It will surely spark more conversations on women’s agency in dealing with sexual assault and toxic masculinity, but Polley’s work is visually uninteresting, and the performances might sometimes feel maudlin.
The Daniels’ wacky vision of a ‘multiverse’ action-comedy somewhat revels in its outlandish excess, and is blessed with a cast (headlined by a superb Michelle Yeoh) pretty much game to realise it to its fullest potential.
An antecedent to the likes of ‘Tenet‘, this low-budget cult sci-fi sensation about two engineers who discover that they can manipulate time feels so raw and indecipherable that it could just be paralyzingly real.
The second film of Inarritu’s ‘hyperlink’ trilogy may occasionally feel overwrought by design, but the top-tier performances from Naomi Watts, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro give it the requisite emotional intensity to work.
This could be the ‘Mulholland Drive’ for this generation—a deliberately-paced hallucinatory deep dive into the physical and psychological realities of a world-famous (if fictional) composer-conductor that sees Todd Field and Cate Blanchett in extraordinary form.
Brando’s only directorial effort is truly exceptional—a soulful revenge Western with stunning picturesque imagery and a commitment to exploring and subverting the ethos of the genre.
Spielberg’s polished, but rather underwhelming workmanlike by-the-numbers tale of his formative years as a child and teenager chronicles the tension between family disputes and his passion for filmmaking.
It may be ambitious and sprawling to a fault, but Chazelle’s bravura direction and the top performances all-round keep this largely fictional tale of ‘20s and ‘30s Hollywood brimming with infectious energy.
It doesn’t reach the gleeful heights of the first ‘Knives Out’ mystery, and somewhat suffers from a regressive narrative structure that privileges explanations more than sleuthing, but it is still fun to see Daniel Craig being amused by it all.
Soderbergh’s take on the strip show dazzles with sights and sounds, but his film lacks dramatic substance.
Eternality Tan 