Tag: island

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Away

Director – Gints Zilbalodis – 2019 – Latvia – Cert. U – 75m
****1/2
Exclusively in these cinemas from Friday, August 28th

A boy hangs from a tree by a parachute in a wilderness. He wakes. A strange, towering black / grey figure approaches, shining as if metallic or viscous like a solidified, smooth, crude oil or tar. It picks him up. He is in a dark tunnel, light at one end. He goes the other way, is out of the giant’s clutches, runs. It slowly turns and lumbers after him. There are occasional, giant, semicircular hoops in his path. He goes through them, eventually entering a grotto which fully circular hoop the giant can’t follow. Welcome to the strange, dreamlike world of Away.

Beyond an abandoned motorbike, in the middle of the grotto, is a lake bordered with orange trees and the ocean. The boy feeds, bathes and makes the acquaintance of a shy, little yellow bird. Finding a key and a map in a rucksack, the boy learns that the semicircular hoops mark a route to a harbour. His bike will furnish him the means to get there. A flock of white birds is flying in the same direction, however the yellow bird can’t join them because it can’t fly.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Movies Shorts

Popeye The Sailor
Meets
Sindbad The Sailor

Director – Dave Fleischer – 1936 – US – 16m – colour – Oscar nominated

*****

Currently streaming on MUBI.

A rare, two reeler, colour outing for the Fleischer brothers’ Popeye, this removes him from his usual urban environment to an island populated with fabulous monsters – the opening features snakes, lions, a dragon and a vulture before we meet self-proclaimed “The Most Remarkable Fellow”, credited in the cast as Sindbad The Sailor although anyone familiar with other Flesicher Popeye cartoons will recognise him as regular villain Bluto. Sindbad sings a song asking the rhetorical question who this extraordinary fellow is, culminating in Popeye’s voice unexpectedly singing “Popeye The Sailor Man”, from which springs the film’s subsequent dramatic conflict. Talking about a shackled two headed giant Sindbad also references King Kong, released three years earlier and an obvious influence on the remote island with caves and incredible beasts seen here.

(MUBI’s source print print is missing a little bit of the opening credits, so you might want to hit pause on the single credits page detailing the cast before it vanishes after a few seconds. Otherwise, the print is in pretty decent condition.)

When Sindbad sends a giant bird to scuttle Popeye’s ship and kidnap the woman (Olive Oyl), the bird’s take off is animated less like a bird and more like a nineteen thirties aircraft that struggles to leave the ground.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The Red Turtle
(La Tortue Rouge)

Director – Michaël Dudok De Wit – 2016 – France / Belgium / Japan – Cert. PG – 82m

*****

From the get-go, this is not your usual 2D animated film. The Red Turtle is slow-paced, has no dialogue and is certainly not aimed at children. Yet there’s nothing here you wouldn’t want kids to see, as its PG certificate testifies. Whether young minds would be spellbound or bored I wouldn’t like to say. Nor is it Studio Ghibli’s usual home-grown, Japanese fare being a French-Belgian production by a Dutch director based in London. Nor does it start off where you might expect.

A man adrift in a powerful, stormy grey sea is separated by some distance from his overturned, small boat. There is no indication of how he got there, and no flashbacks explain later on. Rather, the character reaches dry land and must survive there alone.

The story functions as an effective fable about adulthood and life. Michaël Dudok De Wit and his team brilliantly develop the character of the man through the various challenges he must face… [Read the rest]

Review originally published in DMovies.org, May 2017, to coincide with the film’s UK theatrical release.

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Jurassic Park ///

Director – Joe Johnston – 2001 – US – PG – 92m

****1/2

Joe Johnston directs Jurassic Park ///, the third instalment of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park franchise – out in UK cinemas from Friday, July 20th 2001

This redresses two minor omissions in Steven Spielberg’s first Jurassic Park (1993): JP///’s dinosaurs include some that interact with water (Michael Crichton’s original book contained a T.Rex swimming after its human prey, but the film didn’t) and some that fly (pteranodons). A rival giant dinosaur (here, a spinosaurus) at last fights the star predator (the T.Rex), a device used by dinosaur movies from The Lost World (Harry O. Hoyt; effects: Willis O’Brien, 1925) and King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Shoedsack, effects: Willis O’Brien, 1933) through Disney’s Fantasia (Rite Of Spring segment, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, 1940) to One Million Years BC (Don Chaffey; effects: Ray Harryhausen, 1966).

Gone is all the chaos theory talk and cuddly Sir Richard Attenborough. The proceedings have now been pared down to people trapped on a deserted isle – with no obvious means of escape – and dinosaurs. Guess what – this time those dastardly corporate folks at InGen have populated a third island (Isla Sorna) with dinosaurs then abandoned it.… Read the rest