chile, civilisation collapse, clearing the jungle, commodification, commodified, community, computer, consumer culture, consumers, corporations, culture shock, data, depression, desert, destroying the ecosystem, Developed World, ecology, environmental impact, farming, fertilise the land, First Nation Peoples, fuel, harmony with nature, Heather Hillier, home-built rig, horses as fellow spirits, Inca pyramids, Indonesia, inspiring, interconnectedness of living things, journey, landscape, leave home, letter-writing, lifestyle, living in the wild, local customers, local resistance, malaise, Matty Hannon, Melbourne, Mexico, missing something, motorbike, mountain god, mountains, Patagonia, plant medicines, population density, possessions, pre-packaged jobs, profit before environment, pulp mill, raise a family, reliance on motor fuel, respect, ride the waves, river god, rivers, robbed by cops, Shamans of Mentawai, simple lifestyle, small farm, Southbound, spirit gods, spirits in balance, student, studies, success measurement, Sumatran Islands, Suna Beach, surfboard, surfer, sustainable farm, sustainable future, symptomatic, tent, The Road to Patagonia, toxic pollution, trade bikes for horses, travel, tribe, university, unspoiled beaches, US, utopia, Vancouver, voice-over, waves, well-being, West coast of the Americas, work, work on computer

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Road to Patagonia

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 23 June 2025
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Directed by Matty Hannon
Certificate 15
90 minutes
Released 27 June

In his mid-20s, former ecology student and keen surfer Matty Hannon returns to Melbourne, Australia. For five years, from age 21 to 26, he has lived alongside one of Indonesia’s Sumatran Island tribes, a utopia where people live in harmony with nature, assigning spirit gods to rivers and mountains. And then there are the waves.

Melbourne hits him with culture shock; a culture that refers to its people as consumers, where national success is measured in terms of how much they buy. Depression is common. Hannon records his response in this documentary as he gets out, takes a tent to Alaska, then… on his motorbike… travels down the West Coast of the Americas to Patagonia… [read the rest in the Issue 4 – 2025 edition of Reform]

[Read my longer review for this site here.]

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Tags 14 months, abattoir, age 21-26, Alaska, alternative lifestyle, Amazon rainforest, animism, Australia, Baja California, Baja Peninsula, balance, bike, bike theft, biker, breathtaking vistas, butcher, California, Canada, ceremony, Chile, civilisation collapse, clearing the jungle, commodification, commodified, community, computer, consumer culture, consumers, culture shock, depression, desert, destroying the ecosystem, Developed World, ecology, environmental impact, farming, fertilise the land, fuel, harmony with nature, Heather Hillier, home-built rig, horses as fellow spirits, Inca pyramids, inspiring, interconnectedness of living things, journey, landscape, letter-writing, lifestyle, living in the wild, local customers, Matty Hannon, Melbourne, Mexico, missing something, motorbike, Patagonia, plant medicines, population density, possessions, pre-packaged jobs, raise a family, reliance on motor fuel, respect, ride the waves, robbed, simple lifestyle, small farm, Southbound, spirit gods, spirits in balance, sprits, student, success measurement, surfboard, surfer, sustainable farm, sustainable future, tent, The Road to Patagonia, trade bikes for horses, travel, unspoiled beaches, US, utopia, Vancouver, voice-over, West coast of the Americas, work, work on computer

Features Live Action Movies

Alien
Romulus

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 16 August 2024
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Romulus
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Director – Fede Alvarez – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 119m

*****

A group of young people escape from a planet housing a repressive, corporate mining colony in search of something better … only to find something worse… – latest SF horror franchise entry is out on digital on Friday, October 18th following its release in UK cinemas on Friday, August 16th

The Alien franchise, after quite literally bursting onto cinema screens with Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979), then having lost its way somewhat on Alien³(David Fincher, 1992), picked up again somewhat on Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 1979), and now settled title-wise into the sensible enough format of Alien: Ship’s Name, delivers a new entry made by a writer-director, Fede Alvarez, who understands the franchise enough to both put in everything required of it and throw in some innovative ideas without compromising its essence.

The first 20 or so minutes, arguably the best thing here, could equally easily have opened a science fiction epic unrelated to the franchise. A young woman Rain (the terrific Cailee Spaeny from Civil War, Alex Garland, 2024) is trapped on a planet where the sun is permanently hidden owing to pollution caused by the corporation’s mining operation.… Read the rest

Tags abandoned, access, acid, acid blood, action, adopt, adopted, adoption, Aileen Wu, airlocks, alien, Alien franchise, android, antigravity, Archie Renaux, birth, bottom floor, burst, care, carer, cat and mouse, clone, colony, company android, corny jokes, corporation, corridor, counter admin staff, creature, creature feature, credits, cryogenic, Daniel Betts priority, David Jonsso, decaying orbit, deep space travel, directive, doors, drug, emotionally damaged, escape plan, expectations, face-huggers, fantasy, Fede Alvarez, floor, franchise, freedom, frozen, fuel, get away, global warming, horror, Ian Holm, identification, insert finger, intruders, Isabella Merced, life support, lift shaft, maw, metaphysics, mining, mining colony, monster, motherhood, nurturing carer, outer space, peers, persona, planet, planet’s rings, pollution, pregnant, preservation, programme disc, programmed, purge, raise the temperature, reboots, Remus, repair, research and development, Romulus, Rosie Ede, salvage, Saturn, scanned actor, sci-fi, science fiction, security clearance, SF, SF horror, shallow water, sibling, Sigourney Weaver, slavery, space station, spaceship, Spike Fearn, storage facility, sun, survival, swim, time is running out, trash, trauma, unethical employment practices, US, vaginal, vulnerable, xenomorph, young generation, younger brother

Features Live Action Movies

If Only I Could Hibernate
(Baavgai Bolohson)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 18 April 2024
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(Baavgai Bolohson)
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Director – Zoljargal Purevdash – 2023 – Mongolia, France, Switzerland, Qatar – Cert. 12a– 96m

****

A gifted Mongolian boy is torn between providing for his siblings and pursuing his studies – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 19th

Teenager Ulzii (Battsooj Uurtsaikh) lives with his mum and his three younger siblings in the yurt district of Ulaanbaataar, Mongolia’s capital city, their father having long since disappeared. Mum (Ganchimeg Sandagdorj) is illiterate and struggles to find work, and there is much antagonism between her and Ulzii, who is going through the school system his mother never experienced and took money from his summer job to buy sneakers before giving the remainder to his mum, who needs it to buy coal for their yurt’s stove to keep the family warm in severe, subzero wintry conditions. Sometimes it’s all too much for their mum, who often gets drunk at night.

In class, Ulzii is the star pupil at physics, often completing complex equations using solutions his teacher wouldn’t expect from anyone less than two years older. His teacher (Batzorig Sukhbaatar), finding a prodigy on his hands, starts to coach him to do well in the National exams in order to win a free university scholarship to study physics, which the boy wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.… Read the rest

Tags alcoholism, Battsooj Uurtsaikh, Batzorig Sukhbaatar, bunk off school, capital city, chop up wood, city and countryside, coach, coaching, coal, complex equations, cut down trees, Davaasamba Sharaw, dependents, drinking, drunk, earning money, eldest child, exams, family, fuel, Ganchimeg Sandagdorj, gifted, heating, illegal job, illiterate, logger, Mongolia, mothers and children, National exams, Nominjiguur Tsend, physics, play truant, pregnant, prejudice, prodigy, pull out of the school, responsibility, scholarship, school, school system, schoolboy, seeking work, siblings, sneakers, star pupil, student, subzero, summer job, teacher, teaching, teenager, Tuguldur Batsaikhan, Ulaanbaataar, unemployment, university, university scholarship, Winter, yurt, yurt district, yurt’s stove, Zoljargal Purevdash

Animation Features Movies

Lightyear

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 14 June 2022
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Director – Angus MacLane – 2022 – US – Cert. PG – 107m

**1/2

Stranded on a hostile planet, Buzz Lightyear sets out on a series of missions which eventually lead to his first confrontation with the evil Emperor Zurg – plays in the Annecy Animation Festival 2022 which is taking place in a 100% on-site edition this year right now as a Screening Event on Friday, June 17th, and opens in UK cinemas the same day.

A caption at the start explains that this was the favourite film of child protagonist Andy (from Pixar’s Toy Story franchise) and the reason he got a Buzz Lightyear toy in the first place. Other than that, though, this is a completely separate and self-enclosed film.

As the literal meaning of its title implies, Lightyear delivers a narrative that races through vast periods of time at a stretch, so that we and ace space pilot Buzz Lightyear (voice: Chris Evans) and his colleague Alisha Hawthorne (voice: Uzo Aduba) land their spaceship on an unexplored planet which turns out to be populated with hostile life-forms, specifically (1) plant tendrils which burst out of the planet’s surface and try to drag anything they can back under the ground and (2) giant, flying bugs.… Read the rest

Tags 3D animation, accident-prone, alien, aliens, Andy, Angus MacLane, animation, Annecy, Annecy 2022, base commander, beneath the planet, beneath the planet’s surface, bugs, Buzz Lightyear. Lightyear, cat, CG, CG animation, Chris Evans, convict, creature, creature feature, Dale Soules, defences, Disney, drag, elderly, escape, expectations, failure, family name, flying bugs, franchise, fuel, fuel mixture, games-console CGI, gay, giant bugs, giant flying bugs, grounded, hostile, hostile life-forms, hyperspace, hyperspace jump, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Keke Palme, landing, lesbian, LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQI, life-forms, living up to expectations, monsters, one-man craft, one-man ship, outer space, partner, Peter Sohn, pilot, Pixar, planet’s surface, plant tendrils, political correctness, prospect of failure, race, racial bias, reputation, robot, robot cat, robotics, sci-fi, science fiction, sex sex relationship, SF, space cadet, space opera, space pilot, spaceship, speed, Star Wars, stranded, tacky, Taika Waititi, Tim Allen, time, title, toy, toy action figure, Toy Story, turnip, under the planet’s surface, underground, unexplored planet, unstable, US, Uzo Aduba, voice, voice acting