Tag: husbands and wives

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Features Live Action Movies

On the Beach

Director – Stanley Kramer – 1959 – US – Cert. PG – 134m

*****

Australia is the only country yet to succumb to radiation sicknessfollowing a nuclear war – on Blu-ray from Monday, July 27th

The nuclear submarine USS Sawfish, under the command of Commander Dwight Lionel Towers (Gregory Peck), surfaces in Melbourne, Australia. Lieutenant Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) makes a bottle of milk for baby Jennifer and a cup of tea for his sleeping wife Mary (Donna Anderson from Inherit the Wind, Stanley Kramer, 1960; Count Yorga, Vampire, Bob Kelljan, 1976). He has to pick up the milk as it won’t be delivered any more. He’s on his way to see the admiral, who gives him a job on the Sawfish.

Reporting to the commander, he offers to take the latter for a drink, and winds up inviting his to stay at his home. He puts local woman Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner) in charge of him; at a party, where there’s a row between scientist Julian Osborn (Fred Astaire) and another man over who caused the nuclear war, she gets very drunk and comes on to Towers, but she falls asleep, so he puts her to bed.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Odyssey
(2026)

Director – Christopher Nolan – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 172m

**** (regular cinema version, not the 70mm IMAX print)

While Odysseus is lost presumed dead returning home from the Trojan Wars to his island Kingdom of Ithaca, his wife is confronted with multiple suitors – out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 17th

For anyone unfamiliar with the classical Greek literature source, Homer’s Odyssey is about a journey (with which meaning the word odyssey is synonymous in modern parlance). Odysseus (Matt Damon) fights for ten years (a time span unclear in the new film) in the Trojan Wars, then spends another ten getting home to his island Kingdom of Ithaca (the film is clear that he’s away a total of 20 years).

Homer doesn’t play out his narrative in linear form, but goes back and forth, for instance using flashbacks. Nolan’s screenplay uses a framing device of Odysseus’ wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) holding out against numerous suitors hoping she’ll marry one of them and make him king, remarkably similar to that other recent, inferior adaptation of (the Ithaca bits of) the Odyssey, The Return (Umberto Pasolini, 2024), except that Nolan’s instincts for casting are a lot stronger and he has a bigger crew and budget with which to play.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Evil Dead Burn

Director – Sébastien Vaniček – 2026 – New Zealand – Cert. 18 – 110m

*

A French-born widow visits her bereaved American husband’s family for his funeral, and demonic mayhem ensues – less fun than it sounds horror franchise entry is out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 10th

After her husband Will (George Pullar) is killed in a car accident, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) stays with his gathered family at their home for the funeral. She is French, and there’s a definite feeling that his family doesn’t like her very much, a situation compounded by his demise. Her late husband’s father Edgar (Errol Shand) is consumed with grief. Will’s younger brother Joseph (Hunter Doohan) and hs girlfriend Thya (Lucine Buchanon) don’t reallty know what to make of her. Her mother-in law Susan (Tandi Wright) is trapped in a desolate marriage with a man she was once passionate about. And the family’s half-senile grandmother Polly, (Maude Davie) is convinced Alice has stolen from her.

Polly’s late husband was obsessed with the Necronomicon, the fabled Book of the Dead that runs through the foundation of the Evil Dead franchise, and so it is that the family into whose proximity Alice finds herself thrust, turn, one by one, into demons.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Private Life
(Vie Privée)

Director – Rebecca Zlotowski – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 107m

****

A psychiatrist with an unusual eye problem must unravel the mystery of the recent death of one of her patients – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 26th

Parisian psychiatrist Dr. Lilian Steiner (Jodie Foster from The Mauritanian, Kevin Macdonald, 2021, The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme, 1991; Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976) is having a hard time. One of her patients Pierre is terminating his sessions after years of treatment following his visit to a hypnotist who managed to cure him of his long-standing smoking habit in one session; indeed, he may sue Dr. Lilian for non-effectiveness of treatment. Another regular Paula hasn’t turned up for her last two sessions, and Dr. Lilian is chasing the invoices.

The reason Paula hasn’t turned up, Dr. Lilian learns in a phone call from Paula’s daughter Valérie (Luana Bajrami (Luana Bajrami from Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)), is simple: Paula has just died. Valérie invites Dr. Lilian to the Shemira (basically, a Jewish wake) only for Paula’s outraged husband Simon (Matthieu Amalric from Nino, Pauline Loquès, 2025; The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson, 2014; Munich, Steven Spielberg, 2005) to tell her to get out.… Read the rest

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Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
Frida Kahlo
Special Edition
with new material from
The making of an icon

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939 © EXHIBITION ON SCREEN

Director – Ali Ray – 2020, 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 93m, 101m

*****

The tragic yet resonant life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and her transformation into a modern, cultural icon – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, May 19th

As dour piano chords play, a title announces that Frida Kahlo held only three solo exhibitions in her lifetime. This is contrasted with an auction where “one of her most complex self portraits” The Dream (The Bed) / El Sueño (La Cama) (1940) auctions for a starting price of $22m and selling for $47m. As of November 2025, this was the highest ever value for a work by a female artist achieved at an auction.

Now, in 2026, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Tate Modern, London collaborate on a major exhibition entitled Frida: the making of an icon, opening on Friday, June 19th at the Tate. Exhibition on Screen’s Special Edition of their 2020 film concludes with ten minutes of newly shot footage of that exhibition.

Frida works at a writing desk as she (voice: Diana Bermudez) reads the latter she is composing. You notice the ornate rings on her fingers, her lavish earrings, the green and yellow jungle design of her print dress as she talks about “too much pain… It will take me years to get out of this mess I have in my head.… Read the rest

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Dance Features Live Action Movies Music

The Testament
of Ann Lee

Directed by Mona Fastvold
Certificate 15
130 minutes
Released 27 February and on Disney+ from 13 May

Few films accurately chronicle a specific, historical Christian sect, fewer still do so as a musical. I knew virtually nothing about the Shakers, before seeing The Testament of Ann Lee, which is based on a true story. | found much to admire in their religion, yet I was appalled by two aspects.

Read the rest of my Reformed magazine review here.

Read my later review for this website here.

The Testament of Ann Lee is on Disney+ from Wednesday, March 13th following its release in cinemas in the UK on Friday, February 27th 2026

Teaser Trailer (Cert. 12a, which really gives no indication of some of the more extreme elements in the film):

Trailer

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Features Live Action Movies

Scare Out
(Jing Zhe wu Sheng,
惊蛰无声)

Director – Zhang Yimou – 2026 – China – Cert. 15 – 104m

***1/2

A mole in a small National Security department is narrowed down to one of two operatives… But which one of the two is it?– high tech surveillance thriller is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 20th

A National Security operation involving numerous operatives and frankly overwhelming high tech surveillance technology is tracking Nathan (Nathaniel Boyd) who is receiving a package from a contact on the street. A fast and furious attempt to catch him involving numerous officers, notably Yan Di (Jackson Yee from Resurrection, Bi Gan, 2025; The Battle at Lake Changjin, Chen Kaige, Dante Lam, Tsui Hark, 2021; Better Days, Derek Tsang, 2019) and Hwang Du (Zhu Yilong from Dongji Rescue, Fei Zhenxiang, Guan Hu, 2025; Only the River Flows, Wei Shujun, 2023; Lost in the Stars, Cui Rui, Liu Xiang, 2022), goes badly wrong when drone operator Chen Yi (Lin Bo Yang) accidentally steers her drone into an operative causing him to fall from a great height. After much frantic running, Nathan is apprehended hiding high up in the scaffolding behind an advertising hoarding.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Kaneko’s Commissary
(Kaneko Sashiireten,
金子差入店)

Director – Go Furukawa – 2025 – Japan – Cert. N/C 15+ – 125m

****

An ex-con runs a service delivering clothing, other supplies and messages from loved ones to convicted prisoners – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026 which runs from Friday, 6th February to Tuesday, 31st March

A young mum, babe in arms, takes bags for her husband to a drop-off facility / creche so she can visit him in prison. The helpful assistant informs her that the commissary will be unable to accept most of the contents of the bag – basically, any clothing other than underwear. And off she goes for a prison visit with her husband, who has anger management issues and takes out on her the fact that she failed to visit last month, telling her, “it’s easy for you to abandon me.” His unabated rating and verbal abuse eventually drives her to a primal scream before she walks out, leaving him to ask, redundantly, after she’s left, if their child has been born yet.

His visit isn’t from her but the self-announced “Kaneko from Hosoda’s Commissary”, who has a deliver from his wife; divorce papers to sign.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Oh, Canada

Director – Paul Schrader – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

From the novel by Russell Banks

***

A documentary filmmaker dying of cancer consents to a filmed interview about his life and work to air his dirty laundry – on UK and Ireland digital platforms on Monday, January 12th

“Remind me why I agreed to do this,” says the ageing Leonard Fife, aka Leo (Richard Gere, from Schrader’s earlier American Gigolo, 1980) setting up for a filmed interview, about his life and work as a documentary filmmaker, at which he has insisted his wife Emma (Uma Thurman), a former student of his, be present. His interviewer Malcolm (Michael Imperioli from Song Sung Blue, Craig Brewer, 2025; The White Lotus, TV series, Mike White, 2021; The Sopranos, TV series, 1999–2007) is another former student, as is Malcolm’s producer Diana (Victoria Hill from First Reformed, 2017; Master Gardener, 2022, both Paul Schrader), another former student conquest of Leo’s; Malcolm’s production assistant is 24-year old Sloan (Penelope Mitchell from Sting, Kiah Roache-Turner, 2024; Hellboy, Neil Marshall, 2019; The Vampire Diaries, TV series, 2014-15; Hemlock Grove, TV series, 2013).

What lies behind Leonard’s acceptance of the gig swiftly becomes clear when he hijacks the first question, framing it with a date in 1968 of great significance in his personal life.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Marty Supreme

Director – Josh Safdie – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 149m

*****

In the 1950s, a young New Yorker with the odds against him is determined to become a top table tennis player – in cinemas from Friday, December 26th

Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the 1950s. Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) has a dream. It is, admittedly, a pretty odd dream which involves him rising to the top of a sport to which no-one in his native America currently pays any attention: table tennis. Also, he is possessed of the quintessentially New York sensibility of the street smart hustler who can, he believes, sell anything to anyone. A mere 23 years of age, he is naive and optimistic, but if you think that means the hard realities of day-to-day living are about to grind him down, you’ve got another think coming. For Marty is nothing less than a force of nature, blessed with unshakeable self-belief. And he needs it, because in this seriocomic rollercoaster of a sports drama, the odds seem to be increasingly stacked against him at every turn.

On top of all this, Marty is at once the person who through shrewd manoeuvring on the one hand makes his own luck and slowly builds his own destiny, and through hubris on the other has an unfortunate tendency to shoot himself in the foot..… Read the rest