Whiplash

Can’t say I really enjoyed this, or agreed with the critics who gave it a good writeup. Yes, in many ways it was a compelling story about a talented young drummer being pushed towards excellence by a domineering, abusive conductor.

Leave the World Behind

I’m all for an apocalyptic nightmare, and this bit featured some particularly strong facets – however what DOES leave my cheese out in the wind is this modern predilection for stories that don’t really have a conclusion. Less a story,

Air

Enjoyable piece centering around the relative shoe minnow Nike’s campaign to woo Michael Jordan as their figurehead basketball star. I love watching Affleck/Damon at work, with their easy friendship stretching back decades – and the addition of Jason Bateman was

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Cinematic presentation of the 1970’s seminal Judy Blume book about coming of age, religious freedom and bodily autonomy: and I only agreed to go to this because I was thinking of a totally different story when asked. In hindsight, nobody’s

The Whale

Good choice of film for in-flight watching, cos it translates well to the seatback screen. Pretty bleak stuff but very emotional and well-told. It’s incredibly fortunate that Brendan Fraser was cast (as he does a stellar job) rather than an

Bottle Shock

You’d think taking the story of The Judgement of Paris (the 1976 blind wine tasting where California beat France) and putting Alan Rickman in one of the key seats alongside Bill Pullman would be an instant classic – but this

Metal Lords

In summary this sounded like a fairly hapless teen-rock journey to confidence type story, so during the opening credits I was a bit surprised to see the monikers of Weiss & Benioff (of Game of Thrones fame).  Don’t remember much

Triangle of Sadness

Refreshing to find one of those films that leaves you thinking WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST WATCH?! I don’t understand how this could be so memorable, and yet so irritating. And yet I keep finding myself talking about it.

The Hateful Eight

This was an exercise in completism – I recall starting this a few times in the last 10 years, and never quite getting through it. In hindsight it probably wasn’t worth bothering, although some of the performances made it worth

Margin Call

You’ve got to wonder how much dramatic licence was taken with this finance-boiler… The business arbitrarily shedding critical risk management staff to shave a margin was totally believable. The 2am fully suited boardroom sit-room complete with top exec who helicoptered

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