Month: April 2026

Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

Terminator 2
Judgement Day

Director – James Cameron – 1991 – US – Cert. 15 – 127m

*****

A second Terminator is sent from the future to kill the future leader of the war against the machines – opening film in Film Tottenham’s upcoming programme celebrating female action heroes, plays Sunday, April 12th 2026, 6.30 for 7pm start

In the 1984 original, a Terminator robot (Arnold Schwarznegger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother-to-be of the leader of the war in the future against the machines, who are exterminating humanity.

This sequel sees a more advanced T-1000 robot (Robert Patrick) sent back in time to kill Sarah’s now-ten-year-old son John (Ed Furlong). Another Terminator (Schwarzengger) is also running around in the present (i.e. 1991).

Sarah’s recurring nightmare pictures the coming apocalypse when the machines unleash nuclear missiles on humanity. That aside, this is basically an essay on mothers and sons – and fathers and sons – wrapped up in the best chase movie you’ve ever seen.

What makes the film work is the mother and son element. Sarah is a believer in Terminators, the coming war against the machines, and humanity’s fightback in a world where such beliefs are dismissed as delusions.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Father Mother
Sister Brother

© Vague Notion 2024 Yorick Le Saux

Director – Jim Jarmusch – 2025 – US – Cert. 12a – 110m

*****

Three separate stories follow visits by three separate sets of adult siblings to, respectively, an elderly father, an elderly mother, and a deceased parents’ cleared home – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 10th

This harks back to a couple of earlier Jarmusch movies which similarly consist of a small number of stories: Night on Earth (1991) with five cabbies on one night in different cities and Mystery Train (1989) with its three linked stories set during one night in Memphis. There’s no suggestion that the three stories in Father Mother Sister Brother – set in rural North America, Dublin and Paris – are taking place simultaneously, international time differences notwithstanding, but they could well be, because all three take place in similarly good weather conditions. The first is rural, with snow on the ground, while the latter two are urban.

All three of FMSB’s stories feature similarities which link them beyond the overall siblings / parent(s) theme. These are both expected – car journeys to the home of the parent or parents, time spent in their presence or absence – and unexpected – skateboarders seen from the can en route, a Rolex watch.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Stranger
(L’Étranger)
(2025)

Director – François Ozon – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 120m

*****

A Frenchman living in French Algiers with an attitude of detachment is arrested following a violent incident with an Arab – adaptation of Albert Camus’ existentialist novella is in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, April 10th

Albert Camus’ 1942 novella is a character study of a non-conformist to the widely held ideals of the day. Ozon’s film adaptation roughly follows its template, making some subtle changes which alter its overall stance and meaning. 

The following synopsis contains spoilers, but, to be honest, given that this is an adaption of a significant work of French literature, and that you’ll get just as much if not more out of it if you read the book beforehand, I’m not convinced that knowing the plot in advance is a bad thing.

The novella has a two-part structure. First, it follows the life of its main, French Algiers-based protagonist Meursault from his receiving news of his mother’s death and taking time off work to attend her funeral, through his embarking on a relationship with the besotted Maria, to his involvement with his friend the local pimp Raymond Sintès and Meursault’s fatal shooting of an Arab, who has been following Raymond with murderous intent after Raymond mistreated his sister.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Undertone

Director – Ian Tuason – 2025 – Canada – Cert. 15 – 94m

**

The co-host of a paranormal podcast is disturbed by ten mysterious sound files even as her elderly mother is nearing death in her bedroom upstairs – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, April 10th

A two person paranormal podcast comprises Evy Babic (Nina Kiri) and Justin (voice: Adam DiMarco) in a good cop / bad cop routine. Adam’s good cop is always willing to believe – or at least hoping – that the incident or phenomena underlying the latest episode is real, however strange or unlikely it might be. Evy’s bad cop always assumes the phenomena are fake or a hoax, until or unless she has incontrovertible evidence that suggests otherwise.

We never see Justin since the movie focuses on Evy living in her house and Justin only appears (on the soundtrack) as her co-host when they go live on air or in conversation with her on the phone outside of that recording / broadcasting process. You might think that focusing on the subject of the paranormal would drive someone off the deep end, but for Evy, doing the podcast with Justin is the one thing that keeps her sane.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Kim Novak’s Vertigo

Director – Alexandre O. Philippe – 2025 – UK – Cert. uncertificated – 76m

*****

An essential addition to the canon of work surrounding and helping audiences to understand the power of one of the cinema’s greatest works– out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 3rd

The opening black and white scene features actress Kim Novak, probably shot in the 1950s, as if through a peephole. This recalls Norman and his peephole in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). Novak here seems to know she is being watched, looks directly at the camera, then rolls her head so her eyes go into the darkness of shadow. Then, colour footage of present day, images that could be out of Spellbound (Hitchcock, 1945): a gate opening, a passage along a country roadway, a wooden memorial to someone. All this accompanied by the voice of Kim Novak, now in her twilight years, talking about her life on the soundtrack – her present difficulty in getting breath, how awful it must be to gasp for breath prior to dying.

All this has a Hitchcock connection. Novak is familiar to us from her twin roles in Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958), the favourite film of director Philippe (and also, as it happens, of this critic) who specialises in documentaries about movies and made the definitive documentary about Psycho’s shower scene 78/52 (2017).… Read the rest