middle-aged woman Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Tad and the Magic Lamp
(Tadeo Jones
y la Lámpara Maravillosa)

Tad and the Magic Lamp
(Tadeo Jones y la Lámpara Maravillosa)

Director – Enrique Gato – 2026 – Spain – Cert. U – 94m

***1/2

In search of Aladdin’s lamp with a powerful villain in hot pursuit, Tad and his companions are transported back in time to (the) Mummy’s ancient, South American civilization – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 23rd

Gato’s fourth instalment of the Tad the Lost Explorer franchise starts off in London with Tad pursuing a baby through the clockwork mechanisms of Big Ben, a sequence which recalls the climactic sequence of Disney’s Basil, the Great Mouse Detective (Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, Dave Michener, Juhn Musker, 1986). It turns out that the baby is his and partner Sara’s, and that Tad is engaged in parenting chores while she is out and about with the Egyptian princess researching the magic lamp reputed to belong to Aladdin and rumoured to be in a room in Buckingham Palace unbeknownst to its royal occupants and accessible via a secret passage.

Entry to the secret passage is though a secret door in a pub, which can only be opened with a special dart which Sara tracks down in a Notting Hill antique shop.… Read the rest

The Lab

Director – Izzy Livesey – 2024 – UK – Cert. U – 3m

****1/2

In her secluded laboratory, an obsessive woman scientist develops a powerful serum which leads to unexpected consequences – animated short accompanies the reissue of Away, back in UK cinemas from Friday, March 14th

This plays around with that old horror movie trope, the mad scientist, making that figure into a middle-aged woman in a white lab coat. The pleasures to be had here come not so much from what happens – although the twist at the end, when you see it, is likely to surprise you – as they do in the expression of its happening. What impresses are the designs of the characters (both of them!), the look of the sets, the use of lighting to create atmosphere, and – once you get into the area of kinetics, the fact that this is a moving picture – the choreography and flow of the piece. (I use the world flow deliberately, since it perfectly describes Gint Zalbalodis’ two, wordless animated features to date. The current, animated short accompanies the reissue this week of the first of those, Away (2019). Zalbalodis’ second feature is the deservedly Oscar-winning Flow (2024), out in cinemas here next week on Friday, March 21st.)… Read the rest