Donald Clarke

Perhaps overwhelmed by interviews, experimental movies and live footage, Winter allows few compositions to play at length. But the full man emerges in all his contradictions and confrontations.

Nobody without a spear through their head could sincerely describe Willy’s Wonderland as a good film, but it is trash with a commendable pedigree.

This is an awfully clean version of borderline anarchy. But the relationships are teased out so delightfully that few will feel it worth complaining. Even the sentimental denouement is forgivable.

An early contender for turkey of the year.

No sensitive viewer could deny the spirit of the original remains, but Jeremy Sims’s charming cover version reverberates with unmistakably Australian harmonies.

Older than Ireland is at its most moving when addressing the universal experiences that shape all lives.

It is a terrible story, but, in its constant discovery of bravery and compassion, ultimately a hopeful one.

This charming, beautifully made drama gets about halfway (maybe a little more, maybe 60 or 70 per cent) towards confirmation as a classic of English reserve before a stunningly uninteresting subplot concerning less charismatic characters arrives to deaden the closing scenes.

It is a strong, stoic performance from Talpe in a film that doesn’t allow its secondary characters much nuance.

The longer it goes on, however, the less fun and more earnest it becomes.

As the band explains in this excellent documentary from Frank Marshall (whose odd career has taken in Arachnophobia, Congo and Alive), it took them five months to go from obscurity in Australia to careering about swinging London with The Beatles.

There’s not much formal romance here, but there’s a great deal of love.

White Riot is here both to educate and to serve the nostalgists.

There is an argument here about the corrupting influence of religion on ordinary Americans, but it is made with such bellowing cacophony that tinnitus ends up blurring the syntax.

Jessie Buckley’s determination to stop her slippery part from wriggling out of her clutch is positively heroic. The Kerry actor becomes Everywoman and Nobody. Her sorrow is bottomless. Her uncertainty is painful. One can imagine no better guide through these mysterious swamps.

If we were previously in any doubt, Haneke is confirmed as the premiere European director of his generation.

There is a point to all this. As well as offering a delicious audio-visual feast, the film firmly makes the case that those who have least to blame for global warming — those living close to nature — will be the ones who ultimately suffer the most. If we have to be taught such a grim lesson then this is the way to do it.

Kechiche’s intention – fully realised – is to immerse the viewer completely in the nuances of the relationship. By the close, one feels (and this is not meant as a facetious dig) one has lived through the girls’ experiences in something like real time.

It is the breathless dynamics of Son of Saul that really sets it apart.

A truly extraordinary trick has been pulled off: Under the Skin manages to foster empathy with an entity as isolated from human experience as an avalanche or a weather system. Such achievements tend to allow films to be classed as masterpieces. That word may not be too weighty for Glazer’s towering curio.

All this delicious incident has the makings of a gung-ho entertainment – Ian Fleming as mounted by Nasa. Unfortunately that’s not what we get. Even if we were brave enough to try, we would not be capable of spoiling a plot so wilfully obtuse it demands repeat viewings to disentangle.

It mostly succeeds on old-fashioned smack-’em-up and sure personal chemistry.

Black Water Abyss is mostly composed of actors breathing heavily in studio tanks while torches bounce off dampened sets. The characters are dull, the tension poorly maintained and the outbreaks of violence deeply confusing.

Full marks for character and setting. Less enthusiastic hurrahs for narrative arc.

DW Young’s film, a study of New York’s independent and antiquarian booksellers, looks to have modelled itself on that aimless pleasure. Never aspiring to anything like a structure, it meanders from shelf to shelf, sometimes picking up a volume and placing it straight down, sometimes leafing more carefully through the pages.

Look elsewhere for virtual methadone to hold you over until the real stuff gets back in the supply chain. Just awful.

Sadly, the film itself is not quite as silly as it should be (something of an achievement given what you’ve just read). Everyone is taking it very seriously. We don’t get enough characters pulling their limbs together after being hacked to pieces by combine harvester. Some very good actors have been cast in the wrong roles. No matter. Theron makes it work.

The final impression is of a thesis only partially expanded into satisfactory dramedy, but, thanks to casting in depth and good writing on a line-by-line basis, Irresistible never feels like a chore.