Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness (2022)

Given the empty hero-versus-villain plots and interchangeable cgi-action sequences of all these movies, Marvel seems to believe simply striking upon different skins and tones, for example giving Thor IV an 80s-rock theme or setting Venom in a noirish San Francisco or making it horror-lite or nanosized or snart-arsed is the best way to perpetuate its exponentially-growing raft of superhero movies and in the hands of director Sam Raimi, this sequel to Doctor Strange is certainly a unique look horror-lite Marvel entry with a very Carrie-like witch, oodles of risen-dead bad guys and evil souls reincarnate and so is perhaps for a slightly older than usual Marvel viewer....say ten.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

True Detective (Season 2)

True Detective Season 2 (DVD

True Detective Season 2 (DVD)

Season 2 centres around the murder of a city planner in California and confirms True Detective as an anthology series about twisted murders committed by masked culprits, investigated by deeply flawed police officers - here, three, all deeply, deeply cracked - who engage in a massive shootout in about episode 5, and like the first season, this one is star-studded (Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn star), is cinematic, but is let down by the ponderousness of its first four episodes, by its overreaching scope (cults and gay shame and extramarital affairs and adoption and sexual harrassment counselling sessions are just some of the extraneous matters that keep things mindbogglingly busy) and it is also let down by the pure (daytime) soapiness of scenes between Vince Vaughn's Frank, a club owner up to his neck in corruption and crime, and his wife, Jordan, his business partner and wannabe-bearer of his child.

★★★☆☆

Passion (2012)

The original Love Crime was a peculiar slip of a corporate thriller seemingly made up of lethargic first takes and about as remarkable as an episode of Models Inc but it still managed to intrigue, which cannot be said of Brian de Palma's remake which tries to dress things up with some de Palma thriller clichés - sex and a spiral stair and masks and twins - but they add nothing, really, and the new revamped ending is meaningless.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

About Time (2013)

Imagine Four Weddings and a Funeral with a time travel twist and you get this, an occasionally touching, occasionally funny but mostly irritating British romantic comedy slash family drama that adds time travel into the mix for no great gain, just to unnecessarily hammer home the life lessons learned by a Hugh Grant moving (backwards and) forwards through life with an Andie McDowell.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

State of Play (2009)

A Washington Globe reporter, the friend of a US Congressman, investigates the murder of a petty thief, a pizza delivery guy and the woman the politician was having an affair with, and in doing so uncovers political shenanigans, in this ripping political mystery that holds together well except towards the end when there are revelations that would have 'out' earlier in the natural course of a story not so desperate to prolong its mystery.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Spotlight (2015)

On 6 January 2002, a team of Boston Globe journalists published a Pulitzer Prize-winning story which brought to the world's attention the behaviour of the Catholic Church in relation to innumerous Boston child sex abuse cases perpetrated by the church's priests, and this movie details the hard investigative work that went into the story, raises the powerful idea that "if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse them," and shows the impact the story had around the world.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Red Eye (2009)

A hotel manager on a red eye flight sits beside a creep and finds herself the lynchpin of his pretty harebrained assassination plot, in this Wes Craven thriller that doesn't make much of the potential of its midflight setting - couldn't the creep just have staked out the hotel or intercepted the hotel manager in, say, a taxi instead?

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Morning Glory (2010)

Harrison Ford (great in romantic comedies - Working Girl, for example), Rachel McAdams (perfectly likeable lead actress) and Diane Keaton (who doesn't love her?) add up to naught in this unfocused um, romcom (?) about Becky Fuller, a down-on-her-luck executive producer hired to repair broken breakfast tv show, DayBreak, but apart from general disunity, we never learn what core problems Becky needs to solve nor how exactly she solves them (she sacks two people but otherwise appears to simply bungle her way) and there is zero romance (Patrick Wilson's role as love interest is completely drama-,  interest- and purpose-free), and the entire movie, like Becky Fuller, runs around in circles gabbing madly.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS