Tag: delay

Boorman
and the Devil

Boorman and the Devil

Director – David Kittredge – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 112m

*****

How director John Boorman’s sequel (or not) to The Exorcist became one of the biggest Hollywood flops of all time – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 25th

This quite understandably takes a while to get around to its subject, talking both about where Hollywood found itself in the 1960s and looking at Boorman’s directorial career before settling on the production that nearly destroyed his career. Once it gets there though, a considerable amount of time is allotted to a production which starts to sound like one of the most amazing spectacles ever filmed. Yet this comes alongside a feeling that, on the most fundamental level, something is going to go or perhaps has already gone horribly wrong before the director has even signed on.

By the early 1960s, Hollywood was making big budget epics like Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963) or The Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964). When such movies started to fail at the box office, it turned to younger directors in the hope that they might understand what audiences wanted. The result was movies like Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) or The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967).… Read the rest

Tags 1960s, 1970s, Africa, audience, back lot, big budget, Boorman and the Devil, box office, British, cash in, contract, David Kittredge, delay, desert storm, devil, director, doubt, epic, executive, Exorcist II The Heretic, flop, Hollywood, horror movie, hospital, in camera optical effects, John Boorman, laughter, Lee Marvin, Linda Blair, location, locust cam, locusts, Louise Fletcher, maverick, nationwide, plague of locusts, principal photography, production, protective face mask, release date, Richard Lester, Rospo Pallenberg, safety harness, sand, sequel, sequels, skyscraper, star, Star Wars, test screening, the Beatles, The Dave Clark Five, The Exorcist, The Heretic, title change, Valley fever, Warner Bros., wind machines

Features Live Action Movies

Pressure

Pressure

Director – Anthony Maras – 2026 – UK, France – Cert. 12a – 100m

*****

Days before the proposed Allied D-Day landings in 1944, the Scots meteorologist in charge becomes convinced that it should be postponed due to impending bad weather – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, September 9th

Taking leave from his heavily pregnant wife Liz (Tamsin Topolski), due in hospital imminently for the birth, Scots meteorologist RAF Gp Capt. James Stagg (Andrew Scott) travels by military car to Southwick House, the stately home requisitioned for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) under General Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser), where he meets his own liaison officer Andrew Carter (Jojo Macari) and, in what is to be his office, MTC First Lt. Kay Summersby (a nicely understated Kerry Condon), Eisenhower’s private secretary. All communications with the General go through her.

From their first encounter – three days from the proposed D-Day landing on Monday morning, when USAAF Col. Krick (Chris Messina) and his weather room staff are improvising a version of The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B with a piano – Stagg is less than impressed with his American counterpart. Krick boasts that he not only correctly predicted the weather for Eisenhower ahead of various military battles in North Africa and elsewhere, but also did the same for David O.… Read the rest

Tags 1944, air current, Allies, Andrew Scott, Anthony Maras, archive footage, bad weather, beaches, bombing, Brendan Fraser, burning of Atlanta, casualties, Chris Messina, Clapham, conference room, D-Day, Damian Lewis, data, David Haig, David O. Selznick, delay, domesticity, England, fatalities, France, General Eisenhower, General Montgomery, Gone with the Wind, historical precedent, James Stagg, Jojo Macari, Kerry Condon, live ammunition, meteorologist, Monday morning, Normandy, North West Europe, office, Operation Tiger, phone, postpone, pregnant, pressure, private secretary, RAF, requisition, Scots, Scottish, Second World War, SHAEF, Southwick House, St. Mary's Hospital, stately home, storm, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, Tamsin Topolski, telephone, The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B, top brass, UK, up-to-the-minute data, wall chart, weather, weather balloon, weather forercast, weather room, weather stations, weather systems, World War II, World War Two, WW2

Features Live Action Movies

Round 13
(13ème Round)

Director – Mohamed Ali Nahdi – 2025 – Tunisia, Cyprus, Qatar, Saudi Arabia – 85m

*****

A young boy is diagnosed with a tumour in his arm, and his parents must guide him through his ensuing medical treatment – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

My third Critics’ Picks entry is another five star movie. Which is great, but once again, I wonder, for how many more films can this last? What IS true is that this is not another ‘urban unease and finding your way in the world’ movie like China Sea (Jurgis Matulevičius. 2025) or Mo Papa (Eeva Mägi, 2025), it’s something altogether different.

Sabri (Hedi Ben Jabouria) is a very ordinary eight-year-old boy who likes boxing. We first meet him out with his dad in the cinema where the pair are watching a black and white movie about boxing. They return home where Sabri looks at his dad’s old photos of his days as a boxer in Rome.

They are interrupted by Sabri’s mum Semia whose name curiously isn’t spoken until about ten minutes before the end of the movie (Afef Ben Mahmoud) and who wants to know why she can never reach Kamel (Helmi Drid), the boy’s dad, on the phone.… Read the rest

Tags 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Critics' Picks Competition, Afef Ben Mahmoud, arm, bad blood, bad news, beaten, biopsy, birthday party, bouncers, boxing, boxing belt, boy, breathtaking, burning up with fever, cancer, cancer treatment, champion, chemotherapy, cinema, cinema trip, cinematographer, counting, Critics' Picks Competition, Cyprus, dash to hospital, dead battery, defence, delay, diagnosis, doctor, dreams, earn a living, eight-year-old, emergency, emergency services, employment, everyday, examination, fashion school, financial constraint, first round knock out, fracture, getting a lift, handle it yourself, Hatem Nechi, health, health service, healthcare, Hedi Ben Jabouria, Helmi Drid, horizontal blinds, hospital, hospital ward, husbands and wives, Islem Wassar, k.o., Lamine Nahdi, lose it emotionally, medical, medical treatment, Mohamed Ali Nahdi, money, mothers and daughters, motorbike, National Health Service, NHS, no longer a man, numbness, nurse, old photos, ordinary, pain, painkillers, parents and children, paying for healthcare, PÖFF, PÖFF 2025, PÖFF 2025: Critics' Picks Competition, PÖFF 29, PÖFF 29: Critics' Picks Competition, PÖFF: Critics' Picks Competition, point of view, poverty, private clinic, professional fight, puke, punch-up, Qatar, recant, rest, Rome, Saudi Arabia, scan, school, second child, security, self-defence, sense of failure, slip into bed, sparring, sport, sports movie, studies, survival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2025, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2025: Critics' Picks Competition, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Critics' Picks Competition, temperature, throw up, treatment, trouble at school, tumour, Tunisia, umpire, vomit, wad of cash, womb: home, X-ray