Best thing: As much as I'd love to pick a favourite monster, I feel it's really the amazing range of threats in this crazy film. I feel that the giant bat has a particularly big star turn.

Worst thing: While I know it's supposed to be weird and uncomfortable, the erotic dance just feels a little too close to the kind of film this is supposed to be critiquing. Then again, as a film critiquing horror clichés, the almost identical 'gratuitous erotic dance by the fire' scene in the Friday the 13th remake (a film entirely comprised of horror clichés) does rather vindicate this.

Cabin In The Woods is still such a wonderful exploration of the horror genre, if a bit harsh in its thesis that all horror is following a single formula. If anything the third act craziness shows what a vibrant array of villains the horror genre involves.

In many ways, mind you, Cabin In The Woods is actually a love letter to the horror genre. There are references to all sorts of ideas and tropes from the horror genre. To parody (or in this case, subvert) something well there really needs to be some affection for the subject matter and Cabin In The Woods has that. The outcome of the other horror film taking place in Japan is a particularly wonderful statement on the differences within the genre.

Cabin In The Woods is just generally a great time. Love it.

A+

Best thing: Boris Karloff as an evil scientist is awesome. Oddly he seemed to remind me of Jeremy Irons. Anyway his character is deliciously evil and I loved it. I only wish we could have seen his plans come to fruition.

Worst thing: Did they have bigger plans for the climax and no money for them. Our evil scientist is constantly promising to do some weird brain swap operations and instead the story just stops dead. It's a real pity because otherwise this could have been one of the very best Universal horror movies.

Can I just point out that Dracula gets into a chase scene on horseback? This film is crazy.

Sadly, after a really great first half, the second half really doesn't pay off. But Dr. Niemann is a fantastic new character played deliciously by Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney is an absolute delight whenever he returns to play the wolf man. The side-plot surrounding Dr. Nieman's Igor-esque sidekick also works very well. But for all that is good about this film, the ambitions of Dr. Niemann serve as a complete tease.

While it's nice to be able to say "this film leaves you wanting more", but I'd rather we actually had the payoff we waited for.

B-

David Cronenberg early work #1: Stereo

Some dull black and white footage of someone wandering around what is blatantly a university campus while a narrator lectures us.

I briefly thought it might be about to get interesting when the narrator mentioned a psychic drilling through their own head for release. This is a clear reference to Michael Ironside's role in Scanners. I thought we might be about to see someone drill into their own head...

But it was just an aside. We see someone rub their forehead and then we are back to the same endless dirge.

And when I gave up on this there was so much left to go. My goodness, this was unbearable

Best thing: It was almost funny and the quick cuts to different locations helped add to the surrealism.
Worst thing: It's all about a patient and his psychoanalyst and frankly it's not very interesting but, worse than that, the acting is terrible.

When I put on a disc of early Cronenberg I didn’t realise it would be some short student films where the characters discuss psychoanalysis. I guess I should have known better.

E

Best thing: There is actually a decent twist this time and the surrealism of having the whole thing take place in a bathtub is interesting.

Worst thing: If the acting was better perhaps this would be enjoyable. But while the amateur actor is clearly acting his heart out, I found he came across as annoying rather than funny. And the quieter actor was quite terrible.

A weird little short film set in a bathtub. The script is adequate but the performances are horrendous.

E

Best thing: There are a few little touches that work to subvert expectations. Such as a person licking their glasses clean or where it is revealed that the male physician just happens to be wearing bright red nail varnish.

Worst thing: It was just so incredibly boring and nothing really seemed to be all that important.

These short films by David Cronenberg are all just terrible and Crimes Of The Future is no different. It just feels so long and it's all blatantly just people wandering around a university campus. I give David Cronenberg credit for trying, but overall this was rubbish.

E

Best thing: The rotting head in the microwave? The victim in the wheelchair falling down the stairs? I actually think the best thing actually may be Lucio Fulci with a wild look in his eyes as he marches forward lunging with a knife.

Worst thing: While there are so many wonderful visuals, there are some points where the flow of the story is a bit awkward.

Apparently the horror elements here are all clips to promote other horror films. It doesn't make any difference to my enjoyment though. Combining Lucio Fulci's nightmarish surreal style with the excuse that the gory scenes are hallucinations makes for a pretty sensible plot when compared to Fulci's "The Beyond".

The wonderful opening scene portraying a literal cat clawing into a brain is a wonderful way to start this film about Lucio Fulci going crazy and being plagued by gory horror visions.

Thank you to everyone on Letterboxd who recommended this wonderful film. This is up there with “The Beyond” and “Zombie Flesh Eaters” as one of my favourite Lucio Fulci movies. This time it’s actually a “horror comedy” (my favourite genre!) and I adored it.

A+

Best thing: It's a pretty fantastic performance from Anton Yelchin and I'm all the more horrified by what happens to his character considering the horrifying real life suffering that would have lead to his recent death.

Worst thing: I was trying to work out why Patrick Stewart's claim that "this will not end well" doesn't seem so creepy as it did in the trailer. I think it's because there is very little use of a creepy soundtrack here. And while the situation is certainly pretty sinister without extra dramatisation, the decision not to use sound to heighten the audience's anxiety feels like a mistake.

Murder Party was incredibly fun. The 'failed McGuyver' scene is absolutely brilliant. Before I knew about Murder Party, I'd already seen Blue Ruin. Blue Ruin was a film that was often quite slow but had some great moments and it was a very novel approach to a revenge story.

Green Room is probably my least favourite of Jeremy Saulier’s films. It's fine, but it gets pretty talky without really building up tension. There is some pretty great gore but there aren't that many moments where we are really forced to feel it (one moment involving Anton Yelchin's character being a notable exception).

I must admit that as much as I enjoyed Green Room I felt oddly distant from it. I can't even quite identify why (is it the lack of background music, is that it?) but something here seemed to fall flat and the movie is diminished as a result. But yeah, it's a good film.

B-

Best thing: Admittedly the gore is great. This should be wonderful. Zombies surround our protagonists, some with maggots crawling over their faces, some set on fire, some biting off a woman's breasts. It's pretty crazy.

Worst thing: While the thing that frustrated me at the time was that the zombies are so slow (a character even overtly points this out), I think the real problem is that the shots linger long enough for us to clearly see how easy it is to get away from the zombies. Characters are able to burn zombies by going right up to them to cover them in (conveniently placed) flammable materials before returning to them with a carefully handled lit match. At other times characters seem to be pretty much offering their necks to be strangled. Quicker cuts might made the action seem more frantic. Also cutting away earlier might make it less obvious that the zombies aren't eating organs out of a dead body but are actually pulling red blocks out of a bag. The effects are fine but we linger too long.

I seem to be in a minority on this one. Pretty much all my friends seem to love Burial Ground. Yet while I can see similar elements to those I would enjoy enormously in a Lucio Fulci film, it just falls flat for me here. I think perhaps the big difference here might be the music. While Fulci amd Argento would have a rocking soundtrack with creepy chanting there's no such sense of urgency in Burial Ground.

I wanted to love Burial Ground but instead I was bored. Is there a different cut with better music somewhere? Did I watch the wrong version?

D-

Best thing: While this film certainly tries to be sparing with the special effects, the limited contact the protagonists make with the planet's surface is all the more magical as a result. That dramatic build up makes a final visual effects sequence particularly breathtaking.

Worst thing: Once we've reached the fantastic reveal near the end, there's too much time spent wrapping everything up. It rather undermines the impact of the climactic moment to have us hanging around afterwards.

It's been a long time that I've been planning to see this obscure sci-fi title. Reviews on Letterboxd have been fairly mixed but intriguing enough to keep me interested.

While this was definitely over-shadowed by the release of Gravity I don't think the filmmakers allow let the lower budget here to hold them back. The limited visuals outside of the ship only make us more excited for what we do see and sharing the experience of the astronaut on the surface is quite magical.

If anything it is the format of the film that lets the film down. Not the found footage sections, but rather the documentary-style expository wraparound sections. They seem to be trying to set up the mystery and they simply aren't needed. A title card is enough.

We do get some exploration of the characters but we could do with more and the wraparound sections detract from that.

Even with its problems this is still good, but it's a pity because aspects of this that are brilliant. Some aspects are awe-inspiring, some are deeply creepy and the scene that clearly SHOULD be the very end of the film absolutely knocked me for six. But sadly there are pacing issues here because they keep on interrupting the story.

B-

Best thing: I love all the effects work surrounding the flea. It gets pretty crazy in a way that I think needs to be seen to be believed.

Worst thing: In true fairytale style I’m often very unsure how to feel about what happens. This isn't a clear Disney fairytale format with clear morals, which makes this more awkward for the viewer but probably isn't actually a bad thing for the film.

I recently watched the old series of Jim Henson’s Storyteller and there are clear similarities between the kind of stories there and even the dark themes. However, while Storyteller was willing to make things sweet and cheerful and skew towards a happier outcome, Tale of Tales makes no such concessions.

Great performances, beautiful filmmaking, incredible effects work and, while there are fun moments, overall this film features a deeply unsettling tone. There's very definitely a resolution to the stories, but not one that is interested in skewing towards happiness or in necessarily tying up loose ends in a bow. (Not a neat bow anyway.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I find Toby Jones to be one of the main highlights here. He's always brilliant and Tale of Tales is no exception. Vincent Cassel is in a role similar to those he has played before and he does that role just as well as ever. Shirley Henderson is also a very welcome presence here.

An all-star fairytale extravaganza. While it might leave you scratching your head, the ideas and visuals will stick with you. This is a film providing an experience unlike anything you are likely to see anywhere else. I should note, however, that the European sensibilities of the director mean there is quite a bit of nudity here. I think most will agree that this isn't really suitable for younger audiences.

A+

Best thing: The aliens: Both their appearance and their language script. I was wondering when watching the trailer how the alien could possibly live up to expectations, but it worked and I think both the visual and the sound design helps to really sell the otherness of what is essentially a giant octopus (albeit with Giger-esque elements).

Worst thing: Distracting the daughter from her own illness by calling her "unstoppable". She literally goes from saying to her daughter that both parents were arguing about an illness, then she says that the illness is "unstoppable like you" and the daughter exclaims "I'm unstoppable?" and smiles. Why isn't the daughter asking about the illness? Or even asking in what ways she's unstoppable? They just have a hug and the whole moment is completely unrealistic. Children aren't generally satisfied to stop with profound statements. They ask questions. They are persistent too. They don't shift from "why are mum and dad arguing?" to "I'm unstoppable? Let's have a hug!"

Is it me, or is Arrival incredibly similar to Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar? An alien force provides us with a new opportunity, the state is not sure how to react, the protagonist's relationship their daughter is connected somehow and the result is a new era for mankind. Meanwhile we have some sentimental orchestral music in the background.

But frankly I thought Interstellar worked better. Perhaps less importantly, Interstellar has some action moments like a character being rescued by a robot, at least one space explosion, and some intense spacecraft manoeuvres.

I don't agree with the claims that this is a return to intelligent sci-fi. Certainly it's very well made in terms of the atmosphere it builds up, but it I don't feel that it remotely pays off on its central premise. Just as The Martian tackled the question of how practical engineering and botanical solutions could help you survive when stranded on Mars, Arrival seemed to promise to tackle the question of how to make first contact with an alien from a linguistics perspective. Yet sadly the film only really pays lip service to the problems its protagonist should be solving.

Wittgenstein's philosophy of language established pretty convincingly that meaning is use. You can't just write a word and point to it in order to establish meaning. It needs a social context in which it can be used and in which the rightness or wrongness of a term can be established. Otherwise we have what Wittgenstein referred to as a beetle in a box. If you and I both have closed boxes containing what each of us calls a "beetle" and yet neither of us shows the other what the object is, we have no real way of knowing whether we are referring to the same thing.

When discussing linguistics Amy Adams seems to acknowledge these problems. Kangaroo could mean "I don't know", the word 'purpose' could vary in meaning depending on who is refers to, the sankrit word for 'war' means "a desire for more cows". Language is more complicated than just pointing at something while a word is written on a notice board. And when Amy Adams realises that just showing the word "Louise" won't be enough to make a proper social connection and insists on putting her hand firmly on the glass screen which separates the aliens from the humans, that suggested to me that the film was taking these problems seriously. "Now that's a proper introduction," she announces. Just saying words or writing words for the aliens isn't enough to provide a meaning. There needs to be a social connection; a shared context in which those words attain a meaning for both parties.

Imagine I point at two nuts and say "booglavoo". What might booglavoo mean? It could mean nuts, but it might mean two. Or it could mean the colour brown (if the nuts are brown). It could mean food, or 'look over there', or dangerous, or poisonous. This is called ostensive definition; just pointing at things to establish meaning. Ostensive definitions are not enough to develop a language. It's easier to translate foreign languages because they often have similar grammatical structure and, even when they are further removed, humans already have similar purposes with which they use that language. Wittgenstein would say that if a lion (or in this case, alien octopus) were to speak to us, we would not understand him because lions are a completely different form of life. How could we possibly establish a common purpose with an alien life form which has an entirely separate culture, biology and thought process?

But what is Amy Adams' method anyway? "Ian Walks" is written down and then they watch Ian walk back and forth, so presumably they also did "Ian Runs" and "Louise Runs" and "Louise And Ian Jump". But later on their translations of the alien text seems to connect specific human terms to specific symbols and one of the terms is "death process". How did they teach "death process"? Did they point to something dying with the phrase "death process" written down? Imagine the opportunities for that to be misinterpreted! Am I weird in thinking that they glossed over the most interesting and intelligent aspect of the story and, frankly, the most central aspect of the story? If this is about how we would communicate with aliens, it seems to me that this whole concept was ditched in favour of cheap sentimental manipulations through the concept of a dying young girl.

Arrival has a twist that completely overrides the main concept. The main concept is how to communicate with an entirely different life form. Early in the film we are told that an expert linguist is required to solve this problem. (A white female linguist who apparently was the only person who they could enlist to translate what was being said by Farsi insurgents, which seems a little weird. Nobody in the military speaks Farsi?) By the end of the film any questions of linguistics and a shared meaning between humans and aliens are almost entirely irrelevant. The final revelations of the film do connect with a particular linguistic concept, but they reach so far beyond that concept that we may as well be talking about magic.

During the first half of this film I was still gripped. By the end I was thoroughly disappointed. So many other people seem to be able to just roll with what they are given here, but I just found it all way too frustrating watching the filmmakers give up on such an original and promising central premise.

D+

Best thing: The war story segments are great and it was interesting to see the encounter with the academic defending the bombing of Dresden even while our protagonist, an American soldier and survivor of that event is in front of him.

Worst thing: The weird luxury greenhouse he's transported to. This becomes a vital part of the story and I think it could have done with a more interesting filming style if it's really supposed to be other-worldly. It just looks like a sofa in a studio set. It's almost like we've been transported to a mediocre American sit-com.

I really ought to read the book at some point but it's pretty clear to me that this is a poor adaptation. The war drama is fine but the sci-fi elements just feel ludicrous. I don't feel like the film sells it to me.

I actually was pretty gripped by the war drama parts, but this is very much a sci-fi story and to enjoy the film to the end requires that you embrace the ludicrous sci-fi elements and I just don’t think the filmmakers pulled off that end of things at all well, leading to what I found to be a very unsatisfying finale.

D-

Best thing: Brilliant action sequences that are wonderfully exciting, as well as a very cool menacing villain.

Worst thing: The attempts at humour fell a bit flat for me. There's some very laddish almost homophobic humour here which I thought grated. When prostitutes are crowding round the protagonist to "make him feel better" it's quite a dumb attempt at male fantasy fulfilment, made more annoying by the fact that those unnamed prostitutes are quickly killed off.

"Shut your brain off" is never a good piece of advice when it comes to movies, but fortunately that's not exactly what this film asks you to do. There are interactions between characters as well as exciting visuals. The first person style is also used to full effect to produce some very neat adrenaline fuelled chase sequences.

People have compared it to a videogame and it certainly looks like a first person videogame, but to transfer that to live action is highly impressive. It's impressive enough when Freddie W does it on his Rocketjump youtube channel, but here the CG that I'm sure was probably involved at some point is completely unrecognisable. As cartoonish as the story might be, the world in which it takes place feels entirely real.

This is a strong found footage film. The adrenaline fuelled journey from place to place with a wonderful level of exciting variety in the violence and setting kept me consistently on the edge of my seat. The story is admittedly pretty simplistic and Sharto Copley's character can get annoying at times. (The attempts at humour with his character really didn't appeal.) I'm not entirely sure what Tim Roth is doing here either...

Anyway, it's a lot of fun.

B+

Best thing: The mother is absolutely hilarious. Were she in every scene she might have been able to single-handedly carry this film. It's not only her line delivery but also her reactions. She livens up any scene she is in.

Worst thing: Unfortunately the main protagonist is a scumbag. She is caught trying to steal an entire ATM machine to pay for her drug habit and she treats her parents horribly when she is forced into house arrest with them. Yet for some reason the story is from her perspective and we are expected to invest in this human vermin. Perhaps a better actress could have made us care about this character? Perhaps a better script would have made her obnoxiousness funny rather than irritating? But what we get is an unlikeable uninteresting central character.

Horror comedies are my genre of choice, so when I heard Housebound was getting some good buzz I was excited. But frankly I don't understand the appeal.

It's not very funny, it's not creepy and the story is ludicrous. Perhaps there was a good film in here somewhere, but the script and the filmmaking would need a complete overhaul. As it stands, I was bored.

Music would occasionally pipe up as if to say "look, that thing happened!" But with no investment in the scumbag main character (and not enough focus on the long-suffering mother, played by the actress with the genuinely brilliant comic expressions and timing) I wasn't pulled in by the drama at all.

D-

Best thing: The child performances are great. They feel like genuine characters and they are never irritating. We get a real feel for what these children are like.

Worst thing: The suggestion that one child's bad behaviour was his father's fault for being away in the army felt a bit unfair.

This is naturalistic filmmaking done right. It feels natural and yet there is never a dull moment.

I'm also impressed that what is essentially a courtroom drama is nearly as gripping and tense as being threatened by gun-toting Somali pirates. The director has a good feel for effective drama.

Awesome.

A+

Best thing: Paul Dano
Worst thing: John Cusack

Okay so my best thing, worst thing picks for this review kinda over-simplify things. But I feel that any of the scenes in the past where Paul Dano is central are brilliant, but generally the scenes where John Cusack is central tend to leave me less enthusiastic.

And the real problem here is that of the two stories being told, Paul Dano is central to the more interesting one.

While Paul Dano gets really interesting interactions between his grumpy sceptical and resentful father, his spellbound hired musicians, and his more outgoing  brothers with different priorities. All while being part of the Beach Boys phenomenon.

Meanwhile John Cusack gets an unconvincing romance while Paul Giamatti reprises his 'evil producer' routine from "Private Parts". John Cusack is no longer part of the Beach Boys phenomenon. We're supposed to be intrigued by John Cusack's story because he's not enormously successful anymore. It's really unclear to me why the movie ends where it does other than because it's the latest point chronologically. (Which doesn't seem all that important when the movie constantly jumps back and forward in time.)

There are parts of this movie that are brilliant and I think if you cut out the John Cusack parts I might even love it, but judging it as a whole I found it dragged.

Great performances and the Beach Boys stuff is fascinating (even speaking as someone who has never really taken much interest in the Beach Boys' music).

Biopics are tough to get right, but this does something very special with Brian Wilson’s story, regardless of my misgivings about the movie as a whole.      

C+

Best thing: I like the demon possession effects and the regular use of neon lighting.

Worst thing: The complete lack of humour. And possibly the song that gets written about her within the film.

The trailer for Ava's Possessions was hilarious and as a big fan of horror comedies I couldn't wait to see this film. The sorry-not-sorry attitude of the protagonist regarding her transformation into a demonic pea-soup belching creature just felt like it had so much potential.

But the film doesn't have that pacing, energy or comic timing. The story is simplistic and while there are some cool ideas, they don't come up often enough.

It's amazing that the trailer isn't just funnier than the movie, but somehow actually contains more genuinely funny jokes than the whole movie. Jokes should work better with a proper build-up, but here it seems like the trailer editor has a far better sense of comic timing than the filmmaker.

Ava's Possessions is unbelievably dull and bland and, considering that it is a comedy, I have to hold that heavily against the film.

D+

Seriously the trailer is MUCH better...

https://youtu.be/fyY2SupD49c

Best thing: There are so many great moments in this film. I'm going to pick the scene where our protagonists have to back up their vehicle on a rickety platform. I was just so tense during that scene.

Worst thing: Early on, when we first meet the love interest character she is shown acting like an animal and rubbing her face on the hand of her lover. She  seems to be badly objectified in those early scenes. Though in the second half she finally seems to become a character in her own right.

By the time this movie appeared I'd forgotten why I wanted to see it. I guess this must be a Letterboxd recommendation, probably discovered because people were checking out the original movie later remade as Friedkin's "Sorceror" (a movie whose chances of success were decimated when it was released at the same time as George Lucas' Star Wars which changed cinema forever.)

But I can't really see how Sorceror could really improve on this. Apart from perhaps streamlining the first quarter of the film, there doesn't really seem to be much room for improvement.

A simple story of four men driving two trucks of high explosives for a potentially huge payoff, knowing that one false bump in the road could leave them blown to smithereens. Wages of Fear is one of those unforgettable epics like Laurence of Arabia or Schindler's List. It is poignant yet fun and the central moments will stick with you.

A+

Best thing: Richard Jenkins is almost unrecognisable giving a wonderful performance as the bumbling acting deputy.

Worst thing: Shouldn't there be more background music to build atmosphere? Heck, James Tolkan, the overbearing teacher from Back To The Future, turns up as a drunken piano player and yet we never hear any piano music!

This is the year for violent Westerns starring Kurt Russell isn't it? First Hateful Eight and now Bone Tomahawk. While Bone Tomahawk definitely serves up the better violence, Quentin Tarantino clearly does a better job preparing dramatic tension.

Still Bone Tomahawk is an interesting film and a lot of fun with a very satisfying ending.

It takes a long while to see the villains up close, but when we get to them they are well worth the wait. But couldn't that wait have built up to the climax better? Perhaps some background music to compliment our character development, particularly in the earliest scenes when the film seems slowest.

Pretty good film all the same though. Zahn McClarnon (the native American character from Fargo season two) has a short but sweet appearance to clarify that the evil native American villains are barely human cave dwelling cannibals.

B+

Best thing: Possibly the best performance of William Shatner's entire career.

Worst thing: The ending feels a little forced. Not overly so, but when you have an out-of-control mob on your hands it's hard to see every one of them agreeing to dismiss their cause. Just look at Trump. His failings were broadcast across the media and he still kept his followers.

"The Intruder" is the film that persuaded Roger Corman to steer the films he produced clear of anything political. (He actually worried that Death Race 2000 was too political.)

A town full of white people convinced that, while they all opposed integration in principle, they are best off grudgingly accepting the law enforcing it. The characters use the n-word quite freely in a casual way that would naturally be demeaning to a black person in the room, but isn't expressed aggressively. But the hatred and inhumanity beneath the surface is stirred up by a reprehensible scoundrel who comes to town to use the racial tensions to set himself up as an influential and powerful figure.

The Intruder is incredibly poignant and intense film which, barring the very neat resolution in the end, doesn't seem to need to cheat. Compare this with Mississippi Burning where the filmmakers expect us to believe that a black man could get away with threatening the mayor or that an FBI agent could get away with attacking a deputy with a razor blade. The Intruder felt a great deal more plausible.

If you love Corman classics like Death Race 2000, The Little Shop of Horrors, X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes, or The Pit and the Pendulum, then why not see what a serious political Corman film is like?

It's quite sad to think what other gems we might have had if audiences hadn't shied away from this hard-hitting topical drama. What else might Corman have had up his sleeve as a follow-up? Corman is known for his stingy budgets, but a drama like this can rely on its script and performances. It doesn't need a big budget.

I'd also note that by the end there's at least one black character with a really strong role. Perhaps it's a weakness that there aren't more central performances from the black actors (though I'd note that Mississippi Burning  has that same issue), but the black children being integrated into the school do get their moments.

When Shatner does his big speech to rile up the local townsfolk (including casting accusations of communism) I actually think its incredible. Powerful, frightening, creepy. You can clearly see that this is a man both pretending to be civilised yet intentionally aiming to stir up a mob. That scene alone would be enough to recommend the film, but the rest of the story lives up to it that standard too.

A+

The complaint is often made regarding the original Total Recall that Arnold Schwarzenegger is obviously not the lowly construction worker he thinks he is. So I'm given to wonder why Colin Farrell is more toned and amazingly non-average than in possibly any other of his films I've seen.

I know you have to give sci-fi a bit of leeway for its crazy ideas and certainly I let Snowpiercer run with a lot of ideas that didn't really add up. However, the lift that goes through the centre of the Earth is not an interesting concept or at least, it isn't portrayed in an interesting way here.

The performances here are fine, but the direction just feels incredibly boring. It's remarkable how dull this manages to be. The stakes aren't built up properly.

At least they aren't in the first half. I didn't stick things out any further than that.

Best thing: The interaction between the new Imperial authoritarian character and Moff Tarkin (somehow played by Peter Cushing resurrected specially for the occasion) is wonderful and culminates brilliantly at one of the films best dramatic moments towards the end. Oh and Darth Vader's scenes are all amazing too.

Worst thing: Sorry Forest Whitaker. I had trouble understanding your character's motivations and history with the protagonist. I also found the voice you put on felt a bit forced. I still think you're great, but this role didn't work for me.

It's always important to get your endings right. The times when I often feel most annoyed by a film are when I've stuck with it only to feel like there was no payoff by the end.

So Rogue One has things the right way round in having a bit of an iffy first half where characters feel unformed, leading into a powerful second half where everyone has something to do and where the pace never slows, leading to an emotionally charged third act.

If you are a little concerned that this isn't the experience you hoped for after the opening scenes with Mads Mikkelsen have finished, just don't worry and stick with it.

One thing is for sure, this is the most beaitiful Star Wars movie ever made. Talk about 'out of this world', the visuals are spectacular.

I took a bit longer to get this review written than I'd hoped, so I've now seen a few people complaining about the depiction of Peter Cushing's Moff Tarkin using computer effects. Frankly I thought that was brilliant. How do you make us believe someone is specifically Peter Cushing's character? Put Peter Cushing on screen! And it's a great Peter Cushing performance too.

Another character who appears towards the end felt a bit too shiny to be real. But I was mostly convinced by Moff Tarkin here. (Personally I'd say he was heads and shoulders better than the cartoonish Snoak figure from The Force Awakens.)

Donnie Yen is especially great. Felicity Jones is cool in the lead role, but my favourite performance would have to be Ben Mendelsohn as an ambitious figure working for the Empire.

Star Wars has not been this good for a long time.

A+

Best thing: Zero gravity issues with a swimming pool? Pretty awesome visual trick.
Worst thing: During a key point in the film, a space suit turns out to be remarkably resilient. It felt like a bit of a cheat.

I may have had lowered expectations. Having already booked up our cinema visit in advance I was pretty shocked to see reviews mostly settling around between 2 and 2.5 stars out of 5. But I've got to say, I don't seem to share any of the issues mentioned.

The story is essentially of a man stranded in space. The difference is that he's actually stranded in time. While the crew hibernate for over a lifetime's trip through space, our protagonist awakes too early, doomed to spend the rest of his life in transit.

What results is a simple yet compelling sci-fi tale of people stuck in the hyperspace version of a luxury cruise-liner. But our protagonist is told that hyperspace hibernation pods never malfunction, so is something else at play?

Now it's on the poster pretty clearly that Jennifer Lawrence is in this film too. How does she end up awake too? Our protagonist makes a seriously dodgy decision and many people have held that against the film, but I feel the consequences of that choice are not ignored. Parrots are not on the same intellectual level as human beings, but it has been observed that they go mad if caged and ignored for long periods. Our protagonist is going through a kind of cabin fever and that leads him to make a horrifying decision.

One interesting suggestion was what the story might have been like from Jennifer Lawrence's perspective. I'm actually interested to know what it would have been like if she was the engineer and Chris Pratt was the writer. Or if she woke up first. I think this opens up a number of potential combinations, but I'm happy with the combination they went with.

There is an aspect of the third act resolution which pushes credulity a little bit, but Passengers has enough charm and humour to look past that. (Michael Sheen's contribution as the bartender robot cannot be ignored. He's awesome!) Like Gravity, this has a simple story, some fantastic effects, a sense of isolation and a few good characters to guide us through it. The story is arguably a little better here than in Gravity.

A+

Best thing: Zombie dogs and Milla Jovovich's awesome roundhouse to take them down.

Worst thing: Annoying flashback sequences which reveal a completely uninspired 'twist'.

I feel there would have been much more tension if the movie had followed the basic plot of the game. The moment we start the film we are told all about the evil Umbrella Corporation, but in the film we begin with a kind of haunted mansion setting and only later realise that biological weapons research underground is responsible. Admittedly fans of the game would know it was coming, but for dramatic tension it's a pretty neat structure.

The dialogue is stilted. And it's bizarre that the armed security for a secret facility decide to respond to a potential viral outbreak by taking a local police officer and two employees with amnesia straight into their top secret research labs without gas masks. But the most confusing thing for me is perhaps the mechanism which floods the mansion above with nerve gas to render the occupants (i.e. employees on the security staff) unconscious. Who's crazy idea was that?      

The first Resident Evil movie is incredibly dumb, but it has enough charm that I was willing to return for the sequel. The Marilyn Manson music is awesome and the world of Resident Evil has a lot of potential in spite of all the issues. Like with so many Paul WS Anderson movies, the strong filmmaking which gave us Event Horizon seems to be lurking in the background promising something more. Annoyingly, while the film ends on a high, it felt less like a careful build-up and more like the film took way too long to find its footing.

C+

Best thing: Milla Jovovich takes down a long-tongued monster by aiming a motorcycle at it, sending both flying in the air and then shooting the tank of the runaway  motorbike to produce a glorious mid-air fireball. That being said, perhaps the best thing is that we are introduced to characters who we can actually care about and will continue to do so in the third movie (which I have long considered the best in this series). We have a latino umbrella soldier with a heart of gold, a black character with an inflated sense of style who is often joking around, and then there's Jill Valentine the revealingly dressed (suspended?) police officer who has impossibly perfect aim with a gun.

Worst thing: The filmmakers keep using a sort of time lapse effect on shots of random hordes of shambling zombies in the street and it looks quite bad. Much of the film looks quite tacky but that's possibly the example that most annoyed me. Also, while much of the action is pretty cool, the main battle with Nemesis is mainly done through quick cuts which make the fight awkward to see (probably because Nemesis is a guy in a bulky suit who would struggle with fight choreography).

Resident Evil Apocalypse tries to increase the scope of the series and has some spectacular action sequences, yet it feels cheaper than the first movie.

When I first saw this film in the cinema I thought the ending was very confusing. This time it makes more sense, but it's a lot to expect us to swallow in such a short time.

Apocalypse looks cheap, feels naff and so the attempts to bring some fun to the series with some fun new characters are let down by stilted dialogue and mostly lame action sequences.

D-

Best thing: While this film has the best zombie make-up of the movie series so far, the best part was the clear reference to Hitchcock's The Birds. A huge swarm of infected crows settle around the survivors' vehicles before mercilessly dive bombing in order to peck at the human victims. Brilliant sequence and a surprising complement to the references to Mad Max and Day Of The Dead.

Worst thing: Unfortunately while the costume for the final villain is awesome, the visual effects work used for their special abilities looked very unconvincing. It's unfortunate that these distractingly fake-looking tentacles detract from a cool final showdown.

Yeah sure, Resident Evil: Extinction pulls ideas from other movies from Mad Max to The Birds and even lifts one scene pretty much directly from Day Of The Dead. But how is that a bad thing?

With Russell Mulcahy on board I feel he brings some real class to this series. Mulcahy doesn’t make award-winning films, but he does genre films very well. Highlander and Razorback are both on the more awesome side of trashy and I feel he pulls out that same magic here.

In spite of a few points where lines are delivered a bit flat and despite sharing some of the awkwardness of the previous two entries, I think Extinction is a genuinely great zombie movie in its own right. The character interactions are more interesting, each sequence is varied and fun, there's good use of the Nervada desert setting and there's a clear continuity with the prior films (leading to the most compelling climax of any of any Resident Evil movie).

B+

Best thing: I thought the zombie dogs that split themselves in half were very cool. (I also like the giant zombie with an absurdly huge axe, though he has no reason to be there.)

Worst thing: The flatly delivered monologues in the first half are incredibly dull. And after WS Anderson undoes everything exciting about the climax of Extinction we don't get a decent action scene until we reach the third half. The pacing is utterly horrendous and the monologues demonstrate the biggest problem. Too much talk, not enough fun.

Less "after life" and more "bored to death". I don't find this as offensively terrible as I did the first time around, but it just isn't remotely exciting enough because the pacing is so bad and the drama falls flat. And it annoys me so much that Resident Evil Afterlife squanders the clone army and Alice's superpowers set up in the previous film.

Also frankly Wesker is a terrible villain and his action sequences are boring.

E

Best thing: The music. Isn’t that theme song just amazing?

Worst thing: No consistency in characters, no real stakes, but perhaps the worst thing is the complete failure to capitalise on anything good. I'll discuss that further in the review so here I'll just go with Wesker's accent. I mean seriously, where the hell is he supposed to be from? He seemed to be American before, but now it seems like he's trying to sound English. The hell? (Is this to parallel his oddly fluid accent in the various games?)

Old characters are coming back as clones, so perhaps there's some question of whether they'll remember their old lives or share traits from before. Wasn't a clone army of Alice's really helpful before?

No, it just means the same actors get to guest star. There's no relevance to the plot.

Okay then, so an Alice is regularly being reborn in a peaceful suburban neighbourhood where she gets to have a happy life with her love interest from a previous film. That must have raise some important character-building issues for our heroine right?

Nah, it just gives her a little girl to look after because WS Anderson wants to rip off Aliens.

Oh alright then, but Umbrella have replicas of various cities which are regularly populated with people and subjected to the virus. That's got to be a game-changer, right?

Not really. It just gives us more locations for fight scenes. It's not even clear what Umbrella gains by re-enacting a zombie outbreak over and over again when there are no unaffected cities on the surface.

Okay, but this time Wesker isn't working with Umbrella. Does that change things around at all?

Not really. The appearance of Ada Wong in the movies for the first time is pretty cool (like in the games, she works for Wesker), but without Leon Kennedy to flirt with and seeing as her crazy stunts aren't that different from what Alice does every five minutes, this isn't really the same character we loved in the games.

As per usual Resident Evil: Retribution does nothing terribly new and continues to take the Resident Evil series nowhere. Okay, so the Russian zombies with guns and a tank are cool and the concept of the underground test areas is cool too, but I need some over-arching stakes to make me genuinely care about the outcome of this braindead action flick. Mind you, knowing in advance that there would be no actual plot and just an array of fairly uninvolving action sequences, made this rather more enjoyable this time around.

D-

Best thing: There are a lot of sweet little moments I could pick, such as our protagonist being coached on how to eat pasta for the first time. But I think I'm going to pick a character: the horrible shopkeeper our protagonist works for at the start of the film. (Though a near second place unsurprisingly goes to Julie Walters because, y'know, it IS Julie Walters after all.)

Worst thing: Is it me or does the Italian boyfriend feel a bit fake at times? Charming, sure, but in a bit of a fake way. It's not a massive flaw since this is a really great film, but I'd buy into the relationship more easily if he seemed a little more genuine.

Brooklyn stars Saoirse Ronan as an immigrant to America going through the cultural changes and the hurdles to start a new life. This isn't abcomedy, it doesn't get wacky or self-referential. It's a straight-up real life drama to capture the situation of an Irish immigrant to the US in the 50s.

It's beautiful and powerful and it's interesting how the story uses an ordinary character to capture the whole culture surrounding Irish immigration during that decade, rather than making a biopic about a particular famous person who arrived in the States this way.

Essentially I guess this is a romance, but this is not a film that lets relationships take centre-stage. Brooklyn is a simple yet gripping drama which pulls on the heart strings. It's not so much a story with heroes and villains, but rather one that captures humanity.

Brooklyn is a unique and beautiful drama and I highly recommend it.

A+

Best thing: John Goodman is regularly amazing and even in more ill-advised projects like King Ralph or The Flintstones, he's still wonderfully charming. Here, as the bunker-building conspiracy theorist, he portrays an unhinged character who presents as well-meaning, this id not so far removed from his performance in The Big Lebowski.

Worst thing: To be reasonably vague about a scene in the second half, if someone is wildly stabbing through the wall of a container it's a bit unrealistic for them to keep barely missing the way they do here. That being said, this is just dramatic license really.

10 Cloverfield Lane is a tense thriller. The film works pretty well as a stand-alone film and I'm pretty sure this involves some major changes to the Cloverfield mythology. (Wasn't the original Cloverfield creature man-made?)

Simple, effective, well-acted, tense, exciting, comedic elements; I also thought I saw a few homages to Psycho, even from the opening scene when our female protagonist starts by packing up to run away from her current home and relationship.

10 Cloverfield Lane is a massive mark-up in quality from the first movie in the department which matters most: the characters. I'm now pretty excited to see what this franchise throws at us next. Considering that I wasn't sure if I'd ever rewatch the first movie, that's a pretty big turnaround.

But even if the next few Cloverfield films were to turn out to be hopeless, I'd still be happy with this small independent instalment.

A+

Best thing: Honestly Alan Rickman is brilliant here. I was very impressed and it's all the sadder that is now one of his last ever roles.

Worst thing: Admittedly the liberal handwringing from the politicians becomes more than a little ludicrous at times. But then again, I think that is the point of the film. By bringing a perspective less confortable with warfare into the scenario, we get to explore the basic concepts more thoroughly - even if it possibly means that we miss out on some rather more realistic moral quandaries.

Can I have a remote control beetle camera? Wow, so cool.

There have been plenty of films now about the reasons that terrorists organise bombings and even when we enter Eye In The Sky with that information on our minds, it doesn't make the villain seem any less evil to me. It's quite frightening how realistic the main villains are here. (In fact, it seems that one villain here is based directly on Samantha Lewthwaite, the white widow, currently believed to be residing in Kenya and assisting Al-shabaab.)  I wondered whether the depiction of areas controlled by Al-shabaab might be a little unrealistic but it doesn't look like anyone is questioning that.

Eye In The Sky doesn't feel like a real scenario but it is an interesting exploration of the morals of global warfare and a great showcase of acting talent.

A+

Best thing: The performances in Foxcatcher are excellent and Channing Tatum perhaps deserves particular credit. He doesn't have all that much dialogue and so through his performance we see his character transition through rage, jealousy, admiration. C-Tates has come a long way as an actor.

Worst thing: The film is way too long. This is not a film that needs to take over two hours. Naturally this is subjective, but I really felt the length this time.

Can I just check, does this film involve sexual abuse? I feel like it might be implied but it's never terribly clear.

There are all sorts of clever little details such as when Channing Tatum's character is given a chalet to live in and yet he watches the tv crossed legged on the floor rather than using the furniture. Also when the rich benefactor adds two wrestling medals to his trophy room he bizarrely goes on a tangent belittling his mother's love of horse riding and everyone around him feels unsure how to react.

Still considering the extreme length of the film, much still seems unclear. As much as the film feels genuinely tense and we get a real sense of the extent of the rich benefactor's bizarre behaviour, the film seems to be missing any real point and after the stretched out 2 hour running time, I really needed some point to it all.

D+

Best thing: The obvious choice would be Timothy Spall. At one point someone shoves on a tape of one of David Irving’s events and it took me a while to realise that it wasn't real life footage. So fully had Spall immersed me in his character that I genuinely now saw him as that figure and had completely suspended belief. But I think my favourite thing might be the conflict for Rachel Weisz when she ends up feeling compelled to tell a holocaust survivor they can speak at the trial. This might not seem controversial but within the context of the film it's a key moment that provides some real depth.

Worst thing: For an academic Rachel Weisz's character seems oddly unable to maintain distance from the subject matter. I don't really have a problem with her getting offended when they are visiting the holocaust, but I did get a little irritated in a later scene where she finally realises, "Oh I see now! You were gathering facts for the trial!" Still I think this still raises interesting questions about her character: her feelings of mistrust and that she should be more fully in control of proceedings. Also her feelings of personal responsibility for the outcome of the trial.

British historian David Irving sues American historian Deborah E. Lipstadt for libel because she called him a holocaust denier. The result is a situation where it seems that the historical truth of the holocaust is on trial.

The performances are wonderful and I found the whole premise incredibly interesting. There's an analogy to be made with internet trolls and what is now called the "alt right". David Irving is an example of a figure who courted extremist sentiments by being a bit of a showman. He says what they want to hear, over-eggs the extent of his evidence and is seen as legitimising bigoted historical revisionist positions.

The protagonist finds herself in an odd position. It's strange enough to find the UK legal system requires her to shoulder the burden of proof when she is sued for libel. (She has to prove that her writing is not libellous.) But her situation becomes even odder when she is told that she should not speak at the trial. That holocaust survivors must not be brought forward. The trial strategy is essentially: "Do not feed the troll."

Naturally a trial is a very specific context and on the internet "don't feed the troll" isn't always the best advice, but David Irving’s approach is nevertheless very much that of an internet troll. I'm also reminded of "The Intruder" where William Shatner plays a figure who riles up bigoted sentiments. Social media today seems to help such figures find and unite the niche groups with specific extreme views.

Denial is a film championing those who call out the progenitors of misinformation. It is a film about free speech: the dangers when it is abused, but also the overall necessity of that principle of free speech. It also features an array of great performances and engaging characters. Awesome!

A+

Best thing: For me, by far the best segment (and I so wish the rest of the film was this good) was "W is for Wish". It's like an advert for He-Man toys turned into a horror movie. It's pretty amazing.

Worst thing: The big chubby guy going nuts is perhaps not the worst thing in the film. But that segment is a good example of the film's problems. It's hard to enjoy the majority of this short film because it's not clear what is happening. In the end the explanation is a cheap gag. The result of this is that even the good aspects of the film are wasted because of the format.

I've been meaning to review this for a while. None of the films are as bad as they get in the first movie, but then none of them are as good as those apart from (in my opinion) Steven Kostanski's "W is for Wish" segment. (I really feel like I ought to see Manborg now.)

My favourites from the first were "L is for Libido" (from the director of the VHS segment "Safe Haven") and "T is for Toilet" (from youtube Claymation sensation Lee Hardcastle). Nothing in this sequel has that level of creativity and certainly none of the films seem to be allowed the amount of time that made that segment work. But I've got to admit that we also don't get anything as pathetic as Ti West's "M for Miscarriage" from the last film either.

The war crimes tribunal by semi-cured zombies against surviving humans was a lot of fun. I actually wish that segment had been longer so it could do something more interesting with the concept.

Frankly ABCs of Death is fine, but it quickly becomes tiresome. There are generally no real standouts here and anything that is good feels cut short too soon (while for some of those less impressive efforts sometimes even the shorter runtime feels overlong). Watching this film is generally a pretty unrewarding experience.

D-

Best thing: The spectacular visuals at the finale are awesome. And unlike Spielberg's Close Encounters the film doesn't try to insist that we should necessarily be overjoyed in spite of the darker elements seen in the film.

Worst thing: I don't really get much of a feel for the characters. They aren't written or played badly. The scenario just remains at such a level that they don't really get much opportunity for little individual personality quirks.

While it's a strength that the film keeps its darkness and doesn't tell us what to think, that also results in characters who don't really force us to take sides. And it's interesting how nobody is demonised here either.

Spielberg-type alien films normally suggest or even openly state that the military is evil. But here the military are just out of their depth and while more powerful they seem to be less at fault than the protagonists overall.

Joel Edgerton is a complete chameleon. Once again hiding in plain site by simply acting in a slightly different way and yet somehow becoming completely unrecognisable as a result.

On the one hand it feels like this story takes place in the real world. But on the other hand these seem like fairly bland characters. There are cool ideas but the character interactions are rather less gripping, though certainly well-performed.

B+

Best thing: It's got to be the costume. Here we have a 50s movie centred around a guy in a rubber suit and yet even with the camera directed straight at the monster it still looks amazing. In fact we regularly see the creature swimming and it looks perfectly natural and perfectly convincing.

Worst thing: No surprises here I'm sure. The female character who comes along with the expedition randomly decides to go for a swim in the lagoon. Even other characters in the movie think she's daft doing so. And she's such a sensible and intelligent character that it just seems bizarre.

I love Creature From The Black Lagoon. The pacing lags a bit and the music is a bit cheesy at times, but the monster is such a wonderful design and every appearance is thrilling.

And I actually really like the music too. Sometimes the dramatic music doesn't seem to fit with the Creature creeping around the boat, but when we get some genuinely action-packed scenes the music fits much better and the music builds to crescendos that I found really quite impressive.

Like, Bride of Frankenstein, it has its problems, but Creature of the Black Lagoon is still one of the best Universal movies; even without the comedy elements other entries rely on to give them some extra charm.

B+

Best thing: The lead actress, Perdita Weeks, does manage to be convincing as the Indiana Jones/Da Vinci Code protagonist. Her character is very well formed as intelligent, passionate about her special subjects (such as the history of alchemy), but also willing to ditch people who get into trouble during her trips.

Worst thing: When a random guy who they find in the tunnels randomly attacks one of them and beats that person to death, I felt like the film had really lost its way. I was especially bored at that stage and the relentless attack at that moment by a man who should be severely outnumbered just confused me.

I'd heard from a number of places that As Above So Below was underrated. Now I've seen it, I'll have to disagree. The setup at the beginning is pretty cool and there are some pretty neat effects in places.

Perhaps my issues with ghost films come into play here since I felt that the supernatural forces seemed to be able to do anything and the protagonist generally only seemed to escape unscathed because the supernatural forces simply choose not to use their powers to kill her.

When one character is sucked into a magically conjured-up burning car by unseen forces, it becomes clear that nobody is safe from the magical unseen doohickeys and that whether any character lives or dies is purely coincidence (or 'because it's in the script').

A lot of time spent wandering around corridors doesn't end up making for a good film. (A similar problem as found in the second half of Ridley Scott's Alien, right? Oooh controversial!)

E

Best thing: Daniel Bruhl is awesome as ever and I like his enigmatic, conflicted and somewhat untrustworthy character. He seems to have been given the character with the most depth.

Worst thing: I suppose the idea that someone would go back to the wrong trench at the end with plans to escape isn't unthinkable, but the way it happens in the films felt very contrived. There are a number of somewhat contrived moments or lines through the film but most of the time the performances are good enough to make up for it.

The film aims to capture the magic of the true life event where the various armies briefly held a truce at Christmas during the Great War.

And, to that extent, it succeeds. That the German army actually had Christmas trees placed all the way along the trenches at the front line is one of those things that is so ridiculous that it has to be true.

I don't want to under-value this film. It's a very well put together film and it has its moving moments and it earns all of them. The characters are engaging too.

But there's a less cinematic feel to the film. It felt more like a tv production and as a result the events very consistently came across as a dramatised version of events rather than really pulling me in. It was still clear that this dramatised version of the events is well-performed with solid dialogue but the direction and writing isn't exciting or compelling enough to provide the engrossing experience I'd have liked.

Nevertheless, Joyeux Noel is still very enjoyable and well-performed and it certainly has its moments.

B+

Best thing: I love how the central imposter tells the story and manages to continue to avoid being recognised as a con artist even when it feels utterly ludicrous.

Worst thing: An attempt to leave the audience in suspense at the end annoyed me. If there's no new information, just say so.

I don't watch all that many documentaries and I dislike rating them. A bad documentary can be incredibly dull but what might seem like a good documentary can turn out to be very misleading. Also if a documentary has important subject matter (and they often do) then lower marks seem like disrespect to the subject matter rather than simply to the filmmaker.

But The Imposter in many ways feels like a story rather than an enquiry into a particular topic. The really weird thing is that the story's main villain is essentially the narrator for much of the film. He tells us exactly how he managed to manipulate the system in order to be incorrectly identified as blonde haired blue eyed American boy despite being a brown-eyed dark-haired young adult frenchman.

It's a good story well-told. If this were a normal film I'd criticise the ending, but since this is all real life I guess you can't fabricate a conclusion. (That being said, the attempt to tease the audience with a possible conclusion annoyed me.)

This is a solid documentary and very enjoyable. I recommend it.

The Lobster (2015)

I did not appreciate the bored-sounding yet cynical voiceover. Also it became increasingly clear that the film was intending to be funny the longer it spent not making me laugh.

I'm all for weird sci-fi scenarios and I'm often quite fond of black comedy, but frankly The Lobster was no fun whatsoever. This director doesn't key in to my sense of fun at all. I didn't find Dogtooth fun, I didn't find The Lobster fun and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't find Alps fun either. Ugh!

Life After Beth (2014)
I could barely even tell that the opening scene was supposed to be a funeral. It didn't feel like any funeral I've ever seen. I could forgive that. I'm sure there's an explanation anyway.

But I gave up on this film pretty early. None of the jokes were landing for me. When we not only get the protagonist masturbating with his dead girlfriend's scarf AND his arsehole brother catching him and berating him for it, I decided I'd never get on board with this film. Neither a guy masturbating nor a brother giving him hell for it is funny. Perhaps this film picks up later, but frankly I'd seen enough.

Love And Friendship (2016)
This seemed like a very awkward adaptation. We have a quickfire introduction to several different characters through title cards, which is a great way to confuse me since I'm far better with faces than names.

Since the original book consists in letters to a friend, there are scenes which feature nothing but gossip about people who aren't there and those scenes require you to be fully faniliar with everyone's name and how they relate to one another. I was lost.

Then there's the attempts at humour with the awkward character because he's an idiot. It just wasn't working for me.

Kate Beckinsale is great and if this were a film that makes better use of the visual medium, I would have enjoyed this a lot more. But here I found myself losing interest.

I'm willing to admit a possible failing in myself here. If I'm struggling to keep up with the characters and very possibly some of the language too, then that perhaps indicates a problem with me rather than the film. But it wasn't so long ago that I rewatched Sense and Sensibility and I found that absolutely delightful. At very least, Love And Friendship doesn't seem to take proper advantage of the visual medium in this adaptation.

I couldn't finish this film.

Anomalisa (2015)

Seriously, when is Charlie Kaufman going to let someone else direct his scripts? Or are his scripts all so bad now that nobody wants to touch them? I have no idea what anybody liked about this film.

The animated puppets look kinda cool I guess, but the protagonist just seems like a complete dick and by giving everyone Tom Noonan’s voice the film pulls me into the protagonist's misanthropic viewpoint. (And just to make it even worse, he decides to escape from the noise of the airport by listening to a bunch of Tom Noonans failing to sing a beautiful classical piece. I definitely didn’t find it as soothing as the protagonist seemed to.)

Charlie, I understand that you don’t want to compromise on your “vision”, but frankly you are still supposed to be making a piece of entertainment. When Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and George Clooney took on your scripts they knew that. You seem to think making something entertaining is selling out.

Okay so this year’s movie guide is a bit late, but we're only two months into the year so it'll be fine. Besides with cinema ticket prices through the roof I won't catch much til the DVD release anyway.

So here, better late than never are my anticipated and considered movies for January and February. I will be quickly following up with my guide for the rest of the year.

Anticipated movie in January

Denial

UK release date: 27 January 2017

I've already seen this one and really enjoyed it. Some great performances from Rachel Weisz and Timothy Spall as you'd expect, but the main draw was the timely premise focussed on free speech and intellectual honesty. A real must-see. More negative reviews accuse it of being a glorified tv movie and I suppose I can see where they are coming from, but I'm glad I made this my most anticipated release this January.

Also considered January release:

Hacksaw Ridge
UK release date: 26 January 2017

A starring role for Andrew Garfield who I loved in The Amazing Spider-Man movies as well as his more recent performance in 99 Homes. Could be a bit schmaltzy but I'm intrigued about a story of a pacifist signing up as a stretcher bearer in WWII.

Anticipated movies in February

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

UK release date: 3 February 2017

I am a big fan of Milla Jovovich as an action star (Resident Evil: Extinction, Ultraviolet, Joan of Arc: The Messenger, The Fifth Element). Sure this might not be great but I've seen all the other Resident Evil movies and I do not want to miss out on the final instalment.

The Lego Batman Movie

UK release date: 10 February 2017

The LEGO movie's Batman character was so much fun. So naturally I'm very excited to see more, so I'm keen to see what Chris McKay (Robot Chicken) does with this.

Moonlight

UK release date: 17 February 2017

Even before the Oscars ('cause seriously, who cares about the Oscars) there were multiple positive reviews for this film. A drama surrounding a gay young black man coming dealing with their place in society, cultural norms, all with fantastic performances, sounds like well worth checking out.

The Mind's Eye (UK title: Supernatural Forces)

UK DVD release: February 13 2017

I loved Joe Begos' John Carpenter-esque low budget horror movie "Almost Human" so I'm keen to see what he does with a psychic horror film in the mould of Cronenberg's "Scanners" (which I presume this is going to be).

Also considered February releases

Rings
UK release date: 3 February 2017

I've seen pretty much all the other movies in the Ring franchise so I guess I ought to check this out for completion's sake. (Though I'm infinitely more excited about Sadako Vs Kakayo which pits the evil psychic girl from Ring against the Ju-On ghosts.) Rings looks dumb as hell, which is a pity, but after finding The Ring Two was so horribly underrated I'm not inclined to trust the reviews. (Especially considering how overrated I found Verbinski's convoluted remake of Ring.) It's got to be better than Spiral (Rasen) right?

The Great Wall
UK release date: 17 February 2017

Yimou Zhang's "Hero" was an awesome film and frankly the idea that the wall of a China was used to keep out um... lizard men? Well, that sounds like a lot of fun.

Hidden Figures
UK release date: 17 February 2017

Black women working as mathematicians for NASA while the  civil rights movement is ongoing. It's a very interesting premise. Unfortunately it apparently doesn't sound like it's as convincingly dramatised as it could be. One clip I recently heard seemed to feature an overly dramatic scene where a speech about the lack of access to blacks-only toilets is meant to be mind-blowing but comes across as inauthentic. Still, intriguing...

Anticipated movies in March

Get Out

UK release date: 17 March 2017 (UK)

An incredible trailer for this film exploring a fear of white people and mind control has me very excited.

The Void

UK release date: 31 March 2017

Steven Kostanski made the "W is for Wish" segment from ABCs of Death 2 which was particularly appealing for me because it was like a horror interpretation of the science-fantasy world of Masters of the Universe. (Kostanski also created Manborg which I am now keener to check out than ever. A John Carpenter-style Lovecraftian horror will always appeal to me, but this looks awesome. Also Ellen Wong (Knives Chau from Scott Pilgrim Vs The World) is in this too!

Also considered March releases

Logan
UK release date: 1 March 2017

While I didn't like the last Wolverine solo movie at all an interesting trailer for Logan has me intrigued. Besides, by this stage you can probably expect me to check out any X Men movie universe film at some point.

Kong: Skull Island
UK release date: 10 March 2017

Another King Kong movie potentially leading on to a showdown with Godzilla. It looks like a lot of fun.

Power Rangers
UK release date: 23 March 2017

Dean Israelite's debut "Project Alamanac" was a bit awkward and was understandably criticised as a Chronicle rip-off, but it showed enough promise for me to be excited by his (also Chronicle-esque) Power Rangers reboot.

Ghost in the Shell
UK release date: 31 March 2017

The more I see of this film the more excited I get. Scarlett Johansson in those action scenes looks awesome and the visuals are amazing. I'm just not certain that Rupert Sanders (Snow White And The Huntsman) can pull this off.

Anticipated movie in April

The Handmaiden

UK release date: 14 April 2017

It's the latest from Chan-Wook Park and while I found his films after Oldboy were a bit hit and miss, I was absolutely blown away by his last film: Stoker. I've no idea what to expect from The Handmaiden, but I'm hearing good things.

Also considered April release

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
UK release date: 28 April 2017

By now, like most people, I've become an avid follower of the Marvel Studios films. Guardians of the Galaxy actually wasn't a favourite for me, but I'm still keen to keep up.

Anticipated movies in May

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

UK release date: 12 May 2017

Some have been understandably perturbed at seeing a Guy Ritchie adaptation of the Arthur legend where Arthur Pendragon comes across as "a geezer". Still, after The Man From UNCLE, which I loved so much, I'm prepared to give this project the benefit of the doubt. This looks like a more fun version of John Boorman's “Excalibur” and I'm looking forward to a unique take on the material.

Alien: Covenant

UK release date: 19 May 2017

Ridley Scott's The Martian was awesome and I was actually a fan of Prometheus. (The concept of a terrifying cultish alien race responsible for our existence really captured my imagination.) I love the alien movies (at least the second and third anyway) and I'm so glad we are getting this expansion of that universe rather than the semi-reboot that Neil Blomkamp was promising.

Also considered June release

Gifted 2017
UK release date: 16 June 2017  

I loved Marc Webb's Amazing Spider-Man movies, particularly for how moving the central relationship was in the movie. (I've been meaning to check out 500 Days Of Summer.) His work particularly impressed me considering how much he seemed to be succeeding in spite of dodgy script decisions and studio interference. There's nothing particularly impressive about the premise but I may need to check this out.

Best thing: The Joker's face while Batman is talking about their 'relationship' is just brilliant.

Worst thing: Okay, I'm kind of clutching at straws here, I know. However, I was annoyed when they brought in Voldemort. Look, I'm not much of a Harry Potter fan. My favourite part from the movies I saw was the magic bus and the Rastafarian shrunken heads scene from Prisoner of Azkaban (and I believe that wasn't even in the book). Having briefly introduced all the Batman villains it really annoyed me when centre stage ended up being given to random villains from other franchises that I didn't really care for. (But on the other hand, combining franchises like this is just one element that makes this film unique.) I'd actually have liked to see more of the actual Batman villains (particularly the ones we haven't generally seen in movies before).

From the start of the film it's almost like Batman is giving us a DVD commentary track on the film. I love how they use Batman's constant need to comment on everything that happens as an opportunity to highlight his own self-centredness and also to make clear where he might be questioning his own arrogance for a change. The way that Lego Batman is an endearing arsehole reminds me of the online series "Strongbad Emails" (from www.homestarrunner.com - is that still going? Oooh, there's a youtube channel now.) He's a character whose arrogance is clearly a bid for attention and there's a real charm to his unbridled optimism. It's also clear that he wouldn't ever actually want anyone else to come to harm, even if he wants the focus to be on himself.

There's so much on screen at once, the jokes are genuinely funny (even if there's a lot of clever references involved a lot of the time), and I really cared about the characters. While this might be somewhat limited by being a sequel to "The Lego Movie" with a focus on the Batman, which means this doesn't have the same scope to make absolutely anything anything happen, it's an incredibly fun follow-up all the same. Anyone who was worried that there was not enough new that could be done with the Lego Batman character, can rest easy. The Lego Batman can handle a movie all to himself and does so with aplomb.

A+

Best thing: There are so many fun little bits in the film, but I think my favourite bit might be the fake suicide note (and what happens after the protagonist writes it).

Worst thing: Honestly, while it's still quite funny, I think Taika Waititi's cameo as the priest might be the worst thing for me. Most of the film feels relatively realistic, but his priest figure feels too ridiculous for me to really suspend my belief.

Taika Waititi seems to do nothing but spin gold. And I had no idea how he was going to make a story about an ASBO kid who thinks he's a gangster appealing. But it's so fun and so charming.

Rima Te Wiata is amazing and I would really like to see her in more films. I first came across her when she seemed to be the only source of humour in the movie “Housebound” (I felt like that movie was just dead boring whenever she wasn't on screen). She has such a expressive face and such charm. Sam Neil isn't quite such a strong presence but that's because of the type of character he is playing. A cynic and a loner who wants to hide his insecurities by avoiding social interaction where possible.

I believe this is the only one of Taika Waititi's films to be adapted from a book. I think that somewhat limited the film and certainly a friend of mine was disappointed that this wasn't the laugh riot that we saw in What We Do In The Shadows. But Hunt For The Wilderpeople has a lot of heart and demonstrates that Taika Waititi is capable of doing a straight story as he begins filming the new Thor movie. (Hunt For The Wilderpeople is also not quite as weird as Boy or Eagle Vs Shark.)

Being pursued by a social worker who thinks she's the Terminator and repeats "no child left behind" in the same way a Dalek might repeat "exterminate". The overblown manhunt that makes up the bulk of the film is very enjoyable and I was just completely immersed in the action, chuckling away.

A+

Best thing: Ben Mendelsohn captures the role of a gambling addict perfectly and helps us to completely empathise him even though he's playing a completely pathetic scumbag. He helps us understand his weakness clearly.

Worst thing: There's not a problem with Ryan Reynolds here. In fact this is probably the best Ryan Reynolds performance I've ever seen. However his character is such a closed box of a mystery. I think this secrecy is intentional but I never really understand why that secrecy exists.

This is mostly just a cool character drama and Ryan Reynolds is better here than any other performance I've seen from him. Though the real star is Ben Mendelsohn. He's incredible.

The plot is fairly unimportant. This is a road trip movie so that doesn't matter so much, but I'm not sure that it built up to anything. But it's a pretty awesome journey anyway. This film successfully puts us in the mind of a gambling addict and that's pretty impressive.

B-

Best thing: Taika Waititi's direction and his own performance as the deadbeat dad really helps to capture a boy idolising a terrible father figure. My favourite part is where the central 'boy' is looking on proudly while his dad pretends to fire a large stick like a machine gun. (Though second place has to go to the bit where the younger brother imagines destroying a bus with mind powers. Haven't we all had that at some point?)

Worst thing: The worst I can really say is that perhaps the pacing could be a bit faster. But then again there are little details everywhere and the gradual build allows the film to develop emotional resonance.

Like a lot of children growing up in the 80s, I used to love Michael Jackson. So it was quite cool seeing that MJ fever in the background here. (When the protagonist shows off his 'dance moves' it was hilarious. Ask anyone to dance like Michael Jackson and what do they do? Scrape their feet slowly backwards, lol!)

But at its centre this is about a boy recognising that his father is not worthy of his admiration. Which is obvious to the audience pretty early on since the dad is fresh out of prison.

There are so many wonderful moments in this film and it meets that same awesome quality we saw in Waititi's debut film Eagle Vs Shark. Waititi is an incredible filmmaker who blends comedy and emotional moments beautifully.

A+

Best thing: I love the scenes with the parents who can't take anything seriously. Sure they are unrealistically quick-witted, but their scenes are all very very funny.

Worst thing: Why make reference to John Hughes movies? How are they relevant? Breakfast Club is not a romantic movie. In Breakfast Club the character she seems to want to romance her starts the movie joking that they should gang rape Molly Ringwald's character. And there's Emma Stone distressed that her life isn't like that movie. What the hell?

Wow. I'd forgotten how wonderful this film is. Also cool to see that Aly Michalka from "iZombie” and Johanna Braddy who plays Jenny Matrix in VGHS are both here.

Difference is, I've now seen all John Hughes' movies and feel fairly confident in saying this is better than any of them.

A+

Best thing: When a loved one gets brought in to talk down the armed intruder it is pretty great. I won't spoil what happens, but I thought it was pretty funny.

Worst thing: The mystery is solved perhaps a little too easily.

Isn't George Clooney great? I'm not really sure why he isn't constantly appearing in comedy films. The Coen Brothers seem to be the only ones who recognise his awesome knack for comedy. He plays a pretty similar character here as the one he plays in Intolerable Cruelty. A privileged smooth-talking figure who essentially talks for a living (only here he talks on television rather than in a courtroom).

Okay admittedly this isn’t exactly a comedy, but there are plenty of laughs anyway. Money Monster is a drama which neatly balances tension and humour. Money Monster taps into our anxieties over the econonic crash, but admittedly it's not really about that. There's a very specific fictional company to blame here and it's not a story about a widespread market crash. Nevertheless the story still taps into those same emotions.

Money Monster is a lot of fun, engagingly directed and a good solid piece of entertainment. Sure it's not exactly a work of art, but it's very satisfying all the same.

A+

Best thing: The point where the moment of betrayal takes place is quite neatly and naturally done. (Though perhaps a little too natural and subtle since my parents, who hadn't heard the premise, didn't notice anything wrong.)

Worst thing: When the sympathetic friend is up late at night for ages arguing with his girlfriend that he would never be similarly cowardly in the same situation it starts off funny but it just goes on way too long.

What a boring film. It's quite interesting to look into how someone might be looked down on after he abandons his family in a moment of crisis. But in the end this just feels so incredibly trite and petty.

C-

Best thing: As with pretty much anything with Toby Jones, Toby Jones was the highlight. Not to badmouth Cillian Murphy, but Toby Jones is simply amazing.

Worst thing: The worst thing was simply not feeling engaged by the content and nowhere is that worse than during the final siege where, were I more engaged by the characters, I would be absolutely on the edge of my seat. Yet I felt strangely distant from these scenes of our protagonists in a brutal gun battle with Nazis.

This is the story of a plan to take down the main Nazi figure in charge of the occupation of Czechoslovakia. It's not a story I'm familiar with, yet much of the story feels very generic. It's interesting to hear that the resistance movement objected to a mission which aims so high. They knew that the Nazis would retaliate harshly against the Czech people. But the film seems bizarrely lacking in tension.

On paper this has everything. Romance, a unique spin on a wartime event, a great cast, harrowing violence and yet somehow it all just left me cold.

It's a real pity because there are some great individual moments. One character's use of cyanide and another character's brutal torture are very impactful. But as a whole I found this pretty forgettable. Cillian Murphy is a great actor but I didn't really engage with his character's personality.

D+

Best thing: The teeth chattering done by the infected is genuinely creepy. The whole opening set-up of a facility where children are taught lessons while strapped into chairs to prevent them eating the facility staff is pretty twisted.

Worst thing: The film feels very televisual. And in a time when tv shows no longer look televisual that's really not good. When a new set of child zombies turn up and the children briefly take centre stage, I found myself deeply unmoved by the portrayal. Anyone who has seen the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode where beer turns students into literal neanderthals may understand where I'm coming from. I found the tribe of feral children hard to take entirely seriously.

For the most part, I don't think this is the novel take on zombie stories that was promised, but I'll certainly give them credit for being prepared to go weird.

I found the ending deeply unsatisfying, but I can't say it was predictable. I'm really not sure what Gemma Arteton's character's motivation is though, and that is true consistently throughout the film.

Anyone who has seen the trailer would think Arteton's motivations were pretty clear cut. The most intelligent zombie child saved her life so, as a result, she sees the child as having more importance. In the film, however, we see that Gemma Arteton cares about all the children long before that event ever happens and the central child acts like the world's creepiest teacher's pet. When we finally reach the scene from the trailer it's not clear that she saves Gemma Arteton at all, but it definitely shows that she is able to take down armed soldiers and rip out their jugular veins with her teeth.

Yet Gemma Arteton consistently defends the child as if she weren't blatantly a monster and when we hear about where all the monster children came from it's even harder to understand. And that's okay. Characters with odd motivations can be interesting. But by the end of the film it seems like we are supposed to understand her perspective and I really really don't. I found it much easier to engage with Glenn Close and Paddy Considine's characters who feel much better written.

This has a great cast but perhaps something didn't translate from the novel, since the story seemed to be missing something. The ending seemed to be portrayed as upbeat and I wonder whether it was supposed to be darkly comic. But frankly, I'm at loss.

C-

Anticipated movies in July

Spider-Man: Homecoming

UK release date:7 July 2017

Jon Watts' Spider-Man movie is highly anticipated. Not just because Spider-Man is the only superhero that I've actually properly followed in the comics. Nor because Tom Holland takes the best aspects pf Andrew Garfield's performance and is making full use of the jokes the movie scriptwriters are finally giving Spider-Man. The main reason I am excited is because of Jon Watts' independent movie "Cop Car". Add in Michael Keaton as the Vulture with some Iron Man for good measure and I can't wait.

War for the Planet of the Apes

UK release date: 14 July 2017

The latest in the Planet of the Apes franchise. I'm not sure how this is distinguishing itself from the last movie, but whatever. The last film was exciting enough and interesting enough to have me anticipating Matt Reeves' follow-up. (poster art source)

Dunkirk

UK release date: 21 July 2017

I've been following Chrisopher Nolan's career for a long time now (I still think of Memento and The Prestige) and I think we can probably agree that he needs to do something new. A historical WWII drama would seem to be something new, so that's cool.

The Dark Tower

UK release date: 28 July 2017

I'm not really a fan of Stephen King so I've no idea what to expect, but I like Idris Elba and I've been excited to see a new film from Nikolaj Arcel   ever since his costume drama "A Royal Affair" with Alicia Vikander and Mads Mikkelsen absolutely blew me away. This could be great.

Anticipated in August

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

UK release date: 4 August 2017

Luc Besson is a bit hit and miss sometimes. I like The Fifth Element overall but not all of it works that well. I thought Angel-A was terrible and I hate to think what Lucy is like. Still the fairly recent adventure film, The Extraordinary Adventures of      Adele Blanc-Sec, demonstrates that Luc Besson still has the knack and the trailer for this film is beautiful and captivating. If it's up to the same level as The Fifth Element I'll be happy.

Baby Driver

UK release date: 16 August 2017

It was sad to see Edgar Wright quit the Ant-Man project, but with his latest film, The World's End, becoming my favourite of his Cornetto trilogy, I'm keen to check this out, no matter how uninspiring the title might be.

American Made

UK release date: 25 August 2017

Doug Liman isn't really a director that I generally follow. I always preferred Paul Greengrass's sequels to the original Bourne Identity. Up until recently the only film I really loved from Doug Liman was Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which I know isn't generally rated that highly. But after Edge of Tomorrow completely blew me away I'm keen to see what his next film (also starring Tom Cruise) will be like. This may not be a genre film, but I'm excited anyway.

Also considered September release

Granite Mountain

UK release date: 22 September 2017

I really enjoyed Joseph Kosinski's "Oblivion". I loved Angela Riseborough in that film and it combined a lot of very cool sci-fi ideas into a pretty compelling story. For me, it's another solid Tom Cruise sci-fi movie. As much as I hate that he is funding one of the most horrible cults in existence today (who can at least pat themselves on the back that they aren't Islamic State), he seems to keep picking all these awesome sci-fi films: Minority Report, Edge of Tomorrow, Oblivion, the Mission Impossible movies would count as sci-fi too, and while Vanilla Sky was a terrible remake his enthusiasm to be in a remake of the awesome film "Open Your Eyes" also shows some great taste. But now Kosinski is moving away from genre to real life drama. Tron Legacy didn’t impress me, but after Oblivion I'm interested to see how Kosinski handles this film about a wildfire in Arizona. It could be pretty awesome.

Anticipated movies in October

The Snowman

UK release date: 13 October 2017

Tomas Alfredson has been on my radar ever since his awesome debut "Let The Right One In". It's been a long time since his last film ("Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), so I'm really excited to see what he does with this. But the premise doesn't really excite me as much as I'd like and "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" hasn't been a film I return to fondly like "Let The Right One In" was. I'm still hopeful though.

Saw: Legacy

UK release date: 20 October 2017

I'm a bit of a Spierig Brothers fan. Predestination was certainly very interesting, Undead was a pretty cool debut, but the real highlight so far is still "Daybreakers" (which I know didn't thrill everybody as much as it did me). A friend encouraged me to watch the entire Saw series and, while I don't regret seeing them, the first felt to me like a rip-off of David Fincher's "Se7en" while the rest of the films generally seemed to rely on promising (yet not really delivering in any satisfying way) answers to loose threads in the sequels. But with the Spierig Brothers on board I have no idea what to expect. I don't think they'd ever sign on as just another 'gun for hire'. If they are taking on the project they must have some pretty cool ideas and I can't wait to see what they bring to the table.

Thor: Ragnarok

UK release date: 27 October 2017

After Taika Waititi's adaptation of the book "Hunt For Wilderpeople" he's now shown that he can adapt other people's material in a way that is full of heart. Of course, we mainly know him for his comedy work like "What We Do In The Shadows" and "Eagle Vs Shark". I cannot wait to see what he does with a Thor movie. My opinion has generally been that the best Marvel movies are the funniest ones, so bringing Waititi on board feels like an awesome decision. (And the Thor promotional short films have been so much fun.)

Also considered October release

Blade Runner 2049
UK release date: 6 October 2017

I generally haven't been that impressed with Denis Villeneuve's films. Sure, they generally look great and the performances are generally great. But there always seems to be something that doesn't work for me. Like they lose track of the story or something. In Prisoners there's some indication that there's some kind of magic cult (Boxes of snakes? People drawing mazes? What is all that about?), while in Sicario Benicio Del Toro goes off and does some stuff all by himself in a way that seems completely disconnected from the story surrounding the main character. As for Arrival, while I know a lot of people are blown away, there's something very odd about an emotional moment where a mother compares her daughter to a disease and then they have a big hug. And frankly the whole task of learning a whole new alien language is dismissed as a rather ridiculous montage that suggests that it just involved playing charades while holding up whiteboards. (No, that would not work. Think about it and, if you are still confused, look up a basic summary of Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Language and get back to me.)

But even so, Villeneuve's films visuals and performances have never been a problem and I've always felt that he showed potential. Perhaps Blade Runner 2049 could be the one that really impresses me? We'll have to see.

Anticipated movies in December

Coco

UK release date: 8 December 2017

Pixar generally produce pretty awesome. The last really great one was Inside Out, but Finding Dory worked out pretty great. Wall E is still my favourite. It's one of those films that once it starts I just can't stop watching. (Like, literally, Wall-E was on one day and me and my friend just ended up watching the whole thing. Love it.)

Quite a while back Pixar announced that they were planning a movie based around the "Day of the Dead" celebrations. A different studio ended up releasing "The Book of Life" a lot quicker (and frankly it was terrible), so now it's been long enough that most people have forgotten that film and Pixar finally appear to be about to release their own take on the concept. Could be awesome.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

UK release date: 15 December 2017

Rian Johnson's movies Looper and Brick have been pretty great. Looper showed that he can handle a cool sci-fi flick with special effects and major talent involved. Who is the last Jedi? Well, with Kylo Ren still on the dark side, all Luke's padawans slaughtered and Rey not yet trained in the art of the force (even if she IS a natural) and Leia having chosen to focus on war rather than force powers, that would seem to leave Luke Skywalker (currently) as the last of the Jedi. After all, that's why they were trying to find him last time around. We finished the previous movie having tracked down the last of the Jedi and now in this next movie we finally get to find out why he's been in hiding. By this point, "at least it won't be as bad as the prequels" has at least been proven true. So that's a good place to move on from.

Anticipated movies with (as yet) no UK release date

Annihilation

After Alex Garland's excellent debut Ex Machina, I'm very glad to see him returning to the sci-fi genre. This time we are promised a place which does not follow the laws of nature.

Death Note

I haven't seen Blair Witch yet, so everything I have seen from Adam Wingard so far has been absolutely brilliant. Whether it's The Guest, A Horrible Way To Die or You're Next, his films have made a big impression on me. I found it very easy to enjoy the first of the Japanese live action Death Note movies, but the second (which completes the story) felt rushed and did not impress me. I am keen to see if Adam Wingard can provide something more satisfying in his English language version.

The Devil's Candy

The Loved Ones was a long time ago, but it is an all-time favourite. I've been waiting a long long time for Sean Byrne to direct another film, but it's finally here. I can't wait!

Iron Sky: The Coming Race

Timo Vuorensola follows up Iron Sky with another film based around outlandish ideas. This time he takes on David Icke's crazy theories that the world is run by lizards, even including a hollow world (I believe Icke's theory involves a hollow moon) where Nazi dinosaurs live. As with Iron Sky, it's hard not to get excited by the premise. (Particularly when they release crazy promotional videos of Putin doing amazing athletic dance moves before showing his lizard-like eyes and, even more randomly, a video of Jesus coming off the cross in order to take revenge.)

Mohawk

"We Are Still Here" was an absolutely brilliant horror film and now Ted Geoghegan is releasing yet another horror film so I'm sure it'll be another brilliant one. The director's name is all I know about this so far and I'm happy to come to this one ready for anything.

Okja

Joon-Ho Bong is my favourite of the big Korean filmmakers (even more so than Chan-Wook Park) Snowpiercer, The Host and Mother were all fantastic films. Apparently this new one is a Netflix film, which hopefully means that people in the UK will actually be able to see it this time. Snowpiercer was never released in the UK and that's absolutely nuts.

Sadako vs. Kayako

The latest Ring and Grudge movie - combined! I'm still waiting for a UK release and, after Sadako 3D was more fun than I'd expected, I think it's unlikely that I'll be disappointed.

A Storm in the Stars

The director of the incredible "Wadjda", Haifaa Al-Mansour, now takes on the story of Mary Shelley. On IMDB it looks like they may have decided to simply title this Mary Shelley to avoid confusion. Wadjda was both a powerful drama and a very fun film. I'm very interested to see how she tackles Mary Shelley's story.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh has left us waiting a long time now. Seven Psychopaths wasn't quite on the same level of In Bruges, so I'm hoping that this long gap will have allowed Martin McDonagh to make sure his latest effort represents his abilities to the full.

Other films with no UK release date under consideration....

Amityville: The Awakening
Directed by Franck Khalfoun, who directed the Maniac remake.

Axis
Directed by and starring Aisha Tyler, one of the main lead actresses in the "Archer" tv series.

Brawl in Cell Block 99
Directed by S. Craig Zahler, who directed Bone Tomahawk.

Dealer
Recommended by a Letterboxd friend

How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell, who directed Rabbit Hole.

Kings
Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, who directed Mustang (which I haven't seen yet, but I've heard good things).

The Meyerowitz Stories
Directed by Noah Baumbach, who directed Frances Ha

Suburbicon
Directed by George Clooney, whose previous directing projects Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind and Good Night And Good Luck both really impressed me.

Best thing: At a key moment in the film the boy finally knows why he is different and what he needs to do. When he reveals this information his companions at that moment are all amazed, but they also have to accept that they may lose their child forever. I don't think I missed the subtle touch at the very end of the film where a kind of magical glint is reflected in a characters eyes, but this time I better recognised its significance in relation to that central scene.

Worst thing: I still wish the kid had more explicit character traits. I'm glad that the film is not from the child's perspective and I like that the film doesn't waste time with backstory. However I feel the boy should get a little more chance to express himself more than just quietly reading Superman comics. (I think that makes 'the satellite scene' cool though, because it shows that while the boy is quiet, he is still reacting to his surroundings in ways his father and any other human companions can't see.)

I often leave quite a gap between seeing a film and reviewing it. That's not because I'm carefully gathering by thoughts. It's because I make a point of reviewing every film I watch and I struggle to keep up. (As I write this I have a further 20 films I am in the process of writing reviews for. With plans to see Logan at the cinema very soon.)

I remembered thinking Midnight Special was an A grade film, but I couldn't remember why. The characters don't have standout character quirks or quotable lines and many elements are not expanded on leaving them feeling like unfinished loose ends.

The basic plot is essentially the same elements of any Spielberg-esque magical alien film pitching kids against government authorities (like Attack The Block, which I quite liked, or Starman, which I really didn't).

However, Midnight Special actually pulls a lot of emotion into the cold world it builds for us. And watching a second time, my interest did not lessen. Having already been given all the clues made it quite exciting to see the story unfold with an understanding of where the story would go.

In fact, I now feel like I understand the scene where Adam Driver 'solves' the problem of where the child is going. All the clues are actually there and importantly we don't need to know Adam Driver's complete solution. He has a whole load of coordinates on the board and Driver's character comes to realise that those are all taken from the child listening to radio waves. He realises that the coordinates are all narrowing in on a single location. His discovery reveals why the cult have multiple sets of coordinates revealed by the child; one of many puzzle pieces involved here.

Midnight Special is a fascinating and magical take on the concept and os all very cleverly put together. The story is played for drama, not for comedy or action. That's inevitably a bit jarring, but it's also what makes this unique. This never goes silly or schmaltzy. It elevates the concept above the cheesy Spielberg portrayals by never telling us how to feel or insisting that we should find some emotional meaning at the end. These are ordinary people who are as spellbound as us because what we see them discover is amazing and without the over-dramatisation we'd normally expect, this feels much more plausible as a result. I severely underrated Midnight Special in my first review. This film is one of a kind.

So yeah, anyone who was commenting on my original review when I posted it on Letterboxd, I was listening to you. But I needed to rewatch the film to really figure this out for myself. I had trouble believing that I could have really loved the film all that much and yet be unable to remember WHY I loved the film that much. But having rewatched Midnight Special now, I think I love it even more. (I’ve still no idea what the title means though...)

A+

P.S. So Jeff Nichols latest film got a release date in the UK for February and it has already been and gone at the cinema? How in the hell did that happen? I feel a bit silly having now left it out of my movie guide for this year.

Best thing: Having the horrors of the holocaust only visible at the edges of the frame or out of focus in the background is interesting. I was surprised how well it immersed me in the setting and part of that is because important elements are always pulled into focus so we are not alienated from the protagonist's journey even though our mind is left to fill in the blanks on the violence occurring out of view.

Worst thing: Perhaps the struggle to understand the protagonist's motivation is part of the point of the film, but just as hard to work out is how he keeps on wandering all over the place and doing the wrong tasks without any consequences.

Yes it's a depressing holocaust movie. Yes it's very well shot and put together. Did it feel worth watching? Eh, not really. Pretty weird film. All credit to those who enjoyed it, but this isn't a film with wide appeal really. This is probably (hopefully) the nearest thing we'll ever get to a holocaust found footage movie so I guess it has that going for it...

D+

Best thing: When a character from the school asks to see the kestrel he is amazed and astounded and we in the audience share in that. At that moment it is clearer than ever how amazing it is for this awkward schoolchild to be a kestrel trainer. Without that context its a nature documentary, but when we are immersed in the story the kestrel scenes are awe-inspiring.

Worst thing: Is it me or did the ending seem a bit predictable? The trailer on the DVD appeared to suggest that this movie offers some deep revelations about society and I didn't feel that was present in the actual film.

I feel the ending is less interesting than the main body of the film. Ken Loach leads us into a pretty miserable ending, but at its core we have an deep look into the character of Billy as he trains a kestrel even while doing very very badly at school.

I certainly understand that he is held back by his home life, but the idea that a troublemaker from a poor background can do something great when they are interested and focused is not the massive revelation that the trailer for this movie (also on the DVD) seemed to expect me to think. It also doesn't change how terrible the boy is sometimes. When he steals from the corner shop owner who employs him to deliver papers I felt that was pretty low.

Then again, he's surrounded by a lot of people who are horrible and this film does fulfil an important aspect of a naturalistic film in that it genuinely feels real. For me that's a distinct improvement on, say, Mike Leigh's Another Year. Yeah, I'm not normally a big fan of this sub-genre but I must admit this was pretty cool.

B+

Best thing: Any time Angus Scrimm is on camera, he's just amazing. It's really sad that this is his final turn as the Tall Man, but it feels entirely worth it. His performances are always chilling.

Worst thing: The ambiguous ending followed by cooler content after the credits. Seriously, I know Phantasm movies always have a dream-like quality, but the dreams just seemed to make the ending meaningless. And if there were some more fun characters to introduce, couldn't they have appeared before this 'story' ended?

I won't complain that we got another Phantasm movie before Angus Scrimm passed away. This is by no means a travesty and it has its moments. Still, the film is so meandering and the Slaughterhouse Five time/dimension jumping just feels so pointless.

I mean seriously, arguably the best part of the film (besides the occasional Tall Man scenes) is all found after the credits. What kind of sense does that make?

It was nice to return, but I wish this could have been a better send off.

BOOOOY!

C-

Best thing: The evil orc mage is genuinely very cool. Also the half-orc character is interesting because she's able to emphasise the differences between the cultures due to not fitting in with either.

Worst thing: None of the characters are interesting. The half-orc, Ben Foster's Guardian and the central orc chieftain character all make a stab at it, but the script is just so bland they haven't got much to work with.

I can see how some people would think this isn't all that bad. But it's just so incredibly unengaging. I can see how this story COULD have been one that I cared about but I never felt terribly immersed. Perhaps this would have worked better if the film had settled on one character to be the main point of view character.

Frankly I had more fun with Fant4stic Four. We have an evil orc mage here who steals life force to fuel his magic but personally I thought the Darth Vader-esque Dr Doom figure in Fant4stic was creepier. We also have some big colourful magic powers being used, but I was more excited by the out of control fire and rock powers in Fant4stic.

I'm not sure how Duncan Jones managed to make a film that feels so emotionally flat. It feels like it must be something to do with the structure of the film since the acting seems fine. What with all these disappointing films from promising directors (Fant4stic Four, Noah, Get Santa, Sin City 2, War On Everyone) Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla movie is looking pretty good by comparison.

And hang on, the orcs have killed every living thing in their world and NOW they are wondering whether perhaps they are the bad guys? Seriously?

And if you are making a fantasy adventure film, perhaps make it a bit more fun?

D+

Best thing: Baby Dory is adorable and once again this leads to a Pixar movie where the heartstrings are tugged like nobody's business.

Worst thing: Towards the end of the film we kind of jump the shark (so to speak). I know Finding Dory isn't exactly going for realism but when we have a huge stunt that should essentially kill everybody that cannot help but take me out of the film.

I was pretty excited to see this film. Several years ago I came to believe that Andrew Stanton was the strongest creative mind at Disney. I felt it could not be a coincidence that favourites Finding Nemo and Wall-E both had him sitting in the director's chair... then he made John Carter (which I feel is quite an interesting failure).

While it is great to see Dory return and baby Dory is utterly adorable, I feel the film struggles to recapture the excitement of an adventure  travelling across the ocean.

Admittedly there is some interesting exploration of a sea life centre to give that a new twist and there are some pretty crazy memorable moments. In all honesty Finding Dory is a lot of fun. I just found that in the third act I was struggling to go along with it.

Finding Nemo had its crazy moments, but I feel that by the end Finding Dory has crossed beyond the limits of suspension of disbelief even within the already crazy world it portrays.

Still a pretty great Pixar film. I'd personally put it on a similar level as The Incredibles or Monsters Inc, but for me that's not as great as Wall-E, Up, Finding Nemo or (and I know I'm unusual) Monsters University. But, needless to say, Pixar's films generally have a very high standard and Finding Dory is no exception.

B+

Best thing: Whenever Eddie does a big jump I'm terrified that he's going to die, even though we all know he survived in real life. It's a sign of great dramatic tension when you are still caused to worry even though you know the hero will be fine. Also Hugh Jackman is awesome.

Worst thing: The head of the Olympics committee, played by Tim McInnerny, is a particularly over-the-top moustache-twirling villain considering that this was a real person.

Eddie The Eagle seems to have been dismissed by a lot of people for being sweet but insubstantial. But I felt really stirred up by this film. When Eddie looks out at the view from the higher jumps I can feel the tension every time. I was fully immersed in this story.

Taron Egerton is very engaging in the lead and Hugh Jackman is awesome as the ex-ski jumping alcoholic. When we see him do a 90 metre jump it's shown in such a stylish way and Jackman is so cool.

Eddie The Eagle is a really fun feel good film. I happily watched this two days in a row. It's the sort of film I could happily watch over and over again. Eddie The Eagle is an absolute joy.

A+

Wow, how did the of The Guard director manage to make something this dire? This isn't so much funny as horrible, and the attempts to make use of the same blackly comic style as The Nice Guys (or, y'know, The Guard!) just completely fall flat.

The main villain is an entirely uninteresting moustache twirling  bad guy. Since he looks remarkably like James Franco, I was at least glad that his English accent was fine, but since it’s actually an English actor I must simply say that his character is completely dull. And as for what in the hell Caleb Landry Jones is trying to do in his role as the henchman, I have no idea. I mean, perhaps his semi-effeminate fragile-yet-abrasive upper-crust-scumbag performance would be a really distinctive and memorable part of an effective black comedy, but here he's just one more unfunny piece of bad taste in the whole unfunny bad taste freak show. In the past few years there have been several  bad films from directors I admire but this really takes the biscuit.

Best thing: While technically the best thing is finally having a superhero film which carefully builds up themes and emotions without going schmaltzy or silly. But I'm going to say the Wolverine Vs Wolverine fight is the best thing (clearly taking a page out of Superman III's book *kidding*).

Worst thing: Technically I could say the worst thing was the teaser for Deadpool II. (Seriously, they told us the film had started and then showed us Deadpool. What the hell?) I really don't find movie  Deadpool all that funny. But if forced to pick an aspect the film itself I'd have to go with Richard E. Grant's villain character. He's more of a comedic actor and I didn't think he was as convincing as the rest of the film.

Wow...

I think Logan may actually be the best superhero film ever made. Not so long ago I made a list of my favourite 31 Superhero movies. Some would argue that my top choice of "The Matrix" wasn't even a legitimate choice (after all, isn't Luke Skywalker a superhero on the same basis?) and "The Matrix" is one of my favourite movies of all time, but I am actually actively considering whether Logan is better than that too.

Marvel Studios have been able to keep a significant level of quality by focussing on a generally sweet and cheerful style and giving the audience consistent hits of comedy. Even if themes get dark in a Marvel Studios movie, it's never long til the next joke.

When you make a darker more serious film you are setting yourself up for a less forgiving audience. If you spend enough time making the audience laugh, themes and story beats aren't going to seem like such a big deal. But when the film goes dark, then anything ridiculous is going to be more irritating. (And what is more ridiculous than a superhero story?)

Personally I thought the best Batman film was Batman Begins. The Dark Knight's themes felt less clear to me. ("Hi Harvey! I just killed your girlfriend, so why not go on a crazy killing rampage?" What??) And I don't really think the themes in The Dark Knight Rises themes are consistent at all. Logan has the same plausibility that Nolan's Batman films had, but the themes feel like part of the story rather than being spelt out by a mentor or a heavy-handed set-up. The story of Logan flows smoothly and there's a lot of depth to the performances. I should also note that the story gets crazily dark in places.

But let's not forget the brutal violence. Even with a central child, this film never goes soft on us. Even Aliens struggled to keep up its dark atmosphere in scenes where the child actor was thrown into the mix. But in this film our central child actor is just as brooding and hardened as Wolverine and his action sequences are just as visceral and gory.

And while the trailers make it look like Logan is set at the end of the world it felt to me like a new beginning. Can these be the "new mutants"? Could the future of this world be, at very least, a spin off from the X-Men movie universe? X-Men: Apocalypse felt like much was repeated from what we'd seen before. Logan offers us something new and different and, if possible, I'd like the X-Men universe to continue surprising us. I'd actually really like to see what happens next with these brand new mutant characters.

A+

Best thing: The opening scene where an ancient Egyptian society conspire to bury Apocalypse in his own pyramid is pretty cool. (This is a film that gets fairly consistently worse the longer it runs and unfortunately it's incredibly long.)

Worst thing: I thought the cheesiest line came in a short expository scene where some generals and politicians are informed that all cities above tectonic plates are doomed. "He's talking about the whole goddamn world!"

This starts out seeming pretty cool. Then it becomes fun yet goofy. Then it becomes overblown and stupid. Finally it becomes boring and insipid. The action sequences are big, but I didn't understand the motivations and therefore had little interest in the outcome. In the third act there are so many dramatic or sentimental moments that feel completely unearned.

Oddly, while many people thought Magneto destroying Auschwitz was a problem (and certainly, having recently seen "Denial" I have the importance of the camps as a testement and memorial to what happened fresh in my mind) but in context, this seemed like a stronger moment to me. Magneto is at a stage where he has given up on society. He's no longer interested in teaching them about past errors to ensure they do not repeat past mistakes. He has no expectation that a significant portion of society can understand his loss and remember it  with him. He now intends to destroy the entire foundations of society his powers have been enhanced, so Auschwitz is a large unpopulated area for him to test his powers and it's symbolic of his disgust of the kind of society that built that place.

Outside of that scene, Apocalypse's followers do not seem to have logical motivations at all. Heck, why would anyone want to destroy the world? In the movie "X-Men: First Class" the baddie wanted to cause huge devastation because he believed those with superpowers would come to dominate afterwards. But when Apocalypse want to destroy the world it's not at all clear why. (He also doesn't seem to like nuclear missiles for some reason.)

By the end of the film it looks like Magneto either decided he wanted to indiscriminately kill every single person in the world or he has been mind-controlled by an evil force. So by the end of the film either people should need to deal with his reasons for resorting to mass-murder, or he should feel pretty shaken up about being controlled. But instead everyone just seems to suddenly become Magneto's best pal. It's so weird!

While the new Storm looks cool she doesn't really get much to do. Even Mystique (who is still awesome as ever, by the way), doesn't really seem that important by the end.

I was nicely entertained in the first half, but for much of the final third act I found this film unbearable. I didn't care too much about the unsatisfying ending because I mainly just relieved that it was finally over.

E

Best thing: The central concept of an evil VHS board game is set up pretty well. The random appearance of gates to hell in the house and the failed attempts to quit the game all successfully build the tension.

Worst thing: I felt something was missing in the storytelling. A central theme seemed to be the animosity between the two brothers but it didn't feel like that was ever properly tackled. Even the one brother's 'dark secret' seemed to end up mattering very little.

I was really interested in the premise but this didn't end up being the Lovecraftian Jumanji I feel was promised.

It's certainly creepy that the board game gives them tasks which seem to have horrifying unexpected consequences, but those consequences always seem to be worse for peripheral characters.

Beyond The Gates is pretty creepy and the characters are quite fun, but the film seemed to be missing a proper emotional payoff. Sure they miss their dad, but I never feel like the relationship is terribly fleshed out within the film. Also, while we do explore the relationship between the two brothers there just doesn't seem to be any payoff.

C+

Best thing: Muna Otaru, who plays the central black slave character, is really fantastic. She really seems to evolve as a character over the course of the film. Certainly moreso than Brit Marling's lead role.

Worst thing: While Brit Marling is great, there's very little distinctive or interesting about her character. Of the three women at the house, she is simply 'the one in charge' but there's not much exploration of her character.

I feel very glad that I recently saw Gone With The Wind or else I might have struggled to recognise this as being a civil war story set in the south. As it was, I instantly thought back to  Scarlett O'Hara shouting to the heavens: "With God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again."

Sam Worthington seems to do much better as a stoic quiet villain than he ever did as a relateable hero. Still I feel that perhaps we were supposed to engage with him a little more.

I wonder whether I should have put the subtitles on. I was able to clearly comprehend the vast majority of the dialogue with no trouble at all, but towards the end the dialogue seemed to be mumbled and at one point a single noise uttered by Brit Marling, something like 'baay', turned out to represent the phrase: "But it ain't."

There was certainly potential for more here. The film was pretty cool and I was glad that the keeping room seemed to be some kind of safe room rather than literally a room where women are "kept". I felt this film was solid.

B-

Best thing: The first song "The Riddle Of The Model" was a nice 80s style song that I could just about believe that a school band could come up with.  

Worst thing: The love interest is solely there to be something for the lead character to fixate over and to 'win'. Perhaps that might seem unfair, but when she reveals that her dad raped her the protagonist seems remarkably unconcerned and unsympathetic.

I was told that this was a fun uplifting film so imagine my surprise when it turned out to be utterly horrible. The parents are going through a horrible separation, the headmaster forcefully and violently washes off the protagonist's make-up and actually punches a schoolboy in the face, a bully makes some borderline sexual demands while threatening the protagonist with a catapult, and the love interest is a victim of incestual rape.

The protagonist forms a band with a token black member. The film clearly sets him up as the token black member so I was waiting to see him display distinctive characteristics in his own right, but that never happens. But frankly the protagonist doesn't ever really have much personality and he has the most screen time in which to form one.

The central point of focus is his relationship with the love interest; he forms the band for her. And while their love of the art is a connection between them, the suggestion is also that their horrible homelife brings them together. But the protagonist's parents' separation isn't really on the same level as sexual abuse and when the protagonist starts trying to guilt trip her in the second half he struck me as a complete dick even though the film clearly wants us to be on his side.

The earliest songs from this fake band sound like eighties throwback tunes like The Departure  (All Mapped Out is a great song)  or Franz Ferdinand. By the midpoint of the film, however, they sound more like a post-hardcore/emo band from the early 2000s like Jimmy Eat World

I think perhaps the film would have worked better if it weren't set in the 80s. There's nothing particularly 80s about the story and there are brand new bands who sound more consistently 80s than this movie's soundtrack.

Was there a thematic reason to set the story in the 80s? Frankly, Sing Street has no message. 'Middle class boy just needs to believe in himself and then his hidden talents will be recognised and the girl he likes will realise she loves him' is a story that has never felt more tired. Please stop making "Stand By Me", "Igby Goes Down", "Almost Famous", "Me, Earl and the Dying Girl", "Perks Of Being A Wallflower". We've seen this story enough times and it's not getting any better!

D-

Best thing: Naturally the best thing is the incredible visuals and atmosphere, but I'd particularly like to highlight the scene where Keanu Reeves is called to check out a possible intruder in the protagonist's apartment. What they find there surprised me and the reveal is also gorgeous.

Worst thing: The ending seemed to drag on a bit. I like where it ultimately goes, but it was so jarring and it annoyed me that the protagonist is removed from the story for that segment.  

The Neon Demon is a beautiful film with a powerful atmosphere. However it is also a film where there is less story and more mounting dread. The world of fashion is portrayed as toxic, but like with Drive we discover a darker side to our protagonist.

I'm not sure how to feel about the ending. If the focus ceases to be on our protagonist all of a sudden, that's difficult to handle. Admittedly on Only God Forgives we suddenly realise the film isn't really centred entirely on Gosling, buy at least that is made clear a long way before the end. But then again (and this is going to be harder to understand of you haven't yet seen the film) it's arguable that our protagonist never stops being the focus in The Neon Demon.

The film turns explicitly supernatural at one point. And that decision is hard to come to terms with. The ending of this film alienated me, that definitely negatively affected my enjoyment and I judge films on how enjoyable I find them.

But there's no doubt that The Neon Demon is an incredible experience and, up until the final section, no matter how weird things became before then, I found this moody oppressive thriller to be fantastically intense and gripping. I really enjoyed The Neon Demon, but I did not find the  resolution to be as satisfying as I had hoped.

B+

Best thing: When we meet the witch we discover that she is consistently applying her magic to everyone including herself. It made for a really interesting villain and made the scene with her very effective. She is a victim of her own magic and the harm she does is essentially out of love.

Worst thing: I didn't feel entirely pulled in by the main characters, so I often felt quite distant from the story as a result. It's one of those stories where one thing happens after another, so you really need the central characters to keep you excited during the journey and they aren't really quite interesting enough.

A lot of my issues here may be simply a matter of taste. I'm not keen on the animation style for the most part and I wasn't blown away by the "solve the problem by singing resolution".

I was fascinated by the Irish folklore stories and ideas, but I'd rather those were the whole focus rather than the story set in modern day. This felt like this was using child protagonists to appeal to a child audience and personally I could have done without that. There were certainly appealing aspects to the child characters, like when the boy is drawing a map of his journey, but I got a bit tired of the siblings squabbling.

The parts involving the selki were very cool and the witch was my favourite part of the film. But for all the parts I enjoyed, I can't say I was consistently engaged by the material here.

B+

Best thing: Horror films love to make innocuous things terrifying. Anyone who makes scraping sounds in their teacup when stirring their tea can get the hell away from me. So creepy!

Worst thing: Perhaps it's because I'm so used to horror films ending on a downer. But the ending felt a little too soon. Are they leaving it open for a sequel?

There's a film I love called "Judgment Night". The premise is that a group of yuppies become stranded in the run-down dodgy area of town and find they cannot get out. The opening scene of "Get Out" is the exact opposite of this. The protagonist in that scene feels very uncomfortable walking in a fancy suburban area of town.

Get Out is reminiscent of other horror films too. The obvious comparison is The Stepford Wives which I admittedly haven't seen (unless you count the remake, of which the less said the better). The  black characters acting unnaturally happy as servants in an all-white community are an obvious parallel to the "perfect" submissive wives in that story.

Another comparison I want to make is to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Get Out isn't going for the same sort of oppressive tone as Tobe Hooper's movie (though admittedly Tobe Hooper always thought his film was hilarious). However, what Hooper's film did was to take something seemingly safe and wholesome and make it horrifying. Hooper's film puts a twist on "southern hospitality" and Peele's film puts a twist on embarrassing white liberals.

This isn't a film about racists per se. It's about liberal white people who are supportive of black people and mean well, but have some embarrassing residual racist sentiments. And Peele takes their faux pas comments and takes them to a genuinely horrifying place.

Part way through I thought I knew exactly where this was going and I couldn't have been more wrong. The fear comes from not knowing the nature of the threat but simply knowing that something is wrong. When I thought I understood the threat I briefly became a bit frustrated, but the film quickly got me back on board and I was soon horrified again.

There's a comic relief character here, played by Lil Rel Howery, who is mostly separate from the main action. He isn't as realistic as the other characters and displays some comedy tropes which somewhat at odds with the horror atmosphere of the rest of the film. When he's talking out loud to himself it's clearly playing up to an audience and the only audience is the one watching the film.

I'm very pleased to see Caleb Landry Jones back in top creepy form like we saw from him in thd underrated sci-fi body-horror "Antiviral". Allisom Williams from Girls is also very cool as the girlfriend. I think I'd only seen Daniel Kaluuya (our protagonist) before in Sicario, but he has to give a lot of subtle reaction shots here and he always helps us to clearly understand his character without any need to explicitly tell us his thoughts.

Get Out is clever, different, emotionally powerful, funny (and there are plenty of subtle jokes where I didn't even know they were setting up for a joke until later), dramatic, horrifying and generally everything you would want from an instant horror classic. If you love horror, you will love Get Out. And as a horror comedy fan I think all that is missing is lashings of gore, Evil Dead 2 style, but otherwise this is frikkin' perfect.

A+

Best thing: At a key moment a pile of naked bodies rise from under the church floor. It's spectacular imagery. I loved it. The Bahomet costume also looked very cool.

Worst thing: Some schoolchildren seem remarkably well-informed about this weird church. They even know that there is a device that will bring the whole building down. They also talk about some weird idea that if you go to sleep you will see your best friend who will have your face. Or something. This doesn't tie into the rest of the film and made no sense to me.

The Church is an Italian horror with the dream-like style with explicit gore you'd expect, but wow, some of the visuals are incredible.

Sure there are cheesy moments and admittedly the pacing in the middle isn't great. However, the opening third really impressed me and the visuals in the third act are often unbelievable. Okay so we could do with better characters and Hugh Quarshie should have been given more to do from the start, but the tension is always very skillfully driven up throughout the runtime and I had a lot of fun.

B+

Best thing: I really enjoyed the scene where she is making a fuss in the coffee shop because it isn't an abortion clinic any more and the coffee is bad.

Worst thing: I felt that the central grandma character should have had sense enough to realise that old books probably weren't going to get her as much money as she was hoping. Sure, she's deluding herself but when an old friend says they aren't giving that much for them she should realise she's on to a lost cause rather than going off her rocker.

Grandma is essentially an indie comedy and I'm sure I'm not the only one hearing warning bells at that prospect. But I really enjoyed the ideas explored here.

This is a grumpy traditional feminist responding to her granddaughter's distinct lack of female liberation. She's a free spirit, a bit of badass, and takes no sh*t from anyone. But she also has been left a bit of a cynic.

The eponymous Grandma sees her granddaughter as suffering from a lack of self-respect. But a central focus of the story is a pro-choice message and the grandma is determined that she not turn away her granddaughter when she is trying to have an abortion. The freedom to choose is a vital principle for her

It's a little sad that simply having a woman view a right to one's own body as a basic right without feeling any need to debate or question feels like a daring position for the character to hold. But this was a really uplifting film overall.

The film is also very funny with a satisfying simplicity. I very much enjoyed Grandma and the ending tied things up better than I thought it would.
                               
B+

Best thing: Mark Duplass' performance is great in spite of the dearth of decent material. He's a real showman and is able to capture our attention well.

Worst thing: Someone clearly insisted that they needed to have jump scares in order to call this a horror film, so Duplass keeps on jumping out at the camera guy to scare him. It gets incredibly tiresome. And the decision to have a whole section of the film where we can't see anything was pretty bad too.

I'd heard mixed views on Creep, but positive reviews highlighted Mark Duplass's performance. Having now seen him in "The One I Love" I was intrigued.

I now know why the positive reviews mentioned Duplass. He's the only good thing about this film. Essentially Duplass has to show enough enthusiasm and be enough of a showman to keep us from noticing that there is absolutely no story and no payoff.

To be fair, Duplass actually is so good that this works for a while. But by the third act the jig was up. It became clear that we weren't really building up to a big climax and that the film was mostly just biding its time to reach movie length.

I also think this was intended to be a comedy. Certainly Duplass is a funny guy, but the script  (if they even wrote a script) doesn't give us gags with a build up and payoff. Duplass just occasionally says funny things as part of having a quirky character. By the very end the film had gone full-on goofy and it just didn't feel consistent with a found footage  (and therefore semi-real appearing) film about one quirky creepy figure.

A waste of talent and, if they just had some more inspired ideas on how to end this, it could have been far more satisfying and possibly even pretty good.

D-

Best thing: I actually cared about the characters and despite less than stellar acting and cheap-as-hell sets, I was pretty invested in the story as they explored the abandoned bunker/facility.

Worst thing: If you want to tease us that the monster is still alive at the end, it'd be nice if you didn't blatantly re-use the exact same shot as we saw earlier.

Well towards the end, we get something that looks like Chucky in Space. Mind you, that's not as good as it sounds.

This has a ridiculously low budget, but it's still quite fun. It almost even feels like there might be an interesting explanation for the monster. In the end this feels to me like a rip-off of Leviathan, which itself is often viewed as a rip-off of Alien.

Any fights with the alien are incredibly unconvincing. We have a monster with enormous claws, yet the fights just involve pushing and shoving. By the end of the movie I actually became bored by the protagonist consistently shoving the monster away over and over again.

For a trashy daft movie, this wasn't half bad. Not terribly good either, but not half bad. I wouldn't quite recommend it, but if you want something silly with some low budget charm you could do a lot worse.

C+

Best thing: The filmmaking style gets us into the head of the traumatised protagonist despite his intentionally inexpressive withdrawn character. He's easy to root for even when he's clearly out of control.

Worst thing: The police are villainised to an absurd degree. It's bad enough when they seem to be being mean to Rambo for the hell of it, but when one of them decides to shoot at him from a helicopter while he's unarmed and climbing a rock face, it just dives into absurdity.

I don't feel like First Blood is really a film to be taken seriously, but it is an action film which pulls you into the head of its central character. First Blood captures the issues surrounding returning Vietnam veterans in a compelling, albeit overblown, way.

Stallone plays a Vietnam veteran who goes to visit a fellow soldier and ends up on a rampage after receiving unjust treatment by the police.

I'm not sure how I feel about Stallone's characters breakdown in the third act. It feels like over-acting but then again Stallone is playing a traumatised character. Still, First Blood seems like quite an important film in the way it captures the mood of the time.

C+

Best thing: I quite enjoy the relationship between Rambo and his superior officer on one hand and the leader of this new operation on the other. The politics behind it is quite interesting, even if it's not all that deep.

Worst thing: It's one thing to have a protagonist that is a more skilled fighter than the enemy, but it's quite another to have him standing in plain line of fire and inexplicably remaining unharmed by machine gun fire.

John Rambo turns into a superhero. In the last movie he was a trained killer, traumatised by his experiences experiences in Vietnam, and more than a match for the local police force.

In part 2 he is brought out of retirement to go up against the Russians, rescuing prisoners of war held by the communists. And it turns out that, just like with local police, he can take on Russians single-handed too.

The action isn't even all that exciting. Rambo has no strategy this time. He stands in plain sight and machine guns are fired at him while he slowly draws back his bow to fire explosive arrows. On top of that the film is incredibly cheesy.

Charles Napier is great as the asshole boss. The way the film handles his story is ludicrous, but his performance is great and there was potential to do more interesting things with his character.

Rambo: First Blood Part 2 is dumb, but I can see how some might enjoy it. Frankly I found it to be a pretty mediocre action film. Also John Rambow is such a great soldier, could we have some more deliberation before he flagrantly ignores the direct order: "do not engage the enemy"?

C-

Best thing: They show Rambo cleaning out a wound by lighting gunpowder inside his body. I don't know if that's realistic or sensible but it looks amazing.

Worst thing: The story is so incredibly boring. We don't even have a good guy turning villainous to make things interesting. Rambo befriending the Afghans seemed like a cool idea but what is the payoff on that? In the end the story is about Rambo, his old commanding officer and the Russians.

As much as First Blood part 2 didn't impress me, it was at least a distinctly different story from the first film. Rambo III is pretty much a less interesting repeat of First Blood part 2.

And yet at the beginning I was fully on board. Rambo is living at a Buddhist monastery and yet he is also competing in street fight matches for some extra money. That's a really interesting contrast. It represents how he is pursuing a more peaceful existence yet cannot leave the violence behind. But fighting in a controlled environment isn't the same as a war, so when asked to go back into the field, he refuses. Nothing in the rest of the film is ever that smart again.

Also the action is less interesting and sometimes it's hard to tell what is happening. When Rambo is running around corridors or even having bombs dropped on him I'm unclear where Rambo is by comparison to the enemies.

I began thinking this might be the best of the original Rambo trilogy. I quickly downgraded my expectations, instead presuming this would be on a par with First Blood part 2. But while I was still reasonably interested in seeing Rambo blow up the Russian baddie in part 2, in Rambo III nothing was holding my attention at all. The idea of Rambo helping the Afghans kick out the Soviet Union seemed like it held a lot of promise, but by the end the premise felt entirely squandered.

D+

Best thing: Did they use CG for the violence? It feels like they must have and yet it looks so incredibly real for 2008. People get ripped to shreds and completely decimated by machine fire. In X-Men Apocalypse people being beheaded by sand looked utterly ridiculous. I'd expect people being ripped apart by machine gun fire to have a similar issue, but here it looks disturbingly real. It's amazing.

Worst thing: Wait, where's the ending. Obviously the film ends, but the film sets up characters with contrasting perspectives from the SAS guy who just wants to get out as soon as possible and the missionaries who are completely opposed to violence. There's no real finale to tie this up really.

Rambo has apparently been wandering in Asia since his exploits in Afghanistan. The film really shows how utterly horrifying the exploits of the Burmese military can be and does not pull any punches.

Sure, the violence is gruesome and plenty have noted that it's not 'fun' violence. But in a way that is actually a strength of this film. The violence is horrifying because the situation in Burma is horrifying. The fact is that while this violence might not be 'fun' it is awe-inspiringly impactful.

I quite like the neat twist on expectations towards the beginning. When Rambo agrees to help Christian missionaries, it feels like we might see him being 'saved' from his hopeless existence through faith. But this is a far too cynical movie to go down that path.

I'm surprised we don't see more of Julie Benz (Darla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) in this film. She's set up as important at the beginning and I don't actually think she has an arc. One of the main things I wish they had done to wrap up is to have some final meaningful exchange between her and Rambo before the film comes to a close. The ending is very abrupt.

But still, I don't think anyone can say the violence is boring here. Horrible, certainly, but in a way that forced you to pay attention. Rambo's victories are always a little hard to believe, but I felt this was a more plausible story than other Rambo films. While this fourth Rambo film still lacks depth, I think this is the best film in this movie series.

B-

Best thing: As much as the effects are cheap and terrible, when we cut to an advancing demonic claymation monster I found that to be awesome. Though actually my favourite aspect is probably the villain's awkward attempts to woo the female prisoner, hoping that she'll date him even though he's a horrifying monster from hell who is currently keeping her in a cage.

Worst thing: The acting from the good guys is all terrible.

With "The Void" on the way and having found "W is for Wish" to be by far the best segment of The ABCs of Death 2, I decided to check out Steven Kostanski's first film "Manborg". It seems to be a part of the series of fake grindhouse films and, like Rodriguez's Planet Terror, that use visual effects to provide the payoff that older exploitation films could only promise.

While the effects here are very obviously cheap, there's a distinctive style and a great deal of charm.

Unfortunately the acting is frikkin' horrendous, particularly from some of the heroes of the film. I understand that it's tough to be expressive when you have to speak in robotic monotone, but let's just say, the protagonist doesn't hold a candle to Peter Weller in Robocop.

I had high hopes for Manborg. Ultimately it wasn't a film I'd really recommend, but there were aspects that worked very well and flashes of brilliance. I can't say I'm all that confident about The Void after this, but if The Void turns out to be as brilliant as the trailers make it look, the seeds of that brilliance are clearly visible here even if the full project leaves much to be desired.

C-

P.S. The animated short film "Fantasy Beyond" in the extras on the DVD is actually really cool. Warriors armed with musical instruments seek to beat back a Lovecraftian evil force that lurks within the paintings in an art gallery. It's pretty awesome.

Also the fake trailer for“Bio-cop” is hilarious. It's about a police officer who has been covered in some kind biological agent and now cannot die. His boss and his fellow officers just act as if nothing is wrong and tell him to get his head back in the game, while meanwhile bio-cop is throwing up pools of acid and his eyes are falling out of his skull. Crazy, gross and very funny.

Best thing: There are a lot of great aspects here, not least the central performances, but I'm going to point out my favourite moment here. There's almost a sadistic pleasure when the pimp gets particularly savagely treated by the gangster in the car.

Worst thing: I want to say this without spoiling the film, but my biggest concern is with the ending. One Letterboxd review asks, "So what's the moral then?" I don't think there is a moral here, but I have my suspicions that perhaps the filmmakers think there is one. I hope not.

The prostitute seems to become a mother figure to the runaway girl almost in spite of herself. Perhaps partly due to a maternal instinct and partly because she has limited options, as she seeks to look after the young girl they build a really interesting relationship.

Both performers are excellent. The younger actress is amazing here. Her performance is an open book. Whether she's pretending to know what particular words mean or nervously drinking more alcohol than she's used to or facing a seemingly imminent death, she is completely believable and natural.

There's a sense of inevitability to the story. While the pimp is a completely despicable character (not least for being a pimp at all), there's a sense that he can't afford to say no to either of the gangsters. Not to the dad or to the son. At one point he is envious of a friend's flat. He clearly pines for a better life and it's as if he never chose his life. He doesn't see any option other than being a scumbag.

And the prostitute mostly has the same problem. She solves problems by hooking and she initially only weakly resists the plan to pimp out a young girl. And even when she is finally convinced to put a stop to things, it's the little girl's actions that make the real difference. The girl seems to be the only one who seems to have some real level of choice left. Even the powerful gangsters seem to be trapped in a cycle of violence.

London to Brighton may not be a traditional tragedy in the Greek sense, but it still has that sense of inevitable impending doom. I like what it does with that kind of story very much. In the horrible world where it takes place, this was a pretty exciting story and the central relationship kept me invested from beginning to end.

A+

Best thing: Some of the creepy elements in the house are done very effectively in a way that seems to preempt those used later in The Shining. The theme of a family isolated in a house which seems to be working against them is so close to that of The Shining that it's hard to believe it is simply a coincidence.

Worst thing: Did anyone fail to see the big reveal coming a mile away? And is the sight of the female protagonist sitting in a chair and wearing that makeup really worthy of Oliver Reed's over the top reaction? For what had been quite a cool slow burn horror film, that was about the most ludicrous overblown way they could possibly end it.

For all my prejudices against ghost films, I actually quite like the idea of a cursed house. I quite like the idea that a fear of ghosts is really a fear of going mad.

Moreso than in “The Shining”, the haunting in “Burnt Offerings” is by the house as a whole, not individual ghosts. There's a sense that the whole house is working against them, both physically and mentally. We even have protagonists attacked by the trees outside!

Initially I was fully on board with this film and the presence of Bette Davis does the film no harm certainly. This is well made and well acted. Unfortunately towards the end it gets tiresome and the ending is a bit dumb. (In a film based around a slow build, it is a particularly big problem to be building towards an anti-climax.)

D+

Best thing: At one point our protagonist plays a bit of a sneaky trick that appealed to me. She pays back some friends more than she owes, saying that she doesn't want them to think she'd ripped them off. But then she immediately ropes them into helping her move a fridge freezer for her.

Worst thing: When Penelope Cruz's character decides to sing it's quite clearly dubbed. I guess Penelope Cruz wasn't a good enough singer for them to just let her do it herself in the scene.

In some ways, Volver is a pretty simple film. There's a kind of soap opera feel to the story, which I think is somewhat intentional.

The ending felt a little abrupt to me since I feel there was much that could still be resolved. But Volver's strength is that it is so different. The film is about the bond between the various female characters and there is always an affection between them no matter what.

I'm not sure why Penelope Cruz is the only actress who seems to have that level of glamorous makeup. It's not simply because she's more attractive. She's actively presented in a more glamorous way than the rest of the cast.

There are a few plot strands that just seem to be dropped. (Does she own a restaurant now?) But this story is quirky, fun and unique. Still, while the film is designed to tug at the heart strings, it's all a bit too light and silly to give much insight into even the fictional world it sets up.

B+

Best thing: The songs are pretty much all brilliant and I am personally especially fond of "I Could Have Danced All Night".

Worst thing: The choreography during the song “Ascot Gavotte” is terrible. (Or perhaps it’s great and the camera is pulled in too close for us to tell?) But all we see is one person walking past each other. No symmetry, no interesting motions, formations, expressions to make it remotely interesting to watch.... ... Okay, actually.... now I come to post this review I now realise that the problem must be with the format of my DVD. It clearly wasn’t a proper widescreen version I was watching since all the complexity and symmetry I thought was missing is clearly present in the youtube clip. I still feel the choreography of the songs generally wasn’t exciting enough, but perhaps this song isn’t the best to highlight as the main culprit after all...

Musicals often seem to work better as stage shows than they do as films. The stage show I saw of Oliver! was way better than the film and, from what I've seen of the film of the musical version of The Producers,  that worked way better as a stage show too. My Fair Lady was also a stage show first and it doesn't translate too well to the big screen.

When I was younger, this was one of a number of musicals performed as a school production in my school. With young children performing the roles, it helped to reduce the impact of the horrible characters featured here.

The character who sings about stalking ("I'm on the street where you live") didn't seem so creepy in when performed by a child.

Also somehow I don't think I previously realised that the female protagonist's father basically tries to SELL his daughter to the rich professor.

I think the professor himself always seemed like a sexist pig. After all, he has a whole song, that is even reprised later, asking: "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" But I think in a children's production it was easier to soften towards him by the end.

But even with the darker elements  in the story taken for granted, I felt the choreography was also a problem. While we are hearing the fantastic songs from this musical, the action on screen wasn't always that interesting, the main issue seeming to be the way the camera captures these segments.

Most of the songs are brilliant, but I especially like "I could have danced all night". It's actually a bit unfortunate that the song designed to make us soften on the central professor, "Accustomed to her face", is probably one of the least impressive songs, but it's certainly not bad.

The story of a man who decides to show a common girl how to talk and act like a lady is a lot of fun. Audrey Hepburn’s initial accent is incredibly annoying, partly because it's intended to be, but just as much because it sounds inauthentic.

However, one of my favourite aspects  (after the songs of course) is when she's talking like a commoner in a super-posh accent. The line that cracked me up the most was: "Seems to me, them as pinched it, done her in."

In the end, I watched this professional film with the constant feeling that it was less fun and even less emotionally impactful than a children's production! It may be that this musical simply works better on stage, but goodness knows this particular film didn't quite work for me.

C-

Best thing: The character of Fat Sam is just perfect. Whether he's shouting at his hoodlums and calling them numbskulls or sadly exclaiming in Italian while beating up an effigy of his main rival, he's always wonderfully expressive and absolutely hilarious.

Worst thing: Occasionally the child acting isn't perfect. It's often fantastic and Jodie Foster is certainly brilliant, but not all the lines are delivered as well as they could be. That being said, there's no single moment that I can point to and say, "That scene lets the film down."

Holy crap! That’s Dexter Fletcher, the director of “Eddie The Eagle”! He plays a small role as a character called “babyface”.

I can't even believe this is a seventies film. I mean, if I think about it, I know full well that Jodie Foster was no longer this young by the early 90s, but the style of the Bugsy Malone production just doesn't feel seventies to me somehow.

I have no problem with musicals, but Bugsy Malone was made for the big screen and as such I think it works better AS a film than most musicals do. For that reason, I'd say that Bugsy Malone is my favourite movie musical of all time. It's funny, the songs are great, and the choreography is wonderfully exciting.

My favourite song and dance number is probably "Bad Guys". The action during the song is just non-stop. Plus the song is super-catchy. And to finish with with Fat Sam coming out to shout at his hoodlums again just tops it all off nicely.

I also find Bugsy Malone pretty moving. The central song "Ordinary Fool" from the lead actress really gets to me every time. And let's not also forget the whistful song "Tomorrow" by the black dancer stuck sweeping the floor. Bugsy Malone has proper sweeping emotional beats, the story is well paced never keeping you waiting long for the next exciting development. And it just becomes more and more fun the more you watch.

Bugsy Malone is a childhood favourite and remains deeply special to me. It's just a wonderful feel-good film and genuinely great time. The whole gangster/noir style with children is just so fantastically realised. While the 1920s setting is brilliantly designed, there are some very inventive creative decisions on how to make this film suitable for children. For one, the decision on how to avoid showing blood is excellent (and I won't spoil that for you if you don't know already) and while you can't have children driving cars the old style vehicles in Bugsy Malone are all operated with pedals!

If you haven't seen Bugsy Malone, you should get right on it.

So why not give this a first, second, heck hundreth watch? Let me get you started:

"Someone once said, if it was raining brains Roxy Robinson wouldn't even get wet...."

A+

Best thing: This is a genuine whodunnit murder mystery, but it's also very much a slasher film. So as a result we get a pretty awesome final scare.

Worst thing: A lot of the acting is a bit stilted. But this is typical for a slasher film. I think perhaps the higher quality storytelling aspects make the typical slasher/exploitation aspects more obvious.

I have always thought that horror films are best when they are fun. Some way, somehow, the horror film has to insert some fun in there somewhere to contrast its horrifying themes or oppressive atmosphere.

Pieces is more explicitly fun than most, particularly with its perky peppy female undercover officer on the case. I particularly like how the film often leans heavily into making us suspect a particular character. Early on the film is practically screaming at us "look at how weird that gardener seems while holding that CHAINSAW!"

On top of that, the characters are often pretty endearing and the opening murder is undeniably disgusting (actually reminding me of the video nasty "Nightmares In A Damaged Brain").

As a murder mystery this would be pretty by the numbers, but the slasher movie elements make it something very different. I found Pieces to be lot of fun and an excellent slasher film. Daft in all the right ways.

B+

Best thing: The effects are incredible. It's a pity that there is such a bland grey-green tinge over everything, but the visuals are certainly very impressive all the same.

Worst thing: Tom Holland is the protagonist? Seriously? We are apparently hearing the story from the perspective of Tom Holland's character, who grows up to become Brendon Gleeson, yet in many of the scenes Tom Holland is simply not around. While Chris Hemsworth is clearly the central character.

After Ron Howard’s “Rush”, I was really excited about his next project to star Chris Hemsworth. It felt a bit odd to hear that the protagonists were whalers and the villain was a whale, but I was happy to go with it.

I had trouble believing the reviews that said that this was deeply underwhelming. I don't think the greeny-grey filter really helped much. Some parts of the film look fantastic and the effects were incredible, but the colour palette is rather drab.

It's odd how, even with Brendan Gleeson and Chris Hemsworth in central roles, I struggled to relate to the characters. Also, with Chris Hemsworth clearly playing the main character, it was confusing to discover that the story is supposed to be from the perspective of Tom Holland, particularly considering that he is entirely absent from vital scenes early on in the story.

Frankly I think this would be a lot more interesting if they just adapted Moby Dick. If the reason for opting for the events upon which Moby Dick was based was in order to make the story feel more real and thus more emotionally impacting then I'm afraid this struck me as an utter failure. (I realise that it’s because someone wrote a book called “In The Heart Of The Sea” and they got hold of the movie rights to adapt it, but seriously - wouldn’t Moby Dick be a more interesting work to adapt? Goodness knows, this adaptation particular cannot be doing this story justice.)

It's strange, since Rush was also an attempt to excite and move us with a true story and it worked so well, but In The Heart Of The Sea simply falls flat.

A real pity.

D+

Best thing: One part that stood out for me was the mother's funeral. While once again using low-key moody music and no dialogue, we see quick cut flashbacks to Anakin's  slaughter of the raiders who kidnapped his mother while he stands at her grave and silently mourns her. No dialogue about how "I killed them all!" Just pure effective visual storytelling that turns cringy moments into genuinely emotional moments.

Worst thing: The part where Anakin kills one of the Jedi to save the senator still doesn't quite work. But with the dialogue and running time reduced we now see a clearer parallel with an earlier scene. The senator says of Count Dooku, "He was too dangerous to be left alive." Even so, the suggestion by Emperor Palpatine that he is simply a victim while he’s firing out creepy lightning powers from his fingertips, is always tough for me to accept.

Star Wars: Neon Noir (as it is generally known; the actual title is "Fall Of The Jedi" but that seems to be the title of several fan edits. “Star Wars: Neon Noir” is the really the best way to identify this version.) is a fan edit which cuts the entire Star Wars prequel trilogy down to just 1 hour and 40 minutes. The idea of cutting together all three films is not a new idea although the most well-known example was re-edited is by Topher Grace and hasn't been made widely available.

What makes the Star Wars: Neon Noir fan edit by user 'Only Yoda Forgives' truly unique is the way it bases its style on the 'neon noir' style of recent films from Nicolas Winding Refn like "Drive", "Only God Forgives" and "The Neon Demon". This means a dialogue-light approach, a dark tone, with the film lingering on beautiful visuals while generally synthy-heavy music sets the tone in the background.

The Star Wars prequels were films that made many in the audience actively angry. Part of the reason for this was that it was part of a beloved movie franchise, also because fans had been promised these films for over a decade, and yet another source of vexation was that it felt so uninspired despite being from the visionary mind of George Lucas.

But I think another aspect to this is that what made the prequels so frustrating is that the qualities required to make a great film seemed to be present. The visuals are incredible, John Williams returned to do the score, a selection of incredible acting talent filled major and minor roles. (How many people even noticed that Joel Edgerton was in the prequels playing Anakin's half-brother?)

So much effort was put into the prequels and so many hopes were set on them. And with each new instalment somehow the hype managed to convince us that the next one would be better, because heck surely it ought to be?

So perhaps that explains why so many fan edits seem to be trying to save the prequels. This 'Neon Noir' edit recognises that one of the biggest problems with the film is the dialogue. Certainly when I tried making my own edit of the Anakin and Obi-Wan lightsaber battle from Return of the Sith I could see how beautiful it was as, essentially, a scene entirely free from dialogue; essentially a silent film.

What most people never really thought was a problem is the John Williams score. In fact, surely that is part of what makes it Star Wars? So it's quite a surprising and daring move to try to remove John Williams from the film entirely. In many scenes sound effects have been carefully dubbed onto the new soundtrack, but the film has more trouble keeping the old music out when characters speak.

Amazingly this new edit keep all major plot points of the second and third prequel movies firmly intact. The Phanton Menace has only ever really been a pre-amble to the story in the other two films, so that is how it is used here. We jump straight into the action by beginning with the fight with Darth Maul. Anakin is introduced at Qui-Gon's funeral and we transition to Anakin grown-up plagued by nightmares possibly connected to Qui-Gon's death. The picture of Anakin and a troubled figure is made clear right from the start.

Emotional moments work a lot better with this re-cut. Since Anakin and Padme share scenes where they mostly just look at each other silently, rather than speaking inane dialogue to one another, their chemistry as a romantic pairing seems to work much better as a result. One clip of Padme shooting robots in The Phantom Menace is   edited into a montage of battles from the Clone Wars; yet another way she is portrayed as a more pro-active figure in this cut.

Some have suggested that by removing dialogue and changing the music, that essentially changes this into a series of music videos. However, I think that reductive appraisal ignores the fantastic editing choices and the way the visual storytelling of this cut of the film is streamlined to make extra dialogue entirely superfluous to the story being told. This version of this trilogy is, at times, genuinely emotionally affecting for me in a way that simply was not true of the original films. The less loud and obvious background music with a moodier is better suited to what has always been quite a dark and sad story.

Quite frankly this is by far the best version of the prequels I have ever seen. There's a limit to how good it can ever be, even with the audio issues cleaned up, because the original material is very limiting. Still, considering what they were working with this is an exceptional piece of editing work.

B-

You can watch Star Wars: Neon Noir here.

Best thing: I could put the humour or the action or the visuals or the much improved chemistry between the characters. However, I've got to put Kurt Russell here as the best thing. (Sure, Baby Groot was sweet and goodness know Groot was the best thing in the first film, but Kurt Russell is just so perfect here.)

Worst thing: Sylvester Stallone only has a small part, but he stands out like a sore thumb. Is this really the same guy people were suggesting they should have given an Oscar for acting the other year? I mean I haven't seen Creed, or any of the Rocky movies for that matter, but Stallone is pretty clearly the worst actor. (Full credit to Dave Bautista playing Drax who is a wrestler with no real acting experience outside of these two films and yet not only fits right in but even has great comic timing.)

Guardians of the Galaxy really wasn't one of my favourite Marvel Studios movies. In a movie series which I most often judge on how much it can make me laugh, I didn't think Guardians of the Galaxy was as funny as I was hoping for.

Add to that Thanos and Ronan being two of the most boring villains ever and I really didn't see why Guardians of the Galaxy was being picked out for special praise over and above Thor 2 and Iron Man 3.

Now I think part of the issue was that they had to introduce the characters in the first film. A team of five brand new protagonists to be introduced in just one film is not an easy undertaking. The antics of Thor and Loki or Tony Stark were able to be as funny as they were because I was so familiar with them (and they weren't as funny in their first movie either).

I was particularly pleased to see Karen Gillan's character Nebula given more to do this time around. Previously she was pretty much just a henchman for the villains, but now we get much more focus on her relationship with Gamora. Yondu is also given a much more interesting character this time around as we explore his history with Starlord. The humour flows more easily from the characters this time because we know the characters better.

One thing I don't think is better is the soundtrack. Sure some of the songs were pretty cool, but we had some Bowie last time, y'know? And I think that “Father and Son” song has been ruined for me by Boyzone....

But while I may not have ranked the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie as one of my favourites, that certainly isn't true of this follow-up. Marvel Studios seem to be remarkably capable at hammering out great sequels only making these characters more entertaining as the Marvel Universe expands.

Somehow that bubble hasn't burst yet.

A+

Best thing: Natalie Portman's performance is excellent. There's so much depth to her depiction of Jackie Kennedy.

Worst thing: The score is so intrusive and, frankly, completely at odds with the tone of the film. Jarring violin sounds would be in line with the state of mind of Natalie Portman's character in Black Swan, but in Jackie we begin to see that she's actually taking control of things despite how vulnerable she might feel. And when the loud distorted violins threaten to prevent us hearing Jackie's carefully planned verbal exchanges, nothing could be less appropriate.

Jackie tackles a really interesting concept. Jackie Kennedy is not only making an effort to manage perception of herself in the media, but is also trying to engineer JFK's legacy.

And as Jackie handles the question of how her late husband is to be remembered, Natalie Portman's portrayal of this figure is highly impressive. Both strong and fragile at the same time. Portman tends to do best in roles where she has to cry for some reason.

Sadly overall I found the film a bit plodding. The film didn't really seem to make the most of the framing device of a journalist listening to the details after the fact. Events mostly seemed to unfold like a chronological story with occasional flashbacks with little interest in what our initial journalist is asking. I felt like I saw enough here for me to recognise that there was probably a more gripping way of telling this story.

Also the strings music felt  completely wrong, giving an awkward horror atmosphere for what should have been more subtle political intrigue. We could tell that Jackie felt somewhat stressed and insecure due to her husband's death from Portman's performance. We didn't need a distracting whining violin sound to make that any clearer.

C+

Best thing: The opening chase scene really showcases parkour skills in an awesome way as well as being a spectacular action sequence. I wish the action sequences were all that effective.

Worst thing: The banter between the police officer and the protagonist isn't all that interesting. Frankly the police officer is a bit of a weak character.

District 13 promises to be an action movie with a difference by making use of parkour. The opening chase sequence shows how much scope this idea has (and certainly James Bond would be ripping this off not long after), but I cannot feel that the movie really fails to make the rest of its action sequences live up to that initial chase.

Strangely, the sequel makes even less use of parkour and even reduces the amount of action in general. I wonder whether the filmmakers thought the main selling point was the politics.

Frankly I found the politics pretty hard to care about. The film begins pretty dramatic, but the way they tie it up is so very on-the-nose. I think that sequence was intended to come off as both triumphant and funny, but it had been so telegraphed that it was hard to care about the ending at all. (I felt a stronger climax would have demanded an explanation. The mythology of District 13 ends up pretty thin.)

Another strong element is the humour. The interaction with the big drug gang is a lot of fun. One major gang thug, a big guy with his name shaved into his hair, has the charisma to help lighten what is, at times, a seriously grim premise.

Just wondering though. If the gang is stuck working within an entirely closed-off suburb of Paris, how do they make much money? To keep exploiting drug addicts you need the addicts to have money; either their own money or money that they have to beg, borrow or steal. With a wall around a poor suburb, that must really limit their profit.

District 13 is a solid action film and a lot of fun, but I can't help but feel that it could have made more of its unique position as a "parkour" action flick. The opening chase is incredible, but the rest of the film is mostly plain old silly fun. Well worth a look, but not the classic it could have been.

B+

Best thing: The indignities the mother suffers, including being denied the opportunity to study to be a doctor because of the whims of the Islamic Republic, are really interestingly portrayed. I'm very pleased to have already seen Satrapi's Persepolis to give me some much needed background on the situation.

Worst thing: For me, the comparison to “The Babadook” is all too obvious. But while The Babadook was all about being a well-meaning but bad mother, Under The Shadow is also about being under-valued in the midst of Iraqi bombs. The relevance of the 'ghost' became a little overly muddled for me and when we are 'shown' the monster, I wasn't clear how the analogy with real life was supposed to work. Perhaps "Under The Shadow"'s biggest problem is that "The Babadook" exists.

Under The Shadow promises a great deal more depth than it ends up delivering. Iran in the relatively recent aftermath of the Islamic Revolution makes for a very interesting setting.

Our protagonist has to deal with being barred from ever becoming a doctor simply because she expressed political views prior to the regime. She also has bombs to contend with, snotty relatives and on top of that her daughter has heard tales about a djinn causing trouble in the building.

The djinn actually seems like a kind of ghost, but thankfully there are potentially psychological explanations for the experiences which develop our understanding of the characters. (While the djinn could be real it is left helpfully ambiguous for the most part.)

But I was expecting a great deal more depth here. In the end all the central message of this film seems to come down to is "Is she a good mother?" And here's where "Under The Shadow" seriously pales when compared alongside "The Babadook".

While in The Babadook the protagonist is struggling to raise a child while also coming to terms with her husband's death (on the night she gave birth, no less), the protagonist in Under The Shadow is understandably more concerned with bombs falling. She sometimes has her husband being supportive on the other end of the phone line and, while she feels silently judged by him, I cannot help but feel that she is doing just fine as a mother.

While the building is handling the threat of bombs, the daughter is concerned about her doll. Frankly the protagonist feels completely justified  in telling her daughter that a doll doesn't matter and they can just replace it. That's perfectly reasonable parenting.

In The Babadook the mother is clearly terrible. In Under The Shadow, the movie seems to want me to think she's a bad mother but simply will not commit to the idea. And what is the significance of this djinn? It comes on the wind? So what?

If The Babadook weren't fresh in my mind, perhaps I'd have given this more credit. I tend to dislike ghost films, but by tying all the hauntings strongly to the psychology of the characters, that made this more grounded. I really wish this film had taken its ideas in a more original direction.

B-

Best thing: While I know most people hate to see bad things happen to dogs (or perhaps because most people seem to love dogs) I think I gain a greater sense of justice than most people when a clearly vicious dog is killed, particularly when the owner gets upset about what has happened to the growling savage merciless 'defenceless animal'.

Worst thing: The problem here isn't so much that the story is carried out badly as that there is nothing here that we haven't seen before. While I like the idea of a 'nice guy' villain (i.e. someone who creepily insists 'you should be with me because I'm so nice'), I don't understand this guy. At times he seems smart, but how can he possibly expect to clean up the mess he makes?

I decided to check this out because it was scripted by Alexandre Aja. It's quite a basic 'one location' thriller. I suppose the twist on the genre is that the villain wants the protagonist to think he's nice, though I doubt it's the first time that's happened.

And that's the problem really. This is a well-structured and acted thriller. It's simple and solid. It's just not anything new or different.

P2 is absolutely fine, but it's unlikely to impress anyone particularly.

B-

Best thing: Okay, so the visual effects that make us believe we are really watching a disaster on an oil rig are by far the best thing about this film. However, one character interaction appealed to me. In the relevant scene there are two of the characters isolated from everyone else and one has realised that their only option for survival is a death-defying jump from an absurd height. The way that plays out felt very real to me in a way that most scenes did not. (Though any scenes with Kurt Russell deserve an honourable mention here.)

Worst thing: Most interactions between characters felt unrealistic to me, particularly in the first half. What made this annoying was the way so many scenes have characters bantering with one another in a way that is supposed to spell out 'typical working men'. Perhaps these scenes are actually pretty authentic, but as a viewer I found it felt fake, and in any case these 'casual' conversations served to make me feel isolated from the story.

I can't quite believe so many people were praising this film where it came out. I think I should have gone with my gut when I heard 'disaster movie starring Mark Wahlberg from the director of Battleship'.

Actually, for a dumb disaster film this isn't bad. John Malkovich and Kurt Russell give the real standout performances, but really this film wouldn't be much without its fantastic convincing effects work.

That the story is being told at all is pretty cool. It's told in a generic way, but it's still interesting to see how the oil rig disaster took place, with the visuals revealing the level of  devastation involved and the bravery required.

Personally I really didn't feel this was worth my time, but it certainly had
some good aspects. However, Mark Wahlberg is not one of those.

C-

Best thing: I very much enjoyed the visual effects work here and perhaps the most effective moment for me takes place in a car (though the excitement doesn't let up at that point).

Worst thing: The worst part would probably have to be the exact same moment. The effects sequence I liked most involves a remarkable survival and it's probably the point where it is least easy to suspend belief.

Now THAT is how you do a disaster movie. For all the awesome effects work, this is always centred around its characters.

Roar Uthaug's focus on character performances and consistently engaging visual storytelling is how his Cold Prey movies managed to outdo most slashers ever made. It's how his period horror "Escape" managed to outdo both Neil Marshall's "Centurion" and Christopher Smith's "Black Death" (which were both going for a similar mood). And it's also how his "Tomb Raider" film starring Alicia Vikander is going to blow away all expectations for that film.

The whole genre of disaster movie had become a bit of a joke, so it's not perhaps such a surprise that this is now my favourite disaster movie. But goodness knows I was not expecting this to be one of my favourite films of 2016.

Exciting, emotional, a bit of a visual feast. The Wave is a fantastic drama and a really powerful piece of cinema. It sticks to the demands of the disaster film and isn't afraid to have a miraculous survival at the end of one of its most spectacular set-pieces. However, it also transcends the limitations this genre has set for filmmakers and provides something beyond the disposable nonsense audiences have come to expect.

If you like disaster movies, you'll love this. If you don't like disaster movies, you may still love this. It's just really great.

A+

Best thing: The attacks are wonderfully choreographed with the baddie and his dog working in tandem to hunt down our protagonists. Very exciting.

Worst thing: The story is fairly simplistic and I'm not sure I understand the message, beyond simply that we are all human beings deserving compassion regardless of borders. (Which we all knew already, right?) Perhaps if we had more clues as to what drove the villain to do this?

In the end this is a pretty well told simple story. It's also very well directed, with great performances and all the action very clearly framed and shot. However, this isn't really a film with a great deal of depth.

Perhaps the really creepy thing about the villain is supposed to be that he's 'just an ordinary guy' who happens not to think of those illegally crossing the border as people. There's no maniacal laughter or cold stare. When not hunting down mild-mannered human beings, he seems like a simple man minding his own business with his dog as a trusty companion.

So I guess that might be the point? That he's in no way demonised, because all you need in order to make him a villain is to show him shooting people in cold blood.

But I think you'd have to be pretty sick to ever side with someone who shoots ordinary people for fun. There's not really much of a message here. No keen insights. Just a pretty cool film about people struggling to escape a psychopath. (I say 'psychopath' because of the clear lack of empathy his character must possess in order to justify his actions to himself.)

At some point the protagonists need to handle the dog. This film actually reminds me of the surprise hit "Don't Breathe" with its 'man and a dog' villain set-up. Having recently watched P2, 'man and his dog' seems to be a surprisingly common threat in horror films. In Desierto, taking out the dog felt particularly satisfying to me.

This was solid entertainment and the acting and camerawork only served to elevate it for me. Simple but effective for what it is.

B+

Best thing: Mia Wasikowska is always brilliant and she seems to play the most interesting character here as the perpetual everlasting immature troublemaker.

Worst thing: Tom Hiddleston's character (who writes music) is spellbound by a fairly boring musical act where the music sounds rather similar to the music he composes himself. Why is he so impressed? (And seriously, of all the people to like, they are big Jack White fans?)

I had problems with this film, but I have to say, the pacing wasn't the issue. I know this director is known for his slow paced films and I was pleased to see that I could run with that.

Unfortunately, as the film went on I found it very hard to care what happened to these insufferable eternal hippies. I much preferred Mia Wasikowska's rather more fun-loving hanger-on character.

I quite liked Tom Hiddleston's atmospheric music, but I was entirely unimpressed by the singing act that wows his character in the final act.

Definitely worth a mention is Anton Yelchin who makes for an awesome straight man to contrast the weird arty types. (You want a wooden bullet?)

There's one famous name mentioned that I didn't recognise at all and Hiddleston instantly gives full details of who that guy is. Apart from that, we have endless names of incredible famous figures through history with the implication that the vampiric protagonists have spent time with all of them. It's hard to really believe any of these figures would have given them the time of day and if they met them before they were big and it's way too much of a coincidence to suggest that they just happened to hang out with most of them BEFORE they were famous.

I know the scriptwriters have picked especially well known figures so they don't have to spend half the film explaining who these people are. However seeing as it is blatant that they are doing this, it is harder than ever to take it seriously (never mind to be wowed, as the film seems to expect me to be).

Only Lovers Left Alive is not boring and initially I quite liked the characters. But by the end of the film these pretentious hippies had rather outstayed their welcome. And sometimes their choices of treasured art seem a little odd (Infinite Jest? Seriously? And they love Jack White?) I'd rather have spent more time with irresponsible immature free-loading Mia Wasikowska. I could completely believe in her character.

C-

Best thing: An early scene where Buckaroo Banzai jumps through to another dimension is a neat bit of effects work and quite a cool opener for a sci-fi film.

Worst thing: Jon Lithgow has the most ridiculous accent and there are so many scenes of him ranting towards the end of the film and shouting  commands at an alien that seems to have been named 'Big Booty'.

This sounded like a fun wacky sci-fi adventure with a protagonist who travels through weird dimensions. ("Adventures... across the 8th dimension" is in the title!)

Instead this feels like a terrible Doctor Who knock-off. The film all takes place on Earth. The film regularly tries and fails to be funny by going a bit wacky. The protagonist is supposed to be an ultra cool dude who everyone is happy to be associated with, including the president.

It's such a pity this isn't better when there's such an incredible cast list. Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Weller and Jon Lithgow all in the same film? What a waste of their time this turned out to be.

The plot is a mess, the humour doesn't work, the effects look cheap.  Also Jon Lithgow has a ton of scenes where he shouts nearly incomprehensible commands in a ridiculous fake Russian accent.

Utter rubbish.

E

Best thing: I love how the filming style keeps you guessing. Much here is trashy and ridiculous in such a wonderful way.

Worst thing: This film just gets so weird, Lithgow's accent (as the dad) is really off putting, the multiple personality premise now feels really overdone, but the worst thing for me is one scene where a character escapes police custody way too easily after an utterly ridiculous lapse in security.

Brian De Palma is such an odd director, but that's part of what makes this film so much fun. If it wasn't great enough having John Lithgow squabbling with his identical twin, we then have Frances Sternhagen being awesome. (I also know her from Outland and Misery.)

Multiple personality is pretty much always misrepresented on film and it's always hard to take seriously. It helps when the film is already a bit overblown like Fight Club and that is certainly what makes it work here. Still as a film where multiple personality is part of the mystery, that can't help but come off a bit goofy. It's in danger of reaching the levels of stupidity found in the movie "Identity".

Essentially Raising Cain is silly fun. I loved it.

B+

Fun horror comedy they said. More like boring people standing around and occasionally taking those off too.

When the greasy strangler actually turns up I was not particularly wowed. The funniest part joke was an Indian character trying to say "potato" (and goodness knows they took that joke as far as it would go). That Indian character is then immediately killed off, so I simply lost interest.

I should have known something was up when about half of the hosts of the Cinema Eclectica podcast were incredulous that "The Greasy Strangler" be proposed as a highlight of last year, while those recommending the film gave a mischievous giggle. I do wish the naysayers had been a little more insistent.

I know comedy is subjective, but seriously there's not even a decent level of horror to fall back on here either. And this comedy really is the absolute lowest brow you can get. (One reviewer mentioned Little Britain. If, like me, you really aren't keen on Little Britain, you'll most likely hate The Greasy Strangler.)

Ugh!

Best thing: I have mixed views on Ethan Hawke and rarely think he is the best thing about the projects he chooses. Yet here I actually found myself puzzling over why Ethan Hawke has never been used in a Western before. Here he plays a Eastwood-style 'man with no name' type character - only with a dog. (Making it, I guess, a bit more like Mad Max 2?)

Worst thing: I've heard this film criticised for being generic and while I think the film's simplicity is a positive element, I'll admit that if you've seen the Fistful of Dollars trilogy you're unlikely to see anything here that surprises you. (Still personally I find the careful pacing of this film a lot more fun than something like "The Good, The Bad and The Weird" that keeps breaking that deliberate pace with fairly inconsequential action sequences.) And seriously if you put on a Django film, wouldn't you be annoyed if you discovered the Django wasn't actually going to kill everyone? Don't films like this need to stick to that trope?

Ti West brings us a Sergio Leone style western that hits all the right notes. This was simply so much fun.

Who ever would have imagined that Ethan Hawke could be this much of a badass?

It's difficult to compare this with Ti West's other films because it is so different. But this is certainly one of his very very best if not perhaps even THE best.

And if your issue with Ti West in the past has been slow pacing and unsatisfying finales, I think you'll find yourself very happily surprised.

A+

Best thing: Fight our way out? Sneak around to get a phone? No. We should just wait til 3pm! - Genius!

Worst thing: While I found much of the film hilarious, there were some lamer jokes at points too. The poop joke where one character 'forgot to wear gloves' felt particularly egregious to me.

Elijah Woods is choosing some interesting projects and there is much in this child-zombie comedy that is hilarious. But unfortunately there are a number of gags that simply fall flat (though that's no fault of the cast).

So many parts of this film are wonderful and its a real pity that it isn't consistent. The filmmakers also seemed to have no idea how to end the film.

Still I have to say that, even as a film I wouldn't especially recommend to anyone, this was still a pretty enjoyable time.

C+

Best thing: Elijah Woods' character was just wonderful. A geek who thinks he's some kind of zen master.

Worst thing: I guess this is just one silly element amongst many, but the idea that the villains would coerce an outsider to carry a gun and threaten people for them felt a bit odd.

.
The opening of this film felt so miserable and nihilistic that my girlfriend actually gave up on it....

Which was a pity because the protagonist then immediately decided to stop moping and to do some personal detective work to track down items stolen from her. And when Elijah Wood gets involved this film becomes a lot more fun.

As dark as this film can seem at times, it's a pretty charming little story. It's odd to suddenly be seeing Melanie Lynskey  in films now when she started out with Kate Winslet in the film 'Heavenly Creatures' all those years ago. In this role she has to do a lot of exasperated sighing and she's consistently very watchable. She's great.

Elijah Wood is a quirky character to contrast her, particularly Wood's optimism in the light of Lynskey's pessimism. An unlikely pairing of characters is a common trope, but it's interesting that, while Wood is clearly the weirder character, Lynskey has the drive to produce the more chaotic results. In some ways, she's the less predictable of the two, even as the ordinary rational character.

A-

P.S. Not seeing an awful lot of mention of Jane Levy’s performance here. Sure, she doesn’t have many lines, but she still has a strong screen presence even in this smaller role.

Best thing: As with Joe Begos' previous film "Almost Human", "Supernatural Forces" (originally released as "The Mind's Eye") has some really effective effects sequences despite its moderate budget. When one guy gets ripped in two using mind powers I was pretty impressed.

Worst thing: Not enough background is given on the main characters. Now actually I think this wouldn't matter if they just made Lauren Ashley Carter (from Jug Face)

the main character. She has really expressive eyes and it's very easy to get on board with her despite the lack of background. (There's a reason Liam Neeson is brought in as important characters who have little screen time in films like "Kingdom of Heaven", "The Next Three Days" and "Silence". If you don't have time for background, you need someone with an especially strong screen presence.) Graham Skipper simply isn't strong enough to carry the film without any backstory or build-up. When we get to climactic scenes where Lauren Ashley Carter is missing, it's difficult to understand the stakes and to care about the protagonist.

I was pretty excited about Joe Begos' latest film. Particularly since he was going from a film inspired by John Carpenter's The Thing to a film inspired by David Cronenberg's Scanners.

Unfortunately the limitations of the budget seem way too obvious and the hamminess isn't really terribly satisfying because we aren't given much opportunity to bond with the protagonist. In Almost Human we get to see him coming into conflict with his boss at work. There's no down-to-earth aspect to our protagonist in The Mind's Eye beyond that he has a girlfriend and a dad (which is pretty thin characterisation however you look at it).

Some parts of The Mind's Eye were a lot of fun and there are some cool visuals (though on my tv the blues and purples seemed way over-saturated at times).

With some better characterisation from our protagonists, I might have adored this. As cool as some of the scanner action was, it was difficult to be fully invested. This should have felt more intense. This was interesting, but it wasn't enough fun for the level of cheesiness.

C-

Side note: When searching for the DVD of this film in the UK, you’ll need to look for a DVD entitled “Loser” starring Woody Harrelson, but when you actually watch the film, you’ll find that it’s still called “The Grand”.

Best thing: Werner Herzog playing a vicious psychopath is always fun and here he is absolutely hilarious.

Worst thing: The final card game has less of a focus on the humour. It's used as an opportunity to give us the emotional payoff for each character, which is fine, but the game itself just baffled me (they don't just look at the players cards but also the cards in the centre of the table, and I'm not entirely sure how that works), so the lack of jokes in that section felt annoying to me.

I had thought this was a Christopher Guest film. This definitely seems to be borrowing from the style of films like "Best In Show", but honestly I don't remember Best In Show being this funny.

Woody Harrelson is great, but he is just one of a number of desperate or intimidating gamblers. We also have some announcers who are very funny too.

So many new comedies try to make the audience laugh by being random or throwing gags in the hope something sticks. But The Grand is a solid comedy that draws its humour from the situation, albeit sometimes using especially quirky characters, with fantastic results...

... except for a brief section towards the end where there are pretty much no laughs at all. The filmmakers decided to finish with a real card game, meaning that I had pretty much no clue what was happening and jokes could not be so easily scripted in. This section does resolve some character arcs, but I'm not sure they needed a real poker game.

But this final card game in no way detracts from the film as a whole. It's just an odd decision. The Grand is brilliant and well worth your time.

A+

Best thing: You've got to wonder why there aren't more zombie films that compare the condition to terminal illness. Gradually transforming into a being without any human dignity makes for such a clear parallel and it makes for a really interesting parallel.

Worst thing: Not only is this film seriously dull (and the grey filter over everything really doesn't help), but thr further the film goes on the less successful it feels as an analogy with real life. Maggie mostly just felt to me like hopelessness for the sake of it.

Starts off interesting but then gets dull. Maggie seems to promise to be an interesting allegory of some kind but, since it doesn't follow through with that, I found it difficult to be enthusiastic about the generally rather contrived family drama.

Arnie Schwarzenegger is fine. I think his strengths are in comedy, but his on-screen charisma always helps a great deal. But when he's reminiscing about their past, not only was I annoyed that the story was being put on hold, but I wasn't really becoming any more convinced that Arnie had really spent the years raising a child on a farm.

Maggie is neither a smart zombie more nor a fun zombie movie. If anything, the drama is undermined by the decision to crowbar zombies in there. Also the pale colour palette doesn't help in any way.

C-

Best thing: The guide they employ has a cool attitude and her interactions with the other characters provide some much needed drama.

Worst thing: A topless scene early on in the film is particularly shameless, but what made its trashiness especially egregious to me was that it was shot like porn. There's a lingering shot straight up at the topless girl while she pretends to be having sex. Clearly the actress was expecting it be artistic, but instead it just looks like porn.

Well I guess that's what I get for trying out my friend's dirt-cheap horror DVD.

I'm not sure why the whole film has a horrible green tinge but I'm fairly sure it's to disguise the horrible quality of the footage they shot.

Sadly I think these actors probably aren't that bad. Unfortunately they are stuck in a seriously cheap and lazy production. The script is utterly dire.

I think I've already written way more than this film deserves.

E

Addendum:

Holy shit, there are sequels to this thing? How can this possibly have sequels?

Best thing: There's a neat twist on the original film's ending which makes good use of the found footage format. I like that this film builds on the original film's mythos.

Worst thing: The original Blair Witch Project had less characters and felt much more personal as a result. As much as Wingard is trying to copy the original Blair Witch Project's style (and setting himself a pretty tough challenge as a result)

Okay so admittedly this is Adam Wingard's worst film. (Well at least the worst of his films longer than 80 minutes. I haven't seen his shorter early films because they seem to be practically impossible to acquire.) However, I have pretty much loved all Wingard's films, especially his previous film "The Guest".

Adam Wingard has tried to recreate the original style of The Blair Witch Project and he has also made some clear attempts to change things up a bit. But it turns out that The Blair Witch Project provides a pretty limited template. It surprises me to see people criticising the introduction of a drone camera. Surely a new type of camera footage is a sensible extension from the original concept. (And while you'd expect it to help them find their way out of the woods, the fact that it fails to help them is another spooky element to the story.

When this was being released I suddenly saw a huge number of people reminiscing about Blair Witch Project as an untouchable classic. I feel like history must be being re-written somewhat. Here in the UK I distinctly remember my first time watching Blair Witch Project and, as someone enjoying himself, I felt somewhat out of place.

I initially saw Blair Witch Project on a bootlegged videotape with Korean subtitles that had been taken into school. It was the end of term and our A Level Religious Education group were allowed to watch the video. But we didn't finish the film in one school period. So this ended up being one of the few times I have ever gone to the cinema alone. I was very keen to see the end of this film.

I found myself sat next to a whole group of horror fans all wearing black t-shirts. I got the distinct feeling that I was being glared at during the film. I don't know if it was because I was laughing and the guy next to me didn't see the humour, or whether it  was because they were just annoyed that I was enjoying myself. Either way, it made me disinclined to identify myself as a horror fan for many years.

When we left the negative vibe from the audience continued. And that's generally how I thought most audiences felt about The Blair Witch Project: negative. The internet was not a big thing in the UK (internet access is still not free in the UK and back then it really didn't look worth the money for your average Joe). And certainly by the time Blair Witch Project reached the UK nobody was about to believe it was real. I don't really know of anyone who was massively blown away by Blair Witch Project. It was fun, but even speaking as someone who enjoyed it (and I really ought to rewatch it to make this judgement) I'd be hard pressed to say the original was superior to this sequel.

I still maintain that there's a sadistic pleasure and dark humour in watching the Blair Witch Project protagonists become ever moreterrified and lose all hope. While I don't think our protagonists in this new sequel have the same level of despair, the film certainly has the same sense of fun (which horror movies are generally better off having).

We don't really get a lot of depth to the characters in either movie, but I found myself caring for the characters in both cases.

This sequel definitely expands on the mythology of the original. How does footage get found without also finding the bodies? What powers do those stick man charms hold? Why do victims stand in the corner? This film points us a little closer to answers, while keeping the mystery. I guess we all hoped Adam Wingard had something a little more impressive up his sleeve when he announced this project. It certainly must to have been amazing for the film festival patrons to see a film called "The Woods" only for it to be revealed - out of nowhere - to be a Blair Witch Project sequel. That surprise would have been something really special.

For the rest of us? Yeah sure, it's a Blair Witch Project sequel. Well done Adam, but I think there are better projects you could be working on.

B+

Best thing: While I'm not so sure that we'd have the military blowing up immigrant camps, it's still a very interesting concept. Rather than being due to bombs, monsters or disease, this is an apocalyptic setting simply because human beings have become infertile. As Grace Jantzen noted, a world without new beginnings is a world without hope. It's a remarkably powerful concept.

Worst thing: Would he really still be saying "pull my finger" that calmly by that stage?

Children of Men is an intensely miserable film, but it is the concept that makes it that way rather than the story itself. For the most part the film is quite dramatic and exciting with some jaw-dropping single-shot action sequences. (Seriously, wow.)

Clive Owen is pretty great as an average cynic. Michael Caine is his eccentric old friend. Considering his upbeat temperament it always feels odd to me when he's elected to listen to "Living In A Glass House" by Radiohead. Naturally Michael Caine is fantastic.

Unfortunately the concept is inevitably pretty miserable, but that leads to some pretty neat creepy quiet moments, such as the empty school that has fallen into disuse and disrepair.

But while the idea that there are no children left is pretty interesting, the idea that the rest of Europe has fallen into violence is less convincing. I guess the idea that the UK is isolated from violent turmoil because of the English channel. And I suppose that worldwide nihilistic terrorism prompted by the seemingly imminent end times is rather more plausible now that Islamic State is already doing just that. Still, the film leaves the circumstances behind the violence intentionally vague and that makes it harder to take seriously.

A+

Best thing: The visuals are incredible. One of the female protagonists (the main woman in the fighting team we follow from the start) looked particularly real to me. And then there's the action sequences. Our protagonist can throw his weapon in order to teleport himself to a distant location. It makes for some seriously exciting action sequences.

Worst thing: The dialogue and the story felt like garbage to me, not least since I found the ending made no sense. Apparently who the princess marries is important? Oh really? And why is that exactly?

I'm apparently quite rare in that I really liked Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The effects were ahead of its time and while the premise of alien souls causing havoc on Earth was pretty weird, it was also quite a cool concept.

The plot of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children did not seem so sophisticated (but then again I've never played the game). However, the action sequences were mind-blowing. Sword fights on motorbikes! So cool!

So how does Kingsglaive compare? Well much of the film is pretty effective. I suspect that I would be a lot more satisfied with it if I had any experience of the games. The action is impressive and the characters are alright. The story though? Um...

I very much like the modern-day fantasy setting that combines a modern city with cars on the one hand, with castles and swords on the other. (They have guns too but magic swords are better.)

Initially the story was very intriguing. The division between the magically protected inner kingdom and the ravaged outer kingdom was quite interesting. However, some later reveals were hard for me to buy into. In particular there's a "Luke, I am your father" level reveal about a major villain that makes me wonder how they could possibly have kept up that deception while a war was going on.

The level of destruction in the third act is so extensive that I was confused as to what they were fighting for. There's some suggestion that if the princess is taken to marry some guy we never see, it will somehow fix everything. Okay, so this is a world of magic, but I still found the proposal of deus ex marriage particularly implausible.

During the fighting sequences the teleporting throwing daggers allow for some very inventive skirmishes. The Final Fantasy filmmakers are very good at clearly depicted action choreography and, while perhaps not quite such an amazing over-the-top spectacle as in Advent Children, it's still pretty amazing.

Final Fantasy: Kingsglaive is confusing and bizarre in a way often found in anime movies and in a way that I couldn't really forgive on this occasion. That being said, it is exciting and beautiful and I suspect those familiar with the games will find this a great deal more rewarding.

D+

Best thing: Denzel Washington is always the best thing in films where he is the star, but Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer and Clive Owen (as much as I found his American accent a bit hard to come to terms with).

Worst thing: It's actually difficult to pick a worst thing here. I loved pretty much everything. I suppose the bit where the detectives are leering at some of the suspects, that was awkward - but breast size IS a clue here and, while it is played for laughs, really we're laughing at the detectives. Perhaps Jodie Foster's storyline could have gone further?

Inside Man is actually better than I remembered it. Clive Owen is an actor I mainly knew from television and while I could see him edging his way into a number of films, I couldn't really take him seriously with an American accent. I think I was being a bit harsh.

Even knowing where the story is going this is a very intriguing mystery and Denzel Washington is able to really lighten the mood with his upbeat yet cynical detective on a case that isn't really proving to be the lucky break he hoped for.

In some ways the story feels unfinished. Did Spike Lee plan on a sequel or is it enough that we know that the investigation isn't over yet? I felt a firmer conclusion could have been given to Jodie Foster's aspect of the story.

Still, overall Inside Man is an excellent heist mystery and an awesome Denzel Washington film with an all-round awesome cast and a very well-constructed script.

A+

Wow, I can’t sum it up any better than this. Watched about half an hour of this film before shrugging and giving up. I heard some refer to this as a comedy. Was I supposed to be laughing? I wondered whether it was a parody and I was just missing the jokes because I was unfamiliar with the material being referenced.

There are a lot of gorgeous visuals (though I’d note that the cars are all very modern-looking and that kind of detracts from the period-piece aspect to the production). The film is colourful and pretty (and the lead actress is undeniably beautiful), but in terms of characters nobody ever seems remotely real. There’s a slow abstract portrayal of a very simple story and I found myself regularly thinking “...so where are you going with this?”

After half an hour I decided I was no longer interested in knowing where the film was going with any of its ideas. I really have to connect with a film’s concepts to accept a slow deliberate pace, so while I was absolutely gripped by “The Witch”, I lost interest in “The Love Witch”.

Best thing: The Bin Laden song is frikkin hilarious. Like seriously, actual genius. (Though SEAL explaining where he got his scars was a pretty close second: "F**king wolves!")

Worst thing: This is a comedy that throws a lot of gags at the screen and some really don't stick. One clip of the press going overboard with all the flasks they are drinking from, felt more weird and random than funny...

The star, Andy Samberg, who also plays Jake Peralta in the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has a band called Lonely Island. It's parodying the kind of music that I'd never listen to. It's not like Flight of the Conchords where the songs would still be amazing even if they weren't hilarious. Nevertheless, the music isn't bad and the lyrics are hilarious.

This is one of those weird comedies where everything is just thrown at the audience to try to elicit as many laughs as possible as often as possible. It's all loud and obvious, rather than dry and careful. It's the sort of comedy that Phil Lord and Chris Miller do very well and Adam Sandler does very badly.

While not all gags landed for me, overall I had a lot of fun. This is more disposable than I'd have preferred, but I found it solidly enjoyable and it had some excellent moments. I cannot deny that there were points where I was laughing out loud.

B+

Best thing: Werner Herzog as the villain is inspired. It looks like the movie “The Grand” (comedy movie about gambling starring Woody Harrelson) did it first, but still....

Worst thing: Well I'll tell you what ISN'T the worst thing: Jai Courtney. (I seriously don't get the hate for that guy. He was the only bearable thing in Die Hard 5.) I guess the worst cliché in the whole string of clichés was the whole "one of your bosses is a villain so watch yourself" thing. I mean seriously, what help is that, Mr. Reacher?

A fairly average action movie. I can see how the books might work better, but this adaptation is a bit dull really.

No problem with Tom Cruise's performance. It wasn't clear during the film why the character needed to be a big guy, but I can see why fans of the book would be annoyed.

C-

Best thing: Any antics involving the zombies are brilliant. I actually really liked the wall of zombies idea in World War Z, but Train To Busan takes that ant-like swarm-like behaviour of zombies to a whole new much more creative level.

Worst thing: The worst thing WOULD be the scene where someone seems to have pretty flimsy reasoning for dooming an entire carriage of people to a zombie massacre. However, the very worst thing has to be the little girl's singing. I know it's intentional, but seriously, we in the audience are still subjected to this unbearable din...

I'm a keen follower of the movies from Korean directors Chan-Wook Park and Joon-Ho Bong. It seems that Korean cinema sets a high bar for itself and there's a trend for a combination of wacky elements and darker themes (so Train To Busan is no exception).

This certainly isn't a horror movie with a bunch of bland disposable characters. Certainly there are archetypes, sometimes making characters somewhat comical, but for the most part these are singular vibrant individuals. It is remarkable how easy it is to distinguish such a wide range of characters. And we have a central child actor who gives  a reassuring strong performance.

I love the zombies that are somehow both silly and almost cheesy and yet absolutely terrifying at the same time. It seems like zombie movies have been so often now that you'd think nearly everything had been done already, but the action sequences where the characters are escaping from zombies are fresh and inventive.

I'm not sure I entirely buy into the irrational paranoia expressed in the second half. I'd have thought the characters would all understand the rules by then. I think the zombie plague is being used as a source of satire and that may explain why it's occasionally a bit odd how things unfold. The choice as to whether to help others or to selfishly look out for number one is a big theme...

Train to Busan has all the weirdness we have come to expect from Korean films and this is both a pro and a con. Korean movie weirdness is what makes films like Snowpiercer and Oldboy unique, but this style can also make these films less accessible for some viewers. But if you feel you can handle Korean weirdness, you are in for a real treat.

A+

Best thing: As per usual, Simon Pegg's Scotty is the best thing in the new Star Trek movies. Though that's certainly not the fault of Pegg's script which gives more even coverage of the characters than the last two films. (Particularly pleased to see Bones and Spock more closely paired this time, since their love-hate relationship has always been my favourite element in Star Trek.)

Worst thing: When Uhura recognises a fact about the villain it seems quite implausible that anyone could have spotted it. That this big reveal about the villain is left until the the third act means that, like with Into Darkness, the villain's background is left rather limited. Poor villains seem to be a flaw neo-Star Trek now shares with Marvel Studios, but this film at least deserves credit as far as the audience is left begging: "Please we need to know more!" If only the last minute details were conveyed a little more clearly.

As we all know, Simon Pegg is a bit of a geek. This was perhaps clearest for me when Charlie Brooker released his zombie mini-series Dead Set (where the cast on Big Brother are unaware that all the crew outside of their enclosed area has been infected with a zombie virus). It was  dark and remarkably joyless, considering the subject matter, (rather like Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror series). However, Simon Pegg's response was to write an essay on why the zombies should have been the traditional slow and shambling zombies.

There was no particular need to write that essay. Shaun of the Dead had been and gone and it had been a big hit so this wasn't part of a self promotion. So Simon Pegg similarly cannot have needed much cajoling to write a script for the new Star Trek film. He was central to  the script-writing process on Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy and he combines his knack for comedy with his passion for the series in his writing here.

That being said, there are definitely third act problems here. Some of the later action scenes fail to stir the level of adrenaline that they ought to and the villain has Marvel Studios syndrome, not really drawing us into his motivations with much depth.

Still, of the new Star Trek trilogy, this instalment breaks the mould by being clearly better than the preceding two entries. Fun, beautiful, fairly smart and with a lot of nods to the original series; this was a satisfying entry.

Good work Simon. You did your fandom proud. But could the next film push these characters to a new level? For all the dramatic stakes, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of personal stakes for these characters.

B+

Best thing: The violence is genuinely horrifying, there's a consistent sense of tension, and the way the film shows the mind-warping effect of the signal is very effective.

Worst thing: The film drags in the middle. In the middle segment the story is set up around a character clearly set up as a villain in the first section. This section carries on with neither of the other protagonists present and it's not such an interesting segment as a result.

Having really enjoyed Adam Wingard's films, it was cool to see some familiar cast members show up here. AJ Bowen has been in many of Wingard's films including "You're Next", "The Sacrament" and "A Horrible Way To Die". Meanwhile Justin Welborn's connection is a little more tenuous. Adam Wingard directed segments of both V/H/S and V/H/S 2. In V/H/S Viral, Justin Welborn plays the evil magician in my favourite segment of that film.

The Signal has a similar combination of wacky, creepy and awkward to the VHS anthology films. The decision to combine all three sections of the film didn't work very well for me. In particular, the second segment would have probably worked better as a stand-alone.

All in all this semi-anthology, The Signal, is fine. But I can't imagine ever wanting to return to it. All the segments rely on each other and by the final segment it has really lost steam. But it's pretty well put together and has some great moments.

C+

Best thing: Angelina Jolie's performance is brilliant. She's always excited about danger, she's always got a knowing smile and she just perfectly represents the super-confident and capable, thrill-seeking millionaire playgirl. All those elements that made me adore her in the first Tomb Raider movie are still here.

Worst thing: There are many bad elements here; not least the central macguffin. But there's one scene towards the end where we have the gunshot *gasp, who fired the shot?* and when the camera pulls away, not only has Angelina Jolie NOT been shot, but apparently she was holding a gun at the ready by her side the whole time seemingly without the threatening figure noticing. So dumb!

As dumb as this film is, the big step-down is the action sequences. The first Tomb Raider had some pretty brilliant choreographed action. Even coming out just after The Matrix, the bungee fight in the hall of Croft manor stood out as a really creative sequence.

Yet while films at this point, such as Equilibrium, were continuing to pick up the gauntlet laid down by The Matrix, Tomb Raider 2 reverts to the lazier James Bond sequences with its gunfights that just involve shots fired from a distance. I suppose the aim was to thrill us stunts rather than martial arts action, such as when Croft freefalls off a skyscraper to escape the bad guy. But whenever Tomb Raider 2 features a gunfight it always seems lame.

Lamer still is the CG. It's really sad because someone clearly put a lot of effort into a 3D computer model of a shark. But it's simply way too obvious that the shark isn't there. It might be that CG effects were not so well developed back then, but I think it's also because the director has insisted on the CG work being added in post rather than allowing them to do the preparation required to make their shark effect blend with the scenery. The CG monsters in the final scenes are pretty cool. I don't want to say the effects work is simply bad, but it doesn't blend with the live action elements and looks horrible as a result.

Angelina Jolie is fantastic and deserved a better sequel. Gerard Butler is frikkin' terrible.

And the whole convoluted idea that Pandora's box released a virus is dumb. Isn't it enough that Pandora's box released all the evil in the world?

We start the film with Lara Croft discovering an ancient hidden palace of Alexander The Great and that was wonderful. That's pretty much where the tomb raiding aspect of the film ends. The rest of the film is in modern settings (the great wall of China is just there so they can say "Hey, we're in China!') until Pandora's Box is found in some random area of Africa.

The romance with Gerard Butler is clearly intended to be the source of drama here the way the death and legacy of Lara Croft's father brought drama to the first movie. But, whether it's Gerard Butler's acting or the boring script, I never really care about the central relationship.

D-

Best thing: Bella Lugosi and Boris Karloff both give intense central performances. It's difficult not to be enthralled by the scenes between them, even when the plot is going nowhere fast.

Worst thing: Sure, this has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat", but then again Corman's "The Raven" was nothing to do with Poe's poem and it was still pretty fun in its own right. The problem is that this film about war crimes and satanists just seems to lack any kind of focus. The film tries to leave things mysterious ("my servant has to pretend to be the villain's servant so he can help us and that's why he won't let us leave to get help" - eh?), but the result is that the story feels completely ungrounded.

Despite the two central powerhouse performances (and despite being mainly known for their horror performances these are seriously awesome showmen) the actual plot is, when it comes down to it, garbage.

What seemed to be an intense thriller about old secrets, bad blood and the threat of exposure of those secrets, turned out to have a very cheesy satanic cult explanation that I felt cheapened it.

The actors are chewing the scenery, but it's a bit of a bland meal.

D+

Best thing: Y'know, I've heard that the model used for the shark looks pretty unimpressive in real life. So there must be some amazing movie magic at work here, because the shark in the movie looked very convincing to me.

Worst thing: Naturally I love this film so I'm seriously nitpicking here. The mayor refusing to take the shark threat seriously just seems dafter and dafter every time I watch Jaws. Also, while I know that film is a visual medium, should you really show the protagonist researching the shark threat by opening a book and immediately skipping to the pictures?

Jaws is a classic for a reason. The iconic monster, the hidden threat, the simple but effective techniques to build tension.

And let's not forget the endless ripoffs of Jaws that were released.in subsequent years exploiting our fear of various sea creatures and forces of nature in general.

I don't need to tell you that Jaws is brilliant. You all know. If you haven't seen Jaws already, get it on your bucket list.

A+

Best thing: As per usual, Edgar Wright makes use of incredible choreography. Displaying every action sequence clearly with a lot blink-and-you'll-miss-it details.

Worst thing: You've known the guy for less than a week. You've known each other, what, three days?!! Seriously! I get that you both like music, but even so...

Baby Driver veers away from Edgar Wright's comfort zone. This must be the first Edgar Wright that is not a comedy. Even so, the comic moments are still the best bits.

Nevertheless World's End was funnier, more moving and had better action sequences. Tye Sheridan really does not make for a particularly interesting protagonist. Edgar Wright's painstakingly choreographed action sequences would be cool with anyone in the lead role, but Sheridan doesn't seem to bring any extra pizazz.

Baby Driver is fun, exciting and a really fun time at the movies, but it's the first Edgar Wright film where I haven't been blown away. Shaun of the Dead has always felt a little overrated to me, but that's only because his other films seemed so much stronger.

As much as Scott Pilgrim felt weird, oddly paced and jumbled, I still felt immersed in that film in a way that I simply did not in Baby Driver's geeky Transporter musical.

Wright's films will always be worth your attention and Baby Driver is no exception, but I think comedy is Wright's strong suit and I hope he doesn't lose sight of that in future projects.

B+

Best thing: Intestinate! (Also Jeffrey Combs is great.)

Worst thing: Noooooo! The barn exploded!

Why did anyone ever think Christopher Lambert should be the star of their sci-fi action movie?

Hearing him pretend to be American is so odd. Somehow he sounded more convincing as a Scotsman in period piece sections of Highlander, yet I cannot forget how ridiculous it sounded when he snarls in that odd squeaky way, "I'm from a lot of different places."

Accepting that Christopher Lambert is an odd choice for a leading man, he's perfectly fine here as the man captured trying to help his wife escape to have a second baby.

If it wasn't cool enough that we have a prison where even your dreams are monitored by the guards, we also have Kurtwood Smith (from Robocop) giving us insight into the wider mythology of this dystopian world with his mysterious prison-controller character.

One scene where the film gets incredibly trippy and we're expected to believe, essentially, that our protagonist is having his brain melted, it really drags. The effects aren't as interesting as the filmmakers seem to think in that scene and, seriously, we know you aren't killing off the protagonist before we are even half way through the film.

Still, while a little cheesy this is a really fun sci-fi action movie. Fortress is a little more consistent than Christopher Lambert's more well known action movie, Highlander, but it also doesn't have such great memorable moments and visual flourishes. Christopher Lambert benefits in Fortress from an array of co-stars to keep us engaged, particularly Jeffrey Combs as an engineering expert.

Not perfect, by any means, but a solid exciting sci-fi action film that explores some interesting concepts. Pretty cool.

B+

Best thing: The wacky examples of films from the independent director are often very funny. For example, "Bald Justice" about bald men being macho action heroes.

Worst thing: For me the worst aspect of the film was the interviews with real filmmakers about the fictional independent filmmaker. I often didn't recognise the figures they interviewed, but that wasn't the problem. My least favourite of these interview segments was with Ron Howard very long-windedly explaining that he didn't like the (fictional) movie “Bald Justice” until he went bald. It already wasn't a terribly funny gag even before Ron Howard stretched it out for five minutes. The filmmakers are not comedians, often aren't performers and asking them to tell funny stories about an entirely fictional character is not playing to their strengths.

Fellow Letterboxd user Audrey Karloff, who almost always carries a cheery disposition in his online writing, regularly cites this film as an unsung gem. He must have been trying to get me (and anyone else who'll listen presumably) to watch this for at least the past 5 years.

The Independent is a sweet story about a washed up director of trashy low budget films struggling to maintain recognition in his later years. While his daughter tries to help him move his career forward, we are regular filled in on his long career of rip-offs and misguided social commentary films. It's a great concept.

Yet when actually watching the film, I  must be honest, I found it a bit dull.

The opening is a bit jarring, showing us a load of talking heads, without much to clarify that we are not, in fact, beginning a documentary about a real person... until the main actor stands up and shouts into the valley (and even then it's still pretty unclear).

Sure, the scenes from the set of the protagonist's latest movie (of which I shan't spoil the details) firmly reveals the wackiness we should expect.

Still, the half sitcom/half mockumentary combination does the film no favours. The sitcom is constantly interrupted by talking heads and fake movie footage. Meanwhile the clear fiction of the sitcom sections makes it all the clearer that the talking heads are just random industry bods making stuff up on the spot.

I wonder whether the mocumentary section would have been improved for me if I could identify half the people being interviewed?

The Independent is a sweet enough film, but it wasn't funny or exciting enough to really make much of an impression on me. It's a pity to be unable to respond to a friend's beloved personal favourite with much more than a weak shrug.

C-

Best thing: When the unborn baby is telling the mother to kill, she seems to have a posher accent than her mother. The film actually makes reference to this when the protagonist mother is informed that her foetus can't speak and she replies, "No, actually she's very articulate."

Worst thing: One of the earlier people to be stalked by our protagonist is so obnoxious and so oblivious (both to how obnoxious he is and how likely it is that the protagonist will murder him) that it's difficult to suspend disbelief.

Horror comedy about a woman encouraged to take revenge by the urging from her unborn baby.

Alice Lowe wrote and directed this herself. It's a wonderful blend of themes, savage murders, funny lines and some occasional morbid puns.

Quite a harsh and gruesome black comedy, but if horror comedy is your thing (and it's certainly mine) you don't want to miss out on this little gem!

A+

Best thing: The first story in particular is simple, effective and really gets under your skin.

Worst thing: The werewolf-esque story “Don't Fall” isn't as smart as the other segments and was the only part where I found myself looking at my watch.

I preferred the first entry. “The Box”, to the rest of the anthology, but I thought it was pretty strong set of stories overall.

Oddly enough, nearly all of the segments seemed to be about parenting in some shape or form except for one rather generic werewolf story (that was no Ginger Snaps). Is that because the directors were going for especially feminine stories for this anthology?

The first segment has such a dark edge to it. One child has a secret whispered to him by a stranger and suddenly has a strange inexplicable change in behaviour. He refuses to eat.

Okay, yes, it is similar to the Radiohead music video for their song "Just". Except that involved a load of people lying on the street. The prospect of a child intentionally, calmly, opting to starve himself is much more haunting and a hell of a lot more plausible.

Melanie Lynskey's attempt to rescue her daughter's birthday party and the woman handling her son being reclaimed by his father, the devil, were both pretty great segments too.

Overall XX is a solid anthology and well worth the attention of horror fans.

B+

Best thing: Free State of Jones is a very interesting tale of a rebellion within the southern states of America even while the civil war was ongoing and it only gets more interesting once the civil war is over.

Worst thing: I don't know if this was a book adaptation or just an interpretation of the historical events, but either way the story seemed to be covering too long a period of time to provide us with a well-paced story. We seem to jump forward to each part of the story.

Free State of Jones is a fascinating film. The story is pretty great, but it feels like it is trying to cover a bit too much. The films spans the American civil war, the period after the war and even has a few scenes in the 20th century.

The relevance of the history to the race issues in America today are clear. I've heard some fairly dismissive comments about this film simply because Matthew McConnaughey is a white protagonist, but the film makes very clear that this story is about a real historical figure and puts pay to the idea that blacks in the south were supported in any real way by the northern victors in the civil war. Far from being a white saviour our protagonist is a very frustrated activist for equality who finds himself despairing of the lack of support from his supposed allies in pursuing what ought to be an obvious noble goal.

Free State of Jones has exciting moments and sad moments. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Still, it has that biopic / book adaptation feel where the film feels like it's stretching to fit in all the story elements it wants to include. And since this covers such a large timespan it would be a miracle if the film didn't feel that way.

A lot of fun, well-acted, moving and powerful in places, but trying to cram in so much. Well worth your time. Don't believe the haters.

B-

Best thing: I think the most fantastic aspect of this film is its "fear of faith" theme. The way this is explored is very dramatic and powerful, pulling you into the mind of the young protagonist. The voiceover narration doesn't even detract from this either.

Worst thing: Not to give away spoilers, the final part of the film involves a shift in perspective that also alters the tone of the film. Basically the twist doesn't work that well and the ending seems rather tone-deaf and possibly a little cheesy.

The ending makes all the difference. Sadly what seemed like an incredible unsung gem became bafflingly cheesy in its final act.

Certainly the seeds for that ending were present but the presentation and execution at the end feels like an entirely different director must have taken over at the last minute.

At the half way point I was very impressed. By the end I was a bit non-plussed. A real pity.

Special mention needs to go to the excellent child actors. They remain the emotional core of the film and give absolutely remarkable performances.

C+

Best thing: There's a remarkably grounded mythology to The Warriors. Different New York gangs all looking for greater control and grander reputations, seeking a promise of unity. The different gangs express themselves with their own unique themes or outfits. There's a neat simplicity to it all.

Worst thing: Unfortunately this neat simplicity has its problems too. Not an awful lot really happens in the film, but the real issue is that I never fully warm to the characters it doesn't happen to. Our main protagonist and leader of the gang suggests to a girl that they might "pull a train" on her. Even if it's just posturing it's hard to look kindly on what are basically just a bunch of thugs...

A really interestingly styled film with some cool moments, but not really any characters that I'd root for or even any I particularly understood.

Still, The Warriors is a unique curiosity which is sufficiently cool and well-structured to make up for its more alienating aspects.

The unique mythology is spellbinding.

B-

Best thing: There's a bit of a mystery involved here and the big misdirect is that the film initially looks like it's a children's film. There are moments where it looks the filmmakers might be buying into magical nonsense, but the biggest clues that isn't a magical children's story is the scenes with the police detective. She's blunt and won't accept any nonsense and clearly has a much clearer idea of what is going on than the adult doctor we follow for much of the film.

Worst thing: The opening of the film where the child protagonist is introducing himself. I can't stand cutesy kids doing voiceover narration directly to the audience. I now know this was intentionally disarming, but my response was a moan of dismay. "Hunt For The Wilderpeople, this ain't," I thought to myself. If a young child is talking confidently to the camera it is likely that they have a background doing drama. Our protagonist most likely isn't supposed to have this background (or if they do that's a remarkably handy coincidence), but the actor does. As a general rule, this sort of set-up will always pull me right out of the film.

Alexandre Aja is a pretty interesting director, starting with the bizarre horror movie Switchblade Romance and then moving on to the remakes Piranha 3D and The Hills Have Eyes, before bringing us the Joe Hill adaptation Horns. Aja also wrote some pretty cool films like the Maniac remake and P2.

At the opening of Ninth Life of Louis Drax I thought this was a major misstep for Aja. A whiny kid is introducing himself in a kind of wacky way.

I think a lot of viewers have failed to recognise how this opening has been engineered to put the audience offguard.  There are a worrying number of reviewers who have referred to this as a children's movie. This film contains the line: "Are you f**king her?" This is not the kind of question you'd expect from a police officer in a children's movie. And that's intentional. Things are not what they seem.

The contrasting tones are a bit jarring, but the performances are great and by the end the film had completely won me over.

A-

I always make a point of not giving a score to films I didn't finish. This is a little different. I DID finish it. I just fell asleep through a sizeable chunk and have no interest in returning to check out the bits I missed. Personally I found this pretty dire.

A group of murderous misfits take over a funfair and then proceed to massacre the customers.

I always reckon there's nothing like a good horror comedy. And this is nothing like a good horror comedy. It's cheap and lame and a waste of time...

Best thing: This is a film focused more on visual storytelling than having the story moved on by character interactions. This distinguishes "Dunkirk" quite sharply from previous Nolan films like The Prestige, Inception or even  Interstellar, all of which were quite exposition-heavy. As such, I think my favourite parts are those with the mostly silent RAF pilot Tom Hardy. Hardy had already proven his ability to produce drama by just sitting in the driving seat of a vehicle and looking concerned in "Locke". Tom Hardy is a real showman and is very good at dominating the screen with subtle expressions.

Worst thing: With its 'slice of life' approach, I generally didn't feel all that close to the characters. Also two central characters are, at one point left stranded, and I'm not really sure how they escaped from that situation.

I've been a fan of Christopher Nolan since Memento and I was absolutely blown away by The Prestige. (Naturally I also loved his take on Batman in “Batman Begins”, especially considering that the previous Batman film was “Batman and Robin”. All the same, I thought “The Dark Knight”, while great, was substantially overrated.)

But even as a fan of Nolan I've found his most recent spectacular sci-fi outings, “Inception” and “Interstellar”, to be a little uneven. I definitely love these films, but I expect more from Nolan so I've still felt a little frustrated by them.

Dunkirk is the best Nolan film in years, not least because it plays to all his strengths. Nolan has always seemed to struggle with female characters, so this is a very male setting. (There are female characters, but it makes sense that they tend to be background characters.)

Nolan's sci-fi films were sometimes a little overstuffed with exposition, but Dunkirk has some characters who practically never speak. Dunkirk is a very visual film perfectly suited to Nolan's colder filmmaking style as the tension builds.

Nolan's best films have always played tricks with the chronology, most excitingly in Memento. Nolan performs a similar trick here with one timeline lasting an hour, one lasting a day and one lasting a week and yet all three arcs are presented side by side.

The only thing missing here, I feel, is characters. I loved the characters in The Prestige. I loved Guy Pearce's character in Memento. In Dunkirk no characters really stand out. Tom Hardy was my favourite character and he barely even speaks.

Still, I view this as amongst Nolan's best work and, for me, better than his Batman films.

A+

Best thing: One of many absolutely fantastic bits of imagery in the film features our protagonist having a really bad job interview while flailing in a swimming pool. If you think of some of the imagery in Trainspotting like dropping into the carpet or the baby crawling on the ceiling, there is similarly interesting use of visuals.

Worst thing: I recognise that both main characters were in bizarre unreal worlds that develop as a reaction to their specific circumstances. However, the girl's constructed world, whereby she avoids all contact with the outside world and even all sense of time, was particularly hard to relate to.

A bit awkward to get hold of, but well worth it. It's always a good sign when not only do you find that every single review from friends on letterboxd is positive for a particular film. However it's even better when every single one is absolutely gushing with praise.

Gushing praise can sometimes be very annoying and the few exceptions where someone disputes a movie’s “masterpiece” status can feel like a bit of a relief, but there's a reason why Castaway on the Moon seems to have no such exceptions. It's an absolute delight.

Hilarious, strange and fascinating. The premise of two isolated characters somehow both stranded within a city is explored in an absolutely wonderful way.

All the weirdness you'd expect from a Korean film and yet somehow incredibly accessible and utterly adorable.

A+

Best thing: Woody Harrelson is hilarious as the consistently chilled-out sarcastic teacher.

Worst thing: I don't want to say this film is perfect, but I'm struggling to come up with a worst thing. I guess occasionally the protagonist's self-obsession goes a bit far.

It's really tough to explain how great this film is. While it would be fair to put it in the same league as films like Clueless or Easy A, it's not really the same type of film as either of those. Of course, being unique is a good thing.

The main thing that made me want to see Edge of Seventeen was a clip of Woody Harrelson in one of the earliest scenes in the film. Harrelson plays a cynical history teacher and he's absolutely hilarious.

Hailee Steinfeld from the Coen Brothers' “True Grit” shows that she is clearly a very versatile actress. She does not seem in any way like she did in "True Grit” and she's still playing a very compelling character.

Our protagonist gives a whole new take on the awkward teen. The scene where she is ultra awkward at a party will feel very familiar to most people, I'm sure.

Edge of Seventeen is one of the best comedies of recent years and is well worth checking out.

A+

Best thing: While a little generic, there's no doubting that The Trickster is a great character.

Worst thing: Edward Furlong isn't really a strong enough acting talent to carry this film. Perhaps if he had a little more stage presence then we'd understand why the girl next door likes him so much. (I feel like Joseph Gordon Levitt would have done a better job, if he was old enough at the time...)

Brainscan is a sweet little 'out of control genie' kind of story. Our protagonist is an oddball with personal issues to resolve who gets pulled into a world that takes advantage of those issues.

The ending is a bit predictable and doesn't play out particularly smoothly. The 'trickster' is pretty fun despite being quite obviously the same generic character we've seen before in any number of stories like this, without much to make him stand out as unique.

B+

Best thing: While the British politicians and civil service members can often appear like moustache-twirling villains, the wife of the male protagonist's uncle who had been acting as regent, has a really powerful scene. She gives her full case for why she doesn't think a white British woman should be queen and unlike the British politicians it's nothing to do with any support for the apartheid system that they have in place along with neighbouring South Africa. She argues that the female protagonist is in no way suitable for the responsibility, has no understanding of their culture and represents a further imposition by a white foreign nation over their small African nation. Rosamund Pike makes no reply to this and clearly sees no other option but to grimace and stay silent.

Worst thing: As with most biopics, this story is limited by the real life circumstances to which it needs to remain true. While the film generally avoids awkward preachy speeches or unnatural expositional conversations, it still feels slightly unreal. Sure, people change over time, but with the amount of time passing it's not clear how these changes occur. (Still this is handled pretty well. It's not like in Dune where they realised that they wouldn't be able to show ANY sign that the central relationship was developing and they just added voiceover narration that said, "And their love grew!" A United Kingdom makes a good effort, but just struggles to reveal long term relationship changes within a short film with a lot of political change to convey too.

After his fantastic turn as Martin Luther King in Selma, David Oyelowo takes on another real life figure, this time playing Seretse Khama. (Though for many of us, David Oyelowo will always be especially well established in our minds for his time as Danny in the tv show Spooks.)

Amma Asante's previous film, Belle, was also a sort of biopic, but nothing much was known about the real life protagonist beyond one painting. The film ended up feeling a bit contrived to me because the protagonist seemed too self-aware, often seeming almost like a time traveller rather than someone with a unique perspective within that society.

Much more is known about Seretse Khama and, while the story is presented well and the performances are great, there's still something a little flat about the film. Individual scenes can be very emotionally impactful, but the film as a whole feels a bit rushed and not quite fleshed out enough.

In particular I feel a major dramatic moment is left entirely unresolved. One of Seretse Khama’s female relatives gives Rosamund Pike's character hell for wanting to be Queen of their country. I would have like some more indication on why this perspective changes beyond just gradually softening over time. (Particularly since time seems to rush forward all through the movie.)

A United Kingdom has similar biopic issues to those I found with Free State of Jones. However, what I feel gives A United Kingdom the upper hand (and please recognise that I would recommend both films) is the way it moves forward so smoothly. Sure, A United Kingdom is not a film that slows down enough to bring much in the way of depth, but the way it carries us through the narrative does at least feel clear and focused. On top of this, the sweet and upbeat personality of A United Kingdom makes for some very pleasant and engaging storytelling.

It's a great story worth telling and you're pretty much guaranteed a good time with this solid, if not mind-blowing, well-acted biopic.

B+

Best thing: The action sequences are pretty impressive and I like the way they use subtle ways to indicate that the characters are robots or cyborgs. It feels like they are making good use of a relatively low budget and it reminds me of Freddie W's action sequences in his youtube shorts and his online Video Game High School series.

Worst thing: It doesn't help when your lead actor expresses all his lines in a dull monotone, clearly doesn't speak English as a first language and has absolutely terrible lines to deliver. But that alone probably wouldn't undermine this as a dumb action film. The problem is that the final action sequence involves a stop motion robot fight and it looks utterly ridiculous and not really terribly exciting.

I'd heard mixed things about this cyberpunk action film, but I hadn't expected it to look so cheap.

An action movie where the main star clearly doesn't have English as his first language and struggles to emote.

A movie with dialogue that is stilted, unnatural, boring and often even manages to be expositional and confusing at the same time.

Yet with all that being said, I was very interested by the way they managed to be sparing with the effects. For the most part the robots are indistinguishable from humans and in many scenes the indication that a character is a robot is that they recover or survive when a human would be dead. There are also the occasional scenes where a character's head will open up to reveal robotic parts inside. Until the robot fight in the final act, the effects limitations force them to be subtle and the result is that the final act fight is comparatively less enjoyable.

I'm not entirely sure why one scene involves gratuitous nudity while our protagonist prepares to strike. If the nudity was because the two characters were distracted by each other, that would at least make sense. But instead, the two characters are arguing the whole time and they talk about how the protagonist is after them. So why is that female character standing around in the nude? I get that this is exploitation filmmaking, but the nudity here makes no damn sense.

Clearly cashing in on Terminator 2, released the previous year, this is clearly a poor imitation. Sure, Nemesis has its moments, but for the most part it's a bit dire.

D-

Best thing: Adam Driver is still a compelling performer even when playing a dull character.
Worst thing: Not only is this a film where very little happens and yet much of what happens manages to feel contrived anyway, but the poetry is (and perhaps I'm being a philistine here) terrible.

I first heard about Jim Jarmusch when he released Only Lovers Left Alive which drew attention with its three awesome big name stars: Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston and Mia Wasikowska (not to mention a smaller role given to Anton Yelchin). But it also drew attention by being about vampires.

I heard that this was a director who normally didn't involve outlandish fantasy elements like vampires in his films, so I was keen to try out a non-vampire

Jim Jarmusch movie. The vampire mythology in Only Lovers Left Alive felt weak to me, but I was impressed with the way the director was able to feature so many quiet moments that remained consistently engaging.

Sadly, in Paterson, I found the whole story utterly pointless. A guy whose life is so empty that he sits quietly drinking alone every evening is not particularly interesting. His poetry seems to have nothing to say, except perhaps to reveal how bland and trivial his life is.

The protagonist does not seem to engage much with other people he meets. He seems proud of his connection with the town where he has always lived and with which he shares his name, yet I feel this film completely fails to convey why anyone would want to live there.

At one point the protagonist goes out with his wife to see a classic black and white film and I envy them because I'm stuck watching Paterson.

E grade