Tag: London

Exhibition on Screen
James McNeill Whistler

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date September 14 2026
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James McNeill Whistler

Exhibition on Screen: James McNeill Whistler

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 90m

*****

A look at the work of 19th Century painter Whistler, seen through the lens of the 2026 Tate Britain exhibition – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, 15th September

Before watching this latest Exhibition on Screen feature, I was able to visit Tate Britain’s stunning James McNeill Whistler show, which sits very much at the film’s core. The film had the effect of making me want to go back for further visits.

It opens with shots of a Victorian concert hall interior where the unseen Whistler (voice: Bret Jones) is addressing the room with his spoken lecture on art, something the film will return to towards its close. After a montage of brushes, painting surfaces and palettes, establishing shots of Tate Britain take us straight into the current Whistler show. “People sometimes think of Whistler as being based in French art, and sometimes as being based in British art,” explains Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art 1850-1915, Tate Britain, “whereas…he was very much an independent…and very much leading the avant-garde in both those countries.”

Susan Grace Galassi, Curator Emeritas, The Frick Collection, New York, who considers Whistler one of the greatest American artists, notes that he didn’t distinguish between fine or applied art, that he was as great a painter as he was a printmaker.… Read the rest

Tags 1855, 19th century, 2026, A. O. Koritskii, America, American, American South, aristocrats, Arrangement, art, Art Critic, art historian, art history, art lessons, artisan, avant-garde, backstreets, bars, birthplace, blue Japanese porcelain, bohemian, Boston, Bret Jones, British art, brushes, butterfly, Can-Can, Carol Jacobi, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Lang Freer, Chelsea, chief engineer, Coastal Survey, coastline, coin, collection, commission, common people, concert hall, Connecticut, countryside, critic, cult of personality, curator, dancer, dandy, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, David Bickerstaff, display, disreputable, draughtsmanship, draw, drawing, drawings of coastlines, East End, England, etch, etching, everyday life, exhibition, Exhibition On Screen, F.R. Leyland, fabric, falling out, family, feud, fine and applied art, Finette, France, freedom, French art, Gustave Courbet, Harmony, Henry Murger, house brushes, independent, interior, interior design, irascible, James McNeill Whistler, Japan, Japanese, Japanese porcelain, Kensington, La Vie Boheme, lecture on art, letters, life size photographs, London, Lowell, Manet, Massachusetts, military surveyor, Mme Gérard, modern life, Modernism, money and payment, monogram, moral, motif, New York, Nocturne, one good eye, ordinary, outsider, painter, painting, painting as painting, painting surfaces and palettes, panel, Paris, Patricia de Montfort, peacock, peasants, Phil Grabsky, poet, Pomfret, porcelain, Pre-Raphaelite, printmaker, printmaking, prostitutes, provocateur, Rachel Campbell-Johnston, railway construction, railway engineer, railways, Rembrandt, responsible male, river, river bridges, river painting, River Thames, Rotherhithe, rural and urban, Russia, Salon d’Exposition, self-portrait with a pipe, self-promotion, self-publishing, shelving, ships, smoking a cigarette, Southerner, Spanish wall coverings, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg to Moscow, Stephen Calloway, sting in the tail, story, struggling artist, studies, subject, surveyor, Susan Grace Galassi, Symphony, Tate Britain, temper, Thames, The Frick Collection, The Peacock Room, UK, upbringing, urban, Velázquez, Victorian, Wapping, West Point Military Academy, Whistler, Whistler’s mother, workmen

Features Live Action Movies

De Gaulle: Resistance
(De Gaulle: Résistance)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 28 2026
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(De Gaulle: Résistance)

De Gaulle: Resistance (De Gaulle: Résistance)

Director – Antonin Baudry – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 160m
*****
Feeling betrayed by France signing an armistice with the Germans in 1940, General De Gaulle leaves for London to set up and command alternative Free French forces – first part of a two-part movie is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 28th

1940. In the brief but decisive Fall of France, De Gaulle (Simon Abkariam) – later described by a detractor as a “petty general” – overtakes a French tank column to see for himself what the Germans are doing (after an aide bringing news admits he’s not actually seen it for himself). With his military car under tank fire, De Gaulle uses his arm to signal his driver when and how to change direction so that he can accurately assess the situation before the French tanks turn up and destroy the German tank.

Days later, he is horrified to see Marshall Pétain (Alain Libolt) sign an armistice with Germany. As far as De Gaulle is concerned, Pétain and Admiral Darlan (Matthieu Kassovitz), who supports Pétain, do not speak for France. De Gaulle with the one aide prepared to accompany him leaves for London hoping to enlist the support of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Simon Russell-Beale) who gives him a nightly broadcasting slot on BBC radio and a house in Hampstead.… Read the rest

Tags 1940, 1940s, activist, Admiral Darlan, Africa, agaisnt all odds, aide, Alain Libolt, Algiers, Allies, Anamaria Vartolomei, answer the phone, anti-Semitism, Antonin Baudry, armed forces, armistice, battle, battle scene, BBC, Benoît Magimel, betrayal, Bir Hakeim, bombing raid, branding, British Prime Minister, broadcast, Cameroon, Campbell Scott, Churchill, command, Congo, cross the border, Darlan, De Gaulle, De Gaulle: Résistance, desert battle, diplomacy, driver, embassy, emblem, enlist, Fall of France, fathers and sons, fellow countrymen, fire on fellow countrymen, fix the taps, Florian Lesieur, forbidden, forces, Free French, French Colonial, General De Gaulle, General Kœnig, Germany, government, guardian, Hampstead, history, idealism, Jew, jungle, Karim Leklou, logo, London, losses, madcap plan, Marshall Pétain, Matthieu Kassovitz, military, modern history, naval rout, Navy, Nazi, negotiation, North Africa, Paris, Paris protest, Pétain, plumber, President, President Roosevelt, prime minister, principle, protest, radio, railway station, refusal to fire on fellow countrymen, Roosevelt, sailors, Second World War, siege, Siege of Bir Hakeim, Simon Abkariam, Simon Russell-Beale, skirmish, Southbound train, statesman, suicide mission, tank, tank column, uncle and aunt, uncles and nephews, under fire, US President, Vichy France, war, war movie, wild card, Winston Churchill, World War II, World War Two, WW2, youth

Animation Features Movies

The PIRATES!
In an Adventure with SCIENTISTS!

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 10 2026
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In an Adventure with SCIENTISTS!

The PIRATES! In an Adventure with SCIENTISTS!

Director: Peter Lord – 2012 – UK – Cert. PG – 87m

*****

Victorian era, stop-frame marvel about… yes… pirates, scientists and adventure – back out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 10th

This latest offering from Bristol-based Aardman Animations is a remarkable feature that pushes the art of stop-frame plasticine animation to new heights. Director Lord, creator of Morph, has been working with the medium for several decades via shorts, music videos and commercials and although the independent studio he co-founded with the David Sproxton (like Lord himself, one of the film’s producers) has made four prior features, this one is Lord’s first feature as director.

Much care has gone into the script by Gideon Defoe, an adaptation of his own book, upon which sure foundation Lord, co-director Jeff Newitt and their team’s artistry and impeccable sense of comic timing has built an impressive edifice. Like other stop frame outings, it looks more impressive still in 3D, a medium which favours shooting on miniature model animation sets.

The Pirate Captain (voice: Hugh Grant) has scant chance of wining the coveted Pirate Of The Year Award because ruthless rivals Black Bellamy (voice: Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (voice: Salma Hayek) are much more ruthless and have plundered far more booty than he.… Read the rest

Art Features Live Action Movies

The Christophers

The Christophers

Director – Steven Soderbergh – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 15 – 100m

Two siblings hire a young art restorer to forge some of their famous artist father’s unfinished paintings before he dies so they can collect on their posthumous sale – out exclusively on digital platforms from Monday, 20th July

Professional art restorer Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) runs a London fast food stall between painting restoration gigs. Then she gets a phone call and meets in a pub with Barnaby (James Corden) and Sallie (Jessica Guning), the son and daughter of ageing artist Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) who, worried that their father is about to die imminently from a medical condition, want to ensure he (for which read Lori) ‘completes’ (for which read ‘forges’) the third, unfinished series of paintings known as the Christophers after the model Julian used.

Against her better judgement, she accepts the gig, and finds herself playing the ruse of working as Julian’s assistant, basically an excuse for getting into his studio and forging the completed works on canvas as a nest egg for his children who, it later transpires, have already sold the as yet unpainted works to a buyer for a tidy sum.… Read the rest

Animation Features Movies

Princess Mononoke
(Mononoke-hime,
もののけ姫)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 2 2024
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(Mononoke-hime,
もののけ姫)

Director – Hayao Miyazaki – 1997 – Japan – Cert. PG – 134m

*****

Groundbreaking, mythological, Japanese, animated epic – plays in the Annecy International Animation Festival 2026 which runs from Sunday, 21st June to Saturday 27th June

Originally reviewed for What’s On in London when the film appeared in the Barbican’s 2001 Studio Ghibli season. It never got a proper theatrical release in the UK at the time. The review presents a fascinating snapshot of the cinema landscape in the UK from the time when, outside of anime fandom, film journalists, and industry insiders, Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki were largely unknown.

Film critics are occasionally privileged to see incredible films that, for one reason or another, never receive proper UK release. The Barbican is currently hosting a season of 11 films by Japan’s legendary Studio Ghibli (Jib-Lee), an animation company as familiar in Japan as Disney is here, that fall into exactly this category. They include Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki’s legendary masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro (1988) and his imaginative fantasy epic Princess Mononoke (1997). Both took the Japanese box office by storm, the latter topping $150m putting it second only to Titanic (James Cameron, 1997). Miyazaki’s latest Spirited Away (2001) has topped the Japanese box office for weeks.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, animation, anime, Annecy, Annecy 2026, Barbican, boar, combat, countryside, creature, deforestation, demon, Disney, fourteenth century, Hayao Miyazaki, industrialist, infected, Japan, London, monster, myth, plaigiarism, prince, princess, riding, Stravinsky, Studio Ghibli, UK, wolf, woodlands, worms

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Ada
My Mother the Architect

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date May 1 2026
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My Mother the Architect

Ada My Mother the Architect

Director – Yael Melamede – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 81m

***1/2

A portrait by her New York-based daughter of top Israeli architect Ada Karmi Melamede – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 1st

This opens with the filmmaker daughter asking her architect mother if she wants to speak English or Hebrew. The mother is happy to speak both. For the titles, we watch her hands drawing / designing buildings on white paper as we hear various one-liners about her qualities as an architect.

Daughter Yael lists “ a few things you should know about my mother.” Ada Karmi Melamede is eighty and goes to the office every day. She is one of a family of architects who built Israel from the ground up. She left Israel twice, once to study in London and once to spend time in New York, where Yael and her family grew up. She returned to Tel Aviv in 1983 and her career took off: she has been working ever since. The Israel Supreme Court. Airports. Universities.

Architecture seems to be her model for discussing the world. She talks about the importance of roots in buildings, decrying glass towers that have no roots, of which she clearly thinks there are too many.… Read the rest

Tags “a country being formed”, 1960s New York City, academic, Ada – My Mother the Architect, Ada Karmi Melamede, air conditioning, airport, apartment blocks, archaeology, architect, architectural drawings, architecture, back to Israel, bereavement, buildings, Chang’e, cultural aspirations, curved lines, democracy, designing, designing buildings, dictatorship, Doug Suisman, drawing, elevation, English, Frank Gehry, freehand, fulfilment, glass and transparency, guiding principles, Hebrew, idealism, intensity of light in Israel, Israel, Israel Supreme Court, Jerusalem, Kenneth Frampton, legashim, light, London, memory, mothers and daughters, move a window around, Neot Hovav Museum and City Council, New York, NYU Columbia, office, parents and children, Paul Goldberger, pencil, pencil and computer, pencil and paper, pencil line, portrait, Roman wall, Rome, roots, routes, Supreme Court Building, teaching, Tel Aviv, tenure, the Pantheon, time, under construction, university, Western Wall Heritage Foundation, words, Yael Melamede, Zoom call

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Orwell: 2+2=5

Orwell: 2+2=5

Director – Raoul Peck – 2025 – UK – Cert. 15 – 119m

****1/2

A primer on the life and work of George Orwell, particularly Nineteen Eighty-Four, and its relevance to today’s post-truth world – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 27th

This belongs to the school of documentary which creates a film out of assembling fragments of movies, found footage, archive clips and images, moving or still. The list of feature films and other source material used in this instance is astonishing, with the director given full access to the Orwell Estate. Peck also makes use of clips from various movie adaptations of Nineteen Eighty-Four (Paul Nickell, 1953; Rudolph Cartier, 1954; Michael Anderson, 1956, Michael Radford, 1984) plus Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985), a film so heavily inspired by Orwell’s book that it was originally entitled 1984½, and Animal Farm (John Halas, Joy Batchelor, cartoon animated feature, 1954; John Stephenson, Jim Henson Creature Shop, 1999; illustrations by Ralph Steadman, 1995). On top of this, he uses BBC Drama The Crystal Spirit: Orwell on Jura (John Glenister, script: Alan Plater, 1983) and Orwell’s essay Why I Write (1946).

These last two are particularly pertinent, given that Peck has chosen to focus on the final year (1949-50) of Orwell’s life during which he took himself off to the Island of Jura, Scotland to finish writing Nineteen Eighty-Four and was subsequently admitted to University College Hospital, London with Tuberculosis.… Read the rest

Tags alter reality, Animal Farm, archive, atrocities, bad conscience, Berlin, book-burning, books banned, Burma, Chile, Damian Lewis, dictatorships, Eric Arthur Blair, found footage, four fingers, Freedom is Slavery, Gaza, George Orwell, Germany, governments, health issues, Ignorance is Strength, imperialism, Indian Imperial Police, Israel, Jura, lies and truth, London, machinery of despotism, manipulate, marching geese, Mariupol, military parades, Myanmar, Nazi Germany, Netenyahu, Newspeak, Nineteen Eighty-Four, ordinary lying, Orwell, Orwell Estate, Orwell: 2+2=5, Outpost of Empire, political language, political predilection, post-truth, POUM, propaganda footage, Putin, Raoul Peck, Ronald Pickup, Russia, Scotland, slogans, Spanish Civil War, storming the White House, the Party, totalitarian states, Trump, tuberculosis, Ukraine, University College Hospital, US, war effort, War is Peace

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Underland

Underland

Director – Rob Petit – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 12a – 79m

***

Three separate journeys beneath the Earth’s surface in the company of an archaeologist, a particle physicist and an urban explorer – had its sold out UK Premiere at the Barbican on Tuesday, March 24th and is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 27th

Why do we seek the void, asks a narrator (Sandra Hüller from Project Hail Mary, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, 2026; The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer, 2023; Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet, 2023) as the camera descends into an Academy 4:3 image of an orifice within an ash tree, a portal to the world below. In a letterboxed image, we’re in a car passing the garish lists of Las Vegas entertainments, then on to breach a wire fence on the outskirts of that city. Then with a group of women cavers in a jungle, possibly South America somewhere, near a tree on the edge of a vast hole in the ground. Another group of cavers stand around in a room in readiness. A further caver walks down an urban street and starts to lift a manhole cover.… Read the rest

Tags abandoned, archaeologist, atom bomb, beam of light, beneath the Earth’s surface, bomb shelter, boundaries, Bradley Garrett, broken fridge, burial, cave, chamber, charcoal, city, civilization, concrete, cow falling, dark matter, darkness, deep, deep mine, drainage, drains, earlier generations, Earth, entrance to the Underworld, experiment, exploration, Fátima Tec Pool, feeling of freedom, firelight, flash flood, frustration, future generations, hands on walls, Hannah Peel, hole by the tree, human beings, impression, interference, journey, Las Vegas, life form, light beam, London, low oxygen, man-made, manhole cover, map, Mariangela Lisanti. Canada, Mexico, mine, mining cage, narrow passages, narrow space, networks of caves, nuclear waste, odours, plunder, poverty below ground, radiation, rain, recurring dream, research facility, Rob Petit, rubbish, search, seek the void, sensitive experiment, sewage, skyscrapers, smell, SNOLAB, species, stalk, storage, storm drain, storm drains, technology, the living and the dead, theoretical particle physicist, touch the shadows, toxic waste, trapped, trash, tunnel, two kilometres down, UK, underground, underground exploration, Underland, underworld, unknown, Uranium, urban explorer, urban explorers, US, veins pumping, warning signs, wealth, writer, Yucatán Peninsular

Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
Turner & Constable

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date March 9 2026
No Comments on Exhibition on Screen
Turner & Constable

Exhibition on Screen: Turner & Constable

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 93m

****

A journey through the current Tate Britain show and art history about the two rival landscape painters – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, March 10th

This latest Exhibition on Screen entry kicks off in uncharacteristic fashion with photographic shots of landscape (typical of views that used by painters Turner and Constable) accompanied by an excerpt from the poem Richmond by James Thomson (1834-1882), a favourite of both painters whose work will be similarly deployed (voiced by Robert Lindsay) at appropriate intervals throughout this documentary.

However, the film soon moves into more familiar territory with shots of present day London and of the Tate Britain’s current Turner & Constable exhibition, with visitors admiring some of the paintings on display. Amy Concannon, Manton Senior Curator, Historic British Art, Tate Britain, notes that this show represents the first time the two painters have been displays side by side on such a vast scale. Turner & Constable were born within a year of one another, which became a catalyst for the current show’s displaying them together.

Artist, writer and broadcaster Lachlan Goudie talks about the “dazzling” influence of both artists on the likes of Delacroix.… Read the rest

Tags 1768, 1802, 1806, 1815, 1819, 1820s, 1832, Alps, Amy Concannon, art, art exhibition, art historian, artist, artists’ sketchbook, bought and sold, British artist, British national consciousness, broadcaster, brushstroke, business, canal, castle, child prodigy, Claude Lorrain, commerce, Constable, Constable clouds, country, country boy, countryside, Covent Garden, critical attention, Curator of British Art 1790-1850, David Bickerstaff, declaration of peace, Delacroix. Nicola Moorby, drawing, East Anglia, Exhibition On Screen, fields and skies, France and England, French Revolution, grain exportation, grand scenery, hairdressing, hanging committee, Historic British Art, Impressionism, Industrial Revolution, inflections of light, Italy, James Thomson, Lachlan Goudie, landscape, landscape painting, light and shade, llandscape, lock gate, London, make money, Manton Senior Curator, milling, mountains, Napoleonic Wars, national consciousness, National Gallery, notes would enable him to construct artist’s studio, observer, oil painting, open fields, paint, painter, painting, painting in the studio, painting outdoors, plein air, political system, print shop, pub, RA, RA member, radical, railway engine, red light district, representation of light, Richard Johns, rival landscape painters, rivalry, River Stour, Robert Lindsay, Royal Academy, rural, science and technology, shop window, shop window display, sketchbook, social injustice, Somerset House, Suffolk, Tate Britain, the Lake District, the Louvre, theatre, tourist locations, travel, travel restriction, treaty, Turner, Turner & Constable, Turner’s sunsets, UK, University of York, upheaval, upward mobility, urban, urban type, viaduct, visual, visual research, Wales, war and peace, watercolour, well-heeled, wig-making, writer, yellow, yellow paint

Features Live Action Movies

All of Us Strangers

All of Us Strangers

Director – Andrew Haigh – 2023 – UK – Cert. 15 – 105m

*****

A gay Londoner travels by train to visit his parents in Sanderstead, following their deaths in a car crash when he was 12 years old – plays one night only, Sunday, February 8th, 6.45pm, as part of Film Tottenham

He (Andrew Scott) lives alone in a London tower block. Not only is he the single occupant of his flat, there’s almost no-one else in the building. When he goes outside for a breath of fresh air, he sees a guy in the window of one of the other apartments. Later, there’s a knock at his door. It’s the guy (Paul Mescal), who is slightly drunk, comes on strong and tries to get himself invited in. The visitor’s name is Harry. The occupant introduces himself as Adam, but doesn’t let Harry in.

By day, Adam writes screenplays. But he’s got stuck, so after perusing some personal effects, he takes the train to Sanderstead. There, he watches a boy in a window. He follows a man across an area of parkland. Coming out of a shop, the man spots him and asks him to come over.… Read the rest