Palatkik

Ordinary Love [2019] I might normally skip a movie with a title like this but this is quality Irish drama about an elderly married couple coming to terms with the wife's cancer, shows humor and emotions without the schmaltzy melodramatics more commonly dredged up from other movie studios.

Save Me Too [2020 TV series] Excellent 2nd Sky TV series to the original Save Me from 2018 about a father searching for his daughter lost to a child trafficking gang. The ending is more convincing than the first series and still leaves scope for more to come or maybe not?

Away [2019] Animated movie of a young man escaping a dark spirit on a motorbike. The unique minimalist style of this independent film maker is immediately entrancing and leaves you wanting more. Suitable for all the family.

The Whalebone Box [2020] A bizarrely wonderful British mix of images and sound about the magic of a whalebone box, in one of the most avant garde movies of the year that doesn't disappoint. Worth seeing.

Colette [2018] Good period drama biopic with good performances celebrates the bisexual French writer and mime artist Colette who began as a ghost writer for her manipulative and loser husband. Previously the story was told in the 1991 movie Becoming Colette, but this newer take provides a more sophisticated result.

Fantastic Fungi [2019] American made documentary film takes us on a visually impressive, uplifting and thought provoking ride into the wonderfully useful world of mycelium and its fruit the mushroom.

The Cave [2019] Danish-Syrian NatGeo award winning documentary highlights well the harsh realities of the work of some female doctors in an underground Syrian hospital bunker (the Cave) whilst the Russians and Syrian government bomb the heck out of the civilians above ground. Heavy going but worth seeing.

The Cave [2019] There were two films out in 2019 with this title, both now available online to download, the other a documentary about Syria, this the Thai drama based on the book The Miracle Of The Cave relating the true story of the youth football team trapped in a flooded Thai cave. As Thai movies go its just an okay summary of events, slapped together in a sloppy chronological fashion, with terribly wooden acting, especially from the low budget foreigners used. A global story of this magnitude of the period really deserves a world class screenplay in time to come perhaps.

Tracks [2013] Only just got around to watching this excellent road trip movie, based on the memoirs of real life Robyn Davidson's desire to escape her troubled past and walk across the Australian desert from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean with her pet dog and four camels, reluctantly agreeing to being sponsored by a NatGeo.

Official Secrets [2019] Excellent UK political drama based on the true story from 2003 of a GCHQ whistle blower questioning the legality of the Iraqi war.

Escape From Pretoria [2020] Based on a true story, this familiar genre prison escape movie has some tense moments throughout to elevate it beyond an otherwise mundane story. The accents are a bit dodgy and having Radcliffe in anything with Harry Potter glasses is always a risk, but somehow this doesn't matter and the movie succeeds.

Black and Blue [2019] Exciting crime drama of a rookie cop on the run from crooks and bent cops in the hood. Helped slightly by good lead whose done much better elsewhere, this is only really worth seeing to veg out to as the story is cheesy b movie level.

Little Joe [2019] Weird sci fi drama with a brilliantly unique feel about it makes it worth a look, about a separated mother who works as a geneticist and develops a flower that pollinate peoples minds to unwittingly change them in a creepy kind of way.

Dark Waters [2019] Powerful legal thriller, somewhat overly melodramatic at times, about the currently ongoing true story of an environmental lawyer who takes on the massive dark secret of unsafe chemical dumping by DuPont, which ultimately affects his whole family and future.

Finding Vivien Maier [2014] Fascinating documentary of the eccentric US spinster nanny with a dark side who, after her death in 2009, was discovered to have taken some of the best street photography of the late twentieth century in the US and briefly around the world including Thailand and now displayed in art galleries globally. Worth seeing.

Honeyland [2019] Award winning documentary without narrative of Europe's last successful nomadic beekeeper in North Macedonia who struggles when some opportunist neighbors show up to try their luck at collecting honey. Great cinematography enhances a predictable story.

Richard Jewell [2019] Another Eastwood movie that is done in his plain likable style aided by three fine performances, based on the true events of the vilified innocent security guard suspected in the press of the '96 Atlanta bombing.

White House Farm [2020 TV limited series] Well made 6 part TV series crime drama with a distinctive creepy lead of the main suspect in a true story from 1985 when five family members were murdered overnight at a farm in the UK. Worth seeing.

American Factory [2019] Award nominated Netflix documentary about a Chinese billionaire who opens a factory in an Ohio abandoned General Motors site, offers insight into the two cultures of China and the US workers trying to make it work.