Tag: Miriam Margolyes

Holy Days

Director – Nat Boltt – 2026 – New Zealand, Canada – Cert. 12a – 101m

***1/2

Three ageing nuns must save their ramshackle convent from property developers and help a local Maori boy come to terms with his mum’s death and his dad’s new partner – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, Aug 14th

In a wondrously tacky stop-frame parody, giant-sized Brian rides his giant-sized bicycle through the village (cut to live action Brian played by Elijah Tomati) to explain to Sister Agnes (Judy Davis) at the door of his destination building that he’s committed blasphemery. It turns out his exact words were, “Jesus Jumping Christ”. Taking it good humouredly in her stride, she tells him to come in. And, as a penance, assigns him to clean all the upstairs floors.

As a title informs us, it’s New Zealand. 1974.

Upstairs, Sister Mary Clare (Jacki Weaver) explains that the reason for all the baby photos is that the nuns used to take them in. And shows him, thorough the window, Sister Luke’s garden. Which has seen better days. Brian says his mum loved it here. The feeling was reciprocal, apparently. Nun and boy turn floor polishing chores into improvised sports exercise gliding along the floor.… Read the rest

Tags 1974, 30 mph, afterlife, animation, apology, baby photos, beach, Bible, bicycle, bike, bishop, blasphemery. penance, blasphemy, bribe, bribery, broth, Canada, care home, ceiling plaster, chores, Chris Reddington, Christian, church, cigarette, clean the floor, convent, dancing, dashboard, dementia, dentures, developer, do a runner, done up, driving, Elijah Tomati, false teeth, ferry, flashback, fruit cake, garden, grand opening, grave, Heaven, Holy Days, Jesus, John Bach, Jonny Brugh, Joy Cowley, landscape, luggage, Maori, mean driver, memory, Miriam Margolyes, mothers and sons, mountain, Nat Boltt, New Zealand, partner, peace, Plum Duff Pudding, property, reconciliation, revelation, role model, security of tenure, smoking, snow, snow globe, South Island, spirit, stepmother, stepmothers and sons, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, surrogate mother, Tanea Heke, title deeds, traffic cop, Ty Jepsen, udy Davis, village, Winter

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Marbles

Director – David Nicholas Wilkinson – 2025 – UK – Cert. 12a – 114m
****

The Parthenon Marbles – were they stolen from Greece, and should they be sent back? – Opening Night Film (World Premiere) Central Scotland Documentary Festival in Stirling, Scotland on Thursday, October 30th; out in UK cinemas on Thursday, November 6th.

This starts with director Wilkinson, who previously made the excellent Getting Away With Murder(s) (2021), writing a letter to the Head of the British Museum asking him for an interview outlining the Museum’s position on the Parthenon Marbles. He never receives a reply.

The historical and legal background is helpfully unpacked by Alexander Herman, a historian and legal expert who has written and spoken widely on the Marbles controversy, and Mark Stephens, the UK’s foremost Art & Cultural Property lawyer.

The eponymous Marbles were Ancient Greek statues and artefacts removed from the Acropolis in Athens by Lord Elgin in the early part of the 19th Century and brought over to England to adorn his newly built stately home in Scotland. In 1816, following a Parliamentary debate on the matter, they were purchased from Elgin by the British Museum where they have resided ever since, on display to the public.… Read the rest

Tags 19th century, abroad, Acropolis, Alexander Herman, ambassador, Ancient Greece, annual protest, art, Art & Cultural Property law, artefact, Athens, Battle of Wounded Knee, BCRPM, beard, Brian Cox, British Committee for the Repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles, China, COVID, COVID lockdown, cultural artefact theft, culture, David Nicholas Wilkinson, dig, document, documentary, Dominic Selwood, draw, Elgin Marbles, Elgin’s priest, England, face masks, Firmin, fly, foreign, ghost dance shirt, Glasgow, Greece, historian, history, Italian copy, Janet Suzman, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, killing of British envoys, Lakota, law, legal basis, legal expert, loot, Lord Byron, Lord Elgin, make casts of, Mark Stephens, Miriam Margolyes, museum, Native American, no beard, numerical order, of which Greece was then a part, on display, Ottoman archives, Ottoman Empire, palace, Parliamentary debate, Parthenon Marbles, Paul McGann, place of origin, plunder, purchased by the British Museum, ransacked, reference numbers, removed, repatriation of stolen artefacts, repatriation of stolen cultural artefacts, revenge, Scotland, scrupulous, secured access, Stage Four Bowel Cancer, stately home, statue, stolen, stolen goods, terminal, The Marbles, The Marbles controversy, time, travel, UK, voice artist, Yuanmingyuan

Features Live Action Movies

Babe

Director – Chris Noonan – 1995 – Australia – Cert. PG (2025), U (1995) – 92m

The story of a sheep that thinks it’s a dog – back in cinemas 30 years later on Friday, April 11th 2025, with a higher BBFC classification rating. The below is my review from What’s On in London in 1995, where I badgered my editor to make it the Film of the Week.

The very different worlds of Gloucestershire-born children’s author Dick King-Smith and Australian production company Kennedy Miller (Mad Max, George Miller, 1979; The Year My Voice Broke, John Duigan, 1987; Dead Calm, Phillip Noyce, 1989) might appear to have little in common. Then along comes Babe, a Kennedy-Miller adaptation of King-Smith’s hilarious fable The Sheep-Pig in which Farmer Hogget’s sole piglet Babe decides to become a sheepdog. Although the book is a very fine (and highly recommended) example of the children’s book, it’s hardly groundbreaking – we’ve read tales about talking animals before. For that matter, too, we’ve seen films with talking animals before – many of the better ones made by Disney.

What we haven’t seen before is this conceit pulled off flawlessly in live action.… Read the rest