Our Idiot Brother (2011)

Prince Myshkin is The Idiot, Dostoevsky's model of the ideal Christian whose plain, guileless approach to life riles the people around him and raises questions about how it is possible to be pure and good in a base, self-interested corrupt society, so perhaps this utterly inane, uneven comedy drama starring Paul Rudd as a simpleton with Jesus looks and a plain, unthinking approach to life that causes upheaval in his sisters' lives, is a pointless refashioning of Dostoevsky's novel?

★☆☆☆☆

ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Your Highness (2011)

Perhaps lured to work with the team behind the popular Pineapple Express, Natalie Portman deigns to appear in this only very occasionally amusing fantasy comedy adventure, but the biggest star by far is the penis, which features in every scene and is the punchline of every joke, either because it is flaccid, erect, severed, worn as jewellery, missing or, in some misguided scenes-played-for-laughs, used to sodomise, rape, and child abuse.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Happening (2008)

The Happening is the point most people think M Night Shyamalan's career derailed, but I love its kookiness and deliberate pace, controversially think Mark Wahlberg is good in it, find the idea of airborne threats from plants not so ridiculous, and see in the movie many of the combined elements of comedy and horror I loved so much in Signs.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS