February 2025 - Page 2 of 2 - Jeremy C. Processing

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

Bring Them Down

Director – Chris Andrews – 2024 – Ireland – Cert. 15 – 105m

A feud between two neighbouring, Irish sheep farmers is made worse by toxic masculinity on both sides– out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, February 7th

Two women in a car are being driven down an isolated country road. The older one, Peggy (Susan Lynch), is in the passenger seat talking to the unseen driver about why she’s finally leaving his father. The younger one Catherine (Nora-Jane Noone) sits horrified in the back seat as the driver reacts to the conversation by going faster and faster. The older one repeatedly and with increasing urgency shouts at the driver, “Mikey, slow down.” Eventually, there is a crash. Catherine’s face is disfigured. Peggy doesn’t survive.

The car crash opening is hardly new to the movies, gracing films as diverse as thrillers Dead Calm (Philip Noyce, 1989) and The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005), and children’s drama Fly Away Home (Carroll Ballard, 1996). The scene is used differently here, with the crash caused by wilfully bad driving, in turn caused by the driver’s emotional immaturity, which signals the intention of the piece, most of the narrative of which takes place some years later.… Read the rest