Tag: failure

The Crazy Family
Gyakufunsha Kazoku,
逆噴射家族)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 20 April 2024
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Gyakufunsha Kazoku,
逆噴射家族)
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Director – Sogo Ishii – 1984 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 105m

*****

After proudly moving into their first home as owner-occupiers, a family go berserk and destroy the building – out on Blu-ray on Monday, June 17th

This seemingly starts out as a conservative family drama. The family in question comprises father Katsukuni Kobayashi (Katsuya Kobayashi in his debut feature role), mother Saeko (Mitsuko Baisho who worked with directors Akira Kurosawa, Shohei Imamura and Kaneto Shindo), elder teenage son Masaki (Yoshiki Arizono from Ichi the Killer, The Happiness of the Katakuris, both Takashi Miike; Electric Dragon, 80,000 V, Sogo Ishii, all 2001) and younger teenage daughter Erika (Youki Kudoh from Typhoon Club, Shinji Somai, 1985; Mystery Train, Jim Jarmusch, 1989; Heaven’s Burning, Craig Lahiff, 1997). The Kobayashis move in to their first home as owner-occupiers which, although it’s a little on the small side, promises an idyllic existence. Father is the breadwinner with a nondescript office job, mother waters the plants and does the cooking and housework, the daughter wants to be an idol singer and the son is spending all his time studying for school and university in his room upstairs.… Read the rest

Tags a place to live, accommodation, armour, baseball bat, basement, bicycle, biker gang, bravado, breadwinner, build, building work, catalyst, Chinese, coffee, defensive, derelict, digging, drama, drill, failure, family, family unit, father, floor, flyover, grandfather, hand-held, head of the family, Hitoshi Ueki, home, horror, house implosion, housewife, housing, husbands and wives, idol singer, intimacy, intimate, Japan, Japanese cinema, JG Ballard, Katsuya Kobayashi, killing, kitchen implements, living room, living room floor, Mitsuko Baisho, mother, naive, nuclear family, office job, one-piece swimsuit, outer space, owner-occupiers, parents and children, pixelation, poison, power tool, primal types, public housing, rape, rape as weapon of war, room, run, salaryman, school, Second Sino-Japanese War, SF, sibling, sick, social breakdown, societal norms, Sogo Ishii, soldier, streets, studying, suburbia, sword, teenage, threat, train, turmoil, uniform, university, upstairs, warrior, weapon of war, white ant, World War Two, Yoshiki Arizono, Youki Kudoh

Features Live Action Movies

Kingdom of the
Planet of the Apes

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 9 May 2024
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Planet of the Apes
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Director – Wes Ball – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 145m

*****

The fourth entry in the current franchise reboot takes place several generations after the previous three films when apes live in scattered communities and humans have lost the power of speech – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, May 9th

Noa (Owen Teague) has deep-seated feelings of failure. His father is the head of the Eagle Clan, a tribe of chimps who live in symbiosis with trained eagles, and Noa thinks nothing of scaling the highest local rock face to steal his own eagle egg for later bird rearing. He goes on such quests with his two loyal friends, the male Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and the female Soona (Lydia Peckham). He also values the wisdom of Raka (Peter Macon), an orangutan with considerable knowledge of the generations-old teachings of Ceasar.

Noa spots a human girl (Freya Allan) sneaking around the village and environs. A short while later, all hell breaks loose as a cavalry of masked apes attack and burn the village. Noa resolves to leave the safety of the local valley and venture into the land beyond on horseback, accompanied by Raka. They soon realise the non-speaking girl is following on foot, and no sooner have they coax her into joining their quest than they run into first a herd of humans at a small forest pool, then the mounted masked gorillas from whom they must rescue the silent girl.… Read the rest

Tags Amanda Silver, apes, attack, battleship, books, bridge, cavalry, Ceasar, chimp, Christianity, circular window-frame, cliff faces, complex, composer, cross-country, crucifix, desert, despot, eagle, eagle eggs, environment, experiments, failure, fast moving water, fiefdom, forest, franchise, Freya Allan, genetics, gorilla, herd, horseback, human, jazz, Jerry Goldsmith, journey, Kevin Durand, labyrinth, landscape, library, Lydia Peckham, mask, militarism, MoCap, monkey, motion capture, oppression, orangutan, Owen Teague, pendant, Peter Macon, piano, Planet of the Apes, pool, quest, reboot franchise, religion, religious, Rick Jaffa, rock face, Roman Empire, scarecrow, scientist, ships’ graveyard, soundtrack, speak, stronghold, tall trees, technology, towers, Travis Jeffery, trees, underground, US, village, virus, warmonger, watering hole, weaponry, Wes Ball, Western, Weta FX, William H. Macy, woodland

Animation Features Movies

Lightyear

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 14 June 2022
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Director – Angus MacLane – 2022 – US – Cert. PG – 107m

**1/2

Stranded on a hostile planet, Buzz Lightyear sets out on a series of missions which eventually lead to his first confrontation with the evil Emperor Zurg – plays in the Annecy Animation Festival 2022 which is taking place in a 100% on-site edition this year right now as a Screening Event on Friday, June 17th, and opens in UK cinemas the same day.

A caption at the start explains that this was the favourite film of child protagonist Andy (from Pixar’s Toy Story franchise) and the reason he got a Buzz Lightyear toy in the first place. Other than that, though, this is a completely separate and self-enclosed film.

As the literal meaning of its title implies, Lightyear delivers a narrative that races through vast periods of time at a stretch, so that we and ace space pilot Buzz Lightyear (voice: Chris Evans) and his colleague Alisha Hawthorne (voice: Uzo Aduba) land their spaceship on an unexplored planet which turns out to be populated with hostile life-forms, specifically (1) plant tendrils which burst out of the planet’s surface and try to drag anything they can back under the ground and (2) giant, flying bugs.… Read the rest

Tags accident-prone, alien, aliens, Andy, Angus MacLane, Annecy, Annecy 2022, base commander, beneath the planet, beneath the planet’s surface, bugs, Buzz Lightyear. Lightyear, cat, Chris Evans, convict, creature, creature feature, Dale Soules, defences, Disney, drag, elderly, escape, expectations, failure, family name, flying bugs, franchise, fuel, fuel mixture, games-console CGI, gay, giant bugs, giant flying bugs, grounded, hostile, hostile life-forms, hyperspace, hyperspace jump, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Keke Palme, landing, lesbian, LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQI, life-forms, living up to expectations, monsters, one-man craft, one-man ship, outer space, partner, Peter Sohn, pilot, Pixar, planet’s surface, plant tendrils, political correctness, prospect of failure, race, racial bias, reputation, robot, robot cat, robotics, sci-fi, science fiction, sex sex relationship, SF, space cadet, space opera, space pilot, spaceship, speed, Star Wars, stranded, tacky, Taika Waititi, Tim Allen, time, title, toy, toy action figure, Toy Story, turnip, under the planet’s surface, underground, unexplored planet, unstable, US, Uzo Aduba, voice, voice acting