The Last Film You Watched

Yes, I thought Efron was a revelation in this. When he is given enough to do he’s great.

Agree with what most have said about Wicked Little Letters. Perfectly fine and fun, but something lacking that I can't quite put my finger on. Felt like some typical Sunday night ITV fair that was forced into the feature film format for the sake of the effs and jeffs.

I would actually have been more interested in a more in-depth exploration of Colman's character, clearly very unwell, but get that that wasn't the goal.

Dune Part Two is great, my favourite performance was Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha.

I saw Red Island last weekend, French film about a boy growing up on a military base in Madagascar in the early 70s. I enjoyed it but I felt it was a classic case of where a five-star review (Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian) gives you such high expectations that mere goodness or even excellence feels slightly disappointing. Off to see Perfect Days tonight - it's been decades since I saw anything by Wim Wenders.

Lisa Frankenstein. I loved it.

Saw Raising Arizona tonight for the first time since it came out: with the exception of The Big Lebowski I’m not keen on the Coen brothers comedies and didn’t think it was that great, a lot of slapstick and shouting but I wasn’t engaged by what’s happening: I had been pondering seeing Drive-Away Dolls tomorrow afternoon but I’m thinking it might just be more of this (it’s better than Burn After Reading though, I thought that was dreadful)

I enjoyed Drive-Away Dolls, which, whilst perhaps not a critical success, had some great dialogue and was generally ver entertaining; also relatively short compared to a lot of the current major releases. Far too much focus on sex scenes (I don't care which sexuality is involved; I just don't want to see this on screen), so a Curate's Egg but the good parts were certainly to my taste.

Saw Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire this afternoon and wasn’t impressed: it was good to see them in NYC but it just carries on for the best part of two hours and then ends without any excitement or real reason to exist (Paul Rudd is given next to nothing to do and apart from Dan Aykroyd, the other original ‘Busters were hardly in it): it opens with a produced by Ghost Corps credit but I don’t think there’s much life left in this franchise: 5 out of 10 from me

Anyone looking for a good New York movie look no further than Robot Dreams - the Oscar nominated animation about a dog and his robot. It's set in 1980s New York which is lovingly rendered (there is even a glimpse of the Twin Towers). It's about loneliness and love and loss and while it's fine for children it has much wider appeal than that. You will - however - be left with an earworm of September by Earth Wind and Fire!

I've seen loads of mainly good to great films lately but no-one else has mentioned them, so they probably weren't worth a thread in their own right and some have already disappeared after only a week i cinemas, either becauase they were also on Netflix or, presuambly, as they didn't prove very popular.

So, the football-related film, The Beautiful Game, with Bill Nighy and Michaeal Ward, was very entertaining if unsurprising in its lessons about community, teamwork and the importance of participation rather than winning.

The Persian Version wasn't at all what I expected and less worthwile, too; I wouldn't say I was bored but it would have been missable.

Evil Does Not Exist (ghastly title which would have led me to assume it was yet another horror film and therefore to be avoided) was also interesting and not quite what I expected, despite the fact that I'd read lots of reviews before deciding to risk it. I suppose in a way it was, if not a story about enironmental horror, then certainly a warning about it, though if anyone else has seen it and can explain the ending to me, I'd be grateful as I've no idea what was supposed to have happened. Maybe it was meant to be left ambiguous however.

The Trouble With Jessica was very entertaining if totally implausible.

The film which probably does deserve its own thread, and which for me is so far my joint best of the year with American Fiction - though completely different - is the appallingly-translated The Teachers' Lounge. (Why on earth not say "staff room" as that appears to be the meaning? Presumably that's the US version but why, when this a German film?) Anyway, I thought it was fantastic and utterly compelling throughout, though nerve-wracking to watch, which did catch me unawares. The way the story develops is both convincing yet unpredictable and disappointing as it was, I wouldn't even mark it down for the non-ending.

Watched a few new-ish releases on a flight recently. I dozed through ‘Mean Girls’ as I’d seen it before and most of the good songs are near the beginning. Enjoyable tosh all the same. I then watched a predictable but fun rom com; ‘Anyone But You’ that was so typical I may have written it as I went along. Again, was perfectly undemanding.

The last one however, ‘No Hard Feelings’ with Jennifer Laurence & Broadways Andrew Barth Feldman was much better and had a bit of bite to it. Jen plays a 30something waitress offered a (much needed) car to sleep with an 18 year old introvert before he heads off to college. It is full of surprises, warmth and ick and was genuinely funny. You don’t get much of that these days.