Nymphomaniac (Lars Von Trier, 2013)

Four hours in the convivial company of his muse Charlotte Gainsbourg as she recounts her history of sexual addiction to a sympathetic ear in the form of Stellan Skarsgård is probably Von Trier's biggest test of the tolerance of his audience to date. He proves beyond any doubt this time, with the almost autistically abrasive and damaged woman's actions through the encounters of the years, that the misogyny he has so often been accused of is real, seeing women as both victims and predators, but the misogyny is exceeded by his misandry. Skarsgård comes out best with his attempts to understand her behaviour through fishing metaphors, but essentially all the men involved are dumb animals completely in thrall to their cocks. Von Trier understands some fundamental and unpalatable things about human nature, but you really wouldn't want to live life through his eyes.

6/10

The Monuments Men (George Clooney, 2014)

The previous collaboration of co-screenwriter and co-producer Grant Heslov with Clooney, 2009's The Men Who Stare at Goats, was something of a mess: a war comedy setting its stall out as being inspired by real events and characters, aiming for satire and largely missing the mark. The historical foundation here, with a bunch of ageing art specialists put together by the Allies to save treasures looted by the Nazis as the war draws to a close,  is certainly closer to fact, and the humour less forced, but it's far from the required verisimilitude all the same, either in detail or gravity. This also means it doesn't provide a convincing answer to the question it puts forward at the end, i.e. who will remember or care thirty years later what they did. And unfortunately once again, with Americans at the helm, the role of the other Allies ends up being slighted, a few token figures thrown in briefly to make up the numbers. It seems to want to allude to the irreverent fun of Inglourious Basterds while having an earnest message, and just ends up falling between the two stools.

5/10

Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)

There was no need for Jarmusch as well to hop on the vampire bandwagon, but the results are nevertheless entertaining.Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton make an engaging pair of louche immortals and the film oozes style as well as humour, with their core problem reduced to run-of-the-mill domestic disputes. Most refreshingly, not only are the usual religious or super-powered stock ingredients completely absent, but so too is gore, as the couple have seized on the availability of black-market blood with evident relief, so they no longer have to do something as uncivilised as killing people. It's a shot in the arm to a tired genre.

7/10

Transcendence (Wally Pfister, 2014)

The Dark Knight cinematographer Pfister has the support of Christopher Nolan behind the scenes for his directorial debut, but this is an anaemic affair by comparison, with ransacking aplenty of Lawnmower Man, Demon Seed and Her, while falling short of all three because its pretensions overreach its logic. Much is made of the logic of machines versus the contradictory nature of  humankind as Johnny Depp is uploaded into a computer before his death, but there is nothing logical about the story arc from there on, with the now-omnipotent Depp setting out to rule the world through nanotechnology. In a rather reactionary twist against technology as an affront to God, it falls to survivalist rednecks to bring him down.

4/10

Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)

Haneke's grim tomes are somewhat of an acquired taste with their relentless pessimism about the state of the world, pervasive estrangement and man's inhumanity to man, but this is different. Yes, an old man having to look after his wife after she suffers a stroke does not invoke cheer, but it is a genuine representation of the love of the title nevertheless and rings true, most likely because it's actually largely based on the director's own experience.
Jean-Louis Trintignant, coaxed out of retirement for this, puts as much commitment into the role as the husband does to his wife's care in the face of her inexorable decline. There is a drawn-out focus on the minutiae of life as being both part of what makes it worthwhile and also its banality. When even these minutiae are not manageable any more as another stroke reduces her to a helpless baby, it's an unbearable assault on human dignity. It is a sincere attempt to make us see people's real pain, and for once Haneke cannot be accused of sensationalism. See it when you feel sorry for yourself over trifles: it won't cheer you up, but it does lend a sense of perspective few films manage.

8/10

Locke (Steven Knight, 2013)

Tom Hardy plays Ivan Locke, a construction manager hitting a crossroads in his life the night before a huge project, as he discovers an extramarital one-night stand he had the year before has come back to haunt him. The whole film is the camera pointed at him and no-one else, as he drives through the night trying to put things right even as they unravel. it sounds like the stuff of filmic nightmares, with not even the manoeuvering room of a stage play, and it is, but only in that there's no way of honestly making a man's disintegration pretty. This is Hardy's best role to date, with real meat: his attempts to justify his work and personal lives to each other with increasingly pained comparisons between the two are quite heart-breaking to watch before long.

8/10

The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam, 2013)

Gilliam goes back to his personal dystopian near-future where all things around the protagonist are grotesquely distorted to satirise modern life in extremis. The estimable Christoph Waltz is somewhat wasted in the midst of the pandemonium as a reclusive computer genius tasked with working out the equation that holds the meaning of life: it's not that there aren't touches of Gilliam's trademark imaginings which just about keep it going, but rather that the question is whether the film deserves to. It's Brazil all over again, even down to stand-ins for all the personae around the appalled little guy caught in the cogs of a giant machine, and as such can only frustrate.

5/10

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Marc Webb, 2014)

Not so much as sequel of the reboot as a retread, this has Peter and Gwen continuing their interminably on-off relationship while a new villain in the form of Jamie Foxx's Electro turns up. There's some guff about what really happened to the hero's parents, i.e. the corporate conspiracy model, and then it's to wisecracking which is barely audible at times over the thunderous CGI. The fights seem to be capable of reducing all supposedly diverse superpowers to roughly the same: everyone has ultra-fast reflexes, unnatural strength and things to shoot at each other. It's the same as everyone in the movies knowing martial arts these days and would be such a nice change if the villain were a myopic weed or something. I digress, but then there's really nothing more to say about these films. It's as efficiently put together as its counterparts, the quips are fine and the two young leads soldier on gamely. Nuff said.

4/10

The Double (Richard Ayoade, 2013)

After his very assured directorial debut with 2010's coming-of-age comedy Submarine, Ayoade inspires enough trust that it's no surprise to discover his take on Dostoyevsky's hallucinatory parable a highly proficient one. Jesse Eisenberg of The Social Network et al. is good casting, naturally stronger with his gawkishness as the weaker half of the identical pair, though that is fitting too as its the loser who is our eyes and point of entry into the nightmare. But it's perhaps the look of it which is the real star: Brazil without the relief of the brighter interludes, an Orwellian existence hyperrealistically drab enough that the sudden appearance of unironically dreadful Finnish tango stalwart Danny as a nightclub singer stakes overt claim to kinship with Kaurismäki. This makes perfect sense, particularly as the poker-faced auteur started his own career with an adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Anyway, more of the same, please.

7/10

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Anthony & Joe Russo, 2014)

Round two of the super-patriot's own series and there's an inkling that some of the discomfort Americans must feel about their role in the world is seeping in even here. Or perhaps naturally here, since the character is so ludicrously anachronistic, that there's just no keeping out some references to it, even if they do tend to be along the lines of literal comments on the Cap being a man out of his time. Well, the franchise must be protected and so you can laugh with him, as long as he's in on the joke.
That said, this is better than the first part, just because it's darker, with a proper U.S. Government-infesting conspiracy going on rather than just the cartoon Nazis. Of course, darkness does not equal depth, but it does at least occasionally fool willing viewers into believing it might.

5/10