Margin Call (2011)

Like the 2007-2008 financial crisis that is this movie's context, the problem that befalls Jeremy Irons' investment banking megacorporation cannot be easily explained (something about a flawed equation and always out-of-frame data and graphs that herald tremendous financial loss) so it is hard to care much about this corporate thriller which has its ensemble cast spout platitudes every time the crux of the problem needs elucidation - plus, the people you might actually feel sympathy for, not smug suits staring out of their skyscrapers or weeping in sleek toilet cubicles but the hardworking public who you know ultimately lose out, are kept out of the picture.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Three employees plot to do away with their horrible bosses, a plan that sees them, respectable men leading regular suburban lives, venturing clumsily into an underworld of crime, which is the premise of this shrieky, snide, sneery and unpleasant comedy of minimal laughs featuring Hollywood's most smug performers.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Baby Driver (2017)

Baby, a getaway driver for thieves, blocks out the bad around him by listening to killer music on his iPod all day, but eventually he has to de-bud and deal with the chaos closing in around him, not just that created by the psychopaths he is inextricably tied up with and who are growing more trigger-happy by the second but also the chaos of director Edgar Wright's plot which, like the psychopaths, starts off stylish and engaging but quickly becomes unreasonable and descends into a loud mess with little pay-off.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Moon (2009)

At the end of a three-year stint on the moon working in isolation for mining company Lunar Industries, Sam starts to experience strange visions and discovers his situation isn't all it seems, in this impressive low budget sci-fi suspense but one that slightly frustrates, the result of obvious narrative and logistical filming difficulties.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Superman Returns (2006)

This reboot of the Superman franchise tries too hard to make Superman relevant to modern audiences and achieves the opposite, with modern audiences having to agree with the views Lois Lane expresses in her Pulitzer Prize-winning article, "Why the world doesn't need Superman" -- she is right, he barely survives a real estate controversy and the world clearly doesn't need him.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS