Tag: LFF

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Movies Animation Documentary Features Live Action Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2024

The Old Man and the Land

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2024

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.… Read the rest

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Movies Features Live Action

Rumours
(2024)

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
Movies Animation Documentary Features Live Action Top Ten

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

Full Tiime

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

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.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Animation Features

The Wild Robot

The Wild Robot

Director – Chris Sanders – 2024 – US – Cert. U – 102m

****1/2

A service robot shipwrecked on a desert island is imprinted as its mother on the mind of an orphaned gosling – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, October 18th following its screening in the London Film Festival

Waking up on an unknown beach with no idea as to how she got there, ROZZUM Unit 7134 (voice: Lupita Nyong’o) is a Universal Dynamics service robot designed to complete any task assigned to her. Without any such task, she feels completely lost. She wanders around the island, populated only by animals, in search of her owner. Unable to understand all the noises the animals make communicating with each other, she has her translation circuits decode their meaning so that, soon, she is hearing them communicate in English.

She accidentally almost destroys a family of geese but managing to rescue a goose egg. She must protect the egg from the fox (voice: Pedro Pascal) who attempts to steal it to satisfy his hunger. Her robotic rationale for this is to question whether the egg is the fox’s property, A thought process that might make sense in a human environment but makes none at all in this animal one.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Animation Features

Watership Down
(new 4K restoration)

Watership Down (new 4K restoration)

Director – Martin Rosen – 1978 – UK – Cert. PG – 92m

*****

When a young rabbit visionary foresees doom for those who remain, some of the rabbits leave their warren in search of a safer home, encountering many life-threatening perils along the way – new 4K restoration of animated feature is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 25th, following its World Premiere in the London Film Festival on Saturday, October 12th

LFF: Sat 12 Oct 12:20 World Premiere, Tues 15 Oct 12:15,
both BFI Southbank NFT1.

This opens with a mythological segment involving a powerful God, represented as the sun, and rabbitkind, specifically the archetypal rabbit El-ahrairah. It’s drawn and painted in an arresting, non-naturalistic style involving coloured lines animated against a white background to create the impression of moving, primitive drawings, due in large part to uncredited director John Hubley, whose vision for the film was at odds with that of producer Martin Rosen. The latter ended up firing the former as he wanted something grittier and less lightweight.

It’s arguable this has worked to the film’s advantage: the fable sequence works as otherworldly rabbit mythology, suggesting a race of intelligent creatures capable of constructing creation myths about their species much as human beings do.… Read the rest

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Movies Features Live Action

Blitz
(2024)

Blitz (2024)

Director – Steve McQueen – 2024 – UK, US – Cert. 12a – 120m

*****

As the Germans bomb London in WW2’s Blitz, a boy evacuated by his mother as per government instructions refuses to stay on the train and finds his way back to London – from the BFI London Film Festival 2024 which runs from Wednesday, October 9th to Sunday, October 20th in cinemas and on BFI Player and then out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 1st

(This review is a piece of writing currently in progress. Please bookmark and return to this page to see the whole review in due course.)

A five-star review (and I’m unrepentant) for a film that’s less than perfect. It gets the five stars because of the incredible things it gets right.

Blitz promises two things: one, an immersive experience of the London Blitz, and two, the mother and son story of a woman sending her son out of London in the mass child evacuation and the child’s refusal to follow the plan, complicated with the racial tension of the child’s having a black father (who is absent) and a white mother.

Writing these lines, the film’s potential problem is evident; the immersive experience is probably a movie in itself, and this side of things is brilliantly realised without the need for narrative coherence.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Animation Features

Robot Dreams

Robot Dreams

Director – Pablo Berger – 2023 – Spain – Cert. PG – 102m

*****

In need of a companion, Dog builds Robot – but then, disaster strikes – charming, dialogue-free 2D animation is out in UK cinemas Friday, 22nd March following its screenings in the 2023 London Film Festival

It originally played in the 2023 Annecy International Animation Festival.

The 1980s. Brooklyn. The East Village. Bored with endless, cook from frozen macaroni cheese meals from the fridge and channel hopping or playing both parts of computerised table tennis against himself, Dog longs for a companion. To this end, he buys a DIY self-assembly kit from which he builds Robot. For a short period, the pair are inseparable, walking and eating hot dogs together in Central Park, but then disaster strikes after Robot swims in the sea when the pair visit the beach. When it’s time to go home, his battery power is depleted, and he can’t move.

So Dog has to leave incapacitated Robot there. He buys books on robots from the local bookstore to work out how to repair his friend. Alas, on arrival at the beach, he discovers it’s closed since yesterday was the last day of the Summer season.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Features Live Action

Samsara
(2023)

Samsara (2023)

Director – Lois Patiño – 2023 – South Korea, Spain – Cert. U –113m

*****

The story of two lives – an old woman dying in Laos and a goat born in Zanzibar – and the connection between them – is out in cinemas in the UK in the new year on Friday, January 26th following its screening in the 2023 London Film Festival

You think you’ve seen everything there is to see in movies, and then along comes a movie that does something unexpected that completely breaks the mould. In the middle of this film, we are invited to close our eyes and not open them again until asked; if we follow this instruction, something extraordinary occurs.

The word Samsara is used in a number of Asian religious systems (notably Hinduism and Buddhism) to denote the idea of a constant cycle of reincarnation: you are born, you die, you are reborn in another form, you die, you are reborn in another form, an so on. This idea is contrary to that of the Judeo-Christian religions in which you are born, you die, once only, and you are judged.

What Samsara does so brilliantly is show us the first of these two systems, showing the end of one life and the beginning of another.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Animation Documentary Features Live Action Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2023

Full Tiime

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2023

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.… Read the rest

Categories
Movies Documentary Features Live Action

Anselm
(Anselm
– das Rauschen
der Zeit)

Anselm (Anselm – das Rauschen der Zeit)

Director – Wim Wenders – 2023 – Germany – Cert. PG – 93m

****

An exploration of the work of German artist Anselm Kiefer and the influences which lie behind it – 3D documentary plays the 2023 London Film Festival which runs from Wednesday, October 4th until Sunday, October 15th, and will be out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 8th

Wim Wenders seems to step effortlessly between narrative and documentary feature films, and you never feel that he considers one or the other more important. To him, they are all movies. As with his earlier Pina (2011), similarly about an artist – the choreographer Pina Bausch – this is another portrait of an artist shot in 3D. Wenders’ subject here, again eponymously designated by Christian name, is Anselm Kiefer, a practitioner of the plastic rather than the performing arts.

From the outset, it’s clear that the film needs to be seen in 3D. Wenders’ camera moves deliberately and formally around maquettes that resemble life-sized women wearing dresses, but without the women in them so that they stand as empty objects, often with strange constructions in the space where you would expect their neck and heads to be.… Read the rest