Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra/Wilson review – white-hot intensity as Verdi Requiem shakes St Paul’s vast dome

In 2022, Rory Kennedy exposed the aviation safety scandal in which 346 people died – but since then, a plane door has blown out mid-flight and more whistleblowers have come to the fore. Will anyone pay for this? It is unfortunate that a sequel was required to Rory Kennedy’s 2022 documentary feature, which alleged that the profit-driven culture at a US aeronautics firm led to two plane crashes and the deaths of 346 people. But given the lack of corporate accountability evident at the end of Downfall: The Case Against Boeing – and the apparent complicity of regulatory body the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) – it was inevitable. Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing opens with a rundown of a significant development in the story: the mysterious death in March 2024 of John Barnett, a former Boeing employee turned whistleblower. Barnett, a contributor in the first film, was in the middle of a deposition when he was found dead at his hotel, which investigators ruled a suicide. Is this another casualty to add to Boeing’s mounting death toll? And is the alarming aviation safety scandal – supposedly resolved in November 2020, when the FAA lifted its grounding order on the Boeing 737 Max – in fact still ongoing?..

After being shelved as a tax-writeoff, this Looney Tunes reboot redraws the hapless hunter as the Erin Brockovich of the cartoon world Here is a quirky, peculiar, yet strangely diverting live-action-toon hybrid of the kind that hasn’t been popular at the movies for many a day; it gives us a new twist on the surreal forever war between Wile E Coyote and the speedy Road Runner (catchphrase “beep beep”, pronounced “meep, meep”). The music over the closing credits will incidentally disappoint fans of this animated franchise; they’ve gone with the Clash’s I Fought the Law, but surely it should be Roadrunner from Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers? Coyote Vs Acme is a comedy whose obsessive and hyperactive pedantry is exhausting, but arguably part of the point, aimed at America’s litigious culture, corporate arrogance and monopoly capitalism. So when producers Warner Bros initially decided to shelve the whole thing as a tax writeoff, that must have felt to director Dave Green like an ironic cartoon anvil to the head. Well, the film was rescued and it would be great therefore to discover that this is a masterpiece. Sadly it’s not, but there are some laughs and the pure fanatical oddity makes this watchable...

Off the coast of Dakar, Goree Island is home to the Senegal’s first elite boarding school for girls. The Mariama Ba School of Excellence encourages its students to challenge what has traditionally been expected of girls across the predominantly Muslim West African nation. The school has a 100% completion rate, and admits 35 students, whose tuition and board are completely state-funded, each school year.