meditative Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Jon Favreau – 2026 – US – Cert. 12A – 132m

****

The mercenary Mandalorian and his infant charge, the Yoda-like Grogu, must rescue the young Rotta the Hutt who has been kidnapped by gangsters – out in UK IMAX cinemas on Friday, May 22nd

The character of the MandalorIan resembles a bounty hunter from the early Star Wars films but is, in fact, a Mandalorian warrior sworn not to remove his mask. And he has an apprentice Grogu, who is to all intents and purposes a baby version of Yoda, the character who first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, although Grogu isn’t actually Yoda, but a different character of a later generation. For those completely new to Star Wars, Yoda was both a Jedi Master skilled in harnessing the Force and a diminutive, otherworldly creature performed by a puppeteer. Audiences immediately warmed to him. Unlike Yoda, Grogu is too young to talk (although he does make suspiciously verbal sounding utterances from time to time) and you might think he would be unbearably cute and make the film difficult to watch. But he isn’t, not at all.

When franchise creator George Lucas still owned Lucasfilm, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, George Lucas, 1999 introduced the irritating, kiddie-oriented character of Jar Jar Binks, widely regarded as an error of judgement. … Read the rest

Away

Director – Gints Zilbalodis – 2019 – Latvia – Cert. U – 75m
****1/2
From the director of Oscar winner Flow (2024), his debut animated feature Away is exclusively back in cinemas from Friday, March 14th

It originally played in the 2019 Annecy International Animation Festival.

A boy hangs from a tree by a parachute in a wilderness. He wakes. A strange, towering black / grey figure approaches, shining as if metallic or viscous like a solidified, smooth, crude oil or tar. It picks him up. He is in a dark tunnel, light at one end. He goes the other way, is out of the giant’s clutches, runs. It slowly turns and lumbers after him. There are occasional, giant, semicircular hoops in his path. He goes through them, eventually entering a grotto, through which fully circular hoop the giant can’t follow. Welcome to the strange, dreamlike world of Away.

Beyond an abandoned motorbike, in the middle of the grotto, is a lake bordered with orange trees and the ocean. The boy feeds, bathes and makes the acquaintance of a shy, little yellow bird. Finding a key and a map in a rucksack, the boy learns that the semicircular hoops mark a route to a harbour.… Read the rest