Nominees
Blackbird (US 14)
Delirium (Argentina 14)
Eat with me (US 14)
Last Weekend (US 14)
Magic Mike XXL (US 15)
Winner
Magic Mike XXL 
How to make sex boring and like most of its co-nominees you want to ask “Why did they bother?” Delirium and Last Weekend ran it close.
General Comments
A wide range of films this year of a fairly even quality. Very little of greatness and very little at the other end of the scale but it is fait to say that for all their watchability at the time, not so many films would stand too many repeat viewings. A telling factor. Why? A lack of freshness perhaps, a lack of the inspiration that lifts films out of the ordinary. Rather more like the triumph of good intentions over cinematographic rigour and style.
The year featured films from: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Holland, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Uruguay, USA. US dominates yet again in terms of production with France and Britain level-pegging well behind and Argentina also in double figures. The range of countries is similar to last year with some additions and some disappearances.
Award nominations are led by: Leviathan and Mommy with 6 nominations, Dans la Maison and Interstellar with 5, 4 for Two Days One Night. Phoenix, La Isla Minima, Calvary, Drown, Viva la Libertá, Living is easy with eyes closed and Birdman all get 3. A big spread through other films too.
Comments on films that didn’t make the cut yet deserve a mention:
Pride – heartfelt portrayal of a gay pride group siding with the miners in 80’s Britain.
Men, women and children – thoughtful story about family communication in this decade
Foxhunter– good cast but just slipped into oblivion.
Siete Cajas – low-key Paraguayan suspense film which was remarkably fresh and exciting.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist – another film with plenty of talent which didn’t hold up in the memory.
The Giver – one of the better US teen dystopian movies.
Relatos Salvajes – had some excellent scenes but failed in the consistency test. Nevertheless, a close run
Promised Land – made you think but too much Mid-West corn
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Great cast but it added virtually nothing to the first episode
Child 44 – slow in parts but good acting and scene setting in Stalinist Russia.
Danny Collins – Best Al Pacino in years
The Water Diviner – better studio style major than I expected.
Mr Holmes – even Ian McKellen can’t lift this.
En la gama de los grises – honest and attractive small Chilean film
Les heritiers – Freedom Writers a la francaise. Doesn’t quite make it despite all the intentions
I was bored for the first half of this film but it picked up towards the end. Another variation on The Time Traveller’s wife, it is the story of Adaline Bowman who due to a road accident has “frozen” in time at 29 years old. She never ages and changes her identity every ten years to avoid being hassled.
Her only link with the past is with her daughter (Ellen Burstyn), who is now a senior citizen. 
What a life! She keeps a low profile to avoid falling in love but meets Ellis, a rich young startup company mogul from San Francisco and falls in love. Even stranger is that when she meets his father she realises he is an ex-flame. 
As I said, the first half which is mainly setting up drags but when Harrison Ford as the old love appears, things begin to become more intriguing. Even so, it falls short of a being a very good film with some messy flashbacks and an overall air of a Nicholas Sparks book, ie, too unreal for words. Blake Lively is adequate but nothing more as Adaline, Michiel Huisman is fine as the beau
but it is the veterans who breathe life into this with Ford,
in particular doing a good job.
★★+
This Canadian-Italian film is basically aimed at the younger market. Teenager Luke (Dakota Goyo)
lives up in Hudson Bay and one day a polar bear mother and cub end up at his house. The rangers come and take the mother away, flying her back out to the wilderness but as they didn’t find the cub, Luke decides he has to reunite them. With the on-off help of a local called Muktuk (Goran Visnjic)
who is regarded as the best tracker in the area and very connected to the Inuit, he sets off into the snow and ice to do this. Of course, all sorts of calamities befall him: arctic storms, ice breaking off and his own stupidity.
But it makes for good entertainment if not especially realistic story telling. One imagines the first problem would probably have killed him but Lucky Luke manages to get past the lot. The film is both exciting and tugs at the heart strings but I guess we all knew that. 
Photography of the natural scenery is spectacular, the music a little too obvious and the script rather predictable. I quite liked it all the same and the ecological message is a good one.
★★★
Veteran director Ridley Scott goes epic once again to tell us the story of Moses and how he led 40,000 of his people who had been slaves in Egypt, across the Red Sea and back to their promised land. It is a self-conscious piece of moviemaking with plenty of CGI effects including a tsunami
that begs all belief and plagues of locusts, etc.
There are battles and chases all in the style of The Lord of the Rings. There are weighty scenes between the main characters and an 11 year-old boy as the mouthpiece of God. It’s undoubtedly been painstakingly thought out but it lacks real spark. Some of it drags and while there is enough to keep you going just, the overall effect is not that of an uplifting movie.
Christian Bale is an interesting Moses, strong and determined but also very taciturn,
Joel Edgerton as his rival Ramses is also somewhat limited in characterisation but this points mostly to the heavy script.
Not what it could have been but rather an attempt at epic movie making that lacked the subtle touches to shine.
★★+
The title sums it up pretty well. An Argentine spoof on a group of three friends 
who decide to make it rich by filming an Indie movie. They trick Ricardo Darín, the country´s number one film actor
into performing in the film but then things start to go seriously wrong and end up in a chain of unpredictable events affecting the entire nation. Locals will enjoy some of the references and the cameos from famous locals including Susana Gimenez as President. But there is too much slack here 
– a rather too obvious script, a lack of slickness in the direction and the inability of the younger actors to convey the humour.
I was quite happy when it ended but it is not totally bereft of positive features.
★+
This Irish film has won both plaudits and critical reviews worldwide. It is basically a morality tale crossed with a whodunit concerning a priest in Sligo who receives a death threat and whose world, in the course of a week, starts falling apart. 
The portrayal of this rural parish with the locals all seemingly misfits or sinners can be rather forced at times (when are we going to see someone normal and uncomplicated?) but on the other hand, the blend pulls you in and with the excellent acting of Brendan Gleeson
in the lead role, the end result is one that is intellectually challenging and quite sadly haunting. The centre of the moral question is to what extent is a priest responsible for the hurt caused to others and to what extent must he help to contain them in their suffering. You have those who have been abused as children, the abandoned, the spiritually empty, 
those who seek refuge in drugs, violence or sex and those who are simply scared. Quite a cocktail and with explosive Irish tempers we get a number of chilling scenes as well as a number of confessional moments that are indeed poignant.
I did feel that John Michael McDonagh’s film was born out of a stage play format but with Larry Smith’s beautiful widescreen photography, the combination of country and people is managed well. Nevertheless, there is a sense that most of the scenes are dialogues. Kelly Reilly 
and Chris O’Dowd do well in supporting roles and the music by Patrick Cassidy accompanies the film well. A good overall achievement.
★★★★+
Part two of the Divergent series. Hard to get too excited about this. Has some good action scenes, a personable and plucky heroine (Shailene Woodley), a cute hero (Theo James)
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and an effective villainess (Kate Winslet).
We even get Naomi Watts making an appearance. Some cute simulations and visual effects towards the end.
The lack of a coherent and convincing story is what prevents this from becoming more than attractive wallpaper. 
Little if any character development.
★★
Largely unheralded Aussie independent film about a destructive night out involving three surf life-savers. Len (outstanding Matt Levett)
is the club hero and winner of the best lifesaver award for the last few years. 
He is also the bearer of various secrets including abuse as a youngster, the haunting memory of a drowning woman he could not save and a latent attraction to men. Hence, the arrival of a very able gay lifesaver threatens him. A night out on the binge with Phil, the new rival 
and his old mate Meat, turns out to be a sick, violent and completely out of control experience which shows just how vicious and dangerous bullies can be. Deftly told in a series of flashbacks, Dean Francis makes keeps the suspense going right to the end, ably assisted by Ian Kitney’s music. The acting is uniformly good and Harry Cook as Meat
and Jack Matthews match Levett all the way. Dean Francis is also behind the camera and shoots this low budget movie in a way that belies its cost and seems much more expensive. It is not a pleasant film but one that rings true as regards the macho attitude of this world and one that has a lot to say about the way we try to exert our power over others and why sometimes we give into that. My only criticism is that it could have been a little shorter.
★★★★+
Latest in a long line of school films and how to turn around the worst class in the college. The French have a whole dynasty of these and this is the latest. 
Anne Gueguen is a history teacher in a suburban Parisian school and the only way to get her dysfunctional multiracial class to work is to enter them in a contest about children and teenagers in the Nazi concentration camps.
Of course, the beginning is chaotic but slowly the students begin to work together and get some perspective on their lives. 
Basically it is Freedom Writers all over again and perhaps not as effective.
What I liked about the film was the general context of disinterest in school and the idea that you get by as you can. The scenes of teacher frustration seemed very real universally today and show how alienated most students are within the educational system. Some of the scenes investigating the holocaust are moving and this teacher (played effectively by Ariane Ascaride but without any frills)
brings in a survivor to talk to the students. However, many other issues relating to the students own struggles in their everyday lives are left aside and for me the film is poorer for this. As they progress towards an inevitable place in the finals of the competition, the movie loses the bite it starts with and ends up being a relatively pedestrian affair. A shame really as it had the potential to be something much more. 
Pretty well acted and produced, this is a watchable movie but has nothing to lift it into a higher league.
★★★
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