Tag: press conference

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Contestant

Director – Clair Titley – 2023 – UK – Cert.12a – 90m

*****

How a man’s incarceration in a room, broadcast on TV, became a media sensation in Japan– out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 29th

Before The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998), which would be released later the same year, a couple of years before Big Brother and the start of the UK’s reality TV phenomenon, a Japanese TV show breaks new boundaries. A man is put in a room where he had to earn a million yen in prizes from magazine competitions before being released. The facilities are basic – there is a sink unit and a gas ring, but no cooking utensils. The whole situation is filmed by two cameras. The man in the room, Nasubi, knows it is being filmed, but has been told by the producer that most of it will be thrown away. He is completely unaware that this setup is being edited into a weekly, six-minute TV spot and going out on the weekly, magazine format, endurance TV show Denpa Shonen.

The Denpa Shonen show is the brainchild of TV producer Tsuchiya, who for this segment auditions a dozen or so male hopefuls and chooses one of them, Nasubi, by lottery.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Reawakening

Director – Virginia Gilbert – 2024 – UK – Cert. 15 – 90m

***

When a couple’s daughter returns after a decade’s long absence, the husband starts to suspect she is not really their daughter – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 13th

It’s been ten years since their daughter Clare left home at 14. Not a day has gone by for her parents John (Jared Harris) and Mary (Juliet Stevenson) when they haven’t thought about her. The couple are in touch with the police and give periodic press conferences which have, so far, yielded nothing in the way of results.

Yet John, a self-employed electrician, has never given up hope. On the streets, he looks out for his daughter in the hope that he might one day see her again. And then, one day, he sees her sitting at then getting up from a table outside a café. He runs towards her, nearly getting hit by a car in the process, then follows her only to lose her down a turning.

Every morning at the primary school where she teaches, his wife Mary re-pins the poster of their missing daughter over the top of other bits of posters pinned on top of it to ensure that it can be clearly seen.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

a-ha The Movie

Directors – Thomas Robsahm, Aslaug Holm – 2021 – Norway, Germany – Cert. 12a – 108m

***

The rise and career of the enduring, three-piece, Norwegian band a-ha – out in cinemas on Friday, May 20th

Norwegian trio a-ha are arguably best known for two songs. They swept to fame on the strength of their first hit Take On Me, which features extensively in this documentary. They were later asked to do the title for Bond movie The Living Daylights (John Glen, 1987), which gets only a few minutes screen time somewhere in the middle here, so I’ll get that out of the way first. The band write their own material and found themselves having to work with legendary Bond composer John Barry as their producer on this gig who, as they saw it, was used to having musical input and getting his own way. They talk about recording the song in such a way as to get round him.

Perhaps what this best illustrates is that musicians (artists, composers, bands) often work and operate within their own sealed worlds and if they have to work with rivals, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In this instance, it doesn’t sound a good experience for either party.… Read the rest