Cath Clarke

It’s super fun entertainment, which mostly disguises the fact it’s not going to stick in the mind for long.

Though she might have turned the dial up, Burkovska conveys Lilya’s depression and anxiety, and finally her resilience, with a muted, powerful performance. This might be one to file away for the future, when the current conflict has ended.

A Bunch of Amateurs is a thoughtful film about film-making and has some unexpectedly deep things to say too about camaraderie, community and male friendship – though there are a couple of women in the club’s ageing membership.

At times I wondered if the film is a bit too tasteful and tactful about the pain that Halim and Mina have to suppress, but still it’s a hugely compassionate and emotionally satisfying movie.

What a shortchanging of Af Klint’s extraordinary life and work this is.

The film offers a fascinating glimpse into the mystery of other people, especially other people’s marriages. Friends and family still look dazed that the Alters – Rita and Jerry! – were behind the theft.

While, yes, TCWSSF is a dreamy magical realist fable with an environmental message, Alegría weaves into her tale an emotionally satisfying, gripping family drama, with singing cows – and fish too.

That sweaty, close-to-a-nervous breakdown tense feeling of being trapped is nowhere in the film. And where the script goes in its pulpy nasty final twist felt to me like a disturbingly misogynist move.

It’s heartfelt and sweetly earnest, but humdrum and disappointingly unmagical. The animation doesn’t help: characters speak with blank paralysed faces as if they’ve had botched Botox.

This gentle, authentic-feeling coming-of-age drama from Ukrainian film-maker Kateryna Gornostai premiered at the Berlin festival in 2021. Released in the UK almost a year to the day since the Russian invasion, her film has become unbearably poignant.

What’s missing is a sense of what’s at stake – we never quite get a feeling for how desperate these men are, and for the most part they feel a bit too familiar from the Britcom playbook. That said, Burrows brings cheeky-chappie warmth to the character of Curly.

Nearly everything about Epic Tails feels a bit underwhelming, and limited imagination-wise.

At points I wondered if this is a film that tells us anything about anything. Some of its ideas feel a bit thrown together.

The film gives us a precious glimpse into LGBTQ+ life in the postwar period.

This is a film with a lot of charm, and gives cinema its most lovable rats since Ratatouille. But I did wonder at points who the audience is.

Chumbawamba split up in 2012. They’re still mates and come across here as extremely likable, not taking themselves at all too seriously. Scenes of them nattering together, having a giggle now, are lovely.

There is without a doubt something uncanny, almost seance-like, in the way Canadian film-maker Kyle Edward Ball evokes childhood fear of the dark.

The film sags a little towards the end, with a few too many implausible action sequences: characters jumping out of helicopters and fighting on top of speeding SUVs, the choreography glossing over the basics of gravity and physics. Still, the cheers kept coming.

It’s a film with a decent bit of charm, and it’s hard to argue with the greed-is-bad message.

The script gives us less about their emotional connection and to be honest, the will-they-won’t-they-stay-together drama is a bit of a snore. The best scenes are down the rugby club, portrayed with tremendous warmth as a happy-ish semi-dysfunctional family.

What an intimate, thoughtful film. I can’t remember the last time I watched a documentary so desperately wanting a happy ending for everyone – human and ocelot.

The impossibility of ever really knowing our parents is a familiar storyline, but it’s told here with real generosity and warmth. Malik slyly pokes fun, but never meanly. This is satire with the thermostat turned up to 22 degrees.

It’s a gentle and superbly shot film.

The clunky script feels like it’s been re-drafted and re-drafted to the point of incomprehension – blowing any chance of conveying a message. However well-meaning, it makes for a surprisingly dull watch. That said, my five-and-three-quarter-year-old (and clearly a few other younger people in the cinema) were a bit scared by some of the dicier moments of action-adventure peril.

This is a painful, important film, made more urgent in light of China’s tightening of religious freedoms and human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslims.

The film is expertly bolted together from archive newsreels, snippets of classic war movies and interviews with surviving airmen.

The will-they-won’t-they succeed in carrying out the poisoning plot makes for pretty flat drama, and for a film about people who have suffered so much, this really fails to make us care about the characters.

Imagine Game of Thrones crossed with Gladiator and you’ll have something like this entertainingly old fashioned action movie with epic levels of throat slashing, spectacular scenery and a fair bit of camp.

The film’s good-natured warmth wins the day, just.

Some Like It Rare is a tasty treat for herbivores and carnivores alike.

After Blue is a preposterous film, easy to ridicule. But it’s surely already halfway to cult classic status – destined to play midnight slots, watched by students smuggling bottles of red wine into the cinema under their coats.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism could perhaps do with one or two genuine scares. But for anyone old enough to remember Tiffany and advice columns in teenage girls’ magazines, this is going to deliver a pleasing shot of nostalgia.

As a war movie written by a soldier this material feels oddly lacking in authenticity and authority. And yet it’s a noble attempt to honour the resilience of Ukrainians and the courage of ordinary people like Voronin, fighting for freedom.

The strength of the writing is in portraying Bunny’s reality, allowing us to wonder – like the social workers – whether she really is a reliable parent. This is thoughtful film-making, though I didn’t quite buy into the explosion of drama at the end.

The movie noodles along amiably, but in the cold light of day, its quirks begin to feel like flaws.

The lowish-budget production values, gestural performances and blunt moralism of the scriptwriting puts this very much in the heightened dramatic tradition of mainstream Nigerian cinema, but Emelonye has an accessible style and has picked the topical subject of cybercrime, an approach which might broaden the film’s appeal.

There’s plenty of white-knuckle footage from the archive, as well as reflections of old muckers. Fiennes says that in his darkest, diciest moments in peril he imagined his heroes – the father and grandfather he never met – watching over him.

The film is grimly depressing in places. I covered my eyes during Google Earth time-lapse sequences showing the pace of deforestation in the Amazon; the violence of it is too much. And yet, there is Bitaté: still a teenager, he’s already a skilled communicator.

At 88, Raven is still performing – perched on a stool – as his alter ego Maisie Trollette. In this affectionate if slight documentary, he tells a story or two, though perhaps not enough to fill a book.

It’s a very funny film, sending-up human absurdities without being too mean. Cruz is a talented comedian, but she smartly plays it straight-ish here. You never doubt for a moment Lola is the real deal. Nor that Cruz is either.

The director is Christopher Nelius, himself a surfer, who has done a brilliant job with editor Julie-Anne De Ruvo of assembling the archive to capture the sport at a moment in time, all youth and energy. Smartly, he lets this exceptional group of funny, tough, talented women surfers, now in their 50s, do the talking.

This is a well-made film and nice looking, but there’s a tiresome predictability to a few too many scenes. It is a franchise that feels like it’s hit the rocks.

What makes the film so engrossing is how much attention the film-makers give to Lee’s complicated life after prison.

It’s a deeply uncomfortable film but also weirdly gripping.

There’s perhaps not enough new material to justify a re-release, but as a whole it’s still great, and a reminder of just what a class act Michael was.

The film is a reminder of just what a brilliant writer Bourdain was.

It’s entertaining enough and you never know where the story is headed, but it doesn’t quite hold together.

In the end, it’s a film with a melancholic feel, which probably has a lot to do with its timing.

There are some very funny scenes and a reasonably tense shootout finale – though the sentimental ending felt to me like a bit of a cop-out.

Nine Bullets is unfocused to the point where you might want to scream with frustration.

It’s an almost entirely unfunny comedy from Debra Neil-Fisher, who edited the Hangover movies and makes her directing debut lumbered with a stinker of a script; it’s not smart enough to work as a grownup relationship movie, and laughs are too few for a proper comedy.

The history that emerges here is of a band yo-yoing between attempts to be taken seriously as artists, then coming back for more boyband fame and adulation. An air of collective self-loathing and regret hangs over them.

This is a gentle-going watch, understated – underpowered even – and sometimes a little drowsy. Still, it has real sensitivity and insight into the transition to adulthood, as gradually it dawns on Nang that his parents don’t have all the answers.

What first-time feature directors Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis seem to be going for here is a Herzogian waking nightmare, but the necessary sense of horror and despair never fully comes off.

This is a film raised a fair few notches by the wonder of geekery, the absolute joy of seeing scientists living and breathing their work.

This is Tarantino for ankle-biters with a bit of Ocean’s 11 thrown in: funny, energetic and just smart enough.

Intense performances by Doupe and Bracken give it a real emotional pulse.

This is a decent, intelligent, well-acted film if a little uninspired until that third act, which packs an almighty punch.

It’s a delicate, thoughtful film, moving and real.

To me this feels like a silly smirking film with zero insights into abuse or conspiracy theories.

The question of whether this is a ghost story or if Laura is experiencing a kind of psychological breakdown twists and turns in ways that lost me by the end. Still, it’s is a very accomplished debut from Gregg, and acted with subtlety and sensitivity by Riseborough.

The trouble with the film is that beneath the surface lurks … well, perhaps not quite enough to keep the momentum going.

Deadwyler’s soulful performance really grounds The Devil to Pay even as it cranks into revenge-movie mode. That said, if you want a slice of grim Americana to hunker down with, I’d go with Winter’s Bone or Frozen River.

Part of the film’s genius is in how the images are put together, sometimes to absurd effect, at other times unnervingly.

The problem with Bruce Willis in the movie is that he’s not doing something that he is supposed to be doing: acting. He puts in a such a wooden performance playing a washed-up, burnt-out cop that I could have screamed in frustration.

Not even an impending apocalypse adds much in the way of urgency. Still, Boyega is very credible and at 29 he’s beginning to look like a leading man with real gravitational pull. Likely he’ll file this on his CV under misfire.

Home Alone meets The Lost Boys in this trashy half-way entertaining Christmas vampire movie from director Sean Nichols Lynch; it’s a black comedy with some silly splattery gore.

It’s a film of desperately upsetting details.

It’s a shame that after that killer start, this wimps out of saying anything interesting about death or the adventure on the other side.

This remarkable film feels like it could become a time capsule, showing future generations what it felt like in 2020 for those on the frontline.

It feels kid-gloves at times: big-hearted and entertaining, but possibly lacking a little fun or oomph. A lovely warming film, though.

It feels worthwhile – funny and true about growing up and getting a life.

The film catches the excitement of this moment for Clarice, and Dynevor’s performance is wonderful.

It’s an entertaining, uncontroversial film directed by the actor Sadie Frost, who pulls in her celeb mates to do talking-head duties: Vogue editor Edward Enninful, Kinks guitarist Dave Davies, and even interview-shy Kate Moss gives a quote or two.

The film is a parable about the dangers of blind faith in religion and authority, but it’s also warmly compassionate and accepting of human nature.

Often music documentaries feel padded out with filler but honestly I could have spent another hour in Copeland’s company.

Director David Verbeek’s script doesn’t quite wield the scalpel with enough sadistic glee. Instead, this film feels ever-so-slightly sluggish and dour in places.

It’s all very silly, with a few enjoyable moments.

The acting is daytime-soap standard and the tasteful, softcore sex is shot in such a way as to not look like actual sex. It’s unerotic, unsweaty and performed with expressionless faces. It feels like the film-makers know they have to do the sex bits, but don’t really want to actually do them.

Given the calibre of the voice cast, perhaps the biggest disappointment is how humourless the movie is.

What a man. Just writing this makes me want to watch the documentary all over again.

The movie is saturated with emotion and colour, though its novelistic depth brings with it the slightly effortful running time of two hours and 20 minutes.

As charmless as its predecessor, The Addams Family 2 is without an iota of ooky, nor any shred of kooky. Really, it’s just kind of ghastly – and not in the intended way.

It’s a bit indulgent but, still, a gentle watch.

The script feels completely devoid of ideas about what the future of AI might look like. But what it does prove is that Pearce adds a basic layer of credibility to any film simply by showing up.

An Italian-American man in late middle age rejects the rat race and embarks on a voyage of self-discovery and winemaking in this lifelessly unfunny comedy.

There are plenty of heart-pumping moments, plus a fair few false notes, a couple of implausible coincidences and some exposition-y dialogue spelling out the film’s message, which is about how the two sides see each other.

It’s propulsively watchable if a tad light on reflection. And you may feel hoodwinked by one late reveal.

It’s a sweet, undemanding film that, despite the title, is tamer than a sedated bunny. That said, the four-year-old I watched with spontaneously yelped “this is the best!” 20 minutes in. So really, what do I know?

It’s not reasonable to ask that the film keeps Tina safe, but a sense from the start that things might end badly for her made me wince a little even during the lovely, authentic-feeling scenes of her life.

The film is depressingly thin on the women; often it seems more interested in arranging them in arty tableaux than investigating the way that isolation has shaped their personalities and how they see the world.

The whole thing hangs on a twist that anyone who has ever watched a trashy thriller will have cottoned on to at around the 20-minute mark.

There is just too much going on, and the movie doubles in hecticness with every minute that passes, which may have you rummaging around for a couple of paracetamol.

It’s tender and poignant, but might be a bit cloying were it not for Norton, who underplays it beautifully with a performance of tremendous depth and empathy.

How refreshing to watch a film in which the sexuality and desire of women in their 70s is portrayed not as a novelty but simply part and parcel of their lives; and since this French movie is a lesbian drama, there’s two of them – even better.

Where biopics often end up with a cardboard-tasting blandness, the focus on Jansson’s interior world gives this film moments that really come to life.

Chao is the standout here. She deserves more – a leading role of her own, at the very least, and a character with an inner life and interests of her own.

A lairy, likable film.