Tag: stepmother

Holy Days

Director – Nat Boltt – 2026 – New Zealand, Canada – Cert. 12a – 101m

***1/2

Three ageing nuns must save their ramshackle convent from property developers and help a local Maori boy come to terms with his mum’s death and his dad’s new partner – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, Aug 14th

In a wondrously tacky stop-frame parody, giant-sized Brian rides his giant-sized bicycle through the village (cut to live action Brian played by Elijah Tomati) to explain to Sister Agnes (Judy Davis) at the door of his destination building that he’s committed blasphemery. It turns out his exact words were, “Jesus Jumping Christ”. Taking it good humouredly in her stride, she tells him to come in. And, as a penance, assigns him to clean all the upstairs floors.

As a title informs us, it’s New Zealand. 1974.

Upstairs, Sister Mary Clare (Jacki Weaver) explains that the reason for all the baby photos is that the nuns used to take them in. And shows him, thorough the window, Sister Luke’s garden. Which has seen better days. Brian says his mum loved it here. The feeling was reciprocal, apparently. Nun and boy turn floor polishing chores into improvised sports exercise gliding along the floor.… Read the rest

Tags 1974, 30 mph, afterlife, animation, apology, baby photos, beach, Bible, bicycle, bike, bishop, blasphemery. penance, blasphemy, bribe, bribery, broth, Canada, care home, ceiling plaster, chores, Chris Reddington, Christian, church, cigarette, clean the floor, convent, dancing, dashboard, dementia, dentures, developer, do a runner, done up, driving, Elijah Tomati, false teeth, ferry, flashback, fruit cake, garden, grand opening, grave, Heaven, Holy Days, Jesus, John Bach, Jonny Brugh, Joy Cowley, landscape, luggage, Maori, mean driver, memory, Miriam Margolyes, mothers and sons, mountain, Nat Boltt, New Zealand, partner, peace, Plum Duff Pudding, property, reconciliation, revelation, role model, security of tenure, smoking, snow, snow globe, South Island, spirit, stepmother, stepmothers and sons, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, surrogate mother, Tanea Heke, title deeds, traffic cop, Ty Jepsen, udy Davis, village, Winter

Animation Features Live Action Movies

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Director – Tim Burton – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 104m

***1/2

The hyperactive ghost from the afterlife returns, along with a number of characters from the original – sequel to the 1988 film is out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, September 6th

When the original Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988) came out, no-one had quite worked out what Tim Burton was about, and the film was arresting, shocking, completely out there, utterly bonkers and like nothing anyone had ever seen. It’s difficult to know exactly what one could do to achieve that same effect in a sequel, or whether one should even try that approach. In the interim, Burton has had a lengthy and successful Hollywood career, arguably the system’s resident maverick director. When he’s good he’s very good; when he’s not, you wait for the next one and it’s usually an improvement.

In the event, perhaps inevitably, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t have the same shock of the new as its predecessor, but it’s similarly out there and bonkers and recognisably a sequel. It takes a while to get going – the first hour lumbers along with flashes of brilliance, such as a memorable, 3D-animated passenger aircraft crash at sea sequence, but the final third or so (from the point where one of the characters is lured in to the afterlife by another who turns out to be a ghost) is much more effective.… Read the rest

Tags 3D animation, afterlife, aircraft crash, Alfred Gough, Arthur Conti, body parts, Catherine O’Hara, cop, corridor, Danny DeVito, dead who walk around with their heads or lower bodies bitten off by carnivores, desert, discard, effects, flicker, ghost, give birth, handbook, horror genre audience, hyperactive, janitor, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, live audience, Michael Keaton, model house, Monica Belluci, monster baby, off-kilter, paranormal investigator, passenger aircraft, performance artist, Pino Donaggio, recently deceased, romance, rotting, sandworms, sea, self- reassemby, sequel, small town, soul music, staple gun, stepmother, suck the life breath, surreal, talk show host, Tim Burton, underworld, US, Willem Dafoe, Winona Ryder

Animation Features Live Action Movies

Deep Sea
(Shen Hai,
深海)

Director – Tian Xiaoping – 2023 – China – Cert. PG – 112m

Subtitled ***1/2 / Dubbed **

A girl on a cruise, who never got over her mother leaving, falls overboard into fantastical worlds – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 7th

A red child’s coat with a hood lies abandoned on the sea bed. A girl’s feet stagger through a blizzard. She calls out for her mama. But her mama (voice: Ji Jing), a swirling mass of dark hair and eyes, is leaving. And now, the girl is lifted above the sea bottom (as we now realise this location to be) by what appears to be swirling red paint. She wakes, in her coat, on the bus. It was a dream.

Her stepmum (voice: Yang Ting) tells Shenxiu (voice: Wang Tingwen) not to mess around on the bus as she starts pulling faces at her little brother (voices: Dong Yi, Fang Taochen). She boards a big cruise ship, looking at texts from her absent mum, who is separated from her dad (voice: Teng Kuixing). Mum told her about the Hyjinx – if you made a wish on your birthday, it would come and make your wish come true.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, 3D animation, absent mum, animation, birthday, blizzard, bus, CG, CG animation, China, Chinese ink painting, clown, computer animation, cruise, cruise ship, customers, dad, deck rough seas, deep sea restaurant, Dong Yi, drawn animation, dream, eyes, Fang Taochen, film projector, fish, giant duck, hair, hoodie, Hyjinx, Ji Jing, little brother, magic trick, mama, marketplace, monster, parental separation, picture book, propellers, red coat, red ink, red paint, restaurant, rubber ring, sea, sea bed, separated, Shanghai Animation Studios, snow, soup, stallholder, stepbrother, stepmother, stepmum, storm, Su Xin, swept out to sea, swirling red paint, Teng Kuixing, texts, thrown off the boat, Tian Xiaoping, undersea, walrus. Cook, Wang Tingwen, waterspout, wish, Yang Ting, Yi Qiao

Features Live Action Movies

There’s Something
in the Barn

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date November 30 2023
No Comments on There’s Something
in the Barn

Director – Magnus Martens – 2023 – Norway – Cert. 15 – 100m

An American family immigrates to Norway where a relative has died and left them a farmhouse with a barn… and there’s something in the barn – badly misjudged horror comedy is out in UK cinemas and on digital download from Friday, December 1st

I have watched this film so that you don’t have to.

Incidentally, it has some of the best film stills I’ve ever seen. They are truly great. Don’t let that fool you: it’s a rotten movie.

One year after the unpleasant death of their Norwegian relative, the Californian nuclear family of dad, step-mum, son and daughter arrive at his farmhouse and barn in Norway which they’ve inherited. The unpleasant death is intriguing and workable if unoriginal horror fare; there is indeed something in the barn, and it’s not happy. So not happy, that it kills the relative.

But once the Californian family appear, the film undergoes a huge shift of tone from straight horror to pretty embarrassing comedy. Or, more accurately, alleged comedy because the laughs (or laugh – I think I may have laughed once) are (is) few and far between. Dad Bill (Martin Starr) is a happy-go-lucky, irritating, nerdy caricature; his new wife – and therefore step-mum to his kids – Carol (Amrita Acharia) is an equally annoying, former self-help guru.… Read the rest