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Welcome to Marwen is a family tale through and through, but it doesn’t have much for the adults. The protagonist is someone who shoots at Nazi action-figures and has a kink for women shoes, and the least original and weaker plot line is the one resolved in the most original way. Steve Carrel does what he can and every scene irradiates how much fun Robert Zemeckis is having, so everything looks gorgeous and there’s no doubt that a master of the craft is at work. It’s a pity that the emotions are too mechanical and that the attractions overshadow the power of the narration that we love from the author of so many classics. Even though it doesn’t deserve it, Welcome to Marwen will probably soon be forgotten.

This is like watered down tea. McKay knows how to stage scenes, but the plot is a mess that never manages to fully draw the characters or deliver a deeper author’s message .

Wanna fuck? So far, the only film where Quentin not only excels in the script and it’s execution, but also in the development of the characters and their approach to the “normal” viewer. Jackie Brown doesn’t deliver the cinephile panache of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, but it’s written with heart and directed with indescribable wit and timing, and in terms of entertainment and viewer satisfaction, it’s on par with the aforementioned titles. Grier and Forster a great duo, the stoned De Niro and the extravagant nigga Jackson are an inimitable duo, and the scene where they pass on the money is a text-book example of how to use communicativeness for the benefit of several crescendos and the joy of the gradual reveal of the tale. This notch confirms Tarantino’s dominance over the 1990s, period.

Dragged Across Concrete is another good film by Zahler that may lack the shocking scope of his previous gem and some scenes look as if the talented filmmaker was trying too hard to improve and rip himself off, but patient viewers will not regret the time spent in the company of this mesmeric director’s vision. Pushing your expectations to heavenly heights would be a mistake, but it would be even worse to overlook this old-school and yet original and distinctive piece of craftsmanship. Personally, I will gladly go back to it.

It’s something unique, pandering, energetic, top quality craftsmanship and yet empty. The opening scene is great and the camera panning in the end over a packed Wembley stadium brings chills, but neither the visual panache nor the stirring music can make up for the absence of a core conflict and the trivial development free from any controversy that would disrupt the unrealistic iconicisation of the adored Freddie. On the one hand, I have to admire this project because its box-office success is unparalleled for biopics and it’s also very good as advertisement for a famous band, on the other hand, it’s nothing more than an expensive promotional item – this prancing around fifteen years of history and conflicts that get resolved with a quick chat under the rain or in a manager’s office would have never been so easy to pull out without a brand like Queen.

A promising premise shrouded in fog and supported by competent actors and a reasonable runtime, but that thrashes in a blanket of stagnating creativity, lacking a moment of surprise. Chaney is great and the beginning is exciting, but the most anticipated passages go around the viewer with a lack of expression that even the date of production cannot excuse. The transformation into the hairy monster is sloppy, and overall there is no dramatic drive that could satisfactorily sell the potential of the setting and escalate the tension to the heights that the comedic An American Werewolf in London reached with absolute mastery, and the fact that this is primarily a tragic drama about dealing with an unenviable fate does not change things much. The ending is OK, but I expected much more from a legendary horror film from my favourite era in the genre.

It’s well crafted and packed with ghostly attractions, an addition to a popular universe that never gets boring and that brings some fresh air to its exhausted premise, at least with the setting. However, it’s also crammed with the expected clichés, predictable and incomprehensibly downplayed by moments or one-liners that feel like out of a second-rate action flick. The titular ghost looks cool, but its inability to deal with only three determined adversaries (of which one is a young, squirrelly novice nun and another a village yokel with a shotgun) gradually weakens its aura. Solid work, but it would have been a lot better with a more inaccessible and properly bloody decadent tone. 60%

Stan & Ollie is a nice nostalgic film that rides on well known patterns, but it’s only for fans who are very familiar with the work of the legendary duo and want to know as much as possible about their private lives. But even they are likely to be a little disappointed, because, other than the slogan “friendship above everything” and the bitter portrayal of the fact that nobody used to show much respect for the retired stars of the silver screen, the story doesn’t have much to offer. As someone who didn’t grow up with the movies of Laurel and Hardy and wanted to get to them eventually, I have to say that this film, as likeable and viewer friendly as it is, wasn’t able to motivate me very much to watch them.

A mildly amusing British response to the wave of American monster movies that follows trodden paths, doesn’t deliver any surprises and that technically it’s stuck in a quagmire of mediocrity. The final act is brisk, at least, and shows a pretty decent monster, but the endless exposition is boring and it is painfully clear that they didn’t have money for anything thrilling and visually convincing. On the other side of the pond they were better, really.

Triple Frontier will certainly end up among the most popular and best respected genre titles of the year. It’s a proudly masculine story that perhaps doesn’t expose its characters much beyond the limits of their own morality and that at times feels too telegraphic, but one that doesn’t stumble in any scene, has very well written dialogues and pulls the viewer into the events so intensively that I would love to see it in a cinema. A very good job with great actors in a rather fresh setting and with a final scene that has the courage to leave things partially unresolved. I would like to see something like this at least every six months.