The Invisible Man (2020)

It is a shame that this horror thriller, one that surprises by being more about a controlling, abusive relationship than the scifi gimmick of invisibility and a movie that begins thrillingly and proceeds unhurriedly and parcels out information so intelligently for its first half, is in such a rush to finish and remains so nasty, so thankless - the satisfaction of Elizabeth Moss's victim's eventual fight-back against her diabolical, unseen tormentor is brief and the intelligence of the script drops off sharply in the end.

★★★☆☆

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Get Him To The Greek (2010)

The plot of this follow-up to the 2008 Forgetting Sarah Marshall (a music industry intern escorts an irreverent, drug-addled rockstar across America to revive his career in a big-deal comeback concert) calls for real chaos but chaos never really comes - instead we get an unfunny half hour in Las Vegas that is more farcical than chaotic and needs simply to be cut out of the overlong movie - but Russell Brand's Aldous Snow, the rockstar - essentially Brand playing himself - is a fun creation worthy of this second (and even a future third) movie and the comedy for the most part (minus that woeful Las Vegas sequence) is really funny.

★★★☆☆

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The Square (2017)

It's about things (landscape paintings or bags or people or an ape or social issues) looked at outside of their usual contextual frames, which might explain a handful of the more bewildering scenes lacking context or consequence (like an apartment ape, a disappearing sexual conquest, and a dramatic arthouse dinner that occurs suddenly and spontaneously and ends without follow-up) but whether bewildering or hilarious, terrifying, shocking or absurd, The Square is always interesting and raises food for thought about issues both on a personal and international front: the refugee crisis, the widening divide between the haves and have-nots, the tendency for individuals to lower their gazes and bow their heads to shirk responsibility, and insane codes of behaviour dictated by arbitrary lines on the ground (wild thrashing about in a nightclub or on a mattress or on a stage set out for cheerleading acrobatics)...or it could all just be a very longwinded reiteration/justification of a 2014 art project by director Ruben Östlund and producer Kalle Boman.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS