Tag: nerd

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Kiki’s Delivery Service
(Majo no Takkyubin,
魔女の宅急便)

Kiki’s Delivery Service (Majo no Takkyubin, 魔女の宅急便)

Director – Hayao Miyazaki – 1989 – Japan – Cert. U – 103m

*****

A young witch sets up her own small business and must learn to make her way in the world – out in a 4K remaster in regular UK and Ireland cinemas from Friday, August 28th following last week’s exclusive presentation in IMAX cinemas

Having reached the age of 13, young Kiki (voice/1989 Japanese dub: Minami Takiyama; 1998 Disney dub: Kirsten Dunst) must leave home to do a year’s apprenticeship as a witch in a location where there isn’t one already. Loaned at the insistence of her mother (voice/1989 Japanese dub: Mieko Nobusawa; 1998 Disney dub: Cath Soucie) the latter’s tried and tested broomstick, and accompanied by her talking black cat Jiji (voice/1989 Japanese dub: Rei Sakuma; 1998 Disney dub: Phil Hartman), she flies out on a night of the full moon. An encounter with a somewhat snooty witch who has just completed her year out reminds Kiki that she needs to develop her own special skill: at this stage, she has no idea as to exactly what this skill might be.

Resting overnight in an in transit railway cattle truck, she takes off again and arrives in Koriko, a bustling city much bigger than the tiny, provincial town where she grew up.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Last One for the Road
(Le Città di Pianura)

The Last One for the Road (Le Città di Pianura)

Director – Francesco Sossai – 2025 – Italy – Cert. 15 – 100m

****

Two older men travel around Italy by car, constantly stopping for “a last one for the road”, joined by a young architecture student – out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 10th

Night. Two men passed out in a car. A voiceover relates a local myth, shown to us in flashback as he describes it. On the day that Primo (Gianni Da Re) retires from the workforce, he is taken aside by officials and… presented with a gift from the company president (Roberto Citran from Conclave, Edward Berger, 2024; The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story, Peter Greenaway, 2003; Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, John Madden, 2001) who flies in by helicopter. As the latter leaves, he tells Primo the secret of life, but his words are lost in the noise of the ‘copter blades. At the back, a figure leaves.

In the car, moustache wakes up. It’s still dark. Dori (Pierpaulo Capovilla) is still out. They wake. The go for a last one for the road. Moustache, who is Carlobianchi (Sergio Romano), can’t remember what it was he was saying.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Live Action Movies

How to Train Your Dragon
(2025)

Director – Dean DeBlois – 2025 – US – Cert. PG – 125m

****

Instead of fighting dragons like other viking teenagers, Hiccup shoots a dragon out of the sky then secretly trains it as his steed– live action remake of animated classic is out in UK cinemas from Monday, June 9th

Following in the footsteps of Disney, who are slowly but surely turning their back catalogue of animated features into live action movies, Dreamworks have taken the plunge and turned the first of their three animated How To Train Your Dragon movies into live action. Director DeBlois previously directed the three animated outings, and clearly cares a great deal about the franchise because he has made a live action equivalent of the first film with the same plot, dragons that look near identical, and locations that feel like those in the original.

If you’re an admirer of the first film, which I am, as you’re watching this new one, you feel like you’ve seen it all before. Except, this is in live action. It’s enjoyable enough, and avoids the obvious trap of trying to redesign its classic animated characters for live action (the trap that Disney’s Snow White remake (Marc Webb, 2025) walked straight into with its hyperrealist dwarfs).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Ghostbusters Afterlife

Director – Jason Reitman – 2021 – US – Cert. 12a – 124m

*****

A single parent mum and her two teenage kids relocate to a small American town to find strange, paranormal goings-on – currently streaming in Ultra HD and from Monday, January 31st on BD and DVD in the UK

Hollywood loves sequels to or reboots of successful films. The original Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984), in which three parapsychologists set up as a team to capture the many ghosts that have inexplicably begun appearing in New York City, was unlike anything that had gone before with its mixture of comedy, action and the paranormal. Deservedly a huge hit, it spawned the inevitable sequel Ghostbusters II (Ivan Reitman, 1989) which didn’t have a strong enough plot to maintain interest beyond the first 20 minutes or so. The reboot Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016), recasting the parapsychologists as women, worked well enough.

Ghostbusters Afterlife, however, is another attempt at a sequel. A very brave attempt it is too, because sequels are often expected to basically rerun the original film in an attempt to serve the audience a second helping of what they enjoyed before. After seeing it, you might argue that Afterlife does that, but going in, you might wonder what on Earth is going on.… Read the rest