NEW OFFICIAL TRAILER FOR I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO

Of all the documentaries from 2016, between those I have already seen and those I have not, Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro ranks very highly on my most-anticipated list, both past and present. Inspired by the great activist James Baldwin's unfinished memoir Remember This House, the film is told through his words, but Samuel L. Jackson's voice, and has won rave reviews from critics across the board. Released theatrically in the US on the 3rd of February.

REVIEW - MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN (TIM BURTON)

As Tim Burton continues to fall short of what storytelling standards he once possessed, it's almost a little precious to see the other side to his 21st Century laziness. Many of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children's oddities are engendered by Burton's take on material that already supplies plenty, and one does detect his ever-unfortunate clumsiness in befitting his style to mainstream contrivances that only repel such an association. Yet the prevailing sense here is not so much laziness and repetition as it is relaxation - if Burton appears more disinterested, less actively involved in shaping this project into the kind of tired offbeat whimsy-fest that we too have grown tired of, that's actually a good thing. It guarantees that, ironically, the least odd detail about Miss Peregrine is its tone, wherein it is content to amble along a path of resolute familiarity, but there's little about the film that's as grating as we've become accustomed to in Burton's recent oeuvre. His issues with diversity remain as pronounced as ever, even with the casting of Samuel L. Jackson - that's strike one. Strike two, the sluggish, aimless first act, featuring a grossly underused Kim Dickens (though isn't she always)? This time, however, there's no strike three, as the deference to formula is, in fact, so integral to the success of this story that its intrusion mostly mitigates the director's less advisable urges, occasionally substituted by now-rare displays of competence. It's a bumpy, dissatisfying path that Miss Peregrine takes, but not one without its modest charms.

REVIEW - THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (DAVID YATES)

The weight of expectation bears down upon The Legend of Tarzan, a film that seems all too aware of what kind of film it's expected to be, and not nearly aware enough of what kind of film it ought to be. It feels scrappily pieced together at every stage in its production process, from the scattershot character development to the various muddled thematic thrusts to the glaring continuity errors. If none of this is quite fatal for the film in itself, and if David Yates is altogether too solid a director to oversee anything so disastrous, the cumulative effect of the lack of focus and insight into precisely what is intended of this product at least soddens this ship, though never sinking it. Alexander Skarsgard is an intriguing Tarzan, though not sufficiently magnetic; the film generally appears indifferent to this character, a legendary one indeed, yet his questionable presence as the obligatory white saviour still sours the narrative. Efforts are made to overcome this distasteful quality, though we're ever cognizant of the fact that such efforts are entirely necessary in this context, and not entirely effective. Margot Robbie is Jane, whose portrayal involves half-hearted attempts at modernization whose timidity only helps to highlight how regressive The Legend of Tarzan actually is. Christoph Waltz is the bad guy, and thus you'll likely forgive him for phoning it in; there's one rather rotten reference to his sexuality that the film wisely (or unwisely?) brushes swiftly past. Samuel L. Jackson is Samuel L. Jackson. Djimon Hounsou is 52 and looks better than I ever have or ever will. ngl, I would let Djimon Hounsou do literally anything to me and I wouldn't even press charges.