CinemaSerf

Tom Cruise sports an eye-patch as he takes on the role of Nazi war hero Claus von Stauffenberg. Badly injured he returns to Germany where he is quickly appointed to staff rank with regular access to an appreciative Führer (David Bamber). His arrival co-insides with the increasingly stark realisation from many politicians and officers alike that their hopes of winning the war were dwindling and that something is going to have to be done about removing their neurotic Chancellor and instituting a new national order that might be able to negotiate some sort of peace. Of course, some of the High Command were still fiercely loyal so it was a bit of an eggshell treading operation for von Stauffenberg and his allies as they are not sure whom to trust whilst they put a daring plan into action that could result in a coup treasonable in anyone's book if they fail. Relying on a fair-to-middling selection of mainly British actors, Bryan Singer does ok with his star here, but the film does really lack jeopardy as it rather trundles out of the traps and gurgles it's way along before finally enlivening for the last twenty minutes or so. Cruise's legendary charisma deserts him here and frankly, he hasn't really the gravitas to carry this off convincingly - and that goes for Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and (fleetingly) Kenneth Branagh too as this whole production struggles to really capture the complexities and dangers faced by these conspirators - the braver ones and the skin-savers. The actual intricacies of their "Valkyrie" operation itself are superficially glossed over and, given we all know what really happened, the film offers us little compelling to get our teeth into. Disappointing, I'd say. Sorry.

I must admit I didn't quite understand just what was going on at the start of this. "Lee Kang-su" (Kang Ha-neul) is a brash and confident young man who manages to get information on drug dealers which he then passes on to the police and/or the public prosecutors in return for a cut and them getting a reduced sentence if they turn state's evidence. Thing is, the further up the food chain they get the more political "interference" the investigators encounter and pretty swiftly that causes problems for this young "Yadang" as he ends up a victim of his erstwhile protector, ambitious prosecutor "Ku Gwen-hee" (Yoo Hae-jin) and pumped full of blue methadone to the point where he doesn't know day from night. Once released, though, he unites with similarly manipulated former police captain "Oh Sang-jae" (Park Hae-joon) and an young actor (Chae Won-bin) whose career was wrecked after she, too, was exposed to this highly addictive substance and ultimately used as a glorified hooker by someone extremely close to the presidency - and the election is looming. Once the story gets up and running, this proves to be quite an entertaining, if not always entirely plausible, analysis of lucrative drug running and politicking in a South Korea that seems determined to stamp out criminality however perilous that path might be. It's a gritty, sometimes seedy film that sees both men and Chae Win-bin deliver strongly and in the case of Kang Hae-neul enthusiastically too. There is plenty of action across the two hours and the denouement has something of "The Sting" (1973) to it as vengeance knows few bounds. Worth a watch.

You could always count on Ron Goodwin to come up with a lively score for a wartime movie, and he does so well here with this "Guns of Navarone" spin-off. It keeps the "Mallory" (Robert Shaw) and "Miller" (Edward Fox) roles and introduces them to American colonel "Barnsby" (Harrison Ford) as they hijack a Lancaster bomber and end up in Yugoslavia where the partisan army is fighting the encroaching Nazi war machine. The former two are up for tracking down a fifth columnist called "Nikolai" who had caused them considerable grief in Greece earlier in the war. The Colonel is to try and help the locals - led by "Petrovich" (Alan Badel) to stop the advancing army, and that means holding a vital bridge. Of course, when they arrive they have to find their potential allies, and with nobody quite sure who to trust, and the menacing "Drazak" (Richard Kiel without shiny teeth) on their trail, it's dangerous stuff. A combination of fairly easy clues let us know who the baddie is, but as the adventure heads to it's quite exciting denouement, there are loads of escapades for our ever diminishing squad as they set about their tasks. Ford and Shaw work well together, Fox and Franco Nero also do just about enough and the whole thing rollicks along nicely for just shy of a two hours that also introduces us to some earthily disguised WWII explosive devices. It was probably made just a decade too late to really resonate as a film about the atrocities of war, but as an action adventure film from a lesser-known theatre of the war, it's quite an enjoyable watch that passes the time without stretching your grey cells too much.

I think maybe son "Dylan" (a fleeting appearance from Julian Grady) might have had the right idea when he decides to opt out of his dad's camping trip with his best friend and his daughter. Seems that "Matt" (Danny McCarthy) is having father-son issues amidst a divorce after he strayed with someone quite a bit younger. His travelling companions are lifelong buddy (James Le Gros) and teenage "Sammy" (Lily Collias) who have a more typical relationship. She has known "Matt" for years and for a while their trip, trekking through the beautiful Catskill mountains, seems to pass off amiably enough. They even meet some fellow travellers for some who has been where grandstanding; the tents seems to go up without any slapstick and there's a little teasing about the nature of her relationship with "Jessie". "Matt" however, begins to feel a bit melancholy though as he gradually beings to appreciate that his family is disintegrating and after a revealing conversation with "Sammy" and an even more revealing and wholly inadequate one she has with her father afterwards, it becomes pretty clear that she is not without her own problems and her father has quite a bit of growing up of his own to do. It's a very slowly paced drama this, with most of the dialogue delivered as naturally occurring conversation. That works to an extent as sentences are left unfinished and inferences are made using facial expressions, but what is missing here is any sense of development of these people. We are left to make too many assumptions which rather lets the thing down as the story heads to it's crunch moment. That rather comes out of the blue and seems contrived to make the very point the auteur wants to make despite it not really fitting the profile or behaviour of the characters we had hitherto been walking through the wilderness with. I suppose, without giving the game away, I just don't agree with the fundamental message that the latter stages of the film seem to be trying to convey here and so was ultimately a bit disappointed that what started off as an light-hearted, quite wittily scripted, observation of family became something a little subliminally sinister for the sake of it. It's a gorgeous film to watch and Collias delivers engagingly, too, but films like this risk fuelling a growing misconception of an opportunistic or even predatory male stereotype that most men simply won't accept and isn't actually true.

And here was me thinking that "Gen. Klytus" has been impaled on some spikes back in 1980, but no. Here he returns singing some of the songs of "The Weeknd" (a.k.a Abel Tesfaye) in this confused and messy dawdle into the realms of pop star, drug/drink-induced delirium. He's clearly a man in distress as we discover his girlfriend has dumped him and his rather obsessive manager "Lee" (Barry Keoghan) is only bothered about him getting on that stage. To be fair, when he does the cinema sound of the man's array of hits does some justice to the impressive light shows but once we get off the stage, we find ourselves in a story that appears to be autobiographical, or semi, anyway. Anyway, one night it all gets too much for him and he determines to get the hell out of dodge - only to spot the young arsonist "Anima" (Jenny Ortega) amongst the crowd of thousands and they go off for a night from which both have differing expectations. With poor old "Lee" frazzling as he has no idea where his mealticket "bro" is and these two in a luxury hotel room dissecting and intellectualising the profundity of the lyrics to "Blinding Lights" the story assumes a degree of aggressive silliness that shows that whilst she can certainly dance, Ortega is nowhere near her best on the acting front and he, well I'm not sure he was ever at the races there at all. Keoghan might just steal this. His characterisation of the venal supporter who plays up, quite spectacularly, to the ego of his talent with some quite powerful superlatives and loads of cocaine and booze might actually inject a little more truth into the backstage power plays that go on when millions are at stake - even when medical advice is to take a break. (Sadly, we are not offered that advice in the cinema!). This is clearly a labour of love for Tesfaye and the director but for the rest of us, this just comes across as a vanity project designed to showcase the music of "The Weeknd" whilst padding out a series of catwalk-style performances with some psycho-babble that frequently looks as if it were filmed inside a lava lamp. Maybe just stream the music and leave this overlong piece of self-indulgence for a streamer somewhere?

Hmmm! I'm not sure why this is called "The Surfer" as there is precious little actual surfing, swimming - even paddling, in this rather far-fetched psychological thriller. It's all about Nicolas Cage whose un-named character arrives at an idyllic Australian cove with his son (Finn Little) so he can show him something special. Thing is, all rubbered-up and en route to the beach, they are stopped by some local thugs who claim the surfing is only for the locals. They ain't, so they have to get lost. The youngster has to get home and back to school, but dad has no intention of being brow-beaten by "Scally" (Julian McMahon) and his gang of hoodlums - you see, he grew up here and it's all a matter of pride. What now ensues, though, is more a matter of the ridiculous as the story lurches along making less and less sense as it tries to blur realities and characterisations before a conclusion that, for me anyway, just didn't make much sense. It's sort of cultish, I suppose, and to be fair Cage does well as his character enters what can only be described as a maelstrom of confusing scenarios that gradually drive him ever closer to desperate action. There are plot holes galore here and the first hour of the story is so dragged out that by the time we do head towards the plunge moment, I'd completely lost interest. It might have a double-meaning for those of us who are finding ourselves priced or just plain bullied out of our childhood communities, but sadly that message doesn't sell the silliness of this vehicle for a star who needed a stronger, more tangible, foil for his surf-free surfer. Sorry, this just sank for me.

This is one of those films that really does resonate. Using some phenomenal archive photography of the realm beneath the sea, Sir David Attenborough narrates a story of devastation, desperation and ultimately optimism as he takes us on a journey around the globe evaluating the damage caused to the Earth's oceans by a mankind who has treated this vast resource with contempt ever since industrialisation enabled us to ignore the protective forces of nature and pretty much fish at will. Some of the imagery here is truly breathtaking. It's beautiful, colourful and vibrant with creatures that look every inch as if they came straight out of science fiction. It's not just the sheer variety of life that we see that takes your breath away, though. The effects of the trawlers scarifying the scallop beds or the coral reefs renders them akin to a waste ground after a bomb has been dropped on it. The ruin is profound and quite frankly upsetting. Our continuing reliance on cheap and abundant food for ourselves and our pets is compromising the very existence of species that have existed in harmony with nature (and even humanity) for millennia. In his usually potent but understated manner, Sir David makes his points without resort to hyperbole and superlatives and as he lays out the scale of this problem before us he offers us hope that there is still time, should we take a longer-term view, for us to leave well alone and allow this crucial part of the planet's infrastructure to recover and assist with the fight against global warming. The message is clear as a bell, but it isn't laboured by the dialogue. It is illustrated by odd looking crabs, seahorses and magnificent blue whales. The production is top class and as an educational piece of cinema, this will take some beating - especially if you can catch it all on a big screen.

Though doubtless the emphasis of this film must be on the two leading stars, I found that an huge degree of the richness of this Jane Austen story came from the wonderfully characterful supporting cast: Mary Boland as the mother, constantly and brazenly seeking advantageous marriages for the "Bennet" brood, with Edmund Gwenn as her husband; Melville Cooper ("Mr. Collins), EE Clive ("Sir William) and the redoubtable Edna May Oliver as "Lady Catherine" all contributing splendidly to this otherwise rather loosely adapted story of "Elizabeth" (Greer Garson) and her rather complicated on/off courtship with "Mr. Darcy" (Laurence Olivier). This is certainly one of the latter's more engaging performances. Though still in ultra-ham mode, he does actually manage to convey the humour of his part, as well as his (largely self-inflicted) struggles to woo, rather well. Garson always was somewhat underrated. I feel she'd have made for a wonderful silent movie star - she had the eyes and the mannerisms that convey what a thousand words could not - and she holds the attention well here as the lively, independently-minded "Elizabeth". The other sisters get more of a look in too - Ann Rutherford ("Lydia") and Maureen O'Sullivan ("Jane) deliver well as they seek out their own beaus. This adaption, led by Aldous Huxley, cuts some of Austen's ever-present wordiness and helps focus the story better, if perhaps less potently and stingingly than the writer intended. I am not really a fan of this genre, nor of this author - but this is entertaining and well made with strong performances, sumptuous settings and quite a bit of charm. Easily the best version of this story to make it onto the silver screen, in my view.

Imagine if your room-mate kept getting recurring nightmares that she was going to find herself impaled on a rusty bit of iron after falling from a collapsed revolving restaurant hundreds of feet in the air? Yep - I'd probably just quietly put a pillow over her head one night, too. Luckily, "Stefani" (Kaitlyn Santa Reyes) gets to go home and try to get to the bottom of things. When she mentions this to her family, it turns out that the dream has it's roots in fact and that is all comes down to whacky grandma "Iris" (Gabrielle Rose) who lives in a remote location that wouldn't have looked out of place in a "Mad Max" movie and who has her own theory about just what happened on that very night, fifty years ago, and about death. As with the other "Final Destination" series, death is much more of an animate object with a plan, a scheme and boy does it not like it when a plan doesn't come together. Pretty swiftly, the young lass concludes that over the intervening years the grim reaper has been settling scores and now it is the turn of her family. They all think she's bonkers, but when their attitudinal cousin "Erik" (Richard Harmon) finds himself having an exceptionally narrow escape, they begin to sit up and take notice. Thing is, though, do they seriously think they can thwart the original man with the scythe? You know that expression about a moth fluttering it's wings by the Amazon and there being an tsunami in Sri Lanka? Well some of the deathly cause and effect scenarios here are just as entertainingly far fetched as we learn to appreciate the terrors of some otherwise benign garden implements, a nose-ring and a rusty old weathervane - to name but a few instruments - that can be used to facilitate our always brutal and gory journey to the hereafter. The disasters-in-waiting are all fairly visually teed up for us, so we can anticipate the grizzle before it inevitably occurs - but what we can't always do is anticipate just how these incidents will pan out. Death may have a plan, but it's an adaptable one and as the family start to dwindle in typically slasher-horror fashion we are able to pick out favourites (mine was the annoying "Aunt Brenda" (April Talek)) and hope that they might be next! This is enjoyable stuff that needs to be watched in the spirit intended. No, the script isn't up to much nor are any of the standard acting performances from the Blumhouse book of scream then run before making implausible decisions and ending up - well you know how that usually pans out. Aim low and be prepared to be entertained, and though overlong, this ought to make you giggle and cringe a little.

Maybe because God had decided that the poor people of Paris didn't need forty American students visiting them, he sent the young "Alex" (Devon Sawa) a premonition that all on that plane was not going to go smoothly. Just as it is about to take off from New York he decides to get off the thing and takes a few colleagues and one of his teachers with him! Next thing, well the river is being trawled and everyone is confused. Is he some sort of terrorist? Is he a warlock? Was it all fate or is there more to come? Is anyone safe? This is actually quite a solid story about just how people deal with trauma, grief and death whilst also introducing that mysterious question of pre-determination. Is death a thing that's fluid, alive and scheming - or was it just bad luck that someone was aboard a busted aircraft or got hit by a bus or got their head sliced off by a rogue piece of metal...? Anyway, James Wong does well to galvanise a pretty lacklustre collection of acting talent, most of whom would entirely deserve any grizzly fate, and the stunt co-ordinators and visual effects technicians deliver something that has it's tongue in it's cheek (even if that's not necessarily in a head on the right shoulders) - and just who was that mortician? Good fun, well paced, entertaining and at the better end of the teen horror genre.

Ok, so much of this is clearly filmed in a great big water tank at Ealing studios against a filmed backdrop that all too often gives that game away, but there's still the essence of a story of tenacity and courage that is well portrayed here as the oil tanker "San Demetrio" finds itself looking the wrong way down the barrel of the 11-inch guns of the Nazi battleship "Scheer". Badly damaged and left to the elements, the crew are ordered to abandon ship but after roaming around in the violent Atlantic for two days they happen upon their erstwhile home - and it's still afloat! Lead by their second officer (Ralph Michael) and engineering chief (Walter Fitzgerald) the men decide their chances aboard are greater than their chances at sea, and so they set about seeing if they can get the ship to the safety of the Clyde. This was made at the height of the war, so of course there's a certain propagandist element to this depiction of a true story, but that doesn't detract from the tension that Charles Frend manages to imbue the film with, nor from the solid performances from a stable of recognisable British stalwarts whose job it was was to convince the war-weary audiences of the UK that we were will still fighting, and winning, against what might have seemed to be impossible odds. It's a tale that conveys just how perilous these convoys were to sail in and to try to protect and the monochrome photography works well in conveying a sense of the cold, the wet, the dark and the danger as these frequently amateur mariners tried to get to grips with their human and more natural and equally unforgiving foes.

"Tom" (Steve Coogan) is an English teacher who has worked his way around South America becoming a little more cyclical than your average bear when he arrives at a posh school outside Buenos Aires that teaches the sons of the great and the good. It's run by the ostensibly rather foppish "Timbuck" (Sir Jonathan Pryce) and after his first day he has little enthusiasm for his post. Then, in quick succession, he meets his Finnish colleague "Tapio" (Björn Gustafsson) and there is a timely coup so the school is closed and the pair decide to head off to Uruguay for some fun. "Tom" gets more than he bargained for, though, when a romantic walk along the beach introduces him to an oil slick and to a penguin that's covered in the stuff. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished and next thing he has a pet that is determined never to be parted from him. Back at school, replete with his new sprat-eating friend, he has to keep his secret whilst dealing with the boys who epitomise the political differences of their fathers and with the growing sense of popular libertarianism that causes considerable grief for his heart-of-gold housekeeper (Vivian El Jaber) whose freethinking grand-daughter has been apprehended by the secret police. It's based on a true story and though I'm not a great fan of Coogan's underwhelming style of acting, he does manage to work together quite engagingly with his loyal "Juan Salvador" to provide us with a mix of the lightly sentimental and the equally lightly menacing all peppered with some sarcastic one liners and quite an entertainingly static effort from Gustafsson. Sir Jonathan doesn't really feature enough make much impact but in the end, the star is the Magellan penguin that serves as a cheeky yet potent conduit bringing together boys, bullies, adults and teachers together in an amiable fashion.

Michael B. Jordan is "Smoke" and twin brother "Stack" in this classy drama of a pair who've lived on the wrong side of the tracks for most of their lives, but have determined to go home and try to go straight. To that end, they buy an old barn and hope to set up their own speakeasy - with only a nominal nod to prohibition - pumping to the rafters with dancing and blues music. On the way, they ally with talented musician "Sammie" (Miles Caton) and, of course, there's a bit of baggage for the siblings as they return to a town that's not altogether welcoming. Once home, a mixture of confidence, threats and collective charisma succeeds in assembling a crowd for their opening night. Pretty swiftly, though, that grand celebration attracts the attention of some travellers who are keen to join the party, but perhaps in true Charlie Daniels style, they have an altogether more menacing agenda. This is the cinematic equivalent of an LP, this film. It starts with one side gradually introducing us a rich collection of characters all of whom could quite plausibly have lived in Mississippi at a time when segregation was as rife as illicit booze, and the two more recently hailing from Chicago gives things a certain gangster element too. There is also a very subtly powerful effort from Hailee Steinfield as "Mary" too. The flip side of the record proceeds to develop some elements of peril with the story, and that's where it rather runs out of steam for me. It tries very hard to create a sense of hot, sweaty and frenzied jeopardy, but maybe because it has already taken quite a long time to get to this stage, that all comes across as a bit rushed and lacking in punch. It looks great, the visual effects are convincing enough and the production design smoulders perfectly. In the end, though, whilst it proves that MBJ is comfortably able to hold a story, Ryan Coogler has overly relied on a marvellously toe-tapping musical score that has been left to do much of the heavy lifting. That latter point is made more essential by a mediocre audio mix that can make the dialogue quite difficult to make out more often than I'd have liked. This seems to be an increasing issue as directors become more ambitious with their visual aspirations leaving the one thing that cannot be readily faked/augmented - the sound - left at the altar. It's a cinema film, and will look distinctly average on a television so big screen and soundtrack audio is essential to get the best from this silky looking story with an interesting twist at the end, and again at the very end.

Set over a seven year period, this follows not just the evolution of a group of 1980s New York African-American and Latino drag artists, but it also shines quite a light on changing societal attitudes as these lively, strong and characterful folk try to assert their own identity amidst a city not always accepting or willing. It's all about balls - literally and metaphorically, and showcases a community determined not to be ground down by using their exuberant fashions, dancing, extroversion, competitive spirit and overwhelming sense of community to provide each other with strength and inspiration. They are all from a working class background, but again are bent on using their wits to start businesses, to travel the world, to achieve stardom and to prove their worth to themselves and their frequently hostile and/or bamboozled neighbours. As you'd expect, there's a lively soundtrack that epitomises the spunkiness of these people, there's a flamboyance and there is also a vulnerability - rather tragically illustrated towards the end that shows us that being different, proud and "out" is not necessarily the same as being safe and respected. The contributors are passionate, erudite and engaging and though the timeframe offers us a degree of hope that lasting change is coming, slowly - it also reminds us that that change is neither consistent nor guaranteed. At times a little repetitive, maybe one too many catwalks, but it's still a fascinating insight into an urban sub-culture set upon flourishing.

This is quite an entertaining portmanteau style of story that introduces us to half a dozen women who all have their problems to face and have different ways of dealing - with varying degrees of success - with these life and lifestyle challenges. Some of the scenarios do appear a little contrived, but somehow that only serves to emphasise just how little things can affect how we behave with each other, and that's maybe best exemplified here by teacher "Agata" (Katarzyna Herman) who takes a shine to her colleague, the dashing PE teacher "Kuba" (Konrad Eleryk) but seems terrified of anything even close to commitment - whilst he proves not to be a one night stand type of guy. Then there's the long-married "Krystyna" (Hanna Sleszynska) who can't seem to spice things up with her loving but set-in-his-ways husband "Wladek" (Olaf Lubaszenko) - even when she dresses alluringly and wears her best perfume, or daringly enrols them for tango lessons. Each character plays a little to stereotype, but it is that very presentation that gives this a degree of authenticity dealing with plausible issues for the young and old as they struggle to keep their relationships active, interesting and relevant to each other. It's quite humorously scripted with a degree of earthiness that makes it a little cringingly close to the mark at times and though it is written essentially from a woman's perspective, it could easily put the shoe on the other foot and take a male position too. It's a fun series of observations that exacerbate the silly and the earnest, the embryonic, the thriving and the redundant natures of evolving relationships and I quite enjoyed it.

"Michelle" (Hélène Vincent) lives a solitary life in her rural home where she is eagerly anticipating the imminent arrival of her daughter "Valérie" (Ludvine Sagnier) and the apple of her eye, grandson "Lucas" (Garlan Erlos who morphs, uncannily, into the older Paul Beaurepaire). In preparation for this visit, she goes with best friend "Marie-Claude" (Josiane Balasko) to pick mushrooms. This latter lady has problems of her own, with her son "Vincent" (Pierre Lottin) currently incarcerated for a crime we know little about. Anyway, when the family arrive it becomes clear that the mother/daughter relationship isn't that great - a situation borne from how "Michelle" made her living and of her daughter's impending divorce and that only worsens when a dodgy mushroom leaves one in hospital and "Michelle" essentially barred from seeing "Lucas". Meanwhile, "Vincent" gets out of jail so "Michelle" kindly gives him a job managing her extensive garden and that's when he overhears a conversation between the two women that demonstrates the level of frustrating despair felt by the now estranged grandmother. He decides to see if he can help, with tragic results that end up - well is it a whodunnit or is not? Is it an intricate web of considered scheming or just an accident and some coincidences? It's that element of uncertainty, coupled with strong performances from just about everyone than makes this story worth watching. There are questions asked that aren't directly answered, we are encouraged to conclude or assume but given some quite conflicting clues to keep us interested and by the conclusion of the film there's even the vaguest hint of a winking bromance! The photography and the audio mixing are gently effective and the film, though at times a little repetitive, delivers us a poignant look at loneliness, stigma, loyalty and love.

Hats off to Florence Pugh for injecting some charisma into this film, but otherwise I found it to be little different from the latest slew of "save the planet" Marvel adventures that follows a predictable pattern of escaping from the frying pan into the fire a few times before it culminates in a proud declaration that a new franchise has been born. It turns out that "Yelena" (Pugh) has been working for years as an assassin for the "Val" (Julia-Louise Dreyfus) whose director of the CIA seems to have been running unfettered off-the-books projects around the globe trying to impose her own brand of world order. The US Congress is breathing down her neck, now, though - so it is time to eliminate all the loose ends. Of course, that doesn't quite go to plan and instead of disposing of the incriminating evidence, she merely galvanises an unlikely team of erstwhile employees of the agency to wreak their own vengeance. Meantime, the former "Winter Soldier" has got himself elected to the House and is now determined to work with those impeaching "Val" to bring her to book. Looks like "Buckie" (Sebastian Stan) might have to join this disparate group as it becomes clear that one of their number, the unassuming and pyjama-clad "Bob" (Lewis Pullman) might have more in common with "Brightburn" than "Superman". What now ensues is the usual team-building exercise as they learn to trust each other, reveal secrets from their typically troubled pasts and, of course, kick some ass. David Harbour enthusiastically delivers his "Red Guardian" character, as does the very slightly menacing Pugh, but the others in the gang are all instantly forgettable and though ostensibly darker than many of its contemporaries, it still suffers from the perennial problem facing the whole MCU: they tee up these baddies with overwhelming psychological and physical prowess and yet you always know there will be sunlit uplands at the end. Stick around til the very end of the credits, though, for perhaps the most poignant part of this film. It is, after all, all about who sells the brand.

There is certainly some beautiful photography of the Hebrides here, but otherwise the film seems uncertain as to what it's trying to do. It follows the tale of the young "Dondo" (Louis McCartney) who lives with his mum (Victoria Belnaves) as both come to terms with an anniversary. It's not a joyous one, though, as his dad has been lost at sea and the youngster refuses to believe the worst. With much of the ensuing storyline blurred between his actual existence and a more imaginary - or idealistic - one in which his love of surfing and a new-found faith in God prevail, the plot tries to understand a little about how "Dondo" deals with an incomplete grieving process. Meantime, he has hormones too as does neighbour "Sas" (Ella Lily Hyland) and though neither acknowledges their attraction, their friendship does start to help him to focus. That focus is brought to an head when his mum decides that she needs some sort of closure in the form of a memorial to be led by their local pastor "Paddy" (Mark Lockyer). At times it is quite a poignant study of just how difficult it can be to come to terms with tragedy when there are no concrete terms of reference to anchor those feelings of loneliness and isolation, but I think a lot of that emanates from the audience's own sympathies for an engagingly portrayed character rather than because auteur Jonny Barrington has written or directed anything that imposes on us. Indeed, the whole film relies too heavily on the scenery, a little dark humour and lots of assumptions to sell itself and I'm afraid I found that - and the teenage angst relationship sub-plot - just a bit underwhelming. It's a good starting point to tell the story, but in the end is incomplete as the dilemma facing "Dondo".

To be honest, I'd completely forgotten about the original "Accountant" (2016) so wasn't expecting much from this. Thing is, it's quite good fun as the meticulous bean-counter with some deep, dark, secrets (Ben Affleck) has to team up with his estranged brother "Braxton" (Jon Bernthal) and an even less willing government agent "Medina" (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to try to discover just why her boss (J. K. Simmons) was gunned down after a clandestine meeting in a dodgy nightclub. It seems that the siblings have more in common that we (or she) might have expected, and when their techniques manage to successfully marry one's access to cutting edge technology with the other's propensity to punch first and sweep up after, she finds herself terribly conflicted. It all seems to come down to some heinous people trafficking thugs who will stop at nothing to protect their lucrative business and to thwart their investigations, and so some high-stakes assassins are soon on the trail of our intrepid trio. Nope, there's nothing especially original here. It's a sort of "John Wick" meets the "A-Team" sort of exercise that allows Affleck to sport a rather odd-sounding accent and Bernthal to wander around in his Calvins exuding a sort of comedy menace that his tattoos do nothing to increase. It's the latter man who entertainingly does most of the heavy lifting here as the gung-ho enforcer and there's just an hint of social comment in the form of those scouring the internet to piece together jigsaw puzzles from cameras and fragments of information, but whom society might not have expected to possess such formidably cerebral skills. The denouement does rather run to type, but there's an abundance of chemistry between the two men that stays the right side of familial sentiment whilst Robinson tries to make sense of it all without an enormous amount of meat on the bones of her role. It's an enjoyable action adventure that won't trouble any awards juries, ever, but effortlessly passes a couple of hours and does make you consider just how much of our lives these days is being monitored, recorded and manipulated without us being even vaguely aware.

"Walter" (Bill Murray) is a cranky old author who decides that he's had enough of life and so leaves his wife "Barbara" (Noma Dumezweni) with a four-foot, four-legged, slobbering problem. She decides that the best place for "Apollo" is with his longtime friend "Iris" (Naomi Watts). Bluntly, she would rather stick pins in her eyes, but she's a bit of a sucker for a sob story and so soon she he has a new roomie in her tiny, rent-controlled, apartment where she is swiftly relegated from her bed to the floor. The mutt is clearly pining for his master, so she is going to have to learn how to get it to eat, sleep, do as it's told and get off her mattress! Meantime, her friendly building supervisor has reminded her that pets are prohibited, and so she'd better come up with a plan B or else she might not even have the carpet to sleep on. What now ensues is an amiable bonding exercise that is entirely predictable, but that allows Watts and her canine companion to gently entertain us with some silly antics whilst addressing issues of friendship, trust and even a little betrayal. I thought it might have worked better on a stage, as the dialogue is rather more important here than the imagery, but with Murray featuring only sparingly there might be too much risk of the real star of the film - the dog - causing a bit of mayhem with an audience a few feet away! You'll never remember this, even if you are the world's greatest dog-lover, and it takes far too long to get going, but once the thing is up and running it's a pleasant enough watch.

Ok, so this one is all about a cactus-man who arrives on the planet "Tygella" impersonating the "Doctor"(Tom Baker) whom he has trapped in the TARDIS with "Romana" (Lalla Ward) struggling to escape from - believe it nor not - a chronic histeratic time loop. If they cannot escape from this predicament in time, then "Meglos" might frame him for an heinous crime and get hold of the sacred dodecahedron thereby taking control of the planet and quite possibly the whole universe. Can this dastardly plan be thwarted in time? This is one of the dafter adventures for our travelling duo, with many of the sets looking a little too familiar. Still, Baker is on good form (both of him) with his tongue more in his cheek than usual, and the story whizzes along for four episodes using some quite interesting (for the time) techniques to illustrate the time loop and the bodily transformations and it at least looks as if it is set on a far-flung world rather than a quarry in Bedfordshire. Not the best, but steady stuff that entertains for an hour.

Sadly, there really isn't much new to say about this derivative horror film. It's the usual bunch of friends in the car routine, only this time it's a woman-hunt they are on. You see, "Melanie" whom we very briefly meet at the start - has gone missing and so her sister "Clover" (Ella Rubin) has recruited her ex "Max" (Michael Cimino), best pal "Nina" (Odessa A'zion) and her new boyfriend "Abe" (Belmont Cameli) and the slightly spiritual "Megan" (Ji-young Yoo) to try to find out what happened. As the song goes: "if you go into the woods tonight, you're in for a big surprise..." and so dodgy and ill-conceived decisions galore now ensue as the usual set-piece housebound horror kicks in and the story sort of lurches around like a gory version of "Groundhog Day". The acting and writing vie for the award for being the blandest - especially the shockingly wooden Cameli, and the whole thing recycles itself to the point where I was quickly on the side of the perpetrator of these dastardly goings-on. What's more annoying is that the plot did have some potential; it could have been better had the director relied less on the tried and tested formulae and taken a few risks with the story. As it is, his only risk was to engage a forgettable cast and leave us with an halfway house between the mystic and the makeshift. It's an adequate summer release, but not in the least scary nor memorable.

I watched this for about half an hour before I twigged that "Totone" (Clément Faveau) was Prince Harry's stunt double! I though the resemblance was uncanny. He is an eighteen year old who works in his dad's fromagerie when he's not out on the razz. His dad also likes a glass or two, is lousy at karaoke and not much better at driving, and it's this toxic combination that leaves the young man having to look after his seven year old sister and grow up pretty swiftly. Knowing as much about cheese making as I do, he is forced to takes a job at a rival farm and that's where he, and we, discover just his hard it is to make the stuff. Did you know they have to heat the milk to 50°-odd then scoop the stuff out of a vat in less than ten seconds in something that looks like a large brassière? Well he didn't either, but together with his faithful friends "Jean-Yves" (Mattis Bernard) and "Francis" (Dimitri Baudry) sets about starting his own cottage industry. Thing is, he needs milk. He can't pay for it, so he decides to purloin it from the neighbouring farm of the sexually curious "Marie-Lise" (Maïwene Barthelemy). It's a sort of have his cheese and eat it sort of arrangement as he distracts her with nooky whilst his mates help themselves. Of course, this isn't a sustainable state of affairs for just about anyone, and for the next ninety minutes Louise Courvoisier takes us on a quickly-paced story of human nature and nurture whilst using the rakish "Totone" as an entertaining tool to showcase irresponsibly and selfishness coupled with loyalty and determination. It's been done on a budget, and some of the production is a bit ropey (especially the edits at times) but there's a solid cast telling is an engaging story of a community that has it's own rules of engagement that always requires them to say "holy cow" when astonished, amazed, annoyed - it's their one size fits all phrase! The on-form Faveau and Barthelemy gel well together, and there is also quite a fun contribution from Luna Garret as the young sister and as feel-good comedies go, this is quite good fun.

The first ten minutes of this documentary don't really comes across as anything too different. We meet two gents who run a sci-fi film club at their local cinema in Hastings talking about the the relative merits - well demerits, really, of schlock. We get some clues from their language that one of the two is neurodiverse. Their introduction showcases a few further vignettes from others whose appreciation of things artistic (and scientific) might vary from those of the bulk of the population, and the six directors offer us a compendium of projects that challenge the standard way of film creation and production. As we get deeper into this experimental feature, we discover that they are all working together as they create their "Stimming Pool" concept, or really a series of concepts, that don't really have much to do with each other. It works, up to a point, and the characters are genuinely interesting to follow but the lack of cohesion makes it struggle as a joined-up piece of cinema. Each feature in itself makes for a watchable enough short film, but when we put them altogether it becomes quite disjointed. That's not to say that it misses it's mark - it does open eyes to different perceptions of what might be considered "standard", but the assembly style of storytelling darts about too often without contextualising enough for those watching to learn or understand rather than associate with. Still, it's worth a watch and is at times quite thought-provoking.

This is quite an entertaining and informative documentary that follows a collection of mariners - both amateur and more professional, as they try to navigate the waterways of England using boats without engines. From small rowing boats to dinghies, sloops and even large-scale clippers that could have the potential - à la the Cutty Sark - to revolutionise the global distribution of goods and people whilst profoundly reducing the environmental impact caused using fossil fuels. Aside from showcasing some of the beauty and ruggedness of the Essex, Norfolk and Cornish scenery, it introduces us to a quirky band of people, often accompanied with some drink-induced sea shanties and a bit of toe-tapping at their aptly named "jolly". The ingenuity on display here is also remarkable, with skills long since forgotten being re-learned and/or adapted to 21st century living. It's a bit too earnest at times, and in many ways reminded me a little of last year's "Wilding" film that maybe looks a little unrealistically at the scalability of their aspirations when faced with the laws of supply and demand for six billion folk, but it's heart is in the right place and the gentle ebbing and flowing of the tides rocking their craft as they tack their, frequently quite aged, craft is actually quite a soothing, almost cathartic, watch that combines a bit of nostalgia with a way of life that simply has to obey nature, whether we like it or not. The filming (I think the only tape used here was to hold up one of the masts) is all hand-held, intimate, and sometimes wouldn't look out of place in an edition of the "Onedin Line". I'm slightly surprised it got a cinema release, but it's certainly worth an hour or so.