Another month, another round up of bitesize reviews! Much of this month’s movies were either nominated for or won awards at this years BAFTAs and/or Academy Awards (among other awards), so there are a few certainly worth lending your time to, and others, not so much. We have a mix of genres, from sci-fi to horror, romance to comedy, so plenty for everyone!

March’s TTRs consists of: The After, American Fiction, The Creator, Damsel, El Conde, Love At First Sight, May/December, Napoleon, Talk To Me, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, This is Me… Now and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.

Director: Misan Harriman
Writer: John Julius Schwabach, Misan Harriman
Cast: David Oyelowo, Jessica Plummer, Amelie Dokubo

A short film telling a snippet of a story in which a man has to deal with the loss of his wife and child as well as the traumatic way in which they died. The circumstances of their deaths are quite wild, to say the least, to the point of being too unrealistic, and then the way in which Dayo (Oyelowo) goes on with his life feels too heavy to really convey in such a short amount of run time. It’s hard to understand what the filmmakers were after in making a short film about such a strong subject, but it will hold your interest for the whole eighteen minutes.

Director: Cord Jefferson
Writer: Cord Jefferson, Percival Everett
Cast: Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams, Adam Brody, Keith David, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown, Myra Lucretia Taylor

One of the best films of the year, American Fiction follows author Thelonius ‘Monk’ Ellison (Wright) and his growing disdain over the way Black experiences are exploited for entertainment, often stereotypically, and Black creators are patronised. While navigating extreme changes in his personal life and within his family, he writes a satirical novel under a pseudonym. This film is incredibly well written and performed, with Wright giving an Oscar-worthy performance (I personally wanted Brown to win Best Supporting Actor) and Jefferson’s screenplay earning numerous accolades. It’s comical, emotional, dramatic, and satirical. A very well-rounded film that is very well-deserving of all the attention it garnered.

Director: Gareth Edwards
Writer: Gareth Edwards, Chris Weitz
Cast: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney, Ken Watanabe

These days, it can be hard to create a film that focuses on a somewhat dystopian future that involves AI, because they’re a dime a dozen. The Creator, truth be told, is not particularly unique or original in that sense. Humans and robots are at war, and Joshua (Washington) is tasked with finding a weapon that is built to look like a young child. This film is lengthy and saturated with CGI that it relies upon a lot.The characters aren’t particularly interesting, and the performances are a little weak at times. Having said that, if dystopian movies involving robots are your thing, you’ll likely get something out of it, and the emotional journey that Joshua goes on makes up for the film’s shortcomings (a little).

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writer: Dan Mazeau
Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Ray Winstone, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright, Brooke Carter, Robin Wright, Milo Twomey

Starring one of the most sought-after actors of her generation, Damsel has Brown in the lead role of Elodie, a girl set to marry a prince only to unknowingly be sacrificed to a dragon. It has an interesting premise, but the whole thing is rather poorly executed. Much of the film is Brown screaming for minutes on end, and the character of Elodie is missing something to really connect her with the audience. The plot could have definitely gone down more interesting avenues and the characters given more depth, and frankly this film is below Brown’s acting abilities. It will likely entice a YA audience, or adults that prefer more of a YA setting, but for your average adult, it’s a miss.

Director: Pablo Larraín
Writer: Pablo Larraín, Guillermo Calderón
Cast: Jaime Vadell, Gloria Münchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger, Stella Gonet, Catalina Guerra, Amparo Noguera, Antonia Zegers

Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell), the infamous Chilean dictator, is a vampire. He has lived for 250 years (originating in France), and now wishes to be permanently dead. His children are after his wealth, and a young nun arrives to kill him. But Pinochet won’t go easily. It’s a strange but entertaining and humorous story with lots of clear influences from classic cinema, such as Nosferatu (1922) and The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), with perhaps a hint of more modern cinema like What We Do in the Shadows (2014). The visual effects are great and the black and white coloring gives it a classical feel. It’s likely to be an ‘acquired taste’ kind of film, but there’s lots here to enjoy.

Director: Vanessa Caswill
Writer: Katie Lovejoy, Jennifer E. Smith
Cast: Haley Lu Richardson, Ben Hardy, Rob Delaney, Jameela Jamil, Sally Phillips, Dexter Fletcher, Tom Taylor, Katrina Nare

This film really pleasantly surprised me. Hadley (Richardson) and Oliver (Hardy) meet at JFK airport, both making their way to London. They form a connection that could easily be lost if they don’t make the effort to make their “fateful” meeting mean something. I was in the mood for a non-cheesy light romance movie (not an easy thing to find) of a Sunday evening, and Love at First Sight really hit that sweet spot. I love the way it was framed and the addition of a “fate” character, played by Jamil, pushing the characters in the right direction but leaving the ultimate decisions to them. It’s the perfect movie for those who like to believe in some kind of universal “plan” while also being responsible for their own actions, but it also has good depth that goes beyond the two main characters (depth that will really hit home for some people, certainly for me). Highly recommend.

Director: Todd Haynes
Writer: Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
Cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, Gabriel Chung, Elizabeth Yu

Based on a true story, Portman plays Elizabeth, an actress who is set to portray Moore’s Gracie in a film about her controversial life, in which she began a relationship and had children with a minor and, once he was older and she was out of prison, married him. The film contains undertones of understanding for Gracie and her husband Joe (Melton), but considering Gracie’s actions and inability to see how wrong they were, the overtones of blame and dislike are far more appealing to the audience. Even Elizabeth, who is closer to Joe’s age, attempts to understand Gracie’s point of view and goes to the extreme with her research. The story itself is indeed a controversial one, but the production itself is strange, too, with the music, while jarring, sounding odd in certain scenes, and the performances often coming across as robotic. The true story of Mary Kay Letourneau is a bizarre one to choose to make a movie out of, but here we are.

Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: David Scarpa
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Rupert Everett, Mark Bonnar, Paul Rhys, Ben Miles

Ridley Scott is back with another dramatised biopic, this time taking us to the late 18th/early 19th centuries in which Napoleon Bonaparte (Phoenix) rises to power. Behind the scenes of his ascension is his tumultuous relationship with  Joséphine de Beauharnais (Kirby), who is a constant support to Napoleon, even after he is eventually overthrown. The film is indeed epic, showcasing much of Napoleon’s successful battles and conquering of multiple countries, but doesn’t shy away from the devestating conseqeuences of the emperor who craved power. It is a long film and quite dense with dialogue and political friction, not to mention a mish-mash of accents making it difficult to believe in many of the scenes, but it’s an interesting watch that digs espeically deep into Napoleon’s marriage with and subsequent divorce from Joséphine (Kirby does rather outshine Phoenix in many of their scenes together).

Director: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Writer: Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman, Daley Pearson
Cast: Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji, Miranda Otto, Zoe Terakes

As horror films go, this is a great one. A group of teens find themselves in possession of an embalmed hand that, when held and certain words are uttered, presents the holder with a spirit to talk to. Of course, all starts to go wrong when one young man becomes possessed, and the teens must find a way to bring his soul back and exorcise the spirits. It’s definitely got some terrifying and shocking scenes, with intense performances and strong back stories for some of the characters that get entangled with the supernatural aspects. If you’re looking for something scary for a movie night, you could do a lot worse than Talk to Me (a prequel and sequel are in the works, which I hope will also be great).

Director: Sam Wrench

I am a self-confessed Swiftie. Not an intense Swiftie, but for the past 18 years an on-and-off (currently very much ON) Swiftie nonetheless. To that end, the five-stars I’ve given to The Eras Tour is surely very biased, however I think the majority of people, Swiftie or not, can’t argue that our Tay knows how to put on a show, and her Eras show tops them ALL. The production is very story-like, following her albums through the years, and the intermittent dancing and showmanship is incredibly entertaining. To top it all off, the energy and stamina this woman has in INCREDIBLE. She performs to the highest standard consistently, making it look easy. This is the next best thing to seeing the show in person (third best thing if you include standing outside a stadium while she performs, I imagine), and you can enjoy it in comfort if that’s your bag, or invite some friends over for a proper Eras party.

Director: Dave Meyers
Writer: Jennifer Lopez, Matt Walton, Dave Meyers
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Fat Joe, Ben Affleck, Matthew Law, Brandon Delsid, Alix Angelis, Malcolm Kelner, Ashley Versher, Danielle Larracuente, Gilbert Saldivar

Working as a movie tie-in to her latest album This Is Me… Now, an album that is a “sequel” to her 2002 album This Is Me… Then, J.Lo loosely recounts her life between her intial relationship with Ben Affleck in the early 2000s, through her relationships highs and lows, to the present, in which she has rekindled her romance with Affleck and ended up married to him. There are many artists who could make such a film and have it come across as self-serving and arrogant, but Lopez is able to put across a sense of her own personal truth to this artsy movie that showcases her new songs, as well as throw in a plotline that can be familiar to many people. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s entertaining and breathes life into Lopez’s music career that has been fairly quiet over the past decade.

Director: Wes Anderson
Writer: Wes Anderson
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, Ralp Fiennes, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade

Roald Dahl’s stories are always fun for kids and interesting for adults, with imaginative characters that entertain and also teach lessons. In this short film of one of Dahl’s more interesting stories, in which Henry Sugar (Cumberbatch), a wealthy man, hears of a guru (Kingsley) who, after years of practice of a particular kind of yoga, gained the ability to see with his eyes closed. Henry decides he wishes to learn this talent so he can make more money through gambling. The production is eye-catching, with its seamless scene changes and illustrious scenery boosting the fantastical nature of the story. The performances are slick and characters wonderfully cast with excellent British actors that really give it that “Dahl” feel. Having won Best Live Action Short Film and the Oscars, it’s definitely one to give a little of your time to.