The one quick to pick up, hard to put downTHE GUILTY (M)★★★★NETFLIXWhoa! This here is the perfect embodiment of how to ensure a little goes a long way. All you’re getting from The Guilty is the making and taking of phone calls by Jake Gyllenhaal. And yet, as we work through the hurried, high-stakes sequence of conversations haunting the headset of Gyllenhaal’s hyper-vigilant 911 emergency officer, the dark mystery that unfolds becomes all-consuming for any willing, worried viewers. To unleash the full power coursing through this movie (a very faithful remake of an astonishing 2018 Danish thriller of the same name) it is best to stagger into its forbidding storytelling maze with next to no advance information. All you need to know is that Gyllenhaal’s Joe Baylor is a decorated cop who has been banished to desk duty for reasons not disclosed. A distress call comes through from a woman who has been abducted by a former partner. What has happened in the lead-up to this incident – and what could be about to happen – must be methodically deducted by Joe with the very limited means at his disposal. As each minute ticks away, who Joe speaks to on the phone – and how he interprets what they are saying and not saying to him – become individual matters of life and death. Intrigued? You should be. Totally riveted? You will be.The one plugging into Austen’s powersEmma (PG)★★★½NETFLIX, FOXTELA sprightly adaptation of the time-honoured novel by Jane Austen. The movie goes big with the frilly bonnets, hooped dresses and starched collars, and is a small delight to marvel at for its attractive wardrobe work alone. Same goes for a frame-filling production design, which effortlessly transports us into the Austen universe. Anya Taylor-Joy does well in the title role, a capriciously meddlesome young matchmaker who will burning and rebuilding many romantic bridges throughout Austen’s characteristically busy tale.The one about a woman of stealI CARE A LOT (MA15+)★★★AMAZONYes, the title is ironic. To the absolute max. The mega-manipulative Marla (a chillingly sinister Rosamund Pike) does not care at all. Which is why she makes such a tidy stack of dollars tricking the elderly out of their life savings. Marla might have the perfect front for her crimes – she is a well-regarded court-appointed guardian – but she is definitely heading for the perfect comeuppance when her latest ‘victim’ (a wonderful Dianne Wiest) puts a call out to a well-connected acquaintance. Just who will come out on top in a bottom-feeding battle of wills is almost impossible to predict. This is a mercurial, mood-shifting movie that won’t accommodate all tastes, but will not be forgotten in a hurry courtesy of a brilliant Pike.The one that isn’t always a blast from the pastWONDER WOMAN 1984 (M)★★½NETFLIX, BINGE, FOXTELThis sequel to Wonder Woman’s billion-grossing origin story (released in 2017) is slightly sappier and far more crappier than its predecessor. However, at a mammoth 150 minutes plus, nobody can accuse the filmmakers of not giving fans every possible chance to worship their favourite lariat-twirling heroine. As the title implies, the movie is set smack-bang in the heart of the 1980s, where Wonder Woman’s glamourzon alter ego Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) is working as head anthropologist of the city’s leading museum. This puts her on a collision with a prototype Donald Trump named Maxwell Lord (played by Pedro Pascal), who is cornering the world’s oil market with a magic rock that grants all wishes in seconds flat. On and on this wonky, barely coherent tale goes, weakened further still by the wonky, barely expressive acting skills of the implausibly photogenic Ms Gadot. Co-stars Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig.The one going back to the future … and back againTENET (M)★★★BINGE, FOXTEL or RENTThis notoriously enigmatic affair from filmmaker Christopher Nolan (Inception, Interstellar) is propelled by the concept of ‘time inversion’, where both the past and the future can move in multiple directions. Therefore it is left to an unnamed agent (John David Washington) to stop a wily Russian oligarch (Kenneth Branagh) from summoning a tsunami of evil from the future that could exterminate the present forever. A movie always blowing you away, and then doing you over. Co-stars Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Michael Caine.The one with traffic to stop and chases to start21 BRIDGES (MA15+)★★★FOXTEL, NETFLIX or RENTA solid pulp crime thriller set across a single night on the streets of New York City. Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther) stars as Andre Davis, a complicated NYPD detective with an unfair rep for being a bit too trigger-happy on the job. Almost as soon as Davis is advised to stop with the pumping of lead into crooks, two mysterious gunmen start wasting cops left, right and centre. Our hard-pressed hero is given a single night to hunt down the perps and halt the carnage, courtesy of an unprecedented sealing off of the whole of Manhattan by city authorities. Co-stars J.K. Simmons, Sienna Miller.The one to stay right away fromBUDDY GAMES (MA15+)★AMAZON, FOXTEL or RENTIf you somehow missed The Hangover – or its two shoddy sequels, or its many inane imitators – then you might be vaguely enticed by the bro-tastic, bad-taste-ish hijinks promised by Buddy Games. Don’t be fooled. This dire excursion into dirty-minded dip-stickery pushes around a few small piles of filth in various directions, in the vain hope laughter will suddenly happen. It does not. The story centres on a bunch of lifelong friends who need to cheer up a good buddy who on the brink of ending it all. To put it politely, he just hasn’t been the same since, umm, losing his manhood in a paintballing accident. So his old crew come to the rescue by resuscitating the Buddy Games: an Olympics for morons, in which events may call for the deliberate consumption of laxatives, the accidental consumption of bodily fluids, the indiscriminate abuse of animals, and the select harassment of women. Even if Covid-19 wasn’t about at the moment, you’d still want to be wearing a mask while watching this. Starring Josh Duhamel, Dax Shepard, and the bloke who used to be Johnny Drama in Entourage.
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