Shalini Langer

In his memoir Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain writes, “Good food very often, even most often, is simple food.” From what we know of what followed in that celebrity chef and writer’s life, and all that has been spilling out lately from the closets of famous restaurants plus successful TV shows (The Bear), kitchens are anything but simple. Canadian filmmaker Matt Johnson, who has also co-written Tony, takes Bourdain’s advice – telling simply the story of a not-too-complex young man figuring out his way in the world. And who, but for one black eye and bucketfuls of water poured down on him to wake him up every morning, doesn’t have it all that bad.

If the thought of lying defenceless on a chair as a dentist pokes around inside your mouth leaves you queasy, you are in kindred company. This latest chapter in the Insidious franchise does draw on teeth, the full rotting spectrum of them, to add bite to its howls. And who better than beings suspended between life and death (the “Further” world, in the film’s words) for a specimen of ghastly pearly whites)? However, as and when it pulls out, the film is only passingly effective. It’s only so many ways that you can take this story about the Further farther, told as it has been in four films before. And the effort to do that shows, though as mother and daughter, the pair of Amelia Eve (in the role of Gemma) and Island Austin (Maya) are pretty good.

In One Night Only, Allie (Monica Barbaro) says it’s the “build-up” that is the best part of sex for her. Owen (Callum Turner) says it’s the “after”. Quite like those predictable responses, this latest film by Will Gluck (with other bawdy modern romances behind him, such as Anyone But You, Friends with Benefits, Easy A) is a nice-enough rom-com that pretends very hard to be somewhat radical. And while it is beating about the bush, the film’s “build-up” — despite all the kissing and petting and lovemaking going on around the two leads — is hardly a turn-on. While the “after” is not the movie’s concern.

For the foreseeable future, dinosaurs will not be going extinct in Hollywood. The challenge now is how to make this era meet that era. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell (with the impressive It Follows behind him), has half an idea to pull this off. Since it involves a wormhole, and “ripples in space”, it’s just as well that he doesn’t labour the point too much. But then, labouring isn’t the strength of The End of Oak Street.

It’s the seventh film Tom Holland is in as Spider-Man, the fourth as a solo superhero. And while the 30-year-old actor who began this a decade ago can still pass as just-past-teens, the Marvel franchise shows a tear in its spandex. Less Brand New Day, more New Branding Day. Director Destin Daniel Cretton and old Spidey hands Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers could have actually made something of ‘been there, done that, and moving-on’. However, except for some mild stretching and a mention that he is no longer in high school, there is no suggestion that Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) needs anyone or anything. That, in fact, is one of the premises driving Brand New Day – can Peter really continue as he insists he can, ridding New York city of crime and returning home to a garage-like room, only to fiddle with machines and science (he handles this too on his own), with no one to talk to but a virtual assistant, and nothing to entertain him but videos posted by old friends Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya).

All the ado about Homerian characters saying “Mom”, “Dad” and “F..k” can be laid to rest. Those are but minor updates to the late 8th or early 7th century BC epic The Odyssey (emerging from oral traditions going back even further) by writer-director Christopher Nolan. In the film, the gods are largely inconsequential (barring a scowling, floating in-and-out Athena), real heroes are decided by free will, women are firmly – and sometimes fiercely – feminist, and the shifty, cunning Odysseus of the epic is a man defined almost entirely by guilt that befits a quintessential Nolan lead.

Perhaps nothing spoils a meal faster than bad company. Scratch that. It takes bad company trying to put on a happy face to make it really stink. And, Angela (Olivia Wilde) is trying hard, really hard. Why she is, is evident to us by and by as layers are peeled off the resentment and bitterness that have built up between her and husband Joe (Seth Rogen). The guests for whom Angela plans a spread, from an elaborate charcuterie board to a from-the-recipe-book soufflé, are their upstairs neighbours. Pina is Spanish and “beautiful” and “cool” and “has presence” (an effortlessly posh, and aware of it, Penélope Cruz). Angela clearly is taken in by her and, if not that, with the clearly loud sex-filled relationship she has with boyfriend Hawk (Edward Norton).

In the long list of prequels, sequels, three-quels etc etc, Disney’s contribution has been live action remakes of its popular animation films. Moana, which is still very much alive and rolling out in surfeit animated forms, is the latest. This is as sadly cynical as it gets because Moana stood out for being a departure from the usual Disney heroines – she was dusky, pudgy, a little stout, with no romance on the vast horizon that she conquers. Played by Catherine Laga’aia in the live action version, Moana is more a self-conscious teen than a carefree spirit. Laga’aia, making her debut, also struggles to hit the right note of chutzpah that marked Moana’s animated version. Her eager-to-please smile is the biggest detractor, for one.