Tag: chamber

Whalefall

Whalefall

Director – Brian Duffield – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 106m

The abusive father drama (about half an hour) ***

The whale scenes (most of the film) *****

A man’s memories of his emotionally abusive father help him to survive when he is swallowed by a whale – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 16th

This is very much a film of two elements. On the one hand, it’s about a bereaved man coming to terms with his memories of his recently deceased, abusive father. On the other hand, it is the spectacle, indeed, the experience, of a man being swallowed by a sperm whale. The whole thing, based on a novel by Daniel Krauss, is set in a coastal town and, mostly, in the nearby ocean.

In the opening 10 minutes, Mitt Gardiner (Josh Brolin from Dune & sequels, 2026, 2024, 2021, Sicario, 2015, all Denis Villeneuve; No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007), an experienced diver losing his fight against a rare cancer named mesothelioma, steps off the side of a boat into the ocean and is never seen again. (Except in flashback.) Before jumping into the water, he seals a number of letters and puts them in a box on the deck.… Read the rest

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Underland

Underland

Director – Rob Petit – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 12a – 79m

***

Three separate journeys beneath the Earth’s surface in the company of an archaeologist, a particle physicist and an urban explorer – had its sold out UK Premiere at the Barbican on Tuesday, March 24th and is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 27th

Why do we seek the void, asks a narrator (Sandra Hüller from Project Hail Mary, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, 2026; The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer, 2023; Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet, 2023) as the camera descends into an Academy 4:3 image of an orifice within an ash tree, a portal to the world below. In a letterboxed image, we’re in a car passing the garish lists of Las Vegas entertainments, then on to breach a wire fence on the outskirts of that city. Then with a group of women cavers in a jungle, possibly South America somewhere, near a tree on the edge of a vast hole in the ground. Another group of cavers stand around in a room in readiness. A further caver walks down an urban street and starts to lift a manhole cover.… Read the rest

Tags abandoned, archaeologist, atom bomb, beam of light, beneath the Earth’s surface, bomb shelter, boundaries, Bradley Garrett, broken fridge, burial, cave, chamber, charcoal, city, civilization, concrete, cow falling, dark matter, darkness, deep, deep mine, drainage, drains, earlier generations, Earth, entrance to the Underworld, experiment, exploration, Fátima Tec Pool, feeling of freedom, firelight, flash flood, frustration, future generations, hands on walls, Hannah Peel, hole by the tree, human beings, impression, interference, journey, Las Vegas, life form, light beam, London, low oxygen, man-made, manhole cover, map, Mariangela Lisanti. Canada, Mexico, mine, mining cage, narrow passages, narrow space, networks of caves, nuclear waste, odours, plunder, poverty below ground, radiation, rain, recurring dream, research facility, Rob Petit, rubbish, search, seek the void, sensitive experiment, sewage, skyscrapers, smell, SNOLAB, species, stalk, storage, storm drain, storm drains, technology, the living and the dead, theoretical particle physicist, touch the shadows, toxic waste, trapped, trash, tunnel, two kilometres down, UK, underground, underground exploration, Underland, underworld, unknown, Uranium, urban explorer, urban explorers, US, veins pumping, warning signs, wealth, writer, Yucatán Peninsular

Animation Features Live Action Movies

The Young Taoism Fighter
(Ying Yang Qi Bin,
阴阳奇兵)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date September 23 2024
No Comments on The Young Taoism Fighter
(Ying Yang Qi Bin,
阴阳奇兵)

Director – Chen Chi-Hwa – 1986 – Taiwan – Cert. 15 – 84m

***1/2

A lazy martial arts student experimenting with magic finds himself helping a girl warrior against a sorcerer and his master – on Blu-ray from Monday, September 23rd

At the Taoist martial arts training school Ying Yang Hall, two students are wont to skip rigorous training to hang out with the drunken sorceror in the

It’s probably a mistake to attempt to describe this in terms of its plot, because while it borrows lots of staple generic ideas from all over the place, it frequently abandons one to go off and develop another. It’s ostensibly a story about students from a martial arts school confronted by an evil sorcerer, but it’s nothing like as coherent as, say, the Mr. Vampire films. In fact, it’s just an excuse to throw together fight scenes, special effects and knockabout humour, all of which, against the odds, somehow cohere into some sort of whole to prove spectacularly entertaining.

Two slacker students bunk off to hang out with a drunken master in the kitchen, in the course of which he momentarily sets one of them on fire while the other one pulls a live snake from his trousers, and prepares it as a culinary delicacy.… Read the rest