Month: September 2023

Dr. Nandor Fodor (Simon Pegg) is a world-renowned paranormal psychologist. Along with his assistant, Anne (Minne Driver), he travels far and wide to find evidence of things that cannot be explained. Hearing of the strangest thing from a colleague, Dr. Harry Price (Christopher Lloyd), Dr. Fodor’s investigations take him to a small village where the locals are entranced by the existence of a talking mongoose. However, Dr. Fodor’s pursuit of the truth starts to unlock a little more about himself.

Nandor Fodor and The Talking Mongoose is an eccentric comedy written and directed by Adam Sigal, inspired by the true events of which the real Dr. Fodor may have been aware. However, despite the lavish production values, beautiful cinematography and cast of recognisable faces, there isn’t much that connects.

Depicted as a comedy, Nandor Fodor and The Talking Mongoose has elements that would make the audience believe that they were watching a light hearted British comedy. The inclusion of Pegg and Driver gives the audience an intriguing pairing while the cameo from Christopher Lloyd is bound to raise some smiles.

However, it feels a little drier than perhaps it should be and as it moves towards its conclusion and Dr. Fodor’s true intentions, audiences may start to realise that it wants to go deeper. This means that what could have been a whimsical comedy about the strangeness of life turns into a theological discussion of the difference between belief and scientific fact.

Somewhat cleverly, the mongoose is never really seen, only heard through a voice who communicates with anybody who wants to listen. However, the more intellectual pursuits of the script distract too much from comedic moments like these.

The cast do their best, but it is Pegg who is at the front for a change rather than being the Hollywood sidekick in an action blockbuster. Fans of his work will of course enjoy seeing something else from the self-proclaimed geek, but it’s hard to deny that his attempts at blending the real Nandor Fodor’s American/English accent are less than successful.

In the end, Nandor Fodor and The Talking Mongoose could have been a crowd-pleasing comedy with lots of memorable characters. Unfortunately, its greater ambitions weigh down the plot.

The single location and single character movie is hard to pull off. It requires a lot of charisma, focus, and overall interest for the running time of a feature film to be completely successful. Although movies like Locke, This Is Not a Film, Buried, and The Shallows have managed to mesmerize audiences, it’s a tough tightrope to walk—especially when you are confined to one location and all your attention is on one performer.

In the movie On The Line, director Oliver Pearn falls really short in accomplishing the feat, while his vision might have been better served as a play or podcast instead of a film. Let’s talk about it.

Written and directed by Pearn (in his feature film debut), On The Line is set on Alderney, United Kingdom, an island in the English Channel, in 1964. It follows Agnes, played by Victoria Lucie (A Night in 97, The Devil’s Machine), a new switchboard operator who serves as the lifeblood of the island connecting people through phone lines. Her day is pretty typical with residents looking to connect with businesses and family, while she even gets the occasional prank phone call. In fact, she even gets bored enough to listen in on other people’s conversations.

However, her day is thrown into panic and disarray when an elderly woman named Martha, voiced by Joanne Rogers, is trying to escape from a suspected kidnapper. Anges has to try to find her help by pinpointing her location and alerting the authorities on the island. It’s easier said than done since she has to coax information out of Martha without drawing attention from her would-be abductor.

Although On The Line is scrappy and resourceful, the filmmaker’s ambitions outweigh his execution in crafting a single location and single character movie. There’s just not enough there to keep an audience engaged, even with a short 73-minute running time. While Lucie is fantastic as Agnes, she’s underserved by the film’s story and direction.

Meanwhile, the filmmaking isn’t necessarily dynamic or strong, while the stakes don’t feel like the center of the world, or even the island. It should feel like it’s life or death with loads of tension and suspense, considering the subject matter, but it just left this writer lukewarm and ho-hum. The end result feels clumsy given that Pearn is a first-time director.

Nevertheless, Victoria Lucie is a breath of fresh air as Anges. She’s bright and charming as a new switchboard operator was the strongest part of the film, while it’s unfortunate that the film itself lets her down. But overall, if On The Line calls, you should hang up.

Lonnie Thompson may not be the most well-known name in science, unless you know where to look. His research into the ice caps which started out as an exhibition to preserve what was hidden underneath, became a lifelong adventure to spread the word about climate change. A professor by day, Thompson and his wife, Ellen, used their research to highlight the ever-changing world and how rapidly the progress was becoming.

Canary is a documentary directed by Danny O’Malley and Alex Rivest about the life and work of Professor Thompson. An image of a professor travelling the world to preserve long hidden artefacts will surely evoke an adventurer of a different kind.

However, Lonnie Thompson’s work contributed to a much wider issue which effects the human race. Something much more impactful than merely locking something away in a wooden box in the name of research.

Those expecting something heroic and daring may be a little disappointed though as Professor Thompson leaves his hat and whip (if he has one) at home and dedicates his life to science. Studying paleoclimatology, the documentary shows how the importance of his work came to the attention of scientists and even politicians looking to preserve and care for the human race.

The problem is that a week is a long time in politics and when the research came out, so did the discovery that fossil fuels were the thing that was causing the progression of climate change. Meaning that multimillion dollar companies were to blame.

Canary shows the lifelong battle that Lonnie Thompson has to endure, but like every good adventurer, a challenge isn’t going to get him down. Exploring his life as well as his celebrated career and campaign to highlight the effects of climate change, Canary gives a well-rounded look at his life as well as raising the issues that matter to him most.

A documentary that may be something of an eye opener to those who don’t know about his work, Canary is a grounded reminder of what happens when somebody speaks up when it feels like nobody is listening. Making Lonnie Thompson the kind of progressive that history will never forget.

Claire (Lizzie Kehoe) dreams of working in the performing arts. She studies in New York and has a fascination for puppets, but after her tutor suggests that it may not be for her, she decides to do something drastic.

The French tale of Petrushka has always fascinated her, so after a quick consultation with her best friend, Julia (Casey Landman), she decides to move to Paris to become an au pair. However, once she gets there, she starts to realise that her dream has quickly become a living nightmare.

Goodbye, Petrushka is a romantic comedy written and directed by Nicola Rose. Something which would fit into a more mainstream cinema under any other circumstances.

The trouble is that there are a lot of things to get past for the audience to truly enjoy the movie. Firstly, there’s Claire and her best friend Julia, a couple of young women with their own desires of a perfect life. However, the former’s behaviour ends up falling into the stalker territory when she meets Thibaut (Thomas Vieljeux) and the latter is supposed to be comic relief, but she’s written as possibly the most annoying character in the movie.

Whereas the point of the movie may be that the characters mostly correct their behaviour by the end, this doesn’t make them endearing to watch. This is evident as Claire’s behaviour becomes problematic right from the start and she’s blissfully unaware. The same could be said for Thibaut as well as his own toxic relationship may make audiences scream for him to do the right thing.

Then we get around to the love triangle with her co-worker, Rafal (Bartek Szymanski) and he comes across as so creepy that the audience will immediately know that there’s something wrong. The kind of movie which may have good intentions at heart, but the execution feels all wrong.

The message at the end is a good one and something that romantic comedies may not often cover. The trouble is that in order to get there, the audience has to endure many cringeworthy moments which may leave them not caring so much about what happens.

Leonardo da Vinci (Stephen Fry) was one of the greatest minds the world has ever known. He was a painter, a philosopher and most importantly – an inventor. However, living in renaissance Italy had its issues as da Vinci’s radical ideas and thoughts on humanity were deemed to be very controversial.

This didn’t stop him though, and despite his country only being interested in him when he was needed, da Vinci kept giving more to the world than any other human had before.

The Inventor is a stop motion animation written by Jim Capobianco and co-directed by Pierre-Luc Granjon. Looking at da Vinci’s life through the eyes of a child, his story is told in a rather simplistic way. The animation as well may harken back to another time and could even remind parents of their own childhood.

The issue is that despite the charming nature of the animation and the recognisable voice cast, there may be very little to connect old and young alike. This is because The Inventor comes across as an educational movie, wheeled out by a lazy teacher who didn’t understand the man himself.

Adults old enough to remember this kind of thing may perhaps think back to a last day of school treat. Something that turned out to be the dullest thing a teacher could find and they’d be along the right lines.

The Inventor is also a musical, a choice which perhaps isn’t best suited to its cast who aren’t really that well versed in song. Matt Berry handles himself well in his short cameo as the pope, but this is where Stephen Fry’s many talents were not as well used.

It also feels very dry, where on the one hand the script drops facts about da Vinci which its young audience may already know or go over their heads. On the other hand, perhaps going into his musings about life, the universe and everything may be too much for some children. Especially as they’re so watered down and hardly dealt with. Charming to watch, it feels like The Inventor has its fingers in too many pies and can’t quite handle them as well as its protagonist.