What’s it about?

Each year a Western Australian music festival hosts the same ensemble of die-hard performers and fans. Their stories leap forward every twelve months for three summers.

What we thought

Dan says: Imagine you remade ‘Love Actually’ but instead of being about love and promoting emotionally unhealthy relationships, it was about cultural tolerance and trying to be less of a dick. Ben Elton’s jokes are great. I cackled a lot, but it still feels like he’s directing an episode of Black Adder. Cameras are locked off and dialogue is awkwardly expository as he races for the next gag.

As with all ensemble pieces there’s just not enough time to bring any subtlety to the storytelling. Attempts at pathos feel unearned and he can’t make up his mind whether he wants to respect all cultures or mock them. Good jokes, but it feels like an opportunity to do something wondrous was missed.

What’s it about?
The God of Thunder finds himself weaponless and pitted against a new foe whose power seemingly knows no limit. Will teaming up with friends, old and new, be enough to overcome a goddess of death?

What did we think?
Anthony Sherratt says: Funny as bro!

What’s it about?
A 1959 seemingly perfect American town is rocked by both integration and murder, throwing doubts on just how perfect a place it is.

What did we think?
Anthony Sherratt says: Imagine a high-quality slow burner where half the plot seems to fizzle out. Well, actually you don’t need to imagine as it now has physical form in Suburbicon. It’s a dark look at the two ugly faces of white America told by two (nominally) interweaving tales in ‘classic America’. I want to call it a dark comedy but the laughs are few and often inspired unintentionally. It’s beautiful tonally but the two stories feel discordant rather than one large coherent one. Still, there’s a lot to like: the acting is top-shelf, Oscar Isaac nearly steals the entire movie, and it will definitely inspire discussion. But for me, the small predictables were going to be offset by a culmination of the stories coming together; an intertwining that sadly never occurred.

What’s it about?
30 years after the exploits of Roy Batty, rogue replicants continue to be retired by Blade Runners in rain soaked LA.

What did we think?
Stephen Scott says: Ridley Scott took the premise of Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and confronted us with its themes of evolution and identity. Villeneuve’s 2049 extrapolates and adds to those themes, enabling us to see things you people wouldn’t believe. If you’ve seen the original you have to watch this one. No review can do it justice.

5 Star Caveat: this movie will make little sense to those who haven’t seen the original. Watch Blade Runner The Final Cut (my recommendation, although all versions are OK according to Villeneuve) and if you want to be fully prepared, set aside 30 minutes to watch the trio of shorts created to fill in the blanks between 2019 and 2049.