Tag: US

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Features Live Action Movies

Star Wars
The Mandalorian
and Grogu

Director – Jon Favreau – 2026 – US – Cert. 12A – 132m

****

The mercenary Mandalorian and his infant charge, the Yoda-like Grogu, must rescue the young Rotta the Hutt who has been kidnapped by gangsters – out in UK IMAX cinemas on Friday, May 22nd

The character of the MandalorIan resembles a bounty hunter from the early Star Wars films but is, in fact, a Mandalorian warrior sworn not to remove his mask. And he has an apprentice Grogu, who is to all intents and purposes a baby version of Yoda, the character who first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, although Grogu isn’t actually Yoda, but a different character of a later generation. For those completely new to Star Wars, Yoda was both a Jedi Master skilled in harnessing the Force and a diminutive, otherworldly creature performed by a puppeteer. Audiences immediately warmed to him. Unlike Yoda, Grogu is too young to talk (although he does make suspiciously verbal sounding utterances from time to time) and you might think he would be unbearably cute and make the film difficult to watch. But he isn’t, not at all.

When franchise creator George Lucas still owned Lucasfilm, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, George Lucas, 1999 introduced the irritating, kiddie-oriented character of Jar Jar Binks, widely regarded as an error of judgement. … Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

The Balloonists

Director – John Dower – 2025 – UK, Austria, US – Cert. PG – 86m

****

The story of balloonist Bertrand Piccard’s three attempts to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 22nd

Bertrand Piccard’s house, as his astonished interviewer notes, is a museum, a personal collection of memorabilia from the history of aviation. It grew in a mere 66 years from the Wright Brothers’ pioneering efforts to the Apollo 11 moon landing. His family was in Florida at the time of the Apollo 7-12 launches which he witnessed. Five days before the moon landing, he vowed to become an explorer himself, but then when Armstrong walked on the moon Piccard felt everything had been done. He got depressed.

And then he saw a balloon and discovered that no-one had ever flown round the world in one.

In 1997, His first attempt, the Breitling Orbiter, ditched in the Mediterranean after six hours. Many others tried, including Richard Branson, who knew how to do publicity: in Morocco, Branson’s balloon blew away before it could be launched.

Enter British engineer Andy Elson. But the film switches back to Piccard, whose grandfather was a pioneering balloonist and whose father designed submarines and made a record-breaking dive to the Mariana Trench.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

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

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

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Normal
(2025)

Director – Ben Wheatley – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 90m

*****

Following the recent death of the town’s sheriff, an interim sheriff takes on the job at Normal, Minnesota – a town harbouring dark secrets related to Japanese yakuza – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 15th

Osaka, Japan. Three yakuza gang members who have failed to carry out a job properly must atone in front of their boss by cutting off their little finger. The two that do so are sent to the US on their next mission.

Normal, Minnesota. Following the recent death of old Sheriff Gunderson, Interim Sheriff Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk from Nobody, Ilya Naishuller, 2021; Better Call Saul, TV series, 2015-22) is getting to grips with his new job, driving around with Deputy Mike (Billy MacLellan from Nobody; Maudie, Aisling Walsh, 2016). Ulysses will be in the town for a mere eight weeks and his philosophy is, don’t upset anything and leave the place as you find it.

Normal may hold a few surprises for Ulysses. Such as the day he discovers a trail of red outside the door which turns out to have been caused by the local moose with a can of red paint dangling from one antler, of which he takes a photo.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Ridley, Ripley,
Thelma & Louise

Alien

Director – Ridley Scott – 1979 – US – X – 116 mins 35 secs

*****

Blade Runner

Director – Ridley Scott – 1982 – US – AA – 117 mins 04 secs

*****

Thelma & Louise

Director – Ridley Scott – 1991 – US – 15 – 129 mins 22 secs

*****

Bumped back to the front of this website on the occasion of Film Tottenham’s screening of Thelma & Louise in their Action Woman season on Sunday, May 17th

At the end of Alien, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), having defeated the monster, strips down to her underwear only to discover that she hasn’t defeated it at all and it’s still in the space shuttle with her in the archetypal Hollywood false ending of recent years. It begged the question, why did Ripley remove her clothing at this point if not for the obvious gratification of the male members of the audience (and, one should add, the accompanying box office returns)?

At the end of Thelma & Louise, the eponymous heroines (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon respectively), on the run after the former’s rapist has been murdered after the event by the latter, find themselves trapped between the Grand Canyon’s gaping precipice on one side of them and massed hordes of police marksmen, ready to open fire if they don’t surrender, on the other.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Features Live Action Movies

The Christophers

Director – Steven Soderbergh – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 15 – 100m

**

Two siblings hire a young art restorer to forge some of their famous artist father’s unfinished paintings before he dies so they can collect on their posthumous sale – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 15th

Professional art restorer Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) runs a London fast food stall between painting restoration gigs. Then she gets a phone call and meets in a pub with Barnaby (James Corden) and Sallie (Jessica Guning), the son and daughter of ageing artist Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) who, worried that their father is about to die imminently from a medical condition, want to ensure he (for which read Lori) ‘completes’ (for which read ‘forges’) the third, unfinished series of paintings known as the Christophers after the model Julian used.

Against her better judgement, she accepts the gig, and finds herself playing the ruse of working as Julian’s assistant, basically an excuse for getting into his studio and forging the completed works on canvas as a nest egg for his children who, it later transpires, have already sold the as yet unpainted works to a buyer for a tidy sum.… Read the rest

Categories
Dance Features Live Action Movies Music

The Testament
of Ann Lee

Director – Mona Fastvold – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 15 – 130m

****

In the mid-eighteenth century, wishing to preach her unique take on the Christian Gospel, Ann Lee crosses the Atlantic with a small party from from Manchester, England, to establish a Shaker community in America – unlikely religious musical is on Disney+ from Wednesday, March 13th

This review is written after seeing this film for a second time. On my first viewing, I went in cold, knowing a great deal about both Christian history and the Quakers, but nothing about the Shakers (‘the Shaking Quakers’) around whom the historical side of this film is based. As far as I can tell, the historical portrayals of the Shakers here, and their leader Mother Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried in a career-defining role), are pretty accurate.

This is to leave aside the fact that this is also a musical, the genre in which people suddenly burst into song, and we somehow accept it. In real life, people generally don’t burst into song in the ordinary run of things. And yet, it’s a genre convention we accept, and as a genre the musical has a perfectly respectable history. That said, if you’ve been brought up within any sort of English protestant Christian church tradition, from C of E to house churches, you’ll be familiar with people singing hymns as part of their religious worship.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

Billie Eilish
Hit Me
Hard and Soft
The Tour
Live in 3D

Billie Eilish in Paramount Pictures Presents A Lightstorm Earth Production / The Darkroom / Interscope Films Production of “BILLIE EILISH HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D)”

Directors – James Cameron, Billie Eilish – 2026 – US, UK – Cert. 12a – 114m

*****

One night of the singer’s latest world tour is captured up close and personal using specially developed, 3D camera technology – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 8th

Disclaimer. Yes, I listen to a great deal of music. No, I don’t know the first thing about Billie Eilish. However, I have a huge admiration for James Cameron, who might reasonably be described as the R&D wing of the movie business.

I have also, in my time, seen a good few concert movies, but never anything quite like this. That’s in part because the contemporary music concert has come a long way, and Billie Eilish typifies a performer who is the act, performing on custom built stages in large stadium-sized venues, even though she has working with her a band and two backup singers, not to mention a vast array of lighting, stage and sound technicians. 

And, in her case, James Cameron.

Who insisted that she be given equal director / producer credit on the film. At least, that’s how he puts it in one of many of the more intimate backstage / offstage / on tour sequences inserted into the footage of the one concert which forms the backbone of the film. … Read the rest

Categories
Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Coup 53

Director – Taghi Amirani – 2019 – UK – Cert. 15 – 120m

*****

The officially unacknowledged British role in the 1953 coup overthrowing the Iranian government – more timely than ever, and now back out in UK cinemas from Friday, May 5th 2026; more dates added daily at https://coup53.com/
Originally in UK cinemas from Friday, August 21st 2020

A documentary begun in 2009 interviewing many people who died before the film’s completion some ten years later, this covers the 1953 coup in Iran backed by President Eisenhower in the US and Prime Minister Churchill in the UK which replaced Iran’s democratically elected, left-wing Prime Minister Mossadegh with the Shah. The UK has never officially acknowledged its role in this coup.

Amirani’s researches lead him to a basement of documents held by Mossadech’s grandson in Paris comprising archive material from the Granada TV 1985 End Of Empire documentary series, for which he gets access to the rushes from the BFI. Iran was included because it had been controlled by British interests for so long (because of its oil reserves). Amirani’s editor, helping pull all this together, is the legendary Walter Murch (Gimme Shelter / 1970, The Conversation / 1974, Apocalypse Now / 1979, The English Patient / 1996).… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

I’ve Seen All I Need To See

Director – Zeshaan Younus – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 84m

*

A woman mourns her sister, dead in circumstances which remain far from clear – impenetrable drama is out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 1st

NSFW

Parker (Renee Gagner from Gazer, Ryan J. Sloan, 2024) sits on a chair and delivers a monologue. Apparently she’s doing an audition for an acting part. Either way, she rambles on about being finger-fucked in a car by a man who would later be turned to red mist as he served abroad with the military. The sequence, which consists of one unbroken, locked-off camera shot, is unlikely to engage you on any level. And it’s typical of everything else about this lacklustre effort.

In the middle comes a sequence in which car headlights appear in a night of pouring rain, and a series of characters gather outside a warehouse. One of them pulls out a gun. Shots are heard to be fired, by which time the picture has cut to a sunset landscape so you could be looking at the end of this mysterious meeting that looks like it isn’t going to go well, or it might be unrelated. It’s hard to tell.… Read the rest