Tag: plunder

The PIRATES!
In an Adventure with SCIENTISTS!

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 10 2026
No Comments on The PIRATES!
In an Adventure with SCIENTISTS!

Director: Peter Lord – 2012 – UK – Cert. PG – 87m

*****

Victorian era, stop-frame marvel about… yes… pirates, scientists and adventure – back out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 10th

This latest offering from Bristol-based Aardman Animations is a remarkable feature that pushes the art of stop-frame plasticine animation to new heights. Director Lord, creator of Morph, has been working with the medium for several decades via shorts, music videos and commercials and although the independent studio he co-founded with the David Sproxton (like Lord himself, one of the film’s producers) has made four prior features, this one is Lord’s first feature as director.

Much care has gone into the script by Gideon Defoe, an adaptation of his own book, upon which sure foundation Lord, co-director Jeff Newitt and their team’s artistry and impeccable sense of comic timing has built an impressive edifice. Like other stop frame outings, it looks more impressive still in 3D, a medium which favours shooting on miniature model animation sets.

The Pirate Captain (voice: Hugh Grant) has scant chance of wining the coveted Pirate Of The Year Award because ruthless rivals Black Bellamy (voice: Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (voice: Salma Hayek) are much more ruthless and have plundered far more booty than he.… Read the rest

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Underland

Director – Rob Petit – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 12a – 79m

***

Three separate journeys beneath the Earth’s surface in the company of an archaeologist, a particle physicist and an urban explorer – had its sold out UK Premiere at the Barbican on Tuesday, March 24th and is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 27th

Why do we seek the void, asks a narrator (Sandra Hüller from Project Hail Mary, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, 2026; The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer, 2023; Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet, 2023) as the camera descends into an Academy 4:3 image of an orifice within an ash tree, a portal to the world below. In a letterboxed image, we’re in a car passing the garish lists of Las Vegas entertainments, then on to breach a wire fence on the outskirts of that city. Then with a group of women cavers in a jungle, possibly South America somewhere, near a tree on the edge of a vast hole in the ground. Another group of cavers stand around in a room in readiness. A further caver walks down an urban street and starts to lift a manhole cover.

In terms of following what’s going on, apart from the idea of people in different places possessed of a desire to penetrate the Earth’s surface, and exciting, pulsating music by Hannah Peel, all this is really hard to follow; the viewer’s brain is overloaded.… Read the rest

Tags abandoned, archaeologist, atom bomb, beam of light, beneath the Earth’s surface, bomb shelter, boundaries, Bradley Garrett, broken fridge, burial, cave, chamber, charcoal, city, civilization, concrete, cow falling, dark matter, darkness, deep, deep mine, drainage, drains, earlier generations, Earth, entrance to the Underworld, experiment, exploration, Fátima Tec Pool, feeling of freedom, firelight, flash flood, frustration, future generations, hands on walls, Hannah Peel, hole by the tree, human beings, impression, interference, journey, Las Vegas, life form, light beam, London, low oxygen, man-made, manhole cover, map, Mariangela Lisanti. Canada, Mexico, mine, mining cage, narrow passages, narrow space, networks of caves, nuclear waste, odours, plunder, poverty below ground, radiation, rain, recurring dream, research facility, Rob Petit, rubbish, search, seek the void, sensitive experiment, sewage, skyscrapers, smell, SNOLAB, species, stalk, storage, storm drain, storm drains, technology, the living and the dead, theoretical particle physicist, touch the shadows, toxic waste, trapped, trash, tunnel, two kilometres down, UK, underground, underground exploration, Underland, underworld, unknown, Uranium, urban explorer, urban explorers, US, veins pumping, warning signs, wealth, writer, Yucatán Peninsular

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