The Language of Film

Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up

This animation from the Looney Tunes team features Daffy Duck and Porky Pig on a mission to save the world from alien invasion. In UK & Irish cinemas from 13th February 2026.

The tone is set as a scientist at an astrological observatory is alerted to an advancing asteroid heading directly towards earth along with a UFO that hurtles down and crash lands with an otherworldly glow, which is the cue for the eerie sci-fi music and the starting credits to roll.

The credits are a cartoon scrapbook look back at the origins of the two Looney Tunes characters Daffy Duck and Porky Pig and how they became best friends growing up on a farm under the protective eye of farmer Jim, and when farmer Jim moves on to the big field in the sky he hands over ownership of the farm house to a now fully fledged Daffy and Porky.

Porky wakes up to see it’s the Annual Home Standards Review inspection and so the two are forced into action to make sure the house passes mustard. Everything seems to be going well in its Looney Tunes way until the hostile inspector points out one small oversight…half the roof is missing from the UFO crash and without a fixed roof they will be evicted!

Daffy and Porky need to find work to afford the roof repairs and they try every job they can but can’t hold one down for more than five minutes without (usually Daffy) causing some kind of mayhem getting them fired. This is until they meet Petunia Pig in a cafe who tells them about a job at her bubble gum factory Goodie Gum where she is the flavour scientist.

The job couldn’t be simpler and all Daffy and Porky have to do is not screw it up. Of course strange things are afoot and despite Daffy’s propensity for disaster he’s on to something, discovering a trail of the ectoplasm goo that is identical to what they found on their roof. He begins to investigate and uncovers the plot of the alien invaders to tamper with the bubble gum ingredients in order to zombify the human race. Can the duo save the day and will Porky Pig woo Petunia Pig or will Daffy bring about total disaster?

Directed by Peter Browngardt, the simplicity and familiarity bring a warm nostalgia to be shared with all the family but not without complete anarchy ensuing. The potentially grown up themes of house upkeep, finding a job and an alien conspiracy are stripped Daffy Duck and Porky Pig bare with Daffy’s OTT remonstrations and a stuttering pig that still manages to pass the equality sensors. Despite or because of all the lunacy you leave the film with an ectoplasm glow and some grown up moral lessons to ponder.

Find your nearest cinema at: https://www.vertigoreleasing.com/movie/the-day-the-earth-blew-up-a-looney-tunes-movie

Film: Looney Tunes, The Day the Earth Blew Up

Director: Peter Browngardt

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Adventure, Farce, Sci-fi, Alien Invasion

Stars: Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol

Run time: 1hr 31mins

Rated: PG

Nouvelle Vague

Richard Linklater directs a biographic docudrama tribute to the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s groundbreaking film Breathless and the beginnings of the French New Wave cinema. Starring Guillaume Marbeck and Zoey Deutch. In UK cinemas from 30 January 2026.

BFI London Film Festival / Photographer: JG

Film: Nouvelle Vague

Director: Richard Linklater

Genre: French, Docudrama, Biography, Drama, History

Stars: Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubrey Dullin

Run time: 1hr 46mins

Rated: 12A

No Other Choice

Director Park Chan-wook’s latest film is a comedy crime thriller about a man (Lee Byung-hun) who is made redundant and will do anything to get his job back including eliminating the competition. In UK cinemas from 23 January 2026.

Film: No Other Choice

Director: Park Chan-Wook

Genre: Korean, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Thriller

Stars: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Woo Seung Kim

Run time: 2hr 19mins

Rated: 15

H is for Hawk

Award winning director Philippa Lowthorpe directs this emotional drama based on the real life memoirs of Helen MacDonald. Starring Claire Foy in the central role and featuring Brendan Gleeson it’s the story about a daughter dealing with the grief of losing her father by making an unusual and unlikely friendship. In UK and Ireland cinemas 23 January 2026.

Film: H is for Hawk

Director: Philippa Lowthorpe

Genre: Docudrama, Drama

Stars: Claire Foy, Brendan Gleeson, Denise Gough

Run time: 1hr 54mins

Rated: PG-13

The History of Sound

Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor star in this love story between two men set over a decade during World War I in their journey to record early American folk music for the first time. In UK cinemas from 23 January 2026.

Film: The History of Sound

Director: Oliver Hermanus

Genre: Drama, History, Music, War, Romance

Stars: Paul Mescal, Josh O’Connor, Chris Cooper

Run time: 2hr 08mins

Rated: 15

Hamnet

Based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrel. this is a fictional tribute to the great English playwright William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) that breathes new life into the old scribe’s backstory of courting his future wife Anne ‘Agnes’ Hathaway (Jessie Buckley), their children and the likely effect on his work, Hamlet. In UK cinemas from 9 January 2026.

Paul Mescal plays William Shakespeare and is the first surprise. A man of the moment in the acting sphere but to play William Shakespeare, the receding haired playwright from the 1600s is absurd, is it not? But, this instantly feels like a modern adaption whilst still keeping all the elements of the period, thus regenerating the bard back to life in the Stratford-upon-Avon countryside with a youthful vigour that fizzes with wit and charm in his pursuit of the hand of Agnes Hathaway. The next almost as equally surprising portrayal is Agnes Hathaway, the future wife of William Shakespeare, played here by Jessie Buckley, recreating her not as the archetypal English country rose but as a dirty faced tomboy with a love of falconry who has a close connection to nature bordering on witchcraft.

This is what captivates the imagination of a young William Shakespeare and the couple embark on a forbidden love all of their own and a speedy marital consummation ensues leading to their three children Susanna and the twins Hamnet and Judith. The sweet family dynamic showing the playful affection of the doting mother and father is disrupted when the father has to go to London to work and the children are not without the health troubles of the time, that strike the family with great tragedy when Hamnet dies. A mother and father’s grief drive the couple apart as the father pours himself into his work to deal with it in the only way he knows how.

Even if the connection of grief with the bard’s work is not anything new director Chloé Zhao pulls off this fictional account of the UK’s master story teller’s rise to prominence and family life with an understated but overwhelming effect. How much a historical biography should be faithfully adhered to is perhaps the prerogative of each story teller especially when there is little but conjecture to be exploited and when it is done with such intelligent inferences it is hard to argue with and deserves a cinematic curtain bow.

Film: Hamnet

Director: Chloé Zhao

Genre: Drama, History, Romance, Biography

Stars: Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley

Run time: 2hrs 5mins

Rated: 12A

Rating: 5

Giant

A true story boxing docudrama about one of the UK’s most prodigious pugilists Prince Naseem Hamed (Amir El-Masry) and his rise to becoming world boxing champion and then his eventual decline and fallout with his manager Brendan Ingles (Pierce Brosnan). In UK and Ireland cinemas 9 January 2026.

The story begins in the terraced streets of Sheffield with a scrawny asian school kid being bullied and racially harassed in the playground as he tries to nimbly outrun the perpetrators. His parents have concerns for their three young boys and so welcome the intervention of local boxing gym trainer, Irishman Brendan Ingles, who invites them to train at his gym.

The boys fully onboard with his training regime which offers more than physical education but also promotes a smart inclusive side to training life especially considering the racial backdrop of the neighbourhood, which is no less so in the boxing fraternity and is something the promising young “Naz”, gifted with coordination and speed, will have to navigate if he wants to make it as a professional boxer.

The business partnership between the young “Naz” and Ingles is sealed with a handshake and the rest is history as they say. “Naz’s” natural talent and unorthodox style is nurtured and allowed to develop under the protective guidance of Ingles which pays huge dividends with the boxer’s meteoric rise through the ranks as “Naz” backs up his incredible showboating showmanship, that is very uniquely his own, in the ring. When he finally reaches the top of the boxing game the two’s boxing egos and principles go head to head and with neither side wanting to back down it causes an inevitable split.

It’s a big ask for any actor to play a well-known sporting figure, especially someone of the mercurial talents of Prince Naseem. Expectations are high for comparable looks, speech and mannerisms and whilst Amir El-Masry is no “Naz” double, he does get across a sense of the cocky self-assured champ (in particular his famous ring entry although he may have needed some assistance with this) and combined with a well crafted story based on the relationship with his boxing trainer, supplied here by the support undercard of Pierce Brosnan, who swings the contest here back in favour of the mild mannered Irish trainer, both actors manage to do enough to get the job done.

This one is not just for sports fans and boxing aficionados as it brings a mix of emotions and tensions in the pursuit of success and money in a story about one of GB’s finest boxing exports that makes a strong case for the unsung trainers whose slaveless dedication to their sports gets far less recognition or reward. Here the points score comes out just about even.

Film: Giant

Director: Rowan Athale

Genre: Drama, Docudrama, Sport, Boxing

Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Amir El-Masry, Connor Porter

Run time: 2hrs

Rated: 15

Rating: 3

Desperate Journey

A true story about holocaust survivor Freddie (Knoller) who fled his home town of Vienna from the nazis to search for refuge in England via the Parisian nightlife scene, enduring capture and death camp marches, before being saved by the Ally forces. In UK cinemas from 28 November.

Freddie (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen) is a young man growing up in Vienna whose family send him to England to escape the persecution of the jews by the nazis. He makes his way as far as Paris and is attracted to the nightlife of the late-night clubs and the dancing girls he was enamoured with growing up. His linguistic skills get him a job in one of the clubs after he befriends the moustachioed maître d’ Christos (Fernando Guallar) who needs his help speaking German to entice the nazi officers into the club; the patrons with plenty of money to spend.

The story reveals more real life characters Freddie met in his survival story. Mrs Huberman (Smadi Wolfman) is the auberge owner who takes him in and shares in his troubles and when he needs false papers to get to England he is introduced to a cafe owner (Stephen Berkoff) offering forged passports at an ever rising price due to the increasing threat of the nazis in the neighbourhood. His perilous situation entertaining the German officers, played here with a charming sinisterness, is highlighted when officer Kurt (Til Schweiger) cruelly toys with Freddie by telling him of his ability to identify a jew through phrenology, and hence begins to feel the back of his head. The examination reduces Freddie to a hyperventilating mess showing more guilt than finding any bumps but he is relieved not to be discovered. Matters become further complicated in his escape as he falls for the lead burlesque dancer Jaqueline (Clara Rugaard) who he invites to dinner to persuade her to come with him.

Director Annabel Jankel brings this true survival story to life showing the juxtaposition between the horrors of the war and the rounding up of the jews against the backdrop of the streets of Paris and the drinking clubs frequented by nazi soldiers. There are frequent flash forwards to when Freddie is a prisoner being taken on a death march in subzero conditions that maintains the threat amongst the champagne and dancing girls. The city surroundings and interiors of Vienna and Paris are rendered in World War II periodic style, whilst the hunting down of escapee prisoners in the woods is shot in vivid darkness. Further factual poignancy is provided at the end in the rolling credits about the survivors and those that were never seen again.

A conspicuously entertaining holocaust war film that provides an astonishing representation that links together the harrowing time, the people there and one charmed survivor’s tale.

Film: Desperate Journey

Director: Annabel Jankel

Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller, War

Stars: Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, Clara Rugaard, Fernando Guallar

Run time: 1hr 48mins

Rated: TBC

Rating: 3

The Ice Tower

A film by director Lucile Hadzihalilovic about a young runaway girl, who finds herself on the film set of a dark fairytale production featuring an alluring film actress whom she becomes infatuated by.

The story begins by setting the background to a troubled young 15 year old girl, Jeanne, who wants to run away from her family home. The tone is set when she hitchhikes a ride with a stranger which immediately rings alarm bells to her vulnerability. She breaks into a derelict building for shelter and wakes up the next day to find herself on a film set. As she picks up scraps of food from the production leftovers for breakfast she is presumed to be part of the cast on the production of the Snow Queen, a story she is entranced by. She comes face to face with the star actress Christina (Marion Cotillard) quickly falling under her spell and begins to spy on her. In the production melee she ends up on set as an extra and features in a scene across from her idol. They soon forge a bond which develops with dark undertones surfacing from the dual worlds of the unfolding events and the fairytale script that merge into one.

Marion Cotillard effortlessly assumes the role of the pretentious diva Snow Queen and is matched by an equally assured debutant Clara Pacini playing the young impressionable street urchin. They pull the audience in to a fantasy world of filmmaking and story telling filled with a slow burning suspense. The costumes, interiors and grand snowy vistas combine in stylish exuberance with the eerie music score.

The dangers of a young fan’s adulation and the power of celebrity are given an icy female touch in an atmospherically charged French drama. In UK cinemas from 21 November (French with English subtitles).

Film: The Ice Tower (La Tour de Glace)

Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, French

Stars: Marion Cotillard, Clara Pacini, August Diehl

Run time: 1hr 57mins

Rated: TBC

Rating: 3

The Session Man

A documentary on the the very best of the unsung heroes of rock and roll, Nicky Hopkins, a session player pianist who has not just played with the music greats, such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, but has been instrumental in some of their recording successes. Here he receives the interview accolades from his fellow musicians, including no lesser than Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. (Nicky was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this November 2025.) The Session Man will be in UK & Irish cinemas from 21st November.

Like all biographic stories looking back at an artist’s life it is interesting to learn about how their journey unfolds in their chosen profession, but also, as in this case, it is learning about their role in their field that is unique and here it is most revealing because of their impact on the successes of some of the most famous performers in the world…so much so that it makes them worthy of a documentary. This is the case for Nicky Hopkins, whose musical genius as a session pianist was so highly revered he was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame despite otherwise being a complete unknown.

His health problems with Crohn’s disease meant he was unable to pursue a permanent role in a group worthy of his talents having started with the Cyril Davis All Star Band, in what was to play a major part in the London music scene in the early 60s. As a toddler he began playing the piano barely able to reach the keys before going onto the Royal Academy of Music and then recording and touring with many of the best bands in the world. At the time, the predominantly guitar and percussion centred bands could seek out session players in order to add an extra something, which Nicky became renowned for doing.

The music producers interviewed like Glyn Johns and Shel Talmy, may not be familiar to non-music nuts either, but have a similar list of successful artist credits behind them. They retrace Nicky’s story speaking of his prodigious talent and involvement in groups and the conversations quickly crank-up with the endorsements of the Rolling Stones band members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Bill Wyman, each talking about hearing Nicky play. Their serendipitous meeting led to collaborations resulting in Nicky playing on some of the Stones’ iconic tracks like “Sympathy for the Devil” that feature heavily his mercurial piano skills. Listening to the fellow session players strike those chords in an instantly recognisable track immediately confirms Nicky’s undoubted brilliance.

In a career spanning 30 years working with other seminal UK bands of the 60s and 70s, including the Kinks and the Who, his ‘invisible’ genius is at its most apparent playing the melodica on the Kinks’ number one hit “Sunny Afternoon”, this time illustrating the more subtle side of a session player’s skill.

Having performed on the Beatles’ “Revolution”, he would later on follow this feat up by contributing on all the Beatles’ solo albums including John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”. He played with the Jeff Beck Group too teaming up with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, touring America on several occasions and despite that band’s disbandment just before Woodstock Nicky still performed there under a different band, Jefferson Airplane. This signalled a new direction for Nicky as he settled into the San Francisco music scene.

With some archive footage of Nicky playing the grand piano front and centre recording with the Rolling Stones and similarly recording with John Lennon in America there is a chance to see him at work. A limited old interview of Nicky used from a California Music show in 1991 with Merrell Fankhauser suggests a lack of his celebrity status in the media. Stills of the bands and album covers fill in the gaps to the talking heads, which themselves have an immaculate studio quality to them and the narration is provided by the familiar husky voice of BBC music presenter, Bob Harris, known for the 70s show the Old Grey Whistle Test.

For the rock anglophiles, by the end, the doc runs out of legs and superlatives. It can’t quite keep up with the phenomenal list of musicians Nicky’s worked with but is still a worthy tribute to an unquestionable rock star you’ve likely never heard of.

Film: The Session Man

Director: Mike Treen

Genre: Documentary, Music

Stars: Nicky Hopkins, Keith Richards, Shel Tamy

Run time: 1hr 27mins

Rated: 12A

Rating: 3