Tag: observation

Godzilla x Kong
The New Empire

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 29 March 2024
2 Comments on Godzilla x Kong
The New Empire
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Director – Adam Wingard – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 115m

*****

Godzilla must leave the surface world to team up with Kong in the subterranean Hollow Earth below to defeat a powerful enemy – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 29th

The latest movie in the Toho / Warner Bros. Godzilla / Kong Monsterverse is globetrotting in scope, with scenes of monsters wreaking havoc in Rome and Rio; its central conceit is that Godzilla roams the surface of the Earth fighting off other monsters which humanity would be unable to see off alone, while Kong, reconceived as a similar size to Godzilla, lives in the subterranean paradise of Hollow Earth.

With one beast on the outer rim of the planet and the other in a world beneath its surface, there is no possibility one will run into the other, which fight would be devastating for mankind. To make sure the two monsters remain isolated from one another, the huge Monarch organisation monitors both constantly.

Yet a terrible force is on the ascendant in Hollow Earth, one that neither Kong nor Godzilla would be able to contain let alone defeat on their own. And so, to save humanity, they must join forces and fight it.… Read the rest

Tags action, Adam Wingard, adventure, Alex Ferns, apes, Australia, Bryan Tyree Henry, cave lair, centre of the earth, CG animation, character animation, class, classroom, Coliseum, crack team, Cthulhu, culture, Daintree rainforest, Dan Stevens, dental treatment, dentist, despot, elasmosaurus, explorers, Fala Chen, fathers and sons, giant ape, globetrotting, Godzilla, helicopters, Hollow Earth, indigenous, island natives, isolation, Ivi, Japan, Kaiju, Kaylee Hottle, King Kong, Kong, man-eating plants, mayhem, military, monsters, Monsterverse, mothers and daughters, Mothra, naps, nuclear, nuclear plant, observation, podcaster, printer readouts, Queensland, radiation, Rebecca Hall, research facility, Rio de Janeiro; paradise, Rome, sea serpent, sedate, Skar King, Skull Island, special effects, subterranean, Suko, telepathy, three slashes, Titan, Toho, toothache, US, Warner Bros., waterhole

Animation Features Movies

The Inventor

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 5 March 2024
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Directors – Jim Capobianco, Pierre-Luc Granjon – 2023 – US, France, Ireland – Cert. PG – 100m

****

Towards the end of his life, inventor Leonardo da Vinci goes to live in France under the patronage of the King – stop frame / drawn animation composite is out in the UK’s Vue cinemas on Friday, March 8th

Rome, Italy, 1516. Leonardo da Vinci (voice: Stephen Fry) happily shows off a giant optical system of magnifying glasses for observing the heavens to his assistant Francesco Melzi (voice: Angelino Sandri). Francesco retorts that Leonardo ought to be worried about the Pope who has spies everywhere (and sure enough, there are eyes watching from nearby peepholes). Leonardo’s other assistant, the hulking, mute Zoroastro sources corpses for him, on which the curious Leonardo performs dissections and studies what he finds through making drawings in his quest for find the animated spirit of man, a search which, in dreams and visions, often leads him into confrontation with a mysterious, gargantuan, dark-hooded figure.

The inventor is summoned to Pope Leo X (voice: Matt Berry) who wants to know, why can’t Leonardo just make pretty things? The arrival of a messenger whose helmet is half crushed by a cannonball leads Leo to suggest Leonardo fashion him machines of war.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, Angelino Sandri, body, cannonball, capture, castle, character design Cardinal De Beatis, Charles V, city, corpse, Daisy Ridley, Daniel Swan, dissection, drawing, drawn animation, dreams, enemy, flying rigs, forces, France, Francis I, French, Gauthier Battoue, Giuliano de Medici, gravedigger, Henry VIII, hooded, human body, ideal city, Inventor, Ireland, Ireland Jim Capobianco, Italy, Jane Osborn, John Gilkey, king, Leonardo da Vinci, lion, Louise de Savoy, magnifying glasses, Marion Cotillard, Matt Berry, Max Baumgarten, Meaning Of Life, mechanical, mechanical lion, Natalie Palamides, observation, obsession, optics, painting, pastel shade, peace, peepholes, Pierre-Luc Granjon, pontiff, Pope, Pope Leo X, power, Princess Marguerite de Navarre, puppet, Queen Mother, Renaissance, Rome, royal court, spirit, spirit of man, statue, Stephen Fry, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, study, suns, The Garden Of Earthly Delights, US, visions, war, war machines, wire work

Features Live Action Movies

Enys Men

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 January 2023
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Director – Mark Jenkin – 2022 – UK – Cert. 15 – 96m

*****

A lady environmentalist working on an uninhabited island off the Cornish coast becomes subject to powerful, localised forces from the area’s past – out on UK Blu-ray/DVD combi and on BFI Player on Monday, May 8th

NB The title is pronounced “Enys Main”, the eponymous “Men” being as in “menhir”.

A radio receiver. A bird. An island. A woman in a red coat (Mary Woodvine). A flower. Jenkin seems to love the process of putting little bits of film together to make a whole that’s altogether larger than the sum of its constructed parts. If that same process was evident in his earlier, equally Cornish if less fantastical and black and white Bait (2019), his new film is radically different and, moreover, it’s in colour.

Enys Men is being touted as a horror film – presumably with Jenkin’s blessing if the trailer is any indication – but I’m not sure that’s exactly what this film is. Some horror fans may well come away wondering while they bothered, while viewers put off by the term ‘horror’ may well respond positively to Jenkin’s latest – provided they can be persuaded into the cinema to see it.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Wings Of Desire
(Der Himmel
Über Berlin)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 21 June 2022
1 Comment on Wings Of Desire
(Der Himmel
Über Berlin)
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Director – Wim Wenders – 1987 – Germany – Cert. PG – 128m

*****

Angels move around Berlin, watching over Berliners, until one of them sees a beautiful girl and decides he wants to become human and experience emotion for himself – out in cinemas on Friday, June 24th and playing on Film 4 from Wednesday, June 29th to Thursday, July 28th

This film is many things. It is, first and foremost, about angels, here captured in stunning black and white cinematography and represented as men moving invisibly among the population of Berlin, observing them, listening to their thoughts, hopes, fears and dreams, perhaps imparting some sort of spiritual comfort by a touch of the hand. And just as Henri Alekan’s camera photographs the actors playing angels, so too it photographs those Berliners they observe and comfort.

The iconic Hollywood actor Peter Falk – known to millions of TV viewers as the detective Columbo – plays himself playing a character on the set of a war film and hanging out between takes. The camera takes great pleasure in simply observing him doing what he does, for instance talking to an angel he can’t see (“I can’t see you, but I know you’re here”) which might be an attempt to communicate with invisible beings or might equally well be no more than an acting routine.… Read the rest

Tags acting routine, actors, aerial photography, American, angels, being human, Berlin, Berlin Wall, big top, black and white, cinematography, colour, Columbo, comfort, communication, contemporary music, contemporary music gigs, Crime And The City Solution, desire, document, East Berlin, experience, fears and dreams, flesh, French, Germany, gigs, half-demolished buildings, hats, Henri Alekan, historic, Hollywood, hopes, human existence, immediacy, incarnation, invisible, library, listening, mortality, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, observation, one-way trip, people, people-watching, Peter Falk, photography, physical sensation, population, spiritual, Swiss, thoughts, transcendence, trapeze artist, visual memory, wardrobe mistress, West Berlin, Wim Wenders, wings

Animation Movies Shorts

Scenes With Beans
(Babfilm)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 20 September 2021
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(Babfilm)

Director – Ottó Foky – 1976 – Hungary – 12m

*****

A metal space bird approaches the bean planet to observe various aspects of life upon it before being discovered then shot at with a missile in this remarkable stop-frame short – out on MUBI as part of the animated shorts season Fables, Folklore, Futurism: Visionary Hungarian Animations on Monday, September 20th

Framed by a story of a giant alien metal bird observing a planet from space, this is primarily an excuse to create numerous scenarios using animated kidney beans and butter beans to stand in as people in a 3D, model animated world. It’s the sort of film where you constantly marvel at the inventiveness of shooting scenes in a particular style of animation which, were they shots in a live action documentary, would simply appear banal – but in the form here presented prove completely compelling.

A crescent moon resembling nothing so much as a croissant floats past the planet. The approaching giant bird looks like it could have wandered in from the Clangers stop-frame BBC TV series (Oliver Postgate, 1969-72, 1974) except that it’s less a character like that show’s fabled Soup Dragon than a tech-equipped space opera craft with a visual recording device that has a calibrated viewfinder like a camera or a periscope.… Read the rest