Month: May 2026

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Star Wars
The Mandalorian
and Grogu

Director – Jon Favreau – 2026 – US – Cert. 12A – 132m

****

The mercenary Mandalorian and his infant charge, the Yoda-like Grogu, must rescue the young Rotta the Hutt who has been kidnapped by gangsters – out in UK IMAX cinemas on Friday, May 22nd

The character of the MandalorIan resembles a bounty hunter from the early Star Wars films but is, in fact, a Mandalorian warrior sworn not to remove his mask. And he has an apprentice Grogu, who is to all intents and purposes a baby version of Yoda, the character who first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, although Grogu isn’t actually Yoda, but a different character of a later generation. For those completely new to Star Wars, Yoda was both a Jedi Master skilled in harnessing the Force and a diminutive, otherworldly creature performed by a puppeteer. Audiences immediately warmed to him. Unlike Yoda, Grogu is too young to talk (although he does make suspiciously verbal sounding utterances from time to time) and you might think he would be unbearably cute and make the film difficult to watch. But he isn’t, not at all.

When franchise creator George Lucas still owned Lucasfilm, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, George Lucas, 1999 introduced the irritating, kiddie-oriented character of Jar Jar Binks, widely regarded as an error of judgement. … Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Eagles of the Republic
(نسور الجمهورية)

Director – Tarik Saleh – 2025 – Sweden, France, Denmark, Finland – Cert. 15 – 129m

****

A top Egyptian movie star finds himself working on a big budget, high concept, state-sponsored propaganda movie – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, May 22nd

The opening three scenes… The credits run over a montage of Egyptian movie posters. A group of men outdoors in the Egyptian sun listen attentively to radio commentary of a horse race. One of the men lights his lady passenger’s cigarette from his own as their car speeds towards the horizon of what could well be Monument Valley.. “cut” …but is a movie set with back projection. His assistant tells him has son has called three times – it’s the boy’s birthday, so the actor has his assistant buy his son an expensive watch. Not the greatest of fathers. The kissing couple on the side of the outside studio wall proclaims him to be Pharoah of the Screen George Fahmy (Fares Fares from Cairo Conspiracy, Tarik Saleh, 2022; Westworld, TV series, 2018; The Nile Hilton Incident, Tarik Saleh, 2017; Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Gareth Edwards, 2016; Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes, Mikkel Nørgaard, 2013; Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow, 2012) and her Rula Haddad (Cherien Dabis, director of Only Murders in the Building, 6 episodes, 2021-23).… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Balloonists

Director – John Dower – 2025 – UK, Austria, US – Cert. PG – 86m

****

The story of balloonist Bertrand Piccard’s three attempts to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 22nd

Bertrand Piccard’s house, as his astonished interviewer notes, is a museum, a personal collection of memorabilia from the history of aviation. It grew in a mere 66 years from the Wright Brothers’ pioneering efforts to the Apollo 11 moon landing. His family was in Florida at the time of the Apollo 7-12 launches which he witnessed. Five days before the moon landing, he vowed to become an explorer himself, but then when Armstrong walked on the moon Piccard felt everything had been done. He got depressed.

And then he saw a balloon and discovered that no-one had ever flown round the world in one.

In 1997, His first attempt, the Breitling Orbiter, ditched in the Mediterranean after six hours. Many others tried, including Richard Branson, who knew how to do publicity: in Morocco, Branson’s balloon blew away before it could be launched.

Enter British engineer Andy Elson. But the film switches back to Piccard, whose grandfather was a pioneering balloonist and whose father designed submarines and made a record-breaking dive to the Mariana Trench.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
Frida Kahlo
Special Edition
with new material from
The making of an icon

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939 © EXHIBITION ON SCREEN

Director – Ali Ray – 2020, 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 93m, 101m

*****

The tragic yet resonant life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and her transformation into a modern, cultural icon – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, May 19th

As dour piano chords play, a title announces that Frida Kahlo held only three solo exhibitions in her lifetime. This is contrasted with an auction where “one of her most complex self portraits” The Dream (The Bed) / El Sueño (La Cama) (1940) auctions for a starting price of $22m and selling for $47m. As of November 2025, this was the highest ever value for a work by a female artist achieved at an auction.

Now, in 2026, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Tate Modern, London collaborate on a major exhibition entitled Frida: the making of an icon, opening on Friday, June 19th at the Tate. Exhibition on Screen’s Special Edition of their 2020 film concludes with ten minutes of newly shot footage of that exhibition.

Frida works at a writing desk as she (voice: Diana Bermudez) reads the latter she is composing. You notice the ornate rings on her fingers, her lavish earrings, the green and yellow jungle design of her print dress as she talks about “too much pain… It will take me years to get out of this mess I have in my head.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Normal
(2025)

Director – Ben Wheatley – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 90m

*****

Following the recent death of the town’s sheriff, an interim sheriff takes on the job at Normal, Minnesota – a town harbouring dark secrets related to Japanese yakuza – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 15th

Osaka, Japan. Three yakuza gang members who have failed to carry out a job properly must atone in front of their boss by cutting off their little finger. The two that do so are sent to the US on their next mission.

Normal, Minnesota. Following the recent death of old Sheriff Gunderson, Interim Sheriff Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk from Nobody, Ilya Naishuller, 2021; Better Call Saul, TV series, 2015-22) is getting to grips with his new job, driving around with Deputy Mike (Billy MacLellan from Nobody; Maudie, Aisling Walsh, 2016). Ulysses will be in the town for a mere eight weeks and his philosophy is, don’t upset anything and leave the place as you find it.

Normal may hold a few surprises for Ulysses. Such as the day he discovers a trail of red outside the door which turns out to have been caused by the local moose with a can of red paint dangling from one antler, of which he takes a photo.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Cronos
(Cronos)

Director – Guillermo del Toro – 1992 – Mexico – Cert. 18 – 92m

****1/2

An antique shop owner is transformed by a strange, hand-sized device he finds in a small statuette – back out in a 4K restoration in UK cinemas on Friday, May 15th alongside a Guillermo del Toro season at BFI Southbank

The auspicious debut of Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein, 2025; The Shape of Water, 2017; Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) upsets the joys of family life in old age by means of a small golden device which confers immortality on the user – at a price. The narrative opens with a preamble about the alchemist (Mario Iván Martínez from Clear and Present Danger, Phillip Noyce, 1994; Like Water for Chocolate, Alfonso Arau, 1992) who created the device and who was found dead beneath the ruins of his vast mansion in Veracruz apparently aged four hundred or so years and with a pallid skin in the 1930s.

The present day. Jesús Gris (Frederico Luppi from Pan’s Labyrinth; The Devil’s Backbone, Guillermo del Toro, 2001) runs an antique shop and enjoys the company of his small granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath). After a suspicious character visits the shop, possibly looking for something, Jesús is playing a board game with Aurora when cockroaches appear from the small statuette in which the stranger has shown an interest.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Features Live Action Movies

The Christophers

Director – Steven Soderbergh – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 15 – 100m

**

Two siblings hire a young art restorer to forge some of their famous artist father’s unfinished paintings before he dies so they can collect on their posthumous sale – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 15th

Professional art restorer Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) runs a London fast food stall between painting restoration gigs. Then she gets a phone call and meets in a pub with Barnaby (James Corden) and Sallie (Jessica Guning), the son and daughter of ageing artist Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) who, worried that their father is about to die imminently from a medical condition, want to ensure he (for which read Lori) ‘completes’ (for which read ‘forges’) the third, unfinished series of paintings known as the Christophers after the model Julian used.

Against her better judgement, she accepts the gig, and finds herself playing the ruse of working as Julian’s assistant, basically an excuse for getting into his studio and forging the completed works on canvas as a nest egg for his children who, it later transpires, have already sold the as yet unpainted works to a buyer for a tidy sum.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Kokuho
(Kokuho,
国宝,
lit. National Treasure)

Director – Lee Sang-il – 2025 – Japan – Cert. – 175m

*****

The son of a murdered yakuza is taken under the wing of a respected kabuki actor, who trains him alongside his own son – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 8th

In kabuki theatre, an onnagata is a man who performs women’s roles, following the banning of women performing in kabuki by the shogunate, who feared it would result in moral decline, in the 17th century.

In 1964, as the snow falls outside, a large, new year restaurant meal for his yakuza family in Nagasaki turns into a pivotal event for teenager Kikuo Tachibana (Soya Kurokawa from Monster, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2023), for two reasons. One, he is able to perform as an onnagata in a kabuki play, The Snowbound Barrier, for visiting celebrity actor Hanai Hanjiro (Ken Watanabe from Fukushima 50, Setsuro Wakamatsu, 2020; Pokemon; Detective Pikachu, Rob Letterman, 2019; Inception, Christopher Nolan, 2010; Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood, 2006; Tampopo, Juzo Itami, 1985); two, a rival yakuza group bursts in and wipes out his family. He vows revenge, but fails in his attempt to murder the killer of his his father (Matsatoshi Nagase from The Box Man, Garyuku Ishii, 2024; Paterson, Jim Jarmusch, 2016; Sweet Bean, Naomi Kawase, 2015; Gojoe, Sogo Ishii, 2000; Cold Fever, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, 1994; The Most Terrible Time in My Life, Kaizo Hayashi, 1993; Mystery Train, Jim Jarmusch, 1989).… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

Billie Eilish
Hit Me
Hard and Soft
The Tour
Live in 3D

Billie Eilish in Paramount Pictures Presents A Lightstorm Earth Production / The Darkroom / Interscope Films Production of “BILLIE EILISH HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D)”

Directors – James Cameron, Billie Eilish – 2026 – US, UK – Cert. 12a – 114m

*****

One night of the singer’s latest world tour is captured up close and personal using specially developed, 3D camera technology – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 8th

Disclaimer. Yes, I listen to a great deal of music. No, I don’t know the first thing about Billie Eilish. However, I have a huge admiration for James Cameron, who might reasonably be described as the R&D wing of the movie business.

I have also, in my time, seen a good few concert movies, but never anything quite like this. That’s in part because the contemporary music concert has come a long way, and Billie Eilish typifies a performer who is the act, performing on custom built stages in large stadium-sized venues, even though she has working with her a band and two backup singers, not to mention a vast array of lighting, stage and sound technicians. 

And, in her case, James Cameron.

Who insisted that she be given equal director / producer credit on the film. At least, that’s how he puts it in one of many of the more intimate backstage / offstage / on tour sequences inserted into the footage of the one concert which forms the backbone of the film. … Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Mortal Kombat II

Director – Simon McQuoid – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 116m

***

Dragged into an otherworldly tournament a washed up 1990s action star must fight other contestants to the death to save the Earthrealm – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 8th

King Jerrod (Desmond Chiam from Joy Ride, Adele Lim, 2023) of Edenia loses the tenth fight in a to-the-death tournament to intergalactic despot Shao Khan (Martyn Ford from Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Matthew Vaughn, 2017), who thus takes over as ruler of Edenia, despatching Queen Sindel (Ana Thu Nyguen) when she attacks him and adopting the child Princess Kitana (Sophia Xu) as his own daughter. By the time Kitana (Adeline Rudolph from Hellboy: The Crooked Man, Brian Taylor, 2023) has reached womanhood, she has mastered such combat skills as her two deadly-bladed fans, under her personal combat trainer Jade (Tati Gabrielle), who is also her trusted ally and friend.

Meanwhile on our own planet, following a clip from one of his better movies – a brilliantly choreographed parody of 1990s action movies – washed up action movie star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban from Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, 2009; The Lord of the Rings; The Two Towers, Peter Jackson, 2002; Xena: Warrior Princess, TV series, 1996-2001) is approached by Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano from Shogun, TV series, 2025; Journey to the Shore, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2015; Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl, Katsuhito Ishii, 1998)

and Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee from The Meg, Jon Turtletaub, 2018; Battle of the Sexes, 2017; Home and Away, TV series, 2007) who appear a little like Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984) via lightning bolts in a car park following Johnny’s attendance at a fan convention to ask him to join them as champions against Shao Khan in the upcoming tournament to decide the ruler of Earthrealm and the fate of all mankind.… Read the rest