Tag: Germany

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Features Live Action Movies

All We Imagine as Light

Director – Payal Kapadia – 2024 – France, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands – Cert. 15 – 118m

*****

The lives, loves and challenges of three women working in a hospital in Mumbai – on UK Blu-ray/DVD (Dual Format Edition) from Monday, March 3rd, on BFI Player from Monday, February 17th, and on iTunes and Amazon Prime from Monday, March 17th

Mumbai. Opening with serial, engrossing tracking shots showing first men working throwing goods onto lorries, then men in traffic riding in the open boot of a car, then people riding on the urban rail system, all to the accompaniment of soundtrack vox pops of men and women talking about their lives and how the city helps you forget, All We Imagine as Light is, among other things, a paean to the city of Mumbai.

On a typical working day in the hospital, Nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti from Girls Will Be Girls, Shuchi Talati, 2024) explains to a doctor why an old lady refuses to take her pills (she’s seeing visions of the torso of her late husband) and opts out of going out to see the latest action blockbuster featuring dreamy male stars with her fellow nurses. She talks about helping with free legal advice to kitchen worker Pavarty (Chhaya Kadam from Sister Midnight, Karan Kandhari, 2024; Laapataa Ladies, Kiran Rao, 2023; Bombay Rose, Gitanjali Rao, 2019) who is having problems with intimidation by thugs to move out of her home.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Giants of La Mancha
(Argentina: Gigantes;
Germany: Das Geheimnis
von La Mancha;
Spain: Los Exploradores;
US: Storm Crashers)

Director – Gonzalo Gutiérrez – 2024 – Argentina, Germany, Spain – Cert. U – 88m

***1/2

The young, present day descendants of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza must save La Mancha from a villainous property developer – animated children’s adventure is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 7th

(UK cinemas are showing the English language version: further voice credits are given for Spanish and German language versions, where available.)

Alfonso (voice: English: Micke Alejandro Morena Lamprea; Spanish: Patricio Lago; German: Julian Jansson) the great, great, great, great, great-grandson of Don Quixote, lives with his parents in the small Spanish village of La Mancha which is under threat of terrible storms that the occupants attribute to climate change. Like his ancestor, Alfonso misreads things, such as an impending storm which he believes to be a storm monster.

He and his dad Dan Quixote (voice: English: Bradley Krupsaw), who alone among all the characters here speaks in rhyming couplets, and his mum (voice: English: Jennifer Moule; Spanish: Carla Petersen) are both idealists, to the extent that Dan is the one person in the village who has refused to sign his home over to besuited property developer Mr. Carrasco (voice: English: Thomas Harris), whose snake oil salesman charms seem to have convinced all the other villagers to sell up and move out to his development “with children in mind” of Carascoland, towards which they are currently heading in their cars en masse, despite Alfonso’s hurtling around on his bicycle warning everybody of the storm monster heading in their direction.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

September 5

Director – Tim Fehlbaum – 2024 – US, Germany – Cert. 15 – 95m

****1/2

A dramatisation of the events of September 5, 1972 when broadcast TV sports journalists found themselves covering the terrorist kidnapping of Israeli athletes in the Olympic village – out in UK cinemas on Thursday, February 6th

There have been movies about the terrorist incident at the 1972 Olympics before: the documentary One Day in September (Kevin McDonald, 1999) and the drama about its aftermath Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005). Like the latter, September 5 is a drama. What marks it out as different, however, is that it tells the story from the point of view of broadcast journalists working out of a studio.

In this respect, its feeling for capturing the processes of live US network television renders it not entirely dissimilar to recent release Saturday Night (Jason Reitman, 2024), yet in many ways, it couldn’t be more different. Saturday Night is about the birth of a legendary US comedy show; September 5 starts in an arguably similar area of entertainment (live sports coverage) before swiftly moving into the wider, more problematic area of live broadcast news coverage. The coverage of the incident around which September 5 is based forever changed the face of broadcast television media.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Schindler’s List

Director – Steven Spielberg – 1993 – US – Cert. 15 – 195m

*****

World War Two allows failed Czech industrialist Schindler to come into his own as he saves Jews from Aushwitz by employing them as slave labour in his factories– out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 18th 1994

Unsuccessful Czech businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) comes into his own during the war years as a supplier of pots and pans to the German Army. Although a badge-wearing Party member, he is neither well- nor ill-disposed towards Jews, simply an honest businessman seizing the opportunities presented by their persecution under Nazi rule. As the Jews are ghettoised in Krakow, he realises that here are investors with capital to burn for whom it is illegal to invest in business under their own names – in other words, surefire financiers; here are workers required to work all hours of the day for virtually nothing, keeping down a businessman’s cost.

He hires brilliant, ghettoised, Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to run his enterprise. Under the command of ruthless commandant Amon Goeth (an astonishing turn from an unknown Ralph Fiennes which catapaulted the actor to overnight stardom) the ghettos are cleared, and the Jews moved into Plasnow concentration camp, but Schindler continues undeterred until the transportation of inmates to the Auschwitz death camp, against which he compiles Schindler’s List of 1 100 Jews necessary to run his factory, saving them from extermination.… Read the rest

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Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies Top Ten

Top Ten Movies (and more, excluding re-releases) 2024

The Old Man and the Land

All films received either a theatrical or an online release in the UK between 01/01/24 and 31/12/24.

Prior to 2020, I’d never included online releases (well, maybe the odd one or two as a special case) but that year saw the film distribution business turned upside down by COVID-19. The movie business is still changing, and the dust hasn’t yet settled.

This version excludes re-releases (My Neighbour Totoro and Seven Samurai would top everything here). In addition to re-releases, this version also excludes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any other UK release in 2024. For that even longer list, click here.

Beyond the first 25 titles, there may be numerous errors (missing links to reviews where I wrote one, year of release, country, and maybe more). All this will be fixed in time, but I wanted to get something online in the holidays.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten Movies (and more, excluding re-releases) 2024

Please click on titles to see reviews.

The numbering will mostly be added later when I’ve watched more of the outstanding 2022 titles, and they have stopped moving around. So, currently, positions in this list should be taken with a pinch of salt (and my notes that they might need to move position up or down ignored.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2024

The Old Man and the Land

All films received either a theatrical or an online release in the UK between 01/01/24 and 31/12/24.

This version includes re-releases, but those aren’t numbered. It’s hard to imagine movies improving on Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro or Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

In addition to re-releases, this version also includes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any other UK release in 2024.

The star ratings may occasionally differ from the star rating I gave a particular film at the time of review.

Beyond the first 25 numbered titles, there may be numerous errors (missing links to reviews where I wrote one, year of release, country, and maybe more). All this will be fixed in time, but I wanted to get something online.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2024

Please click on titles to see reviews.

The numbering will mostly be added later when I’ve watched more of the outstanding 2024 titles, and they have stopped moving around. So, currently, positions in this list should be taken with a pinch of salt.

*****

My Neighbour Totoro reissue (Japan, 1988)

Seven Samurai restoration (Japan, 1954)

1. The Old Man and the Land (UK, 2023)

2. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (UK, 2024)

3.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Nosferatu
(2024)

Director – Robert Eggers – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 132m

*****

Unaware a woman has unwittingly summoned Count Orloc, her husband is sent to the latter’s castle in Transylvania – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, January 1st 2025

The German expressionist silent film Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) has been described as setting the cinematic template for the horror film. Broadly speaking, it’s an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, with names changed for the purposes either of connecting to the German audience or avoiding copyright issues. While there have been numerous Dracula movie adaptations and spin-offs over the years, remakes of the 1922 film are comparatively few and far between; prior to the current film, Werner Herzog notably made Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979).

Eggers is a great admirer of the 1922 film, and originally planned to remake it after The Witch (2015). It’s not hard to see why. His films have about them a terrible sense of dread, of dire events about to occur. Like F.W. Murnau, he is a great visual stylist (although the silent film industry of the 1920s was very different to the far more sophisticated sector of today). The film has had time to marinate in his head for the best part of a decade, which has probably done the project no harm at all.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Rumours
(2024)

Director – Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson – 2024 – Germany, Canada – Cert. 15 – 109m

****1/2

The G7 leaders meet at a summit only to find themselves trapped in the woods following an apocalyptic event – out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 6th

Every so often, the leaders of the world’s leading liberal democracies – the G7 – gather for summits to deal with the impending global crisis. On this occasion, it’s a bright, sunshiny day. Prior to getting down to business, they are toured through some local woods and shown the remains of one of the Bog People in a deep pit, their corpses perfectly preserved, apart from their bones which have disappeared, thanks to the properties of the bog land environment in which they were buried thousands of years ago. One corpse which they are shown has had his penis cut off and hung ornamentally round his neck. British PM Cardosa Dewindt (Nicky Amuka-Bird) is understandably somewhat taken aback by this.

The seven have their picture taken by the side of the pit, posing with spades. Then it’s on to the gazebo in a large clearing to sit down and discuss the matter in hand.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Rumours
(2024)

Directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson
Certificate 15
109 minutes
Released 6 December

Jesus spoke of ‘wars and rumours of wars’, and told us to give our leaders their due. He also spoke of the End of the Age. In our post-Christian 21st century, half the world supposedly runs under democracy, government by the people. Capitalism is driving corporate and individual financial greed towards burning up the planet – or at least its human population – through climate change. It does not look good.

The leaders of the G7 nations, the seven richest nations on the planet, meet regularly to try and hammer out statements to help the world deal with this impending crisis. There is a widespread feeling among their citizens that the resulting diplomatic agreements achieve nothing, and disaster inevitably looms.

Read the rest at Reform magazine.

Read my longer, alternative review for this site.

Trailer:

Categories
Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more),
excluding re-releases)
2023

Full Tiime

All films received either a theatrical or an online release in the UK between 01/01/23 and 31/12/23.

List with re-releases and festival films added in is here.

*****

1. Full Time (France, 2021)

2. Girl (UK, 2023)

3. The First Slam Dunk (Japan, 2022)

4. Junk Head (Japan, 2023)

5=. 20 Days In Mariupol (Ukraine, 2023)

5=. Beyond Utopia (US, 2023)

5=. The Blue Caftan (Morocco, 2022)

5=. Infinity Pool (Canada, Hungary, France, 2023)

9=. Past Lives (US, South Korea, 2022)

9=. Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms (China, 2023)

9=. Reality (US, 2023)

12=. Godzilla Minus One (Japan, 2023)

12=. Bobi Wine: The People’s President (UK, 2022)

12=. Smoking Causes Coughing (France, 2022)

12=. Enys Men (UK, 2022)

12=. Holy Spider (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, 2022)

12=. Blue Jean (UK, 2022)

12=. Fashion Reimagined (UK, 2022)

12=. Name Me Lawand (UK, 2022)

12=. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (US, 2023)

Tokyo Story (Japan, 1953)

12=. Ferrari (US, 2023)

—

22=. The Boy And The Heron (Japan, 2023)

22=. Killers of the Flower Moon (US, 2023)

24. How To Blow Up A Pipeline (US, 2023)

25. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning: Part One (US, 2022)

26. Klokkenluider (UK, 2022)

27.… Read the rest