Films: August 19 - 25

Infinitely Polar Bear (2014)

The Day Will Dawn (1942) 

The Years Between (1946)

Nightmare Alley (1947)

The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)

Colossal (2017)

Attraction (2017)

Attraction 2: Invasion (2020) 

Shadow In The Cloud (2020)

The Boy (2016) ///

Infinitely Polar Bear (2014) Bipolar Mark Ruffalo is a striking and confounding presence as a father battling to care for two daughters while estranged wife Zoe Saldana studies to be a lawyer. Intensely personal, authentic and emotional, an acute mix of comedy and drama, affectingly performed.

The Day Will Dawn (1942) Initially reluctant reporter Hugh Williams is drawn into efforts to repel scheming Nazis from a remote Norwegian village. Finely produced piece of wartime flag-waving, with an expansive cast including heroic Deborah Kerr and imperious Ralph Richardson.

The Years Between (1946) Resilient Valerie Hobson takes on a political life when husband Michael Redgrave is reported dead during the war. When he is found alive, they must re-evaluate post-war values. Until Flora Robson's unity speech, a solid, involving drama of changing society.

Nightmare Alley (1947) Individual sequences retain a dark, cruel power even if the narrative flow feels fragmented. Tyrone Power is the carnival barker who achieves fame as a charlatan spiritualist before spiralling into physical and mental depths. Sadistically cynical, shadows of the soul.

The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021) Elegantly costumed and burnished with evocative, rich visuals, modern day, remote journalist Felicity Jones uncovers Shailene Woodley's illicit 60s romance and frustrated chance to escape. Always involving without piercing any emotional truths.

Colossal (2017) Awkwardly and deliberately self-aware in an effort to be idiosyncratic, as a lost Anne Hathaway finds memories and issues physically conjure up a Godzilla-like monster in Japan. Only fitfully entertaining despite committed performances that reach for insight never realized.

Attraction (2017) Technically polished with a visual swoon to storytelling, even if there's not much to say. After a spacecraft crashes in Moscow, rebellious Irina Starshenbaum falls for the alien visitor as authorities and society go to hell. Well choreographed, numbingly dumb.

Attraction 2: Invasion (2020) Apart from a few arresting visuals, a sequel that compensates for the original's relative simplicity with an impenetrable narrative of little logic and even less feeling. The alien returns, the heroine escapes, there's little menace to alleged threat.

Shadow In The Cloud (2020) A combative Chloë Grace Moretz is forced to battle sexism, Japanese fighters and gremlins on board a WW2 bomber above the Pacific. Building from intimate claustrophobia, a frenetic mashup that propels is heroine and audience on a cracking, bumpy ride.

The Boy (2016) Until it all unravels with a final act that jettisons the creepy setup and reveals a twist to make the threat too mundanely physical, a solidly intriguing tale of a china doll that might be inhabited by an evil force. Lauren Cohan grounds our reactions despite implausibilities.