Piercing (2013)

Based on a Ryu Murakami book, this unedifying nonsense, inexplicably well-received by critics on Rotten Tomatoes, has a repulsive, low-affect man book himself into a hotel with a plan to stab a prostitute with an ice-pick, but things don't go as he plans as the plot unfolds in the manner of a Pulp Fiction vignette, but drearily, without the humour and flair).

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEW

Mindscape (aka "Anna") (2013)

The high-concept sci-fi is really just a contrivance, the only thing separating this movie from a more run-of-the-mill whodunit with Mark Strong's "memory investigator", a man able to piggybank along in people's memories, really just a Hercule Poirot who might otherwise have to simply interview those involved in a mystery involving a housebound and hunger-striking teenager (another eye-roll-inducing contrivance), a family secret, a murder, schoolyard bullying and mistaken identity.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS