Tag: board game

Cronos
(Cronos)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 15 May 2026
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(Cronos)
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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

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Disconnect Me

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 April 2024
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Director – Alex Lykos – 2023 – Australia – Cert. 12 – 87m

***1/2

A man attempts to live for 30 days without the use of his smartphone, tablet or computer – out on digital from Monday, April 1st

This documentary opens with an advisory to keep your phone handy during the screening, as you may be required to use it at some point. In the UK, it’s only available on digital platforms… but even so, that advisory marks it out as different from most films.

Lykos, who narrates his documentary, is old enough to have grown up without a smartphone or other digital devices, but kids today handle smartphones from a younger and younger age. What would happen, wonders Alex, if I disconnected myself for an entire month? His and his wife’s home contains their two smartphones, two tablets, and a TV. Learning that Alex wakes and checks his smartphone three or four times a night, Alex’s doctor wires him for a sleep test.

Like many of us, Alex finds himself spending an hour on social media and wondering, what just happened? He and others admit to feelings of envy when others post about good things in their lives. A near-tearful divorcee talks about it being hard seeing people having a good time with partner or family.… Read the rest

Tags 30 days, ADHD, advertising revenue, AI, alcohol, Alex Lykos, Amanda Third, anorexia message, antenna, anxiety, attention, Australia, authoritarian governments, binge-watching TV series, board game, body image issues, Bolivia, brain, brain chip transplants, brain enhance, bullying, check smartphone at night, child labour, cigarettes, climate change, clinical psychiatrist, cognitive impairment, colour-blind, computer, Cultural Research, cyborg, cyborg artist, Cyborg Artist Neil Harbisson, Dalek, data service provider, David Cronenberg related, depression, digital, digital alarm clock, diminished critical thinking, disconnect; access, distraction, doctor, documentary, Dr. Catriona Wallace, Dr. Danielle Einstein, driving, economics, envy, evolution, experiment, Facebook, feel valued, first world, flipper phone, flippy, friends, gambling, get a real job, golf, government services, Greek, human extinction, impulsivity, injustice, interaction with AI, international regulation, justice, kids today, killing machines, landline phone, laptop, lethal autonomous weapons, life expectancy, live without, loneliness, loo, low self-esteem, machines taking over, med, medicine, Meta, mining minerals, Monopoly, month, National Broadcast Network, NBN, neck position, need to talk, negative space, Neil Harbisson, news, newspaper, not answering the phone, OCD, paper, parents and children, phone snubbing, phubbing, poorer countries, posture, prescription, primary school, Professorial Research Fellow, QR codes, reach, reduced attention span, regulation, Responsible Metaverse Alliance, rotary, safe, security code, shopping, sleep disorders, sleep test, smartphone, smartphone production, smartphone use, smartphones in the classroom, Social, social media, sports results, Sydney, tablet, target, target audience, technology, technology specialist, teenagers, television, third world, Timothy Stackpool, toilet, traffic, traffic accident, transhumanism, TV, updates, view, vox pops

Features Live Action Movies

Love Life
(LOVE LIFE)

Director – Koji Fukada – 2022 – Japan, France – Cert. 12a – 123m

*****

A tragedy involving a woman’s six-year-old child, abandoned by his birth father, wreaks havoc on her already strained relationship with the husband she has recently married – on BFI Player from Monday, November 6th following its release in UK cinemas on Friday, September 15th

A terrific drama about family relationships.

Recently married, young couple Jiro (Kento Nagayama from Villain, Lee Sang-il, 2010) and Taeko (Fumino Kimura) have a six-year-old, deaf boy Keita (Tetta Shimada), a national champion at the board game Othello, which he plays constantly with his mother or with players online. Several of his trophies are displayed in the family’s typical, small, apartment. Jiro’s parents Makoto (Tomoro Taguchi from Fukushima 50, Setsuro Wakamatsu, 2020; Dead Or Alive, Takashi Miike, 1999; Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989) and Akie (Misuzu Kanno from 37 Seconds, Hikari, 2019) live in a nearby apartment five or so minutes away across a park and a car park.

Jiro and Taeko invite them over, ostensibly to celebrate Keita’s latest victory but actually for a surprise 65th birthday party for Makoto.… Read the rest