Hereditary (2018)

Obviously influenced by last year's mother!, this horror misfire establishes from its very first frame that nothing that happens - not a Donnie Darko high school fantasy nor an Evil Dead gorefest nor a United States of Tara family drama - is going to mean anything more than, say, a Madame Tussaud's display of French Revolution grotesquery or a Wes Andersen theatre model box, and indeed what plays out - a personality-free, uneven, charmless series of make-it-up-as-we-go decapitations, seances, Amityville Horror bug infestations, etc.. - is equal parts gruelling, boring, and laughable.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Excalibur (1981)

This fantasy adventure tells the story of King Arthur (and Merlin, Camelot, the Lady of the Lake, Sir Gawain, Morgana, and the Knights of the Round Table...) and is much more captivating on its 1981 film budget than more recent sfx-driven Hollywood extravaganzas, helped enormously by its being studded with big-name British superstars-in-the-making like Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson, who all loan a Shakespearean weight to proceedings.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

I, Anna (2012)

A man lies dead on the floor of an apartment and mystery surrounds the death only because of this movie's oblique storytelling, with Gabriel Byrne playing the detective inspector who doesn't solve the mystery so much as wait out irrelevant subplots and scenes shown out-of-order which, when all is said and done, amount to a dreary episode spanning about twelve hours.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Stigmata (1999)

Patricia Arquette stars as the only person in the world who doesn't know from the outset of this light horror movie exactly what is going on - for 90-odd minutes, she thrashes around like a crazy person on a train, at a nightclub, and in a bathtub surrounded by a silly number of candles, having strange visions, repeatedly running out into Pittsburg traffic, and generally trying very hard to fill the time it takes for stigmata to appear one-by-one on her body while her co-stars, Gabriel Byrne and a string of rosary beads, and viewers, wait patiently for the by-the-numbers demon possession story to finish.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS