Cath Clarke

It might not be note perfect, jazz fans will probably hate it, and whole chunks might not be true. But ‘Born to Be Blue’ feels like it’s somehow getting inside Chet Baker.

You can see why this girl-saves-guy storyline clicked with Watson’s feminism, and she brings pin-sharp intelligence to the role. But everything here feels inauthentic.

Intelligent and screwball-funny with clever and complicated female characters.

Everything here feels inauthentic, from the cast speaking their lines in English to the unthrilling final escape attempt.

Cruz has enough charm to melt a glacier, but she can’t rescue the shamelessly sentimental script by director Julio Medem (‘Sex and Lucia’). Ma Ma is going for the heartstrings, but don’t bother taking tissues.

How much you love this low-budget British effort will depend on your tolerance to quirkiness.

There are some funny-sweet observations about pets and our projections on to them. And the animation is expressive.... But the manic pace, piling on the action sequences, is exhausting.

It’s refreshing to see a movie like this directed by a woman, Eva Husson, so boys and girls are objectified equally. Which is not to say this passes the feminism test.

Makhmalbaf says he was inspired by the Arab Spring, and his film is pitched somewhere between allegory and satire.

Few films make you care about the characters like this one does.

It’s raw, funny and incredibly moving.

Director Stephen Frears sketches out her tragic backstory, and Streep in grande dame mode is not to be missed.

A candid, often shocking documentary portrait of the great photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

There are beautiful moments from David Hockney’s home-video stash in this thoughtful doc.

This Jungle Book has the bare necessities, and then some.

All told, ‘Winter’s War’ is not the fairest sequel, but it’s not so terrible that it deserves to be taken out to the forest and finished off.

There are more than a few false notes here.... Still, the sight of Emma Thompson, wearing old-lady prosthetics and a leopard skin coat as Barney’s mum...is not to be missed.

Is there something creepy about Franny’s aggressive generosity and need to be needed? In a film with a better script, yes.

There are a few ideas knocking about in the script – including repression of childhood trauma – but the silly, hand-me-down scares just don’t chill.

As modern dating movies go, How to Be Single gets a lot right.

The average lifespan of a chipmunk is five years – which means the kids’ cartoon franchise about the trio of singing superstar rodents has already outstayed its welcome.

The top-notch cast keep calm and carry on, but this TV remake is a waste of everyone’s time.

Sisters is too strained for a comedy starring two of the funniest people alive.

Nine years in the making, this impressive doc pieces together the story of the biggest global protest in history.

Lawrence is gritty, real and totally genuine. And, after ‘Brooklyn’ and ‘Carol’, here’s another film that passes the Bechdel Test for proper female characters with flying colours.

When it’s playing for laughs, ‘A Royal Night Out’ is harmless good fun.

It’s a film with the texture and truth of life, and at its heart is a beautiful performance by Cliff Curtis, who never in a million years will be nominated for an Oscar, but deserves one.

Rather than letting the CGI do all the graft, Hardy unleashes a beautifully handcrafted army of puppets and animatronic demonic creatures. Too many, too soon, really. It’s overkill and pretty quickly you’re suffering from fiend fatigue.