Tag: Greece

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Battle for Laikipia

Directors – Daphne Matziaraki, Peter Murimi – 2024 – US, Kenya, Greece – Cert. 12a – 94m

**

Disagreements in Kenya between indigenous, pastoralist herdsmen and white immigrant farmers come to a head during a severe drought exacerbated by climate change – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 4th

Shot mostly between 2017 and 2019 – so before the COVID pandemic – this is a brave attempt to relate two opposing and seemingly irreconcilable sides to a specific conflict.

Laikipia is a large, wildlife conservation area of Kenya, and the film was made some 60 or so years after Kenyan independence.

On the one hand, indigenous Kenyan tribesmen have been grazing their herds of goats and cattle on the land, simply wandering around and letting the animals graze at any suitable pasture they find. There is no concept of land ownership, except the unspoken idea that this is their country and this is therefore their land, which seems reasonable enough.

On the other hand, the early part of the twentieth century saw white British settlers awarded large areas of land to set up farms on the more profitable, Western capitalist business model. These people have now lived in the country and run their farms as enclosed ranches for some four generations.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Drift

Director – Anthony Chen – 2023 – Singapore, UK, France, US – Cert. 15 – 93m

****

A Liberian woman and former London student from a privileged background has lost everything and lives on her wits in a Greek holiday resort until she makes a connection with a tour guide – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 29th

A T-shirt-clad back sits on the beach, facing away from us, looking out to a calm, blue sky and sea. A figure of indeterminate gender at this point. In an isolated, unpopulated landscape. However, as this young black woman (Cynthia Erivo) starts to make her way around the place, elements of both are gradually revealed to us. She travels on a bus with white tourists to a small, sleepy town where Greek lettering on the shop signs gives us some idea of where we are. Later, she takes the return journey and is back on the beach. She washes her underwear (she appears to only have the one pair) and T-shirt in the sea, letting them dry in the sun while she shelters in a cave. She momentarily panics at the sight of a coastguard vessel before realising it’s merely a small fishing skiff.… Read the rest

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Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2023

Full Tiime

Work in progress – subject to change. Because I am still watching movies released in 2023, so it’s always possible that a new title could usurp the number one in due course. Before that, I have a lot more movies still to add / sort.

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

This version includes re-releases, but those aren’t numbered. It’s hard to imagine movies improving on Powell and Pressburger’s i know where i’m going or The Red Shoes, Powell’s Peeping Tom or Von Trier’s Melancholia.

In addition to re-releases, this version also includes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any other UK release in 2023.

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 in the holidays.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2023

Please click on titles to see reviews. (Links yet to be added.)… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Light Falls

Director – Phedon Papamichael – 2023 – Georgia, Greece, Albania, Germany – Cert. none – 90m
*****

A Greek island, a lesbian couple from L.A., migrant Albanian workers, a racist cop, and an abandoned brutalist hotel… What could possibly go wrong? – terrific thriller premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition at the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

Photographer Ella (Nini Nebieridze) and her girlfriend Clara (Elensio aka Elene Makharashvili), Georgians resident in L.A., are holidaying on a Greek island. On the same island, three Albanian youths – two brothers, the older Altin (Jurgen Marku) and the younger Eddy (Juxhin Plovishti), and their cocksure friend Veton (Silvio Goskova) – hang around in the hope of running into rich Western tourists they can fleece. Certainly, when a rich English couple drive up in a nice car and ask the where the nearest pharmacy is (the three don’t speak English), it looks like the three are going to do something awful to them. But then, the man sensibly drives off. The audience is left with a sense of dread.

The three Albanian men have just been turned away from a restaurant when the two L.A. girls enter, hang out, and learn from friendly locals where they can rent a 50cc Vesper (no licence needed).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

Director – Nia Vardalos – 2022 – US – Cert. 12a – 91m

***

The Greek-American family from Chicago visit their late patriarch’s small village in Greece to honour his final wish – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 8th

Once again written by and starring Vardalos as Toula, the daughter of the rumbunctious, Greek-American Portokalos family from Chicago, this third outing for the franchise is predictably another celebration of all things Greek, or, at least, Greek-American. The previous two films owed much to the character of Toula’s father Gus (Michael Constantine), the family patriarch insistent on all family members (a) getting married as soon as they come of age and (b) marrying Greek-Americans.

In the first film My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 2002), Toula had to bring him round to the idea of her marrying the non-Greek Ian (John Corbett). In the second film My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (Kirk Jones, 2016), Toula had become an interfering mother to teenage daughter Paris (Elena Campouris) while Gus and his wife Maria (Lainie Kazan) have another wedding celebration following the discovery that their marriage of 50 years was technically invalid.

The third instalment was to have been about Gus and the family visiting Greece to rediscover his roots.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Epic Tails
(Pattie
Et La Colère
De Poséidon)

Director – David Alaux, Eric Tosti, Jean-François Tosti – 2022 – France – Cert. U – 95m – English language dubbed version

****

The adventurous mouse Pattie and her cautious, adoptive parent cat Sam help an ageing Jason and his skeletal Argonaut crew in a voyage to save the city of Yolcos from the wrath of Poseidon – out in UK cinemas in an English language dubbed version on Friday, February 10th

In Greek myth, forever immortalised in the cinema in Jason And The Argonauts (1963, Stop-Frame Animation & FX: Ray Harryhausen), the heroic Jason brings the Golden Fleece to his home city of Yolcos which then enjoys the protection of the Zeus against the unruly antics of the rest of the Gods in Mount Olympus. This French, animated children’s film, in which the two lead characters are anthropomorphised animals and which is released in the UK in an English language dubbed version, begins in that city around half a century later when Jason has reached a ripe old age and all his faithful Argonauts have died.

All the voice credits in the following review refer to the English language voice cast. Animation is different from live action, where dubbing can generally ruin actors’ performances in films, since in animation, voices and visual are created separately then married together.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Operation Mincemeat

Director – John Madden – 2021 – UK – Cert. 12a – 127m

*****

The British WW2 deception involving a corpse and fake documents to make Germany think the Allies are landing in Greece rather than Sicily – out in cinemas on Friday, April 15th

At the height of World War II, the Allies plan a mass landing at Sicily. They want the Germans to think it’s going to happen in Greece to reduce Allied casualties. In a Whitehall Admiralty basement operates the Twenty Committee, so-called after its initials XX (or double-cross) and its work managing double or triple agents (this work of the committee isn’t really alluded to in the film although a British triple agent appears later on and plays a fairly important part in the plot, which will include some racy if subtly understated physical sexual activity). On the floors above are top brass Admiral John Godfrey (Jason Isaacs) and his assistant Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn), the latter devouring novels and constantly bashing out prose on his typewriter in every spare moment.

The office in the basement itself is run with a rod of iron by the fearsome Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton) while the Committee’s top man is Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth), a former Old Bailey lawyer whose friends believe to be in charge of naval supplies.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2021

Work in progress – subject to change. Because I am still watching movies released in 2021, so it’s always possible that a new title could usurp the number one in due course. Before that, I have a lot more movies still to add.

All films received either a theatrical or an online release in the UK between 01/01/21 and 31/12/21. 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. How 2022 and beyond will look is anyone’s guess.

This version excludes re-releases (Psycho, Paris, Texas and Pickpocket, not to mention the first six Bond movies, would top everything here). A link to that longer list will be added here in due course.

In addition to re-releases, this version also excludes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any other UK release in 2021. A link to that even longer list will be added here in due course.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten (UK theatrical + online movie releases 2021)

Please click on titles to see reviews. (Some links yet to be added.)

1. Getting Away With Murder(s) (UK)

2.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Apples
(Mila,
Μηλα)

Where are we now?

Apples
Directed by Christos Nikou
Certificate 12a, 91 minutes
Greece
Released 07 May on Curzon Home Cinema,
17th May in cinemas

A film whose time has unexpectedly come. People are suddenly losing their memories in a pandemic. A man (Aris Servetalis) nods off on a bus and, when he comes to, can’t remember where he was going, where he came from, or even his name and address. The amnesia is permanent and no one has been known to recover. As in our real life pandemic, the health service is set up to deal with the effects of all this.

The man’s pockets are checked for ID but none found. He is given a number: 18482. In hospital, he chats to the man in the next bed until one day the man has gone – having been identified and claimed by his family. Inevitably, some people remain unclaimed, as is the case for our man… [read more]

Full review in Reform magazine.

Trailer: