Orlando (1992)

With her title character untethered by time and experiencing life in different male and female forms, Virginia Wolff in 1928 in her book Orlando: A Biography may have debuted the concept of the multiverse, not DC Comics in 1961; Sally Potter's adaptation of Wolff's book is full of painterly detail across the various times and locations, amuses with its sly humour, and lead Tilda Swinton transfixes as Orlando, staring out from the movie like a figure from a series of Romantic paintings come alive.

★★★★★

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Memoria (2021)

Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's movie, an almost plotless stringing together of quiet, painterly and occasionally long and perfectly still moments, defies conventions and easy categorisation and is absolutely hypnotic, about a Canadian (Tilda Swinton) in Bogota, Colombia who wakes one morning to the sound of a strange earthy thud and then starts to experience oddities in her interactions with her sick sister, whom she is visiting, and in her blossoming friendship with a sound engineer named Hernan.

★★★★☆

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Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

The appeal of Wes Anderson movies continues to elude me even now I've watched Moonrise Kingdom, his 2012 - what? Adventure? Children's book come to life? - about a New England island community searching for a pair of child runaways, a story the director again presents in his trademark fastidious style with those elaborate, unwarranted visuals that stifle all else including the performances of innumerable Hollywood stars who are all forced to act like simpletons.

★★☆☆☆

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Constantine (2005)

Keanu Reeves need only don a black suit and tie and a movie starts earning rating stars, but unless you're a DC/Vertigo Hellblazer fanboy, this mix of dour Catholic exorcism horror, toony villains, and Matrix-style rock'n'roll action doesn't warrant any more.

★★☆☆☆

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Doctor Strange (2016)

Marvel's latest superhero origin story is a grown-up version of Harry Potter - Hogwarts is a Kathmandu cult, Dumbledore is Tilda Swinton reprising her roles from The Beach and Vanilla Sky, Voldemort is a barely seen cosmic darksider called Dormammu, the spells are "coding", the cloak of invisibility is a cloak of levitation of unexplained sentience, and the special effects are repetitive Inception-style city-shifting ones.

★★★☆☆

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The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

The world revels in Wes Anderson movies and this was especially the case upon the release of this precious, childish, irritating, laboured pantomime about a hotel concierge involved in a theft and murder, a movie which plays out like all of Wes Anderson's movies, like a storyboard - stylised and empty.

☆☆☆☆☆

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Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Joel and Ethan Coen's movie about a 1950s Hollywood film studio is full of near versions of real Hollywood personalities from that era - Carmen Miranda, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Lash LaRue - embroiled in a plot ripped from 1950s celebrity tabloids and while it is certainly exuberantly acted and full of elaborate period detail, the movie's biggest problem is that it distances viewers looking for meaning - it's neither a light, frothy comedy spoof nor a biting political religious satire, but probably just a largely point-free Coen brothers indulgence - them revelling in the things they love.

★★★☆☆

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We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

Tilda Swinton's hair works overtime helping to keep the chronology of events clear (basically whether you're seeing tomato juice, red paint, or blood) in this choppy-changey Tree of Life story about a sociopathic boy and everything, in no particular order, from his conception to horrendous crime (of course his mother's fault - we've all seen Psycho and every serial killer movie since; this one based on a Lionel Shriver book).

★★☆☆☆

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Michael Clayton (2007)

This legal suspense thriller similar to but more polished and intelligent than a John Grisham adaptation, has George Clooney playing Michael Clayton, a man deeply involved in a mega-corporation's dirty deals but exactly who he is and how he sleeps at night are the questions that keep the movie thrilling to its final scene.

★★★★☆

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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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