Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Tomorrow , the London-set debut feature of script supervisor-turned-director Martha Pinson, took five years from the start of principal photography to being released in UK cinemas. In the meantime, one of its actor-stars, Stuart Brennan, who co-wrote the screenplay with fellow actor Sebastian Street, has directed his own movie, The Necromancer , shown it in movie theatres and grimaced at the reviews. I cannot hail Brennan and Street as Britain’s answer to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon – their writing isn’t particularly subtle. Yet the resulting film is an endorphin rush masquerading as a drama. It generates so much good will, it makes the Salvation Army seem grumpy. Street plays Tesla, a traumatised paraplegic ex-squaddie who doesn’t want to think about his time in Afghanistan, where he was injured in an explosion. He isn’t interested in spending time with his former army buddies. Nor does he want to think about the girlfriend who walked out on him. When we first see him, he is sp...

  Here’s a fun fact: women are more likely to be nominated – and win – an American Academy Award as Best Director of an animated feature than helming a live action film. Marjane Sartrapi, Jennifer Yuh Nelson and, most recently Nora Twomey have been nominated. Brenda Chapman and Jennifer Lee won in successive years for Brave and Frozen respectively. Significantly, Sartrapi, Nelson and Chapman have subsequently made – or are making – the transition to live action films. The route to directing animation can be straight forward. You start as ‘head of story’ as Brenda Chapman did and then convince a producer that you can shepherd a film to completion. Nora Twomey’s route was different. She co-directed (with Tomm Moore) The Secret of Kells and then spent four years to bring her animated film version of Deborah Ellis’ novel, The Breadwinner , to the screen. The film, from Kilkenny’s Cartoon Saloon, is quite literally a labour of love. It is about the love that an eleven year-old girl,...