Tag: John Magaro

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

September 5

Director – Tim Fehlbaum – 2024 – US, Germany – Cert. 15 – 95m

****1/2

A dramatisation of the events of September 5, 1972 when broadcast TV sports journalists found themselves covering the terrorist kidnapping of Israeli athletes in the Olympic village – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, February 6th

There have been movies about the terrorist incident at the 1972 Olympics before: the documentary One Day in September (Kevin McDonald, 1999) and the drama about its aftermath Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005). Like the latter, September 5 is a drama. What marks it out as different, however, is that it tells the story from the point of view of broadcast journalists working out of a studio.

In this respect, its feeling for capturing the processes of live US network television renders it not entirely dissimilar to recent release Saturday Night (Jason Reitman, 2024), yet in many ways, it couldn’t be more different. Saturday Night is about the birth of a legendary US comedy show; September 5 starts in an arguably similar area of entertainment (live sports coverage) before swiftly moving into the wider, more problematic area of live broadcast news coverage. The coverage of the incident around which September 5 is based forever changed the face of broadcast television media.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Past Lives

Director – Celine Song – 2022 – US, South Korea – Cert. 12a – 105m

*****

After emigrating with her family from South Korea to North America, a Korean-American is sought out in New York by her now-adult childhood sweetheart from back in Korea – out in UK cinemas on Friday, Sept 8th

Have you heard the one about the Korean woman sitting between a Korean man and a WASP man in a bar in New York? Is the Korean man her partner? Is the WASP man her partner? Following this unforgettable opening image and a voice-over in which someone tries to work out the loyalties and relationships pictured, flashback 24 years to Korea’s Seoul for a chunk of narrative also involving Canada’s Toronto. Then jump forward 12 years for a further chunk of narrative in both Seoul and New York. Finally, jump forward a further 12 years to the present day for a final chunk of narrative in New York.

Intrigued? You’ll get to know two very Korean kids, who at age 12 or thereabouts in Seoul start dating. The girl, Na Young (Moon Seung-Ah), is already choosing a Westernised name, Nora Moon, in preparation for her family’s emigration to Toronto; the boy Jung Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min) has no such conflict and is firmly locked into a Korean identity.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

First Cow

Director – Kelly Reichardt – 2019 – US – Cert. N/C 15+ – 122m

***1/2

Western (set in Oregon!) in which a drifter and an immigrant join forces to surreptitiously milk a rich man’s first cow and better their lot – in UK cinemas from Friday, May 28th

A woman with a dog (Alia Shawcat) discovers two human corpses in the present day Oregon woods. Flashback to the nineteenth century. Cookie (John Magaro), a drifter, is the cook attached to a party of trappers travelling through the woodlands. He’s a poor scavenger for food and as a result, they are starving – with much acrimony directed towards him. As soon as they find a small settlement, he departs company and lets the trappers go on their way without him. He watches a rich local take delivery of his first cow with plans for buying a mate and breeding a herd later on.

Cookie falls in with Chinese immigrant King-Lu (Orion Lee) who has a hut nearby. They bond over a bottle of wine at King-Lu’s shack in the woods and become friends. Finding the cow wandering near their dwelling, they hatch a plan to milk it secretly at night (cookie milks while King-Lu keeps watch from a nearby tree) and use the milk as an ingredient in oily cakes, which they start selling at the settlement and which become a huge success overnight.… Read the rest