Just another paropagdna woke crap with from Hollywood. Nothing new. These c*cks in Hollywood never learn.…
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Based loosely on the life of Oskar Kokoschka, this is an excitingly crafted hybrid of animation styles depicting his lively relationship with his muse and his time fighting on the front during the Great War. The drawings range from broad brush strokes of stirring effect through to a far more abstract series of depictions that, accompanied by a powerful classical score, allow the timelines of the two phases of his life to dart around enthusiastically and sometimes quite graphically amidst a rapid fire battering for our eyes. I’m sure I saw a peacock in amongst the war casualties, the railway ca…
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I really liked the almost translucent nature of sketch-work on the animation in this short feature. It’s all about three childhood friends who head to Liverpool to study. Their upstairs neighbour is a guy called “Gibbo” and at first all four enjoy student life to the full. Then rent day comes around and “Shirley” hasn’t a sous. His mates agree to sub him, so long as he does some very much needed household chores. Of course, best laid plans and all that and fairly swiftly he is back to his drinking, so his pals decide to play some increasingly nasty practical jokes on him. He’s a tough nut, but…
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There weren’t a lot of lines for Joaquin Phoenix to learn for this gritty and brutal story of “Joe”. He makes a living retrieving girls who have gone missing - voluntarily or otherwise, and repatriating them. Occasionally this happens straightforwardly, but more frequently this is a violent and dangerous business that sees him having to fend off people both in and out of uniform. It’s this latest job to rescue “Nina” (Ekaterina Samsonov) that is proving to be his most testing and as he struggles to rescue his quarry from a short-lived career in sexploitation, and stay in one piece, he is sudde…
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**Weaker than the original film but entertaining.**
As a massive fan of the original film, and would go as far as to say it's a misunderstood masterpiece. This slightly disappointed me. The runtime was way too short for a film this ambitious, and it doesn't seem to know what to focus on. It feels like subplot after subplot that barely progress the story until the final act. Then it rushes through everything with an ending that feels abrupt. It's a shame because the Marionette/Charlotte plotline is brilliant, the final 30 minutes are chaotic and entertaining, and the Toy animatronics are gi…
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Why this this didn’t get even one BAFTA nomination is quite a puzzle as it’s a beautiful piece of cinema that uses it’s own industry’s nostalgia to paint a picture of a young boy longing for that intangible something we all want as our teens loom large. This story is set in a Liverpool still recovering from the end of the war, and where the young “Bud” (Leigh McCormack) lives with adoring mum (Marjorie Yates) and his three siblings. He is a quiet lad, and of course that earns him the enmity of the bullies at his local Catholic school where the cane is as much the currency as then pen. It’s not…
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It has long been speculated (and widely believed) that animals possess special powers to sense things that we, as humans, generally cannot. This is particularly true of canines, and that belief is thought to contribute significantly to the loyal and protective bond that exists between us and dogs, the basis of their so-called designation as “man’s best friend.” That notion is now brought to life in writer-director Ben Leonberg’s debut feature, a smart horror offering that will melt your heart while giving viewers more than a few good scares along the way. When lovable pup Indy and his owner, T…
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With Japan on it’s knees following the end of the Second World War, “Yukiko” (Hideko Takamine) is struggling to find meaning in her life. She had had a fling with the married “Tomioka” (Masayuki Mori) but when he had been despatched to work for the forestry service in Annam, she assumed that was that. Well no, as it happens, for she is also posted there as a typist and so they pick up where they left off. Whilst perhaps not a sense of happiness, there is contentedness for “Yukiko” until returning to Japan, she soon realises that not only can they never truly be together but that he has most de…
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The now wheelchair-bound industrialist “Georges” (Jean-Louis Tritignant) rather reluctantly approaches his eighty-fifth birthday having contemplated suicide and having largely lost interest in the lives of his daughter “Anne” (Isabelle Huppert) who has been running his business, and surgeon son “Thomas” (Matthieu Kassovitz) who has recently married “Anaïs” (Laura Verlinden) and had a young son to go with “Eve” (Fantine Harduin), his thirteen year old daughter from a first marriage that ended years earlier, but is now immersing “Eve” in a new kind of tragedy. There used to be an adage that the …
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The real definition of every frame being a painting, it’s truly that beautiful.
Magellan is one of the best historical biopic films I’ve ever seen. Shot entirely with static frames, minimal scoring, calm and quiet vibes, and cinematography that’s beautifully serene and soothing to look at. Lav Diaz also boldly portrays the dark side of colonialism and the deceit of European explorers in the past even though, as far as I know (CMIIW), the film is supported by institutions from Portugal and Spain and he conveys all of that with extraordinary beauty.
This film isn’t just about recou…
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