A Haunting In Venice (2023)

With his third Agatha Christie adaptation (the first being Murder On The Orient Express; the second, Death On The Nile) director, lead actor, and likely infatuated-starer-at-self-in-mirrors Kenneth Brannagh delivers another big glossy star vehicle (this one has Tina Fey, terrific as Poirot's mystery novelist friend Ariadne Oliver, and Michelle Yeoh appears) but he again mishandles the all-important mystery, this time transforming Halloween Party into a supernatural horror, forgetting that to solve a mystery Hercule Poirot needs clues, not just to simply float around a crumbly Venetian mansion in extreme close-up; in the end, Brannagh's Poirot looks ridiculous presenting grand revelations magically-gleaned from two clues: flowers and a ringing phone. 

★★★☆☆

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Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

The fact he's an oft-photographed billionaire is irrelevant - no-one acknowledges him, not even in elevators in his own skyscraper - which is just one of the many ways this untitillating sex drama floats free from reality; in fact, Christian Grey and doey womanchild Anastasia's unlikely sex contract negotiations (he tries for two hours to involve her in his sado-lite world of slaps-on-the-backside and silk tie shackles) raise just one question in bored viewers' minds: in what world are Christian Grey and Anastasia that they haven't seen Sex And The City?

★☆☆☆☆

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The Fall (Season 1)

A collection of Irish actors and Gillian Armstrong slow their movements and speech to glacial pace in order to drag out to eleven episodes a dreary serial killer story optimistically described in tv guides as "a psychological thriller".

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS