Tag: orders

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

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 28 2026
No Comments on 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

Tags 13 year old, 4K, aerodynamics, airship, apprenticeship, artist, attic room, aviation, baker, bakery, bicycle, black cat, broomstick, cabin, Cath Souci, cattle truck, children of all ages, city and provincial town, crash, crow, delivery, Eiko Kodono, fading ability, feminine intuition, flight trial, flying machine, from girlhood into adulthood, full moon, geese flying in formation, Hayao Miyazaki, IMAX, industrial component, Janeane Garofalo, Japan, Joe Hisaishi, Julia Fletcher, Kappei Yamaguchi; Matthew Lawrence, Keiko Toda; Tress MacNeille, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Kikuo Inoue, Kirsten Dunst, landscape, losing her powers, make her way in the world, miaow, Mieko Nobusawa, Minami Takayama, Minami Takiyama, motivation, near-accident, neighbour, nerd, orders, Pamela Adlon, Phil Hartman), powers of flight, propeller, railway, recovery, Rei Sakuma, rescue, responsibility, romance, sky, small business, soul mates, special skill, Studio Ghibli, stuffed cat, technology, time out, traffic, traffic cop, vertical take off, wind current, witch, Yuriko Fuchizaki

Features Live Action Movies

Top Gun:
Maverick

Director – Joseph Kosinski – 2022 – US – Cert. 12a – 131m

****

The eponymous Maverick (Tom Cruise) returns to the Navy pilot Top Gun school to train a dozen new recruits to fly an impossible bombing mission and come back alive – back out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, May 15th

Welcome back to the world of US Navy aviation where pilots all have their own self-given flying nicknames. While his contemporaries such as Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky (Val Kilmer), now an admiral in charge of the Pacific fleet, have advanced in ranks, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise) has remained a captain in order to stay on active service in the field. He’s now a test pilot and loves his job.

However, Maverick has got into trouble one too many times, most recently by disobeying orders when he went ahead with a Mojave Desert test flight on a programme which a rear admiral (Ed Harris) wanted shut down. In doing this, and proving that the plane in question can fly not just at the untried Mach 9 but also at Mach 10…10.1… 10.2… Maverick sees himself safeguarding the jobs of all those working on the programme. The Navy, however, sees it as insubordination and want him grounded.… Read the rest

Tags accident, active service, admiral, aerial warfare, Anthony Edwards, attitude, authority, aviation, bad blood, blackout, bombing mission, captain, Christopher McQuarrie, come back alive, death, disobey, Ed Harris, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singe, fleet, flight, flight school application, fly below radar, flying, G-force, Glen Powell, gung ho, insubordination, Iraq, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Joseph Kosinski, Lewis Pullman, marker, Miles Teller, miracle, mission, Mojave Desert, Navy, new recruits, nicknames, nuclear, orders, Pacific fleet, pilot, practice run, radar, redundancy, ridge, romance, SAM, school, single parent mum, sugar-coated, Surface to Air Missile, teach, test flight, test pilot, token female, Tom Cruise, Top Gun, US Navy, Val Kilmer, valley, vision of war, warfare

Features Live Action Movies

Sky Peals

Director – Moin Hussain – 2023 – UK – Cert. 12a – 91m

****

When his estranged father dies after leaving him an answering machine message, a motorway service station employee starts to question the identity of his father and, by extension, of himself – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 9th

Adam (Faraz Ayub) receives an answerphone message from his father Hassan (Jeff Mirza) who he’s not seen for years; his father hasn’t much time left, is currently near Adam’s home and wants to meet up and talk. Like the answerphone message left by her soon-to-be deceased husband for the heroine of After Love (Aleem Khan, 2020) – is a British subgenre emerging here with Muslims and bereavement? – the recording plays on Adam’s mind at his workplace, the Sky Peals motorway service station, where he does the night shift preparing burgers in the kitchen and keeps himself pretty much to himself. He complains to his superior that the system isn’t working and customers aren’t getting served their orders, but the old manager has left, and the new one doesn’t start ’til Monday. Meanwhile, people aren’t getting their orders.

The police find a dead body in a car in the service station car park.… Read the rest

Tags answering machine, answering machine message, bereavement, bridge, British, Britishness, burgers, car, car park, CCTV, Claire Rushbrook, co-worker, connect, cultural heritage, dead body, death, degraded image, disappear, dislocation, disorientation, employee, estate agent, estranged, ethnic, Faraz Ayub, father, fish-out-of-water, funeral, furniture, glitch, greeter, home, home life, house clearance, identity, indoor bridge, investigation, Islam, isolation, Jeff Mirza, kitchen, loss, manager, Moin Hussain, mosque, mothers and sons, motorway, motorway service station, move out, mundane, Muslim, Natalie Gavin, new manager, new partner, night shift, orders, Pakistani, pointless, post-industrialisation, prospective house buyers, queues, recoding, recording, relationship, relationship breakup, sell a house, selling off, Simon Nagra, single parent mum, Steve Oram, suit and tie, traditional Islamic garb, UK, uncle, vanish, white British, work social, workplace, Yorkshire

Features Live Action Movies

Onoda:
10, 000 Nights
In The Jungle
(Onoda,
10 000 Nuits
Dans La Jungle)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date April 15 2022
No Comments on Onoda:
10, 000 Nights
In The Jungle
(Onoda,
10 000 Nuits
Dans La Jungle)

Director – Arthur Harari – 2021 – France, Japan – Cert. 15 – 166m

*****

A Japanese soldier who believes his country has not yet surrendered stays on a Filipino island to fight on alone until 1973 – out on Blu-ray in the UK on Monday 16th May.

16th September 1973. A backpacking Japanese student (Ryu Morioka) on Lubang Island in the Philippines sets up his tent on the beach beside the jungle and switches on the cassette player playing a song from the 1940s. The sound drifts through the trees and can be faintly heard where an old soldier, his uniform patched by years of repair, is leaving a flower as an act of remembrance. He hears the music and moves towards it…

This frame story opens this tale and sets the stage for what is to follow. Back in Wakayama, Japan in December 1944, it’s all over for drunken youth Hiroo Onoda (Yuya Endo) whose hopes of becoming a pilot have been dashed by his fear of heights. To his aid comes Major Yoshimi Taniguchi (Issei Ogata), who explains the youth can serve his country in other ways and enrols him in the Nakano School Annex in Futumata, where the major teaches guerilla warfare.… Read the rest

Tags Angeli Bayani, armistice, Arthur Harari, backpack, beach, build, burn to death, cessation of hostilities, command, diet, dismantle, Emperor, fear of heights, following orders, France, gallstone, guerilla warfare, helicopter, Hiroo Onoda, imporvise, island, Issei Ogata, Japan, jungle, Kai Inowaki, Kanji Tsuda, livestock, Lubang Island, major, meat, military, moon landing, Mutsuo Yoshioka, orders, peasants, pilot, prisoner, radio, rain, rain season, reinforcements, Ryu Morioka, Second World War, serve, serve your country, shelter, Shinsuke Kato, skirmish, soldiers, student, subjugation, subjugation to the group, surrender, survival, tent, Tetsuya Chiba, the Philippines, tourist, training, typhoon, Wakayama, World War 2, World War II, World War Two, WW2, Yuya Endo, Yuya Matsuura