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Sisters makes me feel awkward as a reviewer. I’ve been putting off this piece of writing for the past week because the thought of it just seemed stressful. Maybe it’s a process that I have to go through - maybe it will be a formative experience in writing for all future film reflections. That would be a tad anticlimactic though, because it’s hardly about a significant piece of cinema. I’ve decided that Sisters is not that good of a film, but that’s only really because I have to think about these things. I also remember in watching it that I was quite happily chuckling, so I guess that means I enjoyed it. So what should I tell you, fine reader?

two and a half out of five

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Jennifer Lawrence is fascinating to watch holding a film together. Joy gives her plenty to do in this regard, as a young single mother entrepreneur struggling to see her ambitious ideas realised. It’s an uphill battle that sees her broken, triumphant, hopeful, defeated, determined, hopeless - all the emotional trappings that come with passionately engaging in business. But what should be an inspiring and fulfilling is endlessly frustrating tin the people around her. Joy’s family is so manipulative and selfish that they turn into her biggest obstacle. She never really overcomes them either, just appeases them, and it’s like watching her beating her head against a brick wall.

three out of five

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You do not need me to tell you to go and see this film. You probably do not need me to tell you why it’s great. I wasn’t raised on Star Wars, but this instalment has the extreme fandom and the devotion making sense to me - it is powerful, exhilarating and emotive cinema, loyal to the fans that made it. I had forgotten that the power of Star Wars is in how ‘cinematic’ it aims to be. In the ripping story and the awesome spectacle it is just such a good time that you crave more.

four out of five

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The agenda of Truth is that truth cannot be free of agenda. Get your head around that one. It laments an ideal of journalism in which the questions are asked to seek the truth rather than to satisfy a sound grab, and when asking the question was more important than covering the asses of the network. Dan Rather stood as a pillar of this type of journalism, a journalism that turned him into a national treasure as he read the news each evening and threw caution to the wind to make sure he found the story. Behind him were countless similarly minded media professionals who were responsible for the news in a different way - they formulated and pitched the ideas for stories, chased them from every angle, organised, verified, scheduled, produced, edited - it takes an army and many, many hours to prepare just one story for Dan Rather to tell on a show like 60 Minutes. For so much hard work to be met with such division and scrutiny, for an important story to potentially launch or end the careers of an entire news team, for the landscape of journalism to be so swamped in private bias and corruption; the telling of these great complexities through an intimate lens makes Truth an audacious and impressive film.

three and a half out of five

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A better film will probably be made about Lance Armstrong. The man said it himself in his confessional with Oprah, that the story was “so perfect for so long… and it wasn’t true.” Maybe its a touch too soon to expect the film that this story warrants - The Program is a capable and engaging account of what Lance Armstrong ‘did’, from the allegations detailed in journalist David Walsh’s book 7 Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong. But in stopping the story here, at this focused but limited perspective, feels thin in the end. I mean, we are talking about a revolution of sportsman, someone so inspiring and powerful knowingly operating under a sham, only to become the face of a vast institutional corruption and cheating scheme. It’s not often that I would rather see a movie extended into a three-hour epic, but considering this operatic true story, its characters, and its implications makes The Program feel more of a dramatic reenactment.

three out of five

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How good was Skyfall? I am so completely for that movie. I mean, Spectre could definitely be worse, but it is still a pretty big fall. For all the sleek and beautiful design, and the huge, huger and hugest explosions throughout the action, this film cannot escape the fact that it is built around a hammy and ludicrous plot. Sounds like a traditional Bond then? Well, James Bond is meant to harness those silly foundations with a wink and roll it into pure entertainment, and here the plot is like a dead weight dragging the writers, director and actors down from some sort of grand moment that they are inexplicably aiming for. Skyfall was miraculous in that they made it - the narrative was sold so convincingly and the payoffs at the end were brilliant and affecting, and with Spectre we just feel kinda tired.

three out of five

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It’s tough when you sit through a movie knowing exactly what it is going for and having to accept just how far from it the film is landing. I respect Angelina Jolie Pitt a great deal, and I feel that she’s come to this project with ideas, passion and self-belief - I think what was missing was a next-level curiosity. If we came out at the end of the film with some unexpected insight, or an appreciation of the depth of exploration, or just something that feels meaningful, then we may be more forgiving of the strenuous viewing experience. Alas, By the Sea basically amounts to a thorough misfire; quietly stylish, but based upon an incomplete thought.

two out of five

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I hate titles like this and what they represent - splitting this movie into two parts was, frankly, a disservice to fans of the series, who have otherwise been very well catered to. The quality of the franchise has always been a few steps above expectations of the genre and origins - until Mockingjay - Part 1 saw the progression of events slow to a stutter, drawing out each piece of information for maximum run time. It was a money grab. Thankfully, Part 2 is a return to form - we return once again to scenes of grave importance, thematic depth and, finally, resolution. To be sure, it suffers also from a screenplay that draws out each detail and gives focus to a number of boring little subplots and ideas, but in its closing chapter The Hunger Games feels ballsy enough to play out its themes strongly. For a Young Adult franchise the relevance to real world human suffering is scarily present, and director Francis Lawrence is not afraid to make the parallels.

three out of five

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You imagine that investigators have a necessary degree of distance from their work for their own sanity - an emotional divorce of sorts to get through the brutality they are presented with. In Secret in Their Eyes that standard is shattered for a group of rising L.A. detectives when they arrive at a case to find the corpse of one of their own children. For the mother, Jess (Julia Roberts), her entire life is destroyed, but for her colleague and friend Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) his path is altered as the event awakens a crusade for justice in a dangerous political environment. What begins with a hunch turns into a pursuit for persecution over thirteen tormenting years, accompanied with an unrequited longing for a new attorney Claire (Nicole Kidman).

three and a half out of five

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