Rnz: At The Movies

Film reviewers Sarah Watt and Doug Dillaman host At the Movies while Simon Morris is on leave. This week, they look at: 'House with a Clock In Its Walls', 'RBG' - a documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and 'Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot'

Dan Slevin reviews a new Japanese anime told from the point of view of a four-year-old boy forced to confront the arrival of a new baby sister.

John Cho plays a widowed father whose daughter goes missing, reviewed by Dan Slevin.

Britain alone is worthy of a whole chapter in the 2018 Planet Earth Joke Book - but this film seems blissfully unaware of it all, going through the motions as if repeating the same old tired clichés is enough, Dan Slevin writes.

In this live-action Winnie the Pooh spinoff, the story boffins at Disney wonder what would happen if the adult Christopher was ever to meet up again with his adorable beloved stuffed animal friends.

Dan Slevin is filling in for Simon Morris and this week he reviews Christopher Robin, Johnny English Strikes Again, Searching, and Mirai.

The Australian director Bruce Beresford talks to Simon Morris about his new comedy-drama film Ladies in Black, which is set in a Sydney department store in the late 1950s.

Review - Despite the star power of Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick and the smart, women-led comedy director Paul Feig, A Simple Favour packs in too many tonal switches for its own good, says Simon Morris.

Maverick film-maker Shane Black attempts to breathe new life into the '80s monster movie in The Predator, but the twists and turns lose the simplicity that made the original a true action hit. 

Simon Morris tries not to be disappointed by three promising films - from a talented film-maker, from a talented cast, and from a book that inspired a hit Australian musical.

In this year's off-peak release schedule are two comedies from either side of the Tasman – a safe, Australian romantic comedy called The Flip Side for no discernable reason, and a rickety, unsafe Kiwi romp called Mega Time Squad.

The story of unlikely bad boy East End fashion designer Alexander McQueen - aptly titled McQueen - is, like so many documentaries about tortured artists, predictably tragic and sadly unenlightening.

There is no doubt that Sir Ian McKellen is one of the best actors treading the boards, but his work is so good because he has devoted so much of his life to it - leaving little room for an underlying story.

Simon Morris continues to explore the unpredictable Spring Cleaning season, with two documentaries about superstar artists, and two contrasting Anzac comedies.

Review - The bittersweetness of Atonement was almost unbearably poignant, and it's repeated in On Chesil Beach, another Ian McEwan book adaptation also starring Saoirse Ronan.