Parky At the Pictures (13/2/2026)

(Reviews of The President's Cake; Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up; and Stitch Head)

THE PRESIDENT'S CAKE.

The winner of the Caméra d'or at Cannes for Best First Feature, Hasan Hadi's The President's Cake is based on the director's own experience of life in the Mesopotamian marshes under Saddam Hussein. It numbers Chris Columbus and Marielle Heller among its executive producers. Yet, despite such Hollywood input, this feels to have more in common Iranian Majid Majidi's achingly poignant rites of passage, Children of Heaven (1997) and The Colour of Paradise (1999).

Iraq in the 1990s and there are two days to President Saddam Hussein's birthday on 28 April. Lamia (Baneen Ahmed Nayyef) lives with her grandmother, Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), and her beloved rooster, Hindi, in a house reachable only by mashoof on the Mesopotamian marshes. She is best friends with neighbour's son, Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), who is something of a scamp and is always falling foul of their teacher, who forces him to enter his name five times in a lottery to determine compulsory contributions to the school's birthday celebrations. After Saeed is tasked with finding fresh fruit, Lamia is dismayed when her name is called out to bake a cake with extra cream, as she knows the ingredients are expensive and that Bibi has to scrape by in order to feed them.

Bibi blames the burden on Lamia for not saying her prayers. But she knows failure to provide a cake will bring shame and she decides to sell her son's pocket watch in the city, in order to raise funds. Rowing to land, Bibi hitches a lift from Jasim the postman (Rahim AlHaj), who is in a good mood because he is driving a groom (Thaer Salem) to his wedding - and he is in surprisingly high spirits considering he lost his sight during an American air raid and has never seen his betrothed.

In the city, Bibi buys Lamia a new school uniform and takes her to a café for lunch. As she has diabetes, the old woman refuses to eat. But she tells Rahma the waitress (Fatima Abouharoon) all about her granddaughter and Lamia gets suspicious when Bibi is called into the next room to answer a phone call. She explains that she is feeling too old to take care of a lively nine year-old and has arranged for Lamia to stay with a foster family for the next couple of years. Distraught at being taken away from her home, Lamia runs away (with Hindi in a pouch across her shoulder) and hitches a ride on a bus heading to the amusement park, where Saeed is working for the day with his disabled father (Maytham Mreidi).

In fact, he's picking pockets and gets chased away, with Lamia in hot pursuit. They go to the grocery run by Izzat (Mohammed Rheimeh), who is flirting with the heavily pregnant Hiyam (Rokia Alwadi) and has no interest in providing Lamia with some sugar. When Hiyam suggests half an hour of intimacy in return for the sugar, Izzat changes his mind and stations the kids on a bench outside his store to make sure no one enters. Meanwhile, Bibi has gone to the police station and is making life unbearable for the desk sergeant (Aqeel Wadi) when Jasim happens to make a delivery and tries to calm her down. However, she faints while giving Lamia's description to a sketch artist and she is taken to the same hospital that the children have just left after accompanying Hiyam after she goes into labour (and Izzat refuses to go in with her to avoid scandal).

Jasim slips an orderly some cash to ensure Bibi is well taken care of, but she frets because she has to find Lamia. She is helping Saeed carry sacks of flour for a disabled merchant in exchange for a couple of eggs. They have a staring contest when they take a break, but Lamia worries what people will think because she is friends with the son of a beggar. He assures her that he's a man of the world, but he sulks when they try to sell the watch in a café and Lamia is invited to dance with the female singer (Elaf Mohamed) enteraining the customers. Determined to prove his worth, Saeed haggles with the owner of a secondhand shop, only to miscount the notes he gives him and Lamia to chide him for striking such a rotten deal over her father's watch.

To make things worse, when they try to buy a cake, they discover that the notes they've been given were forgeries. Lamia is furious and resorts to stealing flour from the storeroom of a busy bakery. Feeling guilty, she insists on praying in a mosque and she leaves Saeed to mind Hindi. However, he is distracted by the balloon he had stolen from the truck on which they had hitched a getaway ride and the rooster wanders away. Lamia curses him for being useless and they get into such a heated row that he drops the bottle of cola he had purloined for her off the roof of the mosque and storms off.

While he goes to the police station to find his father (just as Jasim arrives looking for Lamia), she stumbles across a backstreet butcher (Tayseer Ibrahim Radi), who claims to have Hindi safe in a cage. He gives Lamia some sugar and tells her that they can get baking soda if she joins him at the cinema. Sensing he is up to no good, the girl runs away. But she is obstructed by a Saddam birthday parade and is taken to the police station and deposited in a back room, while Jasim is searching for her out front. Luckily, Hindi is brought out in his pouch and the postman recognises it and has Lamia released. By the time they reach the hospital, however, Bibi has died and they drive back to the marshes with the coffin lashed to the roofrack. The wind blows off the tarpaulin, but they arrive home to bury Bibi by lantern light. Saeed arrives to stand beside the solemn Lamia at the graveside, while his mother (Nadia Rashak) shows her how to mix the ingredients to make her cake.

On 28 April, Lamia takes the cake into school. All the boys are wearing pale blue camouflage uniforms and the teachers are in fatigues and berets. The classroom hums as the teacher tastes Lamia's cake. But no sooner has he declared it very good than an air strke hits the school and Lamia and Saeed duck and cover beneath their desks. She suggests they play the staring game and her sad eyes peer out, as the scene cuts to Saddam lighting candles and being feted by his supporters, as he celebrates his birthday untouched by the realities that his regime is inflicting upon his people.

The slightest hint of overstatement would have turned this heartbreaking story into sentimental melodrama. But Hasan Hadi judges the tone to perfection, while also linking his road movie to the Epic of Gilgamesh and coaxing a performance of genuine poise and poignancy out of first-timer Baneen Ahmed Nayyef. He also finds time for some scathing historical satire, as well as some gentler humour, with Sajad Mohamad Qasem's quicksilver scalliwag ducking and diving with an irreverence that feels both survivalist and subversive at a time of Ba'athist suppression and UN sanctions.

Romanian cinematographer's Tudor Vladimir Panduru's images of the marshes are not only evocative, but they also testify to the struggle facing Iraqis during the Gulf War, as they dealt with tyranny on the ground and terror in the skies. Compatriot Anamaria Tecu's production design is also noteworthy, as she recreates the kind of marsh community that was lost when Saddam had the waters drained as punishment for harbouring Shiite sympathisers. She also conveys the ubiquity of the dictator in daily life and the impact that this has on impressionable children and browbeaten adults alike. The closing shot of the children cowering under their desks is all the more distressing because Lamia's future is so much in doubt following her grandmother's passing. Yet, the faith she places in Saeed in this moment of duress suggests a resilience that will enable the pair to come through the Saddam era and contribute to rebuilding their nation in the decades ahead. After all, they have learned the invaluable lesson that it's sometimes necessary to break the odd rule in order to obey others.

As Hadi points out, however, it's not just the president who makes daily life such a trial. The grocer who offers food for favours, the watch seller who fobs off customers with forged banknotes, and the butcher who tries to lure Lamia into a dark cinema are products of a patriarchal society that subjugates and exploits women. Yet Bibi gives as good as she gets at the police station and the rapid-fire relentlessness of the much of the dialogue is all the more impressive because so many in the cast are non-professional actors. In capturing national character, these exchanges also hint at the extent to which tradition is as much a problem as a comfort for a population whose prayers never seem to be answered, either by an all-seeing deity or short-sighted allies.

LOONEY TUNES: THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP.

In addition to a series of greatest hit compilations, Warner Bros has released three original cartoon features: Space Jam (1996), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003); and Space Jam: A New Legacy (2023). A fifth will hit cinemas this summer, Coyote vs Acme. For now, there's a half-term chance to enjoy The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which pairs Porky Pig with Daffy Duck, whose madcap exploits had previously been gathered in Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island (1983) and Daffy Duck's Quackbusters (1988).

Detecting an asteroid hurtling towards Earth, a scientist (Fred Tatasciore) drives towards the town of Grandview to investigate. However, having also spotted an alien spaceship in the vicinity, the man disappears after peering into the rock crater. What he doesn't know is that the asteroid ripped through the roof of the house that Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (both Eric Bauza) had inherited from Farmer Jim (also Tatasciore), who had raised them and put up with their antics in the hope that they would come to rely on each other and learn the importance of responsibility.

Judging by the state of the property when Mrs Grecht (Laraine Newman) comes to inspect on behalf of the neighbourhood association, Porky and Daffy have learned little. But a deadline to fix their roof focusses the attention and they try to hold down a series of jobs, only to fail because of Daffy's tendency to overdo things. Sitting in a diner wondering what to do, the friends meet Petunia Pig (Candi Milo), a scientist working at the Goodie Gum factory, who is striving to hit upon the perfect flavour. She agrees to get the boys jobs on the Strongberry production line and they make it through their first shift without mishaps.

While Porky is chatting to Petunia, however, Daffy notices the vanished scientist staggering in a trance towards the gum room with a briefcase that is oozing the same luminous green goo that he had noticed edging the hole on the roof. Following the suspicious figure, he discovers that he has poured the slime into the new Super Strongberry mixture. But the pigs ignore his warnings and, Daffy's attempts to sound the alert at the launch party result in them being fired for upsetting the mayor (Wayne Knight).

Snapping up the new gum, the people of Grandview start turning into zombies and the entire world is soon succumbing to the fiendish plan that has been hatched by the Invader (Peter MacNicol), who watches with glee via the CCTV screens in his UFO. He also keeps an eye on Daffy and Porky after the latter uses up the last of their savings to spring his pal from jail. However, the duck convinces the pig to have Petunia analyse a stick of Super Strongberry and she confirms that it has been contaminated. The Invader tries to turn the gum into a marauding creature to thwart them, but they defeat it and hit upon the idea of squirting citizens with a rotting egg extract that will make them spit out the gum so it can be zapped by a flamethrower.

Concerned that Daffy could ruin his foolproof plan, Porky persuades him to stay behind and lay eggs to sustain supplies of the noxious spray. However, he feels he is missing out on the action and his bid to do his bit culminates in the destruction of Porky and Petunia's equipment. Annoying by the intervention, the Invader captures the trio before implementing the second part of his scheme, which involves everyone blowing gum bubbles to form a giant pink shield that surrounds the entire planet.

Still not au fait with the alien's intentions, Porky and Daffy break out of confinement and rescue both Petunia and the scientist. They proceed to unleash a large pin to pop the gum bubble, without realising that the Invader is trying to protect Earth with a rubbery shield that will deflect the hurtling asteroid without causing any damage. When asked why he is so interested in the planet, he explains that he is a great fan of its most precious resource, boba tea.

Needing to think quickly, they decide to enter the asteroid through a hole in its outer casing spotted by the scientist and surround its crystal core with some of the exploding gum that Petunia had accidentally created in her lab. This would be chewed by the batch of wind-up novelty teeth that just happens to be at hand. Daffy insists on accompanying Porky and Petunia and he manages to remain calm, as he winches them into the crater. However, the clockwork teeth tip over while chattering and Daffy volunteers to hammer the ground around the crystal with his king-sized wooden mallet in order to cause the stalactites looming overhead to drop down and grind the gum and cause the detonation.

Making a dash for the entrance so they can be whisked back up into the spaceship, Daffy finds himself stuck to the wall with the gum on his suit. Refusing to leave without his friend, Porky stays with him and Petunia fears they have perished, as she returns to Grandview and a hero's welcome from the mayor. However, Daffy and Porky's chunk of rock has survived the blast and they make a smooth landing in front of the cheering crowd. Petunia kisses Porky and is even more thrilled to discover that the asteroid crystals have the flavour she has been searching for. But he's deflated when he returns home to find the entire house has collapsed. Fortunately, Farmer Jim appears to them in a cloud and guides them to the $5 million insurance policy he had hidden in a framed family photo and Mrs Grecht is appalled to see the spanking new mansion that Daffy and Porky have built on the lot.

Wonderfully wacky and demonstrating that there's still room for hand-drawn animation in the era of CGI and AI, this may not be on a par with the golden age classics produced by the likes of Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, and Chuck Jones, but it's bubblicious fun, nonetheless. In addition to sly asides on the theme of changing tastes, there is also lots of socko mayhem, as well as the odd self-reflexive gag and a couple of inspired montages, one of which will gladden the hearts of anyone with fond memories of the `Pink Elephants on Parade' number from Disney's Dumbo (1941).

While no Mel Blanc, Eric Bauza shows why he won Emmys for Looney Tunes Cartoons (2020-24), Bugs Bunny Builders (2022-25), and Teen Titans Go! (2024), while Candi Milo, who has been voicing Granny and Witch Hazel for Warners since 2017, also does a good job with Petunia, particularly in the moments in which she and Porky bashfully stammer together. Peter MacNicol, Fred Tatasciore, and Laraine Newman make solid contributions, although the pneumatic figure of Mrs Grecht seems a bit unnecessary, while the joke about her having to squeeze into the driving seat of her car is in poor taste for 2026. Even the sight of Daffy transforming into a podgy TikTok influencer jars. Yet, we laugh when Daffy and Porky launch a taxi service and wedge a delayed customer into the landing gear of his plane, only for him to plummet downwards after it retracts. Socko, eh?

Having overseen five Daffy and Porky cartoons for the small screen, director Peter Browngardt displays his genuine affection for the characters, who have sci-fi previous in the Chuck Jones duo of Duck Dodgers in the ⁠24½⁠th Century (1953) and Rocket Squad (1956). He also deserves credit for corralling the 11 screenwriters (five of whom are SpongeBob SquarePants alumni) who worked in references to such genre gems as The Thing From Another World, The Day the Earth Stood Still (both 1951), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and for coming up with witty needle dropisms like the use of Bryan Adams's `(Everything I Do) I Do It For You' for the childhood flashback. Kudos also to Ketchup Entertainment for picking up the film after Warner Bros Discovery discarded it - which presumably means the touted sequel will never see the light of day?

STITCH HEAD.

Adapted from a graphic novel by Guy Bass and Pete Williamson, Steve Hudson's Stitch Head follows in the charmingly misshapen footsteps of Henry Sellick's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Coraline (2009) and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005) and Frankenweenie (2012). Given the Gothic tone, its natural spot in the schedule might seem to have been Halloween, but it reaches UK screens as a half-term treat in the middle of February.

Circus ringmaster Fulbert Freakfinder (Seth Usdenov) knows as he rolls into the village of Grubbers Nubbin that his sensational attractions are no longer dread-inspiring. However, he learns from Arabella (Tia Bannon) that a mad professor (Rob Brydon) has created a cellarful of monsters at Castle Grotteskew. These luckless creatures are cared for by Stitch Head (Asa Butterfield), the professor's first effort, who shows a newly minted cyclops named Creature ( Joel Fry) the ropes, an introductory film about castle life, and his bed in a dormitory whose motley occupants have been taught to behave themselves and keep out of sight in case an angry mob comes to eradicate them.

With a big leather patch around his right eye, Stitch Head cuts a mournful figure, as he wishes the professor would pay attention to his creations rather than being continuously distracted by his next project. When he fails to even notice he's in the laboratory, Stitch Head feels crushed and agrees to join Freakfinder when he makes his way to the castle and offers to make him the new star of his circus.

Creature and the others try to hang on to Stitch Head, as he's pulled up towards Freakfinder's rented hot air balloon. Feeling his arm about to tear. he pleads with them to let him go and Creature takes over his chores after Stitch Head proves a huge success with the villagers, who are terrified of anything to do with the castle. He enjoys being the centre of attention, while the other acts are kind to him. But Freakfinder warns him about becoming complacent, as he has to come up with new ways of pulling in the punters besides commemorative plates and bottle openers.

A sing-along with Stitch Head in chains goes down a storm and Freakfinder gives him his own caravan. But Creature comes to rescue him and they gives the strongman duo the slip. Arabella comes along for the ride, even though she's been told to stay away from the circus by her nan (Alison Steadman). When Stitch Head decides that he would rather stay free than return to the castle, Creature agrees to look after the others. But he is said to be losing his best friend, as he watches him walking away holding Arabella's hand.

Determined to cash in, Freakfinder devises a new spectacle for Stitch Head and the big top is packed. But it nearly goes wrong and Stitch Head's arm is damaged when the audience catches sight of Creature watching the show and goes into hysterics. Grabbing his friend, Creature returns to the castle, but Freakfinder seizes his chance and tricks the patrons into forming an angry mob to storm Grotteskew so he can add the other monsters to his show.

Nan leads the villagers up the mountain and Freakfinder uses his steam train to break down the castle door. There's mayhem, as the monsters panic. But Stitch Head convinces them that there is nothing to be afraid of and Arabella helps him contract a tuce. However, Freakfinder refuses to back down and Stitch Head loses his arm in the tussle. Hearing Creature utter his name, the professor remembers him fondly and starts a running repair, while vowing to take better care of all the monsters, who are touched that he knows all of their names.

As harmony reigns and the monsters put on their own show at the castle, this nicely modulated and deftly designed animation (with the CGI being supervised by David Nasser) closes with an air of Monsters Inc. cosiness. The message is allowed to sink in without undue schmaltz. although the Grim Ratcliffes of this world might take exception to the way in which the Grotteskew outsiders are integrated into Grubbers Nubbin so easily! They might remember the other theme that we are all beautiful, in spite of our imperfections.

Asa Butterfield calmly conveys Stitch Head's sense of emptiness, while Seth Usdenov booms effectively as the grasping villain who thinks only of profits. Alison Steadman is rather wasted as Nan, while Rob Brydon feels miscast as the boffin too wrapped up in his ambition to care about the welfare of his creations. He needs to be loopier and more callously distracted. with someone like Adrian Edmondson possibly being a better fit. But younger viewers won't care about such things. They will be more intrigued by the Flaminal-like critters that hop off the prof's operating table, although they might have been named before the final scene and given a bit more individuality. The same goes for the disgruntled members of Freakfinder's sideshow ensemble, as no one seems to care much about what happens to them.

The grown-ups might like throwaway details like the fact that Stitch Head wears a Freddy Krueger jumper, while the suture lines on his hairless skull make him look like a human baseball. They will also be relieved that the handful of songs are tunefully adept and that there is only one moment of that brand of video gamey downward hurtling that has become de rigueur in so many Hollywood animations. But they will lament the paucity of knowing in-jokes and the kind of throwaway sight gags that made this week's Daffy and Porky romp so engaging. Perhaps this is because Hudson hasn't directed since making five episodes of Cranford (2007) off the back of his feature bow, True North (2006)? But the fact the story rather peters out is as much down to the sources as Hudson's screenplay.