Gloucestershire Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Chris Noonan – 1995 – Australia – Cert. PG (2025), U (1995) – 92m

The story of a sheep that thinks it’s a dog – back in cinemas 30 years later on Friday, April 11th 2025, with a higher BBFC classification rating. The below is my review from What’s On in London in 1995, where I badgered my editor to make it the Film of the Week.

The very different worlds of Gloucestershire-born children’s author Dick King-Smith and Australian production company Kennedy Miller (Mad Max, George Miller, 1979; The Year My Voice Broke, John Duigan, 1987; Dead Calm, Phillip Noyce, 1989) might appear to have little in common. Then along comes Babe, a Kennedy-Miller adaptation of King-Smith’s hilarious fable The Sheep-Pig in which Farmer Hogget’s sole piglet Babe decides to become a sheepdog. Although the book is a very fine (and highly recommended) example of the children’s book, it’s hardly groundbreaking – we’ve read tales about talking animals before. For that matter, too, we’ve seen films with talking animals before – many of the better ones made by Disney.

What we haven’t seen before is this conceit pulled off flawlessly in live action.… Read the rest

Made in England:
The Films of
Powell and Pressburger

Director – David Hinton – 2023 – US – Cert. 12a – 129m

*****

Martin Scorsese talks about the seminal British filmmaking duo, and how they inspired his own movies – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 10th

As a child, Martin Scorsese suffered from asthma and would constantly find himself at home while other kids were outside playing. He often found himself sitting front of the black and white TV watching a show called Million Dollar Movie. This would show a movie a week, playing it several times, and it was at a time when US producers wouldn’t sell their movie rights to TV but British producers would. Consequently, he grew up watching black and white versions of old British movies.

The ones he particularly liked opened with an arrow hitting a target: “a production of the Archers. Written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.” When this logo and these names appeared, Scorsese always knew he was in good hands. He watched these movies over and over again whenever they were shown, and learned much of his filmmaking craft from them. The first of these films to which he thrilled didn’t have this logo: it was the Alexander Korda production of The Thief of Baghdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940) and parts of the film have the unmistakeable Powell visual stamp.… Read the rest