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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

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Features Live Action Movies

A Pale View of Hills
(Toi Yamanamino Hikari,
遠い山なみの光)

Director – Kei Ishikawa – 2025 – UK, Japan, Poland – Cert. 12a – 123m

From the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro

***1/2

An aspiring journalist in 1982 England delves into her mother’s past life in 1952 Nagasaki and unearths dark family secrets – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 13th

As will be seen from the above logline description, this essentially plays out in two timelines.

One is in Nagasaki, Japan in 1952, less than a decade after the dropping of the atomic bomb, where the married and barely visibly pregnant Etsuko (Suzo Hirose from Lupin III the First, Takashi Yamazaki, 2019; The Third Murder, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2017; The Boy and the Beast, Mamoru Hosoda, 2015; Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2015) befriends Sachiko (Fumi Nikaido from River’s Edge, Isao Yukisada, 2018; Himizu, Sion Sono, 2011), the mother of local waif Mariko (Mio Suzuki), who lives in an isolated shack near the river and plans to emigrate to the US with a man named ‘Frank’.

The other is in a town in England somewhere near Greenham Common, Berkshire, in 1982, where aspiring journalist Niki (Camilla Aiko from Dr.… Read the rest

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Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
Turner & Constable

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 93m

****

A journey through the current Tate Britain show and art history about the two rival landscape painters – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, March 10th

This latest Exhibition on Screen entry kicks off in uncharacteristic fashion with photographic shots of landscape (typical of views that used by painters Turner and Constable) accompanied by an excerpt from the poem Richmond by James Thomson (1834-1882), a favourite of both painters whose work will be similarly deployed (voiced by Robert Lindsay) at appropriate intervals throughout this documentary.

Amy Concannon © David Bickerstaff

However, the film soon moves into more familiar territory with shots of present day London and of the Tate Britain’s current Turner & Constable exhibition, with visitors admiring some of the paintings on display. Amy Concannon, Manton Senior Curator, Historic British Art, Tate Britain, notes that this show represents the first time the two painters have been displays side by side on such a vast scale. Turner & Constable were born within a year of one another, which became a catalyst for the current show’s displaying them together.

Lachlan Goudie © David Bickerstaff

Artist, writer and broadcaster Lachlan Goudie talks about the “dazzling” influence of both artists on the likes of Delacroix.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Primate

Director – Johannes Roberts – 2025 – US – Cert. 18 – 89m

****1/2

A girl and her friends discover her family’s pet chimp has turned violent and trapped them in the house – out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 30th

Coming in commendably under 90 minutes, this is a hugely effective thriller about people trapped in a confined space with a monster. Which makes it all the more curious that it missteps for its first couple of scenes, making you wonder if you’re going to regret seeing the film. First up is a scene in which a vet ventures into a house’s exterior enclosure and is attacked by Ben, the distressed chimpanzee, who lives there. The problem is not the scene itself, which is both genuinely scary and sets the scene for what is to follow – indeed, it establishes that there is a chimpanzee in the house about to turn bad – but the fact that it’s almost impossible to relate the scene to the remaining narrative, apart from the fact that it takes place 36 hours earlier. Who was the vet? At what point in the unfolding flashback does this attack take place? The ensuing mayhem won’t leave you any time to ponder such questions, so it arguably doesn’t matter, but for me, because I couldn’t make any sense of it in the scheme of the wider film, it proved annoying.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Oh, Canada

Director – Paul Schrader – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

From the novel by Russell Banks

***

A documentary filmmaker dying of cancer consents to a filmed interview about his life and work to air his dirty laundry – on UK and Ireland digital platforms on Monday, January 12th

“Remind me why I agreed to do this,” says the ageing Leonard Fife, aka Leo (Richard Gere, from Schrader’s earlier American Gigolo, 1980) setting up for a filmed interview, about his life and work as a documentary filmmaker, at which he has insisted his wife Emma (Uma Thurman), a former student of his, be present. His interviewer Malcolm (Michael Imperioli from Song Sung Blue, Craig Brewer, 2025; The White Lotus, TV series, Mike White, 2021; The Sopranos, TV series, 1999–2007) is another former student, as is Malcolm’s producer Diana (Victoria Hill from First Reformed, 2017; Master Gardener, 2022, both Paul Schrader), another former student conquest of Leo’s; Malcolm’s production assistant is 24-year old Sloan (Penelope Mitchell from Sting, Kiah Roache-Turner, 2024; Hellboy, Neil Marshall, 2019; The Vampire Diaries, TV series, 2014-15; Hemlock Grove, TV series, 2013).

What lies behind Leonard’s acceptance of the gig swiftly becomes clear when he hijacks the first question, framing it with a date in 1968 of great significance in his personal life.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies Music

Slade in Flame

Director – Richard Loncraine – 1975 – UK – Cert. – 91m

****

Slade play Flame, a small-time rock band who cut their musical teeth managed by lowlife crooks before going on to a meteoric rise and fall managed by corporate suits – 2K Remaster for the film’s 50th Anniversary Re-release is out on UHD / Blu-ray on Monday, May 19th

In the early 1970s, four-piece pop act Slade (singer-guitarist Noddy Holder, bass player Jim Lea, guitarist Dave Hill and drummer Don Powell) were a British pop phenomenon. They clocked up six number one singles, with three going straight to the number one position. To capitalise on that success, the band’s manager Chas Chandler, previously Jim Hendrix’s manager and, before that, the bass player with The Animals, decided Slade should make a movie; the band, however, didn’t want to make light, upbeat, whimsical fantasies like The Beatles vehicles (A Hard Day’s Night, 1964; Help!, 1965, both Richard Lester; Yellow Submarine, George Dunning, 1968); they wanted instead to make something darker, reflecting the experience of trying to make it in a band in England in the late 1960s.

First-time feature director Richard Loncraine proved to be an inspired choice, confirmed both by the gritty, urban nature of his many subsequent films (The Missionary, 1982; Bellman and True, 1987; Richard III, 1995) and for his signature compositional style (letterbox frame, sepia-dominated palette), developed with cinematographer Peter Hannan (The Missionary, not to mention Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, Terrys Gilliam and Jones, 1983).… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Mother’s Kingdom
(Uhm-mah-ui
Wahng-gook,
엄마의 왕국)

Director – Lee Sang-hak – 2024 – South Korea – LKFF Cert. 15 – 97m

*****

A Christian mother, her ‘Christian book’ author son, and her local pastor brother-in-law are haunted by traumas from their collective past – suspense thriller from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2024 which runs in cinemas from Friday, November 1st to Wednesday, November 13th

—

I don’t often preface a film review with a piece of verbal, religious text, but in this exceptional case, the following Old Testament quote may be pertinent, particularly the phrase in bold:

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

– Exodus 34:6–7

—

Ji-wook (Han Ki-jang) lives with his mother Kyung-hee (Nam Kee-ae), and although he’s earning a respectable living working from home as a writer of self-help motivational books, in many ways he seems deeply unqualified to be peddling such advice to a wider public.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Freud’s Last Session

Director – Matthew Brown – 2023 – UK – Cert. 12a – 108m

****

Celebrated psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud is visited in the last month of his life, living in Britain, by young Oxford don and Christian apologist CS Lewis – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 14th

September 1939. Chamberlain has issued his ultimatum to Hitler, and Britain waits to find out whether it will shortly be at war with Germany. Celebrated psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins), recently moved to Britain from Vienna to escape the Nazis, keeps turning the radio on and off in the hope of an update from the BBC. He is also expecting a visit from a young Oxford don, CS Lewis (Matthew Goode), “the Christian apologist”, with whose views he profoundly disagrees. 

Lewis has written books including a parody of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress called The Pilgrim’s Regress, which is mentioned here, and the first book in his science fiction trilogy Out of the Silent Planet, which isn’t. He has however yet to either give his BBC broadcasts about the Christian faith, which will later form the basis of his most celebrated apologetic work Mere Christianity, or write his Narnia children’s fantasy novels.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Afire
(Roter Himmel)

Director – Christian Petzold – 2022 – Germany – Cert. 12a – 102m

*****

Two male friends’ plans to stay in his mother’s woodland house are disrupted by first a car breakdown, then a female guest of his mother’s, and finally forest fires – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 25th

Summer. Leon (Thomas Schubert from Breathing, Karl Markovics, 2011) and Felix (Langston Uibel) are driving to the latter’s mother’s holiday home on the Baltic coast when their car breaks down. Felix knows a short cut so they go through the woods,. When they reach the cottage, after getting lost, a guest is already there, a young woman Nadja (Paula Beer from Transit, Christian Petzold, 2018; Frantz, François Ozon, 2016), the daughter of a friend of Felix’s mother. At least, her belongings – underwear strewn around the big bedroom, cereal in the kitchen – are there.

Felix phones his mother to learn there’s a double booking. Not to worry – the pair can stay in the small bedroom. Except, Leon can’t sleep at night because of the sound of Nadja enjoying sex with someone through the paper-thin walls.

He doesn’t know how to confront her about this.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Infinity Pool

Director – Brandon Cronenberg – 2023 – Canada, Hungary, France – Cert. 18 – 117m

*****

WARNING: NSFW

A man holidaying abroad at a resort with his wealthy wife is lured into a series of crimes, punishable locally by death unless you’re rich enough to buy your way out – in UK cinemas from Friday, March 24th

An infinity pool is a swimming pool designed so that at least one edge appears to go on forever, blending into a seascape or waterscape such as an ocean or lake. It’s limitless. One character in this film once installed such a pool for a local hotel, but that’s really not the point. Which is, something that has no boundary, that appears to extend into infinity. Like the moral transgressions in this film, once the preventative edges of incurred punishment are removed from the perpetration of criminal acts, for which the idea of the infinity pool stands as a metaphor. This may not make sense now, but it will once you’ve watched the film and thought about it.

James (Alexander Skarsgärd) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman) Foster are holidaying at a resort. To date, he is a one-book writer: his book was published to rotten reviews and sank without trace and he can’t seem to find an idea for the second one.… Read the rest