Woman of the Hour (2024)

The fact that in 1978 an active serial killer once appeared in real life on a dating game television show seems at first a curious car crash moment to ogle in passing, hardly worth extrapolating into a feature-length movie – not without turning real murder and real victims into sideshow spectacle – but in her directorial debut, Anna Kendrick takes that moment and almost succeeds in finding the balance between respecting its grim reality and lampooning a world – then and now – that idly indulges sick male pathology with a sympathetic "there, there", fails to vet men before, say, letting them on camera, and asks women to laugh gaily at male idiocy.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

A Simple Favor (2018)

A tightly-wound mommy-vlogger falls in with a sophisticated ex-model celebrity-wife who empowers the mommy vlogger to live a little, to never be sorry, to abandon shame and then disappears without trace, prompting the mommy-vlogger to turn all Nancy Drew as she conducts an amateur investigation, in this mystery thriller with a run-of-the-mill Gone Girl plot enlivened by sass, good-humour and great performances from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively - it is just a shame refreshing feminist messages at the start are pretty much deemed sociopathic and are run-through by the end.

★★★☆☆

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The Accountant (2016)

Seemingly conceived and made by people who forgot an audience needs to watch it, The Accountant has its narrative split between the mysterious exploits of Ben Affleck's Batman-with-Asperger-Syndrome, Christian Wolff (an unlikely mix of Clark Kent nerdiness, Batman solemnity and Jason Bourne machismo), and the efforts of a government agent hot on his tail trying to catch up on everything we the viewers already know or can guess about Wolff from the beginning: that Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters has untapped the mutant accounting skills of this man who now tows around a stainless steel Airstream batcaravan freelancing as a bookkeeper for dangerous gangbangers who mustn't realise he has a propensity to turn around and take out entire criminal entourages with his assault weapons....did I understand that right?

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Into the Woods (2014)

If you can look past the fact this whole elaborate tangle of fairytales could have been avoided if the characters stopped their incessant singing and just sat down and calmly talked to one another, and if you are not repelled by the movie's several unpleasant adult-child relationships, you might enjoy this star-studded film version of the long-running Broadway musical featuring Meryl Streep doing her best Witchy Poo.

★★☆☆☆

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Mick and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)

Zac Efron proved his comedy chops as that college jock in the amusing Bad Neighbours movies and so it is disappointing to find him doing pretty much that same buff college jock schtick here but in a comedy that loses its way as soon as you've finished reading the title with humour that repeatedly falls back on male and female genitals.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Scott Pilgrim VS the World (2010)

Gamers and comic fans will go berserk for the gaming references and game level structure of this movie which pits a young "Mario" against a succession of super evil ex-partners of his "Princess Peach", but other viewers will tire quickly of these "boss encounters" and will want to declare game over by level three or four (of seven).

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS