Goldbeater

Musical biopics are, unfortunately, one of the most tired and hackneyed of film genres, and to engage on any level higher than the most superficial, they need either a very rich story that rises above the established template, or a very talented filmmaker who grasps it with a dynamic and original style. This film has neither. It is another patchwork of life dramas, flowery wisdoms and samples of the performer's most famous songs, dosed with a certain regularity so that the film doesn't bore and fulfils basic audience expectations, but it lacks both a functional narrative that would perhaps justify the existence of flashbacks to the past, as well as some interesting conflict that would elevate the story above a mere regurgitation of information from Wikipedia, laced with numerous genre clichés on top of that. Kingsley Ben-Adir has learned Bob Marley's mannerisms carefully, and he's fun to watch, but he just can't carry the weight of the whole thing. Moreover, his character is classically sleek and stripped of its problematic aspects because the film's producers are Marley's descendants and obviously don't want to create anything but a wholly flattering image of him. Bohemian Rhapsody was accused of similar things, but at least that film oozed incredible creative energy and boasted some superbly shot concert scenes. Surprisingly, those are almost absent here. Additionally, the entire film is directed towards one particular concert, but we're not shown it because the cut to the end credits comes when it's supposed to really get going. The day after the screening, it pretty much evaporated from my mind.

A shallow, dumb and unspeakably boring variation on The Stepford Wives. The two-hour running time is truly mind-numbing given the emptiness of the whole story. It's also a tacky, fatuous and shallow film, just like the world it's trying to satirize. The high rating on this one is downright shocking to me.

A flawed and unsurprising whodunit that, after three clunky episodes with some interesting themes, turns into a complete farce in the fourth episode. And the idealization of the relationships between students and professors probably says more about the personality of the writers than about any attempt to address the problem.

Adam Ondra may push the limit, but this documentary certainly doesn't. As a portrait of a personality, it's done at a high level, but there's a lot missing for me to enjoy it as a viewer.

A very interesting urban horror film with a great atmosphere. The fact that Wolfen is the only feature film ever directed by documentary filmmaker and cinematographer Michael Wadleigh, the man behind the legendary 1970 film Woodstock, is no mere curiosity. Wadleigh imprinted the film with his flair for capturing subcultures, the spirit of a vanishing era, and a unique setting (here, the endless demolition of the South Bronx and, by extension, all of New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s). And the more you see similar older films in which a city is practically a character in its own right, you realise how this element is increasingly missing from contemporary cinema, with a few honourable exceptions. Story-wise, it's a bit heavy-handed, and it's clear that the studio took the film away from the director in post-production and did their own thing with it, but it's still a fairly unique watch if you're after a film with an edge and not just straightforward horror. A very refreshing piece of work. Only notorious recycler James Horner performs here basically half of his themes for the one-year-younger Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and the five-years in the future Aliens, which isn't necessarily a bad thing (it's still a great score), but it does take a bit out of the plot.

Considering how bold and original Fulci's giallo films of the 70s were for this wild genre, Murder Rock - Dancing Death, as a very late contribution, feels rather tired and unsurprising. Those who have seen at least two similar films in their lives will guess the identity of the killer after the first fifteen minutes. But if you ever want a shot in the vein of something that downright screams "120% 80s" in terms of costumes, music and production design, you've come to the right place.

After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, a platoon of soldiers find themselves on the retreat in the inhospitable jungle of the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian borderlands, while Vietnamese troops getting dangerously hot on their heels. A well-written and very uncomfortable war drama underscoring the French trauma of the Indochina War with a classic battle of ideas between a naive young soldier (Jacques Perrin) and a seasoned cynical veteran played by the always brilliant Bruno Cremer.

A generic January horror flick with zero ideas and even more lacklustre execution. It's like Jason Blum suddenly called out on a whim, "Make me... eh... a haunted pool movie in one week. Go!" It's all bland, cribbed from a blueprint seen a hundred times, devoid of any energy, devoid of anything memorable. No one here has tried to do anything more than make it at least visually look like a movie for the cinema. A puddle at the bottom of a real swimming pool is scarier and, unfortunately, more creative than this entire would-be horror film.

Whereas Spielberg dares to kill a little boy in Jaws, Ovidio Assonitis swears and kills an infant outright in the opening scene. I guess that much tells you how self-aware a film Tentacles is. Ovidio must have had some pretty solid leverage on John Huston and Henry Fonda to get them into this Italian mess. Or was cash and whiskey enough? It's hard to say, but the sight of the papier-mâché monster slowly and impossibly lingering on the surface of the sea (to Stelvio Cipriani's comically repetitive score) will haunt my memory for a long time.

Almost three hours of "misery porn" with a made-for-TV quality that kills with its mood and visual monotony after the first 45 minutes. Ana de Armas gives a committed and engaging performance, but I would have liked to have seen her in a differently conceived film. A couple of scenes (especially the ones with the embryo) explicitly crossed the line into emotionally extortionate kitsch.