The Brass Teapot (2012)

The Brass Teapot (2012)
Rating: ★★
Jul 5, 2013Magic Teapot That Produces Money When People Are Hurt
Comedy with a head-scratching premise where a couple discover a teapot that produces money whenever they hurt themselves. Such a loopy premise could work as a black comedy but this plays itself as a frothy light fantasy

Maleficent (2014)

Maleficent (2014)
Rating: ★★
May 31, 2014Live-Action Prequel to Disney's Sleeping Beauty
Another in the early 2010s fad for fairytales rewritten as dark adult fantasy films – in this case, a version of Disney's Sleeping Beauty (as opposed to the original fairytale version) told from the viewpoint of the witch. Nicely produced, not much substance – the most interesting parts are when it gets to mess around with the fairytale

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
Rating: ★★★½
Aug 23, 2014Graphic Novel Adaptation/Ultra-Violent Film Noir Tales
Robert Rodriguez makes his return to Frank Miller's classic film noir-styled graphic novels. You keep expecting this to hit in with the astonishing freshness the first film did. Rodriguez and Miller give us more of the same amazing visuals but there is the feeling it is no longer original and new

Unsane (2018)

Unsane (2018)
Rating: ★★★
Oct 12, 2018Woman Wrongly Incarcerated in an Asylum with Her Stalker
Steven Soderbergh shoots a film on an iPhone. Claire Foy is wrongly incarcerated in an asylum only to be followed by a stalker posing as an orderly where her pleas for help taken as evidence of delusion

Maleficent, Mistress of Evil (2019)

Maleficent, Mistress of Evil (2019)
Rating: ★★★
Jan 11, 2020Sleeping Beauty Continuation
Nobody much liked Maleficent but did make a reasonable amount of money, hence we get this sequel. The surprise is that in the hands of Norwegian director Joachim Rønning, it is far better than anything one expected