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Dongji Rescue
(Dong Ji Dao,
東吉 嶼)

Director – Fei Zhenxiang, Guan Hu – 2025 – China – Cert. 15 – 133m The first hour and a half **1/2 The last half hour ****1/2 Chinese islanders under Japanese Occupation in WW2 set out to rescue a thousand plus British prisoners from a sinking, torpedoed ship – streaming on UK VoD from Friday, […]

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Contestant

Director – Clair Titley – 2023 – UK – Cert.12a – 90m ***** How a man’s incarceration in a room, broadcast on TV, became a media sensation in Japan– out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 29th Before The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998), which would be released later the same year, a couple of […]

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Freud’s Last Session

Director – Matthew Brown – 2023 – UK – Cert. 12a – 108m **** Celebrated psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud is visited in the last month of his life, living in Britain, by young Oxford don and Christian apologist CS Lewis – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 14th September 1939. Chamberlain has issued his ultimatum […]

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Animation Features Live Action Movies

Monty Python’s
Life Of Brian

Director – Terry Jones – 1979 – UK – Cert. 12a – 93m **** An absurdist comedy about of Brian, Jesus Christ’s next-door neighbour, who falls in with left-wing activists, develops a religious following and ends up crucified – back out in UK cinemas in Glorious Standard Definition on Friday, April 7th Like The Last […]

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Doctor Who Am I

Director – Matthew Jacobs, Vanessa Yuille – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 80m **** Screenwriter Jacobs’ entry into US Dr. Who fan subculture follows his scripting of the 1996 Dr. Who TV movie that was supposed to launch the franchise Stateside but flopped – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, October 27th and […]

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Doctor Who Am I

Directed by Matthew Jacobs & Vanessa YuilleCertificate 12a, 80 minutesReleased in cinemas 27 October andDVD & Digital 28 November What is a church, and why do people attend it? This is a documentary about Doctor Who fandom and conventions. At no point does it suggest, at least not in so many words, that such gatherings […]

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The Duke

Director – Roger Michell – 2020 – UK – Cert. 12a – 96m **1/2 A man steals Goya’s painting of The Duke Of Wellingon from the National Gallery in 1961… Based on a true story – out to rent on PVoD on Monday, April 11th 1960s Newcastle. Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) wages a one-man war […]

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The Handmaiden
(Ah-ga-ssi,
아가씨)

Director – Park Chan-wook – 2016 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 155m ****1/2 Available on BFI Player from Friday, March 18th Weighing in at a lengthy two and a half hours, this lavish, sexually-explicit, South Korean pot-boiler is based on Sarah Waters’ 2002 novel Fingersmith, but moves the location from Victorian England to […]

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Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

The Sparks Brothers

Director – Edgar Wright – 2021 – UK – Cert. 15 – 140m **** The rollercoaster career of musical duo Sparks with its successful hits and intermittent lapses into obscurity – out in cinemas on Thursday, July 29th There’s a story about John Lennon phoning Ringo Starr to say, “you won’t believe what’s on television […]

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

Delia Derbyshire:
The Myths
and Legendary
Tapes

Director – Caroline Catz – 2020 – UK – 98m ***** Docudrama explores the ten years the legendary electronic musician spent at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop – on BBC iPlayer from Sunday, May 16th for a year Part documentary, part drama and part performance art, this is a fascinating examination of Delia Derbyshire, the woman […]