Tag: Tom Holland

Arrietty
(US: The Secret World
of Arrietty)
(Karigurashi no Arietti,
借りぐらしのアリエッティ,
lit. Arrietty the Borrower)

Arrietty

(US: The Secret World of Arrietty)

(Karigurashi no Arietti,

借りぐらしのアリエッティ,

lit. Arrietty the Borrower)

Director – Hiromasa Yonebayashi – 2010 – Japan – Cert. U – 94m

*****

A teenage girl under a foot high is found by a kindly boy with a heart condition who has come to his aunt’s home on the city’s outskirts to convalesce – back out in a 4K remaster in UK IMAX cinemas on Wednesday, October 14th, then in regular UK cinemas on Friday, October 16th through Sunday, October 18th

His Aunt Sadako (voice / 2010 Japanese dub: Keiko Takashita; 2010 StudioCanal UK English dub: Phillida Law) drives (voice / 2010 Japanese dub: Ryonosuke Kamiki; 2010 StudioCanal UK English dub: Tom Holland) to the house on the city’s outskirts he is visiting. On arrival, he sees a crow having a spat with the cat, which in turn is taking an interest in a group of plants in which he spots a teenage girl less than a foot high. After he’s been called inside the house, the girl, Arrietty (voice / 2010 Japanese dub: Mirai Shida; 2010 StudioCanal UK English dub: Saoirse Ronan) escapes the cat through the grille into the basement, where she outruns grasshoppers to enter her family’s cosy, miniature cottage accessible by a small flight of steps.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, adventure, animation, anime, Arrietty, attacked by a crow, aunt, basement, bedridden, captured, cat, caught, cavity wall, children’s book, city outskirts, co-existing, convalesce, crow, doll’s house, Geraldine McEwan, Hayao Miyazaki, heart condition, heart operation, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, housekeeper, human world, ivy, Japan, Japanese animation, kitchen, ledges on a pathway of nails, Luke Allen-Gale, Mark Strong, Mary Norton, melancholy, miniature, Mirai Shida, move house, Olivia Colman, out of sight, parents and children, pest control, Phillida Law, rain, rainstorm, relax, rescue, Saoirse Ronan, sewing pin, spying, Studio Ghibli, sugar cube, survival, suspicious, tabletop, teenage girl, The Borrowers, tissue, Tom Holland, underfloor, winch lift, window sill

Features Live Action Movies

The Odyssey
(2026)

The Odyssey (2026)

Director – Christopher Nolan – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 172m

**** (regular cinema version, not the 70mm IMAX print)

While Odysseus is lost presumed dead returning home from the Trojan Wars to his island Kingdom of Ithaca, his wife is confronted with multiple suitors – out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 17th

For anyone unfamiliar with the classical Greek literature source, Homer’s Odyssey is about a journey (with which meaning the word odyssey is synonymous in modern parlance). Odysseus (Matt Damon) fights for ten years (a time span unclear in the new film) in the Trojan Wars, then spends another ten getting home to his island Kingdom of Ithaca (the film is clear that he’s away a total of 20 years).

Homer doesn’t play out his narrative in linear form, but goes back and forth, for instance using flashbacks. Nolan’s screenplay uses a framing device of Odysseus’ wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) holding out against numerous suitors hoping she’ll marry one of them and make him king, remarkably similar to that other recent, inferior adaptation of (the Ithaca bits of) the Odyssey, The Return (Umberto Pasolini, 2024), except that Nolan’s instincts for casting are a lot stronger and he has a bigger crew and budget with which to play.… Read the rest

Tags absent father, action, ancient Greek culture, Anne Hathaway, Athena, Bill Irwin, Calypso, Charlize Theron, Christopher Nolan, Circe, classical Greek literature, cyclops, flashbacks, giant, Greek myth, Greek mythology, Helen, Helen of Troy, Homer, Homer’s Odyssey, Horse of Troy, hospitality, husbands and wives, IMAX, Ithaca, John Leguizamo, Jon Bernthal, journey, kingdom, lashed to the mast, lotus-flowers, Lupito N’yongo, Matt Damon, Mediterranean, Menelaus, Mia Goth, missing presumed dead, near-blind, non-IMAX, nymph, Odysseus, Ogygia, Penelope, photorealism, Ray Harryhausen-related, return home, Robert Pattinson, Samantha Morton, sea monster, self-doubt, shipwreck, Sirens, six-headed, sorceress, Sparta, special effects, spectacular, suitors, swineherd, Telemachus, The Odyssey, Tom Holland, Trojan War, war veteran, wax in their ears, whirlpool, wife, Zendaya

Features Live Action Movies

Spider-Man:
No Way Home

Director – Jon Watts – 2021 – US – Cert. 12a – 150m

***1/2

With Spider-man’s identity revealed as Peter Parker, he enlists Dr. Strange’s magic to restore the world to its state before that revelation – out in cinemas on Wednesday, December 15th

Hard to remember now but there was a time before the millennium when a big screen Spider-Man adaptation was something no-one thought would ever get made. Following the hugely successful Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002) there have effectively been three series of movies, with reboots The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, 2012) and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)-compliant Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts, 2107) plus three further appearances of the character in the MCU since 2016 (Captain America: Civil War, 2016; Avengers: Infinity War, 2018; Avengers: Endgame, 2019; all Joe and Anthony Russo). In the 2002-initiated cycle, the character was played by Tobey Maguire, in the 2012, Andrew Garfield and in the MCU / 2017, Tom Holland. The latter in Jon Watts’ films is particularly good at portraying Peter / Spider-Man as a gawky, insecure teenager.

There’s even a (hugely inventive) animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, 2018) which sadly isn’t referenced in the current film.… Read the rest