NAPPING PRINCESS ★★★★
Directed by Kenji Kamiyama. Voices of Mitsuki Takahata, Shinnosuke Mitsushima. PG cert, general release, 110 min
In Heartland, a world of machines and car manufacture, a princess and her talking pirate teddy attempt to give heart and life to machines through a magic tablet. Back in Japan a sleepy young woman named Kokone is studying for her university entrance exams when her father, a talented mechanic, is arrested. It takes a special, innovative, spectacular kind of anime to simultaneously invite comparisons with Sailor Moon, The Wizard of Oz and Primer. This is it. TB Review/Trailer
AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER ★★★★
Directed by Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen. Featuring Al Gore. PG cert, limited release, 99 min
As Al Gore offers a follow-up to his Oscar-winning environmental doc, there's a new orange villain in town. As the former VP has it: "You always have a plan until you get punched in the face." But he makes an optimistic presentation. We meet various well-wishers (John Kerry) and self-promoters (Justin Trudeau) as we journey from the Antarctic to Texas, where an amiable Republican mayor has introduced 100 per cent solar-powered electricity, and on to Florida. Sobering, but not without hope. TB Review/Trailer
QUEST ★★★★
Directed by Jonathan Olshefski. Featuring Christopher Rainey, Christine'a Rainey, Patricia Rainey, William Rainey. Club, limited release, 105 min
Beginning as Barack Obama was tussling with John McCain and ending during the rise of Trump, Olshefski followed the few ups and many downs of Christopher and Christine'a Rainey. Christopher is a rapper – performing as "Quest" – who also runs a studio for the local up-and-coming talent. Christine'a works at a shelter for abused women. The north Philadelphia streets are summoned up with great power. The characters are fully explored. An essential document. DC Trailer/Review
A GHOST STORY ★★★★★
Directed by David Lowery. Starring Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara. 12A cert, limited release, 92 min
Lowery follows up Pete's Dragon with an engrossing experimental piece starring Affleck as a spirit who – literally draped in a sheet – lurks around his bereaved girlfriend (Rooney) as she recovers from his death in a car crash. The gimmicks do not distract from the film's sentimental energy. Shot in a narrow ratio with rounded corners that suggest old photographs from a lost album, A Ghost Story swells with meditations on the unkindness of time: how we remember and, worse, how we forget. DC Review/Trailer
SHIN GODZILLA ★★★★
Directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi. Starring Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi. 12A cert, limited release, 120 min
Ishiro Honda's original Godzilla (1954) was rooted in second World War and atomic anxiety. Shin Godzilla – winner of picture of the year and director of the year at the 40th Japanese Academy Awards – takes its cues from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Dear Hollywood, this is how you make a melon-farming kaiju movie. Thirty-one films and 63 years later, the monster has seldom looked better. The final shot is haunting. TB Review/Trailer
Still haven’t seen it? Or thinking of seeing it again?
DUNKIRK ★★★★★
Directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D'Arcy, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance 12A cert, general release, 106 min
Nolan tackles the retreat from Dunkirk in disciplined, jaw-dropping fashion. Dunkirk has been fashioned with minimal CGI, using real aeroplanes, people and equipment where possible, and shot on the beaches in France where the events depicted took place. Thousands of extras and a long-retired French warship, the Maillé-Brézé, were involved in the effort. The crunching realism, as captured on large format film stock, is unmistakable, and puts every other rival summer spectacle to shame. TB Review/Trailer
