Tag: cycle

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Timestalker

Director – Alice Lowe – 2024 – UK – Cert. 15 – 90m

*****

A reincarnated woman falls for the same man in different, historical time periods – hilarious romantic comedy of errors is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 11th

Agnes (Alice Lowe) is a woman falling madly in love. Sadly, the object of her affection Alex (Aneurin Barnard from Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan, 2017) isn’t really interested. And her attempts at forming relationships seem to always end badly. Although not in the way you might expect – for instance, with her head being lopped off. Yet all is not lost: in the world of the Karmic cycle: you die one day only to be reborn in another time the next. However, Agnes seems destined to make the same mistakes over and over again, consistently falling for Alex the wrong man in each of her different lives at different times in history.

The whole thing plays out like a series of repeated cycles by the same characters in different generations. In that sense, it’s not entirely unlike The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, 2023), a serious art house science fiction costume drama mashup. Timestalker isn’t necessarily in the same league as that film, but then again, The Beast isn’t a comedy and Timestalker is really, really funny.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Mondays:
See You ‘This’ Week!
(Mondays/
Kono Taimu Ruupu,
Joshi ni Kizukasenaito Owaranai,
MONDAYS／
このタイムループ、
上司に気づかせないと
終わらない)

Director – Ryo Takebayashi – 2022 – Japan – Cert. – 82m

****

A comedy in which a group of office workers must find a way to escape the week-long time loop in which they find themselves trapped – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2024 between Friday, 2nd February and Sunday, 31st March

A dream. A Friday night conversation with the client she’s always wanted to work for and with whom she starts a job next Monday. Monday, October 25th. Akemi Yoshikawa (Wan Marui) wakes up in the office where she and advertising her co-workers have just pulled an all-nighter to get the presentations done for the client. They are exhausted, necks in travel pillows as they kip on the floor. A hapless bird strikes the window. Their middle-aged boss Mr. Nagahisa (Sports Makita) saunters in after a restful weekend.

Now Yoshiwaka must get working on that Miso Soup Soda Tablet product launch that the client wants to sound like something out of the ordinary. But then, the two guys at the next desk try to tell her that they are trapped in a time loop. They, as in, everyone in the office. She doesn’t really have the time to listen.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Witches
Of The Orient
(Les Sorcières
De L’Orient)

Director – Julien Faraut – 2021 – France, Japan – Cert. U – 100m

*****

A look through a prism of anime and archive footage at the Japanese women’s volleyball team that won the 1964 Olympics – out in cinemas and online in the UK and Ireland on Friday, July 16th

You don’t really expect a documentary about a women’s volleyball team to open with a scene from the anime short Danemon’s Monster Hunt At Shojiji (Yoshitaro Kataoka, 1935) in which the hero, trying to save the damsel in distress from the web of the evil spider witch, learns too late that the damsel is the evil spider witch and has lured him to his fate. Even if the team in question has become known as ‘the Witches of the Orient’. “To refer to people as witches is not very kind,” says Katsumi Matsumura, a surviving member of the team. “But then, witches have supernatural powers. So that suited us fine.”

The nickname originated in the Russian newspaper Pravda when the Japanese women’s team faced the Russians in the 1962 volleyball championships… [Read the rest]

Full review at All The Anime.

The Witches Of The Orient is out in cinemas and virtual cinemas in the UK and Ireland from Friday, July 16th 2021.… Read the rest