The Snowman (2017)

Ice-cold and grisly Norwegian thrillers are popular among readers but this Jo Nesbø adaptation plays out on screen like it has been hacked to pieces and put back together again by a crazed killer with a piano wire, with scenes appearing out-of-order and side storylines, particularly the ones involving Chloë Sevigny as identical twins, Val Kilmer as a drunk detective, and J K Simmons as the leader of a Winter Olympics Host City bid, built-up elaborately like the serial killer's snowmen only to melt away without consequence.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Beatriz at Dinner (2017)

This episode of 'Touched By A Vegetarian, Reiki-Practising Angel' overreaches with its story of a Cecil the Lion-killing business mogul who is never, over the course of a dinner, going to be made to accept responsibility for all the evils of the world (including the murder of a pet goat) and so, with nowhere to go, it ends exactly as all your dinner parties ever have when someone wants to drunkenly cure all societal ills - guests end up wanting to kill themselves.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS