Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

Number 2 left me cold, but this third Knives Out mystery is a return to form with another star-studded cast populating a twisty-turny mystery full of surprises as a priest is murdered in his church and suspicion falls on the newest assistant pastor, the fantastically likeable and wonderfully emotive (and really, I think, a big reason why this is so good even though the plot is a bit overcooked) Josh O'Connor.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

A Bad Moms Christmas (2017)

"The relationship between a mother and a daughter is complex," says a character in one of this sequel's few scenes that isn't a not-very-funny penis-centric R'n'B music montage, and the best way to demonstrate this complexity is probably not by introducing into the Bad Moms mix three completely over-the-top mother caricatures - a Bree Van de Kamp controlling one, a co-dependent best friend one, and an unnreliable woman-child one - because not only do these cartoons not seem like real moms, they do not have complex relationships with their daughters and their presence all but eclipses the three perfectly imperfect original bad moms that were so endearing and funny in number one.

★☆☆☆☆

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Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

Jason Segel is a likeable presence on film and his willingness to appear ridiculous - for example, here appearing in regular and unflattering full-frontal nude scenes - helps ground this ensemble comedy about a breakup complicated by celebrity; it's a film that easily could have been a puerile mess but thanks enormously to Segel's shamelessness it is actually very funny.

★★★☆☆

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Black Swan (2010)

The tone of this psychological thriller about a ballerina who is probably going crazy from the stress of being a ballerina stays relentlessly, relentlessly dark despite things getting quite ridiculous by three-quarters of the way through, leaving the audience no choice but to lighten matters themselves with laughter, at least in the screening I went to.

★★★☆☆

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