Clea DuVall directs Melanie Lynskey, herself and Natasha Lyonne in this ensemble drama about a group of friends who reunite in a former plantation house to tell one set of pals that they should divorce.

One of those films with a cast you really like struggling with problems you really couldn’t care less about. White people problems. I’m white but I’m not this white. Not the worst of its kind, but blurrily undefined in every movie making quality, so it can be absorbed and lost among its unspectacular sub-genre peers.

4

Dennis Hopper directs Linda Manz, himself and Sharon Farrell in this grim coming of age tale where a tough kid explores punk just as her trucker Dad is released from prison.

Had high hopes (ordered the DVD from Australia) for this but it proves to be aimless, sleazy and depressing. For nihilists who like seagull shit only.

3

Gene Saks directs Jane Fonda, Robert Redford and Mildred Natwick in this comedy about a pair of newlyweds who discover they have wildly different ideas of what life will be like after the honeymoon is over.

Jane Fonda would be an absolute nightmare in reality. Luckily in this sitcommy farce, with the minimum safe distance of fifty years, she is sexy as fuck. The play is well opened up, Simon’s back and forth is witty, the support cast is on point but… hold the phone… 1967 edition Jane Fonda is now doing a mock fertility dance in belly high jeans and a mustard turtleneck!… Listen, I’ll get back to you in a minute with a serious assessment of this…

6

James Wan directs Jason Momoa, Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman in this aquatic superhero flick.

The DCEU finally gives in, gives up and just copies the Marvel template. This feels like a failure for those of us who enjoyed the more intense, harder edged flops the Warner Brothers studio uncertainly dealt out. Flash Gordon meets The Little Mermaid but nowhere near as sexy as that sounds. This is all water dappled cleavage, join the dots plotting, jukebox karaoke set pieces. Daft but unengaging, lowest common denominator unoriginality. It has a blunt force trauma way of entertaining for its first couple of acts but then just becomes wearying. Much like the raggedly paced The Last Jedi, the spectacular final underwater war sequences comes at a point when you are fatigued of actors who can only perform in trailer moment non-sequiturs and action that is forgettable as the lightweight scraps of Black Panther or Ant-Man And The Wasp. Permission to not come aboard for the sequel.

4

Mike Nichols directs Gilda Radner, Don Novello and Paul Shaffer in this concert film of the Saturday Night Live star’s Broadway show.

If you’ve watched any of Gilda Radner’s SNL sketch work then you’ll know what a captivating and spunky presence she was. This live show struggles to translate that. It is a greatest hits revival of her best characters from the TV show, the audience recognises them all but… we don’t . The value of familiarity has been lost in time and the jokes often aren’t there in the admittedly enthusiastic skits. Don Novello’s hip priest act fills in during the costume changes and his monologues do raise a smile but the eponymous headliner only really comes to comedic life with her spirited songs. These are the highlights of a dated show, the rest best half forgotten as a fond memory for a previous generation.

5

1. Phantom Thread 

2. The Old Man and the Gun

3. The Avengers: Infinity War 

4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

5. The Post 

6. Mandy

7. Leave No Trace

8. Burning

9. On Chesil Beach

10. They Shall Not Grow Old

11. Cold War

12. Mission: Impossible – Fallout

13. Bohemian Rhapsody 

14. You Were Never Really Here 

15. Isle of Dogs 

16. First Reformed

17. Sorry to Bother You

18. Lady Bird

19. Mary Poppins Returns

20. Apostle

Bubbling under… Hostiles, Solo, A Fantastic Woman, I, Tonya, Private Life, Three Identical Strangers, Yardie, Black ’47, All the Money in the World , Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Revenge, The Hate U Give, A Quiet Place

Norman Z. McLeod directs The Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd And David Landau in this college comedy where the gang have to win a rigged football game.

Just a litany of breathless madcap set pieces. From the “Password is Swordfish” to Harpo and Chico sawing themselves out of a tight spot. I laughed loads at this.

10

Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman direct Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson and Hailee Steinfeld in this animated superhero adventure where Miles Morales takes on the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man job only to find his reality filled with strange variations of Peter Parker from other dimensions.

An absolute joyous blast. The Miles Morales story is effectively realised with emotional intelligence, the animation superb, the adventure aspects spectacular and the self consciously off-the-wall humour never grates even when coming at you at a rate of knots. This is a celebration of all things Spidey, and easily manages to be the icon’s finest standalone cinematic outing yet.

9

Sydney Pollack directs Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway and Max Von Sydow in this paranoid conspiracy thriller where a book-ish intelligence analyst finds himself framed when his station is massacred.

It might not have the daredevil stunt work of The Fugitive, nor the inescapable moments of pure dread of Marathon Man but this “man on the run” thriller is mighty enjoyable. The cold Christmas setting adds to the paranoia, everyone is going about the festive business while our hero’s options narrow proves a creepy juxtaposition. Redford is quite quirky in this. He’s not a company man, nor a man of action which makes his desperate attempts to not be framed or “tied off” by forces he doesn’t understand utterly gripping. Sydow is also excellent value as the casually resigned hitman who instigates the chase. Top notch entertainment.

9

David Lowery directs Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara and Will Oldham in this arthouse visual poem about a dead lover who haunts his home in a sheet, with two holes cut in it for eyes.

Pretentious but well made, often achingly dull. All the guessable ideas and images churned up from the concept and themes of loss, grief, memory and space time you can get from the trailer. The feature length version just feels like a watered down tautology straining for significance. There is some good music diegetically attached to the slender narrative however.

5