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.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Tammy (2014)

The makers of this road movie (husband-and-wife team Ben Falcone and Melissa McCarthy, who needed outside voices to check their married groupthink) probably intended a typical Melissa McCarthy gross-out comedy crossed with the sort of quirky familial drama of Little Miss Sunshine, Captain Fantastic or even something bruised and tender like Young Adult, but the result isn't funny nor touching, just loud, shrill, and dull, with the would-be family drama that develops as dropkick Tammy (McCarthy) and her alcoholic grandmother (Susan Sarandon) hit the road landing as lifeless as the jokes.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Ok, perhaps not the one with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry sing-songing about the "true true and the whatnot" (which was terminal), but any other story thread in this overlong new age scifi jumble, told artfully, carefully, and in isolation would have expressed in a more engaging way the same well-meaning message - that we are all drops in an ocean, that our lives are not our own, that both our kindnesses and evils contribute to a greater story - but as it is, with its myriad poorly told choppy, changey, superficial "chapters", its ridiculous makeup and costumes, and its Peter Sellers-, Mickey Rooney-style Asianification, Cloud Atlas is a cringeworthy yawnfest.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Arbitrage (2012)

A hedge fund magnate's elaborate house of cards - a life built up around his lies, his sham business dealings and his secret all-round rottenness to his core - teeters on the brink of collapse in this corporate thriller that is uncomfortable viewing mostly because people like the fictional Robert Miller, played by a steely, silver fox Richard Gere, really do exist and really do have the power to behave the way they do.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEW

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

A trio of women, Jane, Sukie and Alexandra (Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Cher, redheaded, blonde and brunette) conjure up a dark, mysterious stranger using their collective feminine powers of creation, bringing havoc to their conservative New England town, in this riotous, star-studded film version of John Updike's distinctly feminist novel looking at gender politics, standards of social propriety (old-fashioned versus new) and good old good and evil, creation and destruction.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Calling (2014)

Susan Sarandon plays Frances McDormand in a Fargo-style police procedural complete with cops out of their depth in a snowladen backwater, but the Fargo quirkiness which is interesting gives way to a leaden serial killer plot with an especially daft final scene.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS