Ma (2019)

Older people wanting in with younger - intergenerational ingratiation - is the really interesting thing at the core of this well-acted horror thriller and is something reflected not only in Octavia Spencer's Ma's relationship with the group of high schoolers she lures to parties in her basement but also in the relationship Juliette Lewis's mother-character has with the Julie Roberts-lookalike daughter she hopes will stay interested in their movie-nights-in together, but the thriller makes little of this, instead squeezing in issues of race, gender, animal cruelty, catfishing, Munchausen By Proxy, bullying and trauma, so that Ma, in the end, becomes a broad caricature - in fact, she recalls Homer Simpson the way she gets about in that one outfit, her scrubs - and her psychoticism in the end is a generalised disorder, themeless, levelled at everyone for everything, and manifests in outrageous, unjustified Human Centipede flourishes - she's just a rank nutter who needs to be violently dispatched, undermining the already longwinded, not-very-interesting psycho origin story told across too many flashback interruptions.

★★☆☆☆

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Big Momma's House (2000)

"Honky Grandma Be Trippin'" for realsies has Martin Lawrence playing the undercover cop who thinks the best way to inveigle his way into a wanted criminal's circle is to use a leftover The Klumps bodysuit to disguise himself as a large Southern grandmother, which seems a lot more work than simply developing the chemistry he finds he has as himself with the gangster's girlfriend.

★☆☆☆☆

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Hidden Figures (2016)

The moving moments in this crowdpleaser about three women who performed important work for NASA in the 50s and 60s are when someone offers a piece of chalk to a 'computer' or grants permission for a gifted student to study further - moments that should be unremarkable but sadly aren't; the lunacy of segregation is nicely countered with scenes of joyous family- and love lives.

★★★★☆

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Snowpiercer (2013)

In Director Bong Joon-ho's first English language cinema release - a sci-fi action movie set entirely within the confines of a futuristic train - absurdity and solemnity, lofty pretentions and humour mix in a way only Bong Joon-ho can successfully manage; the result, a story of an uprising in segregated communities of haves and havenots, is a ridiculous and audacious, enthralling and hilarious political allegory.

★★★★☆

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