Tag: skull

Rogue Trooper

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 29 June 2026
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Director – Duncan Jones – 2026 – UK – Cert. 15 tbc – 90 m

*****

In the ongoing war between the North and the South, a small elite fighting unit is dropped onto the planet to clear the way for advancing forces – premieres in the Annecy International Animation Festival 2026 which runs from Sunday, 21st June to Saturday 27th June

To the uninitiated, Rogue Trooper was one of the staple strips of groundbreaking British comic 2000 A.D. I mention this because to a critic coming in cold to the script, where main characters are confusingly named as numbers like 19 or 27, it’s a near-impossible film to synopsise.

Which is not to say that there isn’t a plot – there most definitely is one – more that it’s difficult to sort out what’s going on from the get-go. Although this is essentially science-fiction, it may also represent one of the strongest, on-the-ground portrayals of the fog of war the cinema has given us, with much of the battlefield action quite literally shrouded in a permanent haze of smoke from gunfire and explosions.

In addition, wider shots of views of the planet deliver impressive vistas which hark back to background painting effects in movies Forbidden Planet (Fred M.… Read the rest

Tags 19, 2000 A.D., 27, Adrian Edmonson, advancing forces, Al Murray, Alice Lowe, Aneurin Barnard, Annecy, Annecy 2026, Annecy International Animation Festival 2026, Asa Butterfield, backpack, battlefield operative, blue-skinned, British comic, calping, cavenger, chip, comic book, Daryl McCormack, Diane Morgan, Duncan Jones, explosions, fallen comrade, genetically modified, grisly, gun, gunfire, Hayley Atwell, haze of smoke, helmet, Henning Wehn, implant, Jack Lowden, Jermaine Clement, kick-ass heroine, Matt Berry, memory, memory chip, MoCap, mocap face, mothership, motion capture, North and South, planet, pods, pretty bloody, proprietary software programme, receptacle, Reece Shearsmith, Rogue Trooper, sci-fi, science fiction, Scots accent, Sean Bean, SF, skull, special effects, the fog of war, tiny crack squad, top brass, traitor, transplant, UK, Unreal Engine 5, Venus Bluegrass, violence, voice, war, Welsh accent, window of time

Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
Frida Kahlo
Special Edition
with new material from
The making of an icon

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 19 May 2026
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Frida Kahlo
Special Edition
with new material from
The making of an icon
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Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939 © EXHIBITION ON SCREEN

Director – Ali Ray – 2020, 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 93m, 101m

*****

The tragic yet resonant life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and her transformation into a modern, cultural icon – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, May 19th

As dour piano chords play, a title announces that Frida Kahlo held only three solo exhibitions in her lifetime. This is contrasted with an auction where “one of her most complex self portraits” The Dream (The Bed) / El Sueño (La Cama) (1940) auctions for a starting price of $22m and selling for $47m. As of November 2025, this was the highest ever value for a work by a female artist achieved at an auction.

Now, in 2026, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Tate Modern, London collaborate on a major exhibition entitled Frida: the making of an icon, opening on Friday, June 19th at the Tate. Exhibition on Screen’s Special Edition of their 2020 film concludes with ten minutes of newly shot footage of that exhibition.

Frida works at a writing desk as she (voice: Diana Bermudez) reads the latter she is composing. You notice the ornate rings on her fingers, her lavish earrings, the green and yellow jungle design of her print dress as she talks about “too much pain… It will take me years to get out of this mess I have in my head.… Read the rest

Tags 1910 Mexican Revolution, a German immigrant, abortion, activist, advertising, affair, Alfredo Vichis Roque, Ali Ray, Amelia Mesa-Bains, androgynous, animals, Anna Chancellor, anti-birth, anti-colonial, architect, art, art exhibition, artist, Astrid Hadad, athletics, attention-seeking, auction, bedridden, biographer, biographies, bisexual, bleeding, bleeding womb, blood, blood vessel, bone treatment, boyfriend, braid of flowers, brand, Brandels University, brown-skinned heroine, buried, bus accident, Carlos Phillips Olmedo, Carmen Lomas Garza, Casa Azul, Catherine Wood, Catholic, celeb, censorship, Chicano, Christian, Christian symbolism, civil rights, civil war, clothes, colonialism, colour photographer, Communist Party, communities, confined, consumer culture, corpse, counterculture, cracked landscape, Cristina Kahlo, curator, day and night, defiant, defiant gaze, desolation, Detroit, Diana Bermudez, dictatorship, Diego Rivera, Diego Riviera, disability, divorce, divorce proceedings, doctor, doctor’s orders, dog, dog deity, Dolores Olmedo Museum, earring of a hand, earrings, exhibition, Exhibition On Screen, faith journey, fathers and daughters, female body, fingerprint, folk culture, fractured spine, Frida Kahlo, Frida Kahlo Museum, Frida: the making of an icon, Gabriel Porras, gallery, Gannit Ankori, gay identity, gender fluidity, global brand, global food supply, green, group show, Hayden Herrara, Hilda Trujillo, Hindu, Hindu symbolism, historian, hope, hospital visits, housebound, Houston, husbands and wives, hybridisation of plants, iconicity, identity, injury, Interim Director, Juan O’Gorman, Las Cachuchas, Latin American Art, Le Corbusier, left-wing, letter, library, London exhibition, love affairs, Luther Burbank, Madonna and child, male and female, man plant, manifesto, Mari Carmen Ramirez, marriage, Mary McCartney, matriarchy, medical bills, medical training, menagerie, Mexican art, Mexican Woman, Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico City’s National Preparatory School, miscarriage, mixed race, mothers and daughters, mouth, Munchausen syndrome, mural, Muralism, museum, Museum of Fine Arts, myth, nails, naive painting, necklace of thorns, new government, new social movement, New York, newspaper article, Nickolas Muray, nun, opening night, opposites, ornate rings, orthopaedic brace, pain, painting, Paris, philosopher, Polio, politics, portrait, posing for photographs, pre-Hispanic art, pregnancy, Professor of Art History, prostitute, public buildings, religious paintings, Renaissance, retablos, retablos artist, revolution, revolutionary, roots, rules, Rupert Garcia, San Francisco, sartorial identity, schooling, scientist, self-portrait, sexual violence against women, sisters, skull, solo exhibition, Spain, Spanish / Indian descent, Spanish colonialism, spider-monkey, stabbed to death, still life, student movement, studio, sun and moon, surgery, surgical scissors, Surrealism, Tate External Curator, Tate Modern, Texas, the Blue House, The Human Condition, three quarter portraits, Tijuana, Tobias Ostrander, torso, tourist boats, Tracey Emin, trauma, UK, umbilical chord, underworld, US, vaginal blood, Warhol, Warholesque silkscreen print, wealth, women artists, work from photographs, workers' rights, writer, writing desk, Xolotl, Yasumasa Morimura, yin and yang

Animation Features Live Action Movies

Beetlejuice

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 4 September 2024
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Director – Tim Burton – 1988 – US – Cert. 15 – 92m

***1/2

A recently deceased couple hire a bio-exorcist to rid their former house of its new, yuppie occupants – review originally published in Samhain, 1988

Whilst its opening shot recalls the aerial opening of The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) segueying into that of The Witches Of Eastwick (George Miller, 1987), this film has been described as a reworking of Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984) and The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) (!) from the ghost’s point of view. The plot concerns a couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) who die and then find that their house – which they have to live in as ghosts – is bought by an horrific collection of yuppie trendies.

The couple try to carry on as normal, picking up the occasional useful tip from a weighty tome entitled ‘The Handbook for the Recently Deceased’ (or diseased, as they first pronounce it!) and despite warnings from their afterlife caseworker Juno (played by veteran Hollywood actress Sylvia Sidney) they decide to employ the self-styled bio-exorcist Beetlegeuse (Michael Keaton) to frighten off the new occupants.

The single most memorable image of Beetlejuice is that of a desert landscape peopled by sea monster-like worms, reminiscent of nothing so much as a surrealist version of Frank Herbert’s Dune.… Read the rest

Animation Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen:
My National Gallery

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 4 June 2024
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My National Gallery
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Director – Phil Grabsky, Ali Ray – 2024 – UK – Cert. U – 98m

*****

Employees, punters and celebrities choose their favourite painting in London’s National Gallery – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, June 4th

There have been documentary films about the UK’s National Gallery before, notably the wonderful, three-hour-long National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014), so, in a way, it’s a brave subject for the Exhibition on Screen people to take on. And yet, as a British production company making movies about art in art galleries, it was inevitable that they would tackle the subject sooner or later. Their version commences with a likeable enough establishing montage of what one might call ‘behind the scenes’ and ‘footfall’ – shots of various National Gallery employees at work opening the door, looking after various aspects of the art housed in the gallery and even putting out tasty-looking croissants in the cafeteria.

There are satisfying little touches throughout. A shot of The Feast Day of Saint Roch, Canaletto, with out of focus people passing in front of it, makes it feel like you’re really there in the scene depicted.

Alan Allison, security officer and gallery assistant (pictured on the front of the trailer, below) wears black clothing with a striking, patterned blue tie.… Read the rest

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