Kaka

With exaggeration and in big quotation marks it’s Nocturnal Animals for the lower middle-class or country people. It's slow, weaving and painful (in the spirit of Eastwood's films), playing out several plot levels and exposing painful life events and decisions, or the inability to cope with them, but it is more oversimplified and easier to read. The most interesting thing about it is that it is paradoxically so direct and non-cinematic, because half of the scenes are without music and with so much authenticity and energy that it feels like your next-door neighbour is living the story. A cinematic event, no doubt, just not for everyone and it will have to mature a bit more, but a must-see for film scholars.

A gauntlet thrown down to the American and British often extremely overdone aristocratic tea parties of yesteryear. Although there are about twenty or so shots that alternate the brooding twenty-second glances of the two main characters, fortunately it’s not that bad. Whether the nobility actually practiced such body language in the past is hard to say, but it is extremely negative for the viewer's attention. In A Royal Affair, the European directorial signature is apparent very early on. It's a lush, suitably flamboyant piece with costumes and sets, the pace of which is linearly escalating as the running time draws to a close. The last five minutes are pure directorial magic and the story of the false accusation of a member of the court takes a fantastic turn, almost to the point of tragedy of gigantic proportions. The history of Denmark isn't well known, but this film makes you want to devour it from A to Z. This is where Alicia Vikander's incredible talent was apparently discovered. It's not 100 percent there yet, like The Danish Girl or The Light Between Oceans, but the potential cannot be denied.

A funny fable made by a Frenchman in a slightly British style with an atypical cast. Half crime-drama, half comedy, with a hearty dose of black humour. Everybody betrays everybody, but in a very unstylish and looser way. It's probably clear to everyone that this act launched Alice Eve's career, but it may not be so incredibly clear that she's already here. A little more than her colleagues, after all.

They say Shyamalan is back with this film, but I have the feeling that he never fully left. With a few exceptions, he's still doing the same stuff: ghost stories, or at least thrillers, often with naturalistic elements, where the primary role is played for 90 percent of the film's running time by a crystallizing twist that more or less shocks at the end. But once the rules are set, it's good to stick to them. And so, when the whole film has the undertone of the reality of the laws of physics of the contemporary world, it is good to stick to them for the whole duration, because that final game-changer irritated me a lot. And this is one of the reasons why Now You See Me, which pissed off many a film fan with its digital trick escapades, was a flop. Maybe at least McAvoy will get an award for his performance, it was awesome!

The Norwegian rookie isn't afraid of big production. Throw in some good looking actors, a few gore shots and camera finesse like the thrice as expensive and much more bloated Van Helsing and off we go. 90 minutes of non-stop fun and entertainment, or Hansel and Gretel for adults and lovers of an alternative approach to the classics. Sure, it's bullshit, but the signature and commitment of the creators is very likeable.

Emotionally, it's a bit of a cold story that ironically, especially at first, moves quite slowly, but Zemeckis does repair his reputation after the botched The Walk, as Allied may not work as well as a romantic drama, but it certainly works as a WWII spy film. Brad Pitt, of course, as has been the case for the last 10 years, is appropriately wonderful, and Marion Cotillard is traditionally, by eye contact, properly inscrutable. It's not an exemplary hit, but it's filmmaking from a filmmaker who rarely gets it really wrong. It has all the classic filmmaking frameworks that meet at least the standard, plus an absolutely lavish form with at least three over-the-top sequences and a beautifully stylized Morocco set to Silvestri's music.

A prequel to American Beauty. Sensitively made, often very self-aware, but this adolescent romp, for all its under-the-skin atmosphere, doesn't entertain nearly as much as its two years older and more mature sibling.

Flipped is a heartwarming telling of a real-life story, where Rob Reiner, unlike the vast majority of American productions focusing on adult life wisdom exchanges, focuses on elementary school. It has an unwavering charm and a touch of melancholic nostalgia, atypically spiced up with the 1960s, full of prejudices and clichés. It went by fast and was a lot of fun.

The military rhetoric conveyed by Gavin Hood is clear, snappy and lucid, but it’s hard to say to what extent it is realistic, but it’s got pace and the build-up is good. If it weren't for the clichéd element in the middle of the film, this would have been a solid spy drama that combines some interesting attributes. Firstly, technological gadgets of all kinds, but also a political-legal level and a probe into the powers of political leaders. Alan Rickman is superb and Helen Mirren is good in a surprising badass role. I was also pleased with the fact that they got down to business and didn't just talk.

After fifteen years, I would have expected a far more marked evolutionary change than what I got. Nowadays, most of the big studios producing mainstream action heroes know that it's easier to do things in a team and the audience enjoys it. The new XXX came up with this idea and it has to be said that half of the squad is more interesting than the alpha man himself, who makes a few comments here and there, fights once or twice and that's about it. Tony Jaa and Donnie Yen don't have much room to stand out thanks to the hasty editing and confusion of the action scenes, and the girls are damn good at it, but the shooting doesn't quite work for them. We are willing to bend genre standards and boundaries, you know before you watch it that it's going to be dumb, but not many people expect it to be this stupid and badly made.