Truck (트럭) (Teu-reok) (2008)

South Korean movies, after the success of Squid Games and Parasite, are enjoying popularity, all of them, so I watched Truck, a thriller with the promising premise of a deliveryman coerced by mobsters into a body disposal job - he has a sick daughter, needs the money, and doesn't have much choice in the matter - but when his dire situation is compounded by a serial killer hitchhiker, multiple car accidents, and one body in the back of his truck that turns out to be not a body but a live woman, it becomes harder and harder to remain patient with the impossibly unfortunate roadtrip.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Flight of the Navigator (1978)

A boy's eight year disappearance turns out to have been spent flying around space in a silver almond talking to a goofy Paul Reubens-voiced spaghetti strainer, in this kids sci-fi from Disney, the third act of which plays out just a smidge too much like a geography lesson.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Snow Day (2000)

Thematically similar to Ferris Bueller's Day Off and perhaps originally intended as a National Lampoon's vacation, this not very interesting kids' entertainment has young schoolkids conspiring to prolong a Snow Day by hijacking a snowplow and features the wasted comic talents of Chevy Chase and the less wasted comic talents of Chris Elliott.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Air Force One (1997)

Jack Ryan eventually became President in Tom Clancy's series of books, and Harrison Ford who played Jack Ryan in two movies went on to become President in this popcorn action adventure - but why not as Jack Ryan is something to ponder as you otherwise mindlessly watch terrorists hijack Air Force One only to have their diabolical plans undone by the most winning, wholesome, fist-fighting, plane-flying, terrorist-trouncing do-gooder US President since, well, Jack Ryan.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEW

Drive (2011)

A likeable stunt driver moonlights as a getaway driver for thieves and even though you want to believe him to be a good and caring man, his involvement with some really very nasty people, er, drives him to some dark places in this rivetting thriller full of 80s stylings and low affect characters.  

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Flight (2012)

A pilot pulls off a midair stunt in a distressed passenger jet, saving a large number of people who otherwise might have died and although he is immediately hailed an American hero, an investigation raises unexpected questions of culpability, in this wholly original psychological drama of surprising, er, substance.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEW

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

In this classic John Hughes comedy from the 80s, circumstances throw together an odd couple - a permed and incessantly jovial shower ring salesman (John Candy in a role that would be played these days by Melissa McCarthy) and an uptight and incessantly grumpy marketing executive (Steve Martin...(who, Ben Stiller? Sandra Bullock?)) - on a trip across America via planes, trains, and automobiles.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

All Is Lost (2013)

Robert Redford plays an aged, all-American version of Pi, again lost at sea, whose plastic surgery gives him a suitably awed expression throughout the dramas that unfold on his boat and dinghy, all beautifully filmed, often spectacular, and thoroughly engrossing.

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

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.

★★★★☆

CINECAL : ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Gravity (2013)

An exhausting ninety minute space shuttle rollercoaster ride.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Gran Torino (2008)

The world adored this movie about a grumpy Korean War veteran living next door to a family of Hmong immigrants but I thought it resembled a well-intentioned but dramatically flat community service announcement - and a badly edited one at that. 

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Wrecked (2010)

Adrien Brody wakes up badly injured in a smashed-to-pieces wreck of a car that appears to have careened off a height, his only company a dead somebody, and from there this film goes on to become equal parts creepy mystery and quite-painful-to-watch survival story.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS