Tag: advice

Prime Minister

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 5 December 2025
No Comments on Prime Minister
Sticky post

Directors – Michelle Walshe, Lindsay Utz – 2025 – US, New Zealand – Cert. 12a – 102m

*****

A portrait of Rt Hon Dame Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s 40th Prime Minister – out in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday, December 5th

There has never been a documentary quite like this before, and perhaps there never will be again. For one thing, it turns out that Jacinda Ardern’s partner Clarke Gayford is an established TV producer who shot a wealth of home movie footage, albeit with professional equipment, throughout the period for which she served as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. For another, this home movie footage covers her pregnancy and the early years of her daughter Neve. For a third, as an MP she became involved with a project in which MPs would record their thoughts at various points during their tenure. When she agreed to this, no-one, including herself, had any idea that she would subsequently become Prime Minister. And that’s the fourth reason: this is a portrait of a PM in office who had no intention of being either a party leader or the Prime Minister of a country. And then who suddenly found herself the sole candidate for the post of leading New Zealand’s Labour Party weeks ahead of a General Election, in which she led the party to victory,

In this documentary, Jacinda (as I shall call her) describes being the leader of a country as “the worst job in politics”.… Read the rest

Tags advice, Andrew Little, Antarctic, ascendancy, authenticity, autobiographical family footage, automatic weapons, baby, backlash, being oneself, Boris Johnson, Boston, bump, buyback programme, camped out on the lawn, child’s early years, Christchurch mosque shootings, Clarke Gayford, cleared by the authorities, closed borders, conspiracy theories, couple, COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-free, crises, Decision To Leave, Deputy Leader, electable leader, Ernest Shackleton, events, explorer, family life, focus groups, fully-rounded, General Election, gun law reform, gun laws, home movie, human lives, husbands and wives, immigration. Let’s Do This, in office, in which a man shot about a hundred people, intention, Jacinda Ardern, kindness, labour, Labour Party, Lindsay Utz, Massachusetts, Michelle Walshe, mother, motherhood, mothers and daughters, MP, MPs record thoughts, New Zealand, office, optimist, parenting duties, Parliament Building, partner, pleased to meet you, PM in office, political party, poll ratings, pregnancy, pregnant. pregnancy, press conference, prime minister, Q-Anon, redesign yourself, right wing rhetoric, semi-automatic weapons, service to others, ship locked by ice, social media, social welfare, someone who doesn’t do economics, starting a fire, stepping down, survival of his men rather, tape recordings, the worst job in politics, TV producer, United Nations, US, victory, weight on your shoulders, world manifesto

Features Live Action Movies

The Tenants
(Se-ip-ja,
세입자)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 November 2024
No Comments on The Tenants
(Se-ip-ja,
세입자)
Sticky post

Director – Yoon Eun-Kyung – 2023 – South Korea – LKFF Cert. 12 – 90m

*****

In a black & white, futuristic Seoul, a tenant who sublets his rental apartment to prevent his eviction finds out that this approach has its drawbacks – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2024 which runsin cinemas from Friday, November 1st to Wednesday, November 13th

An alluring image turns out to be merely an image on a wall, an artifice rather than the paradise we at first assume it to be. This is an image many filmmakers have used to open their movies and, depending on what they’ve seen over the years, it will conjure different films for different viewers. For this viewer, it conjures what I consider one of the funniest films of recent decades, Quick Change (Howard Franklin, Bill Murray, 1990) where the image is revealed as a tawdry New York subway train ad above a clown who will shortly proceed to rob a bank.

The Tenants may not be a comedy, but it shares with that film a sense of urban malaise, a feeling of being trapped in a grim metropolis where everything about the place conspires to prevent the protagonists leaving.… Read the rest

Tags 3D likeness, advice, anti-capitalist, apartment, artifice, aspiration, avatar, back and white, bathroom, best mate, co-workers, commute, confidant, conscience, cramped, daily ablutions elsewhere, elevated railway, evict, first impression, future, Greek chorus, Heo Dong-won, holographic projection, human rights law, image on a wall, Kim Dea-geon, Korea, landlady, landlord, LKFF, LKFF 2024, London Korean Film Festival, London Korean Film Festival 2024, medical bills, mobile telephony, mother, move out, newlyweds, office building, paradise, parallel world, Park So-hyon, Park So-hyun, polluted, prevent leaving, public bench, queueing, rent, restrooms, ruthless, Seoul, South Korea, sublet, tenants, trapped, underclass, urban malaise, washrooms, well-off, workplace, Yoon Eun-Kyung

Features Live Action Movies

The Old Man
and the Land

Director – Nicholas Parish – 2023 – UK – Cert. 15 – 100m

*****

As he works on the land, an aging farmer hears his two adult children argue about the future of the family farm – plays UK cinemas from Friday, September 20th 2024, with previews from Monday, September 16th following its premiere in the Critics’ Picks Competition at the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, where it was the best film out of a superb lot

Movies. You think everything’s been done, then along comes something you’ve never seen before. Or, in this case, seen or heard before.

The Old Man in question is an English farmer (Roger Marten) whose family have worked the land for generations. He’s getting on in years, so won’t be around forever. His wife died a while ago, so he’s now running the farm on his own. He has two children who have long since grown up and left home: a son (voice: Rory Kinnear) and a daughter (voice: Emily Beecham), and the big question is, when he dies, will they take over – or will they get rid of the farm?

In recent years, the UK has produced a number of rural movies that stand in stark contrast to the urban- (often London-) based films produced.… Read the rest

Tags #GFF24, 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Critics' Picks Competition, advice, alcoholic, answering machine, answering message, bereaved, British, brothers and sisters, childhood, children, conversation, countryside, Critics' Picks Competition, documentary, Emily Beecham, English, everyday, family, farmer, fields, Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow Film Festival 2024, illusion, image and sound, improvisation, inheritance, land, leave message, left home, London, modern world, modernise, mundane, Nicholas Parish, Nico Mensinga, obscenities, parents and children, phone, phone calls, phone turned off, PÖFF, PÖFF 2023, PÖFF 2023: Critics' Picks Competition, PÖFF 27, PÖFF 27: Critics' Picks Competition, PÖFF: Critics' Picks Competition, pub, radical, radio drama, roots, Rory Kinnear, running a farm, rural, siblings, sins of the fathers, solitary, Spain, take over, Tallinn, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2023, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2023: Critics' Picks Competition, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Critics' Picks Competition, tractor, UK, unsentimental, urban, viable business, visit, workaday, working life