Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

There are three minor issues to contend with watching this fifth and final Harrison Ford-led Indiana Jones adventure: one, the Uncanny Valley effect of Ford's de-aged face floating through the lengthy opening sequence; two, a plot development at the end that derails the whole movie (but only until one brief line of dialogue so glibly uttered you could miss it puts the minecart back on the track); and three, a moribund and frankly preposterous "go on without me, leave me here" moment at the end; but other than that, this is as good as Indiana Jones gets: a fun, fast, funny family blockbuster action adventure.

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Uncharted (2022)

Tom Holland is a far too baby-faced Nathan Drake, the supposed-to-be manly hero of Naughty Dog's Uncharted game series adapted here for the big screen, and casting Mark Wahlberg, too young and clean-shaven, as the game's Victor "Sully" Sullivan robs the movie of some of the game's emotion given the character is supposed to be a father-like figure in grown-up orphan Nathan's life, but despite this horrible casting, the movie succeeds as an engaging popcorn adventure with moments of great excitement and, for lovers of the series, plenty of nods to the game.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Woody Allen movies, and perhaps especially his romantic comedies with their thrown-together ensemble casts, ad-libbed dialogue, seemingly made-up-on-the-spot characters, and voiceover narrations of questionnable value, can give the impression the director isn't even trying, and so it is here in this romantic comedy which in its first half rambles breezily on about the love lives of seven or eight Londoners, appears to jump the shark in the middle with a sudden 'plagiarist writer' development, but finally ties everything together with lots of belly laughs and the idea that the tall, dark stranger of the title is ourselves trying things on in desperate moments, and of course there is the renewed conviction that even though it can sometimes appear he is just churning them out, Woody Allen's movies are always worth a look.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Skin I Live In (La Piel Que Habito) (2011)

The first audacious act - a plastic surgeon involved in unethical transgenic experiments holds captive in his mansion a patient in a body sock who is attacked in her cell one day by a man in a tiger costume - takes some explaining and the latter half of Almodóvar's film goes back six years to reveal how even the minutest details of this wacky situation comes to be, which works well as an analogy: how do our circumstances shape us into the creatures we are, in these body socks, tiger suits, or surgical masks we live in?

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Evita (1996)

This film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical attempts to reduce decades of Argentinian history into two hours of Tim Rice's bawdy rhyming couplets and because of this is an almost unwatchable movie-length rock opera music video featuring, among other embarrassments, suited Argentinian statesmen rapping to funky synthesizers, Antonio Banderas drifting around as a everywhere narrator who often has to nod and look unembarrassed as he waits a beat or two for the music to let him finish what he is saying, bawdy rhymes about Argentina's reverred/abhorred Eva Peron played by an out-of-her-depth Madonna and, the musical's biggest sin, apart from repeated scenes shot on the balcony of the Casa de Rosa, an almost entirely absent Buenos Aires.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS