Month: February 2026

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Goat

Director – Tyree Dillihaye – Co-Director – Adam Rosette – 2025 – US – Cert. PG – 100m

***

A goat sets out to prove that despite being small he can play professional roarball just as well as the big guys who populate the sport – animated feature is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 13th

In a world where ‘smalls’ and ‘bigs’ live side by side, Will Harris (voice: Caleb McLoughlin) is a small goat who wants nothing more than to play roarball, and is thrilled when his mum (voice: ) takes him to see his first game with local team the Vineland Thorns. Their star player is Jett Fillmore (voice: Gabrielle Union), a leopard. Like most of the played, she is huge. Much, much bigger than the comparatively tiny Will. The Thorns’ nemesis is Magma, who likewise have their own huge star player, Mane Attraction, who looks like a cross between a lion and horse. Bigs dominate the world of roarball, and keep smalls out of it with the simple motto, “smalls don’t ball.” But Will is the determined sort, not one to take no for an answer.

Other members of the Thorns include: Olivia Burch (voice: Nicola Coughlan), an ostrich depressed by fan comments on social media who deals with the problem by burying her head in the sand.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

What Should We
Have Done?
(Do Sureba Yokatta Ka?,
どうすればよかったか？)

Director – Fujino Tomoaki – 2023 – Japan – Cert. N/C 15+ – 102m

***1/2

Remarkable diary film of the director’s sister who has undiagnosed schizophrenia as his parents deprive her of a decent quality of life for 30 years – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026 which runs from Friday, 6th February to Tuesday, 31st March

Darkness. The sound of a woman angrily, relentlessly, berating her daughter. At least, that’s what it sounds like. Director Fujino Tomoaki clarifies. He’s not trying to explain how his sister got schizophrenia, nor what schizophrenia is.

His elder sister was smarter than him. She spent four years trying to get into Medical School. One night in 1983, at home, she went completely berserk, waking everybody up. She was taken to a psychiatric hospital, who found nothing wrong with her. Tomoaki just doesn’t believe it. Another night at 2am she walked into his room, sobbing. He became worried that if she had another episode, he’d have to fight back, and the consequences might destroy his life. After his father, a medical research academic like his mother, disagreed with a psychiatrist’s thesis as to what was wrong with her, he got a job that enabled him to leave home and escape.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Kaneko’s Commissary
(Kaneko Sashiireten,
金子差入店)

Director – Go Furukawa – 2025 – Japan – Cert. N/C 15+ – 125m

****

An ex-con runs a service delivering clothing, other supplies and messages from loved ones to convicted prisoners – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026 which runs from Friday, 6th February to Tuesday, 31st March

A young mum, babe in arms, takes bags for her husband to a drop-off facility / creche so she can visit him in prison. The helpful assistant informs her that the commissary will be unable to accept most of the contents of the bag – basically, any clothing other than underwear. And off she goes for a prison visit with her husband, who has anger management issues and takes out on her the fact that she failed to visit last month, telling her, “it’s easy for you to abandon me.” His unabated rating and verbal abuse eventually drives her to a primal scream before she walks out, leaving him to ask, redundantly, after she’s left, if their child has been born yet.

His visit isn’t from her but the self-announced “Kaneko from Hosoda’s Commissary”, who has a deliver from his wife; divorce papers to sign.… Read the rest