Not being familiar with the music of David Byrne, I thought that this was closer to being a stage musical as it has a directorial credit to Spike Lee. But this really is a filmed concert performance of songs mainly from Byrne’s new album American Utopia and also songs from earlier in his career and maybe a couple from other artistes. It’s hard to develop a strong appreciation for a completely unfamiliar genre of music from one performance alone but this is a fantastic one and it’s also especially energizing due to how overtly political it is.

I thought this was a documentary on Jamaica but it’s a really an experimental art film. It was made by an American filmmaker Khalik Allah to explore his Jamaican heritage. While it’s quite impressive as a sensory experience, there’s no overall narrative here and no real attempt to convey any hard facts about the country. That makes it tough to sustain interest throughout the entire the film even though it’s a relatively short one.

This is a film of some renown, directed by the lesser known Stephen Frears but the project was initiated and produced by Martin Scorsese. It won some awards and stars some serious talent. However my expectations that it is a heist film of some kind was completely dashed and indeed everything in it was a complete surprise to me. Yet it is not in my mind a good film as it breaks too many rules of the genre and has a pacing that just feels too off. What a very odd film indeed.

This is an extraordinary South American film that was financed by multiple countries with funds contributed by various institutions but mainly shot in Colombia. It is effectively a case of activism by film, with the cause in this instance being the horrific tragedy of child or teenage soldiers. The film itself is free of ideology and non-specific to any country so it can be said to represent all armed insurgencies which employ child soldiers. Under the direction of Alejandro Landes, it is also very effective and one can only imagine the rigors the cast and crew must have endured to make this.

We’re just done watching the two seasons of this South Korean television series and naturally we’re only watching a Korean show because it’s really a zombie show. Setting a zombie outbreak in a period Korean setting is just an inspired decision and I especially appreciated how this is a relatively grounded show in which the characters actually try to understand the nature of the plague. It seems likely that there will be more but the first two seasons already tell a complete story, so no worries about this being a show with no end in sight.

I’ve learned how pointless it is to say that this next one might be the last Hitchcock film I need to watch and someone always has something interesting to say about one of his work that I’ve yet to watched. This is an early one that is set entirely on a single lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. The script was written by John Steinbeck but apparently it was Hitchcock who came up with the initial idea. As usual the great director makes it work and despite the limited nature of the setting this wasn’t a cheap film to make either as filming on water is notoriously expensive and some of the stars were rather expensive.

This is the final installment of the trilogy that began with L’Auberge Espagnole and this time Xavier’s adventures in life brings him to New York. There are many film trilogies of course but it’s hard to think of many that are about the lives of the same group of people over real time, the best known example being of course the Before trilogy. This one is unfortunately nowhere as great but the sentiment of passing time as we watch the aging actors play familiar characters remains a powerful one. This last film is particularly good as well, comparable to the first one and far better than the forgettable second one.