“Sometimes it was overwhelming in all the best of ways. There was just so much possibility. When you’re just in the zone and in there with your camera, you have to take the opportunity to trust your eye as a filmmaker.”
– Olympic Dreams director Jeremy Teicher

I cannot get angry or feel let down by what Downhill is not (most obviously that it isn’t as deep or as profound as Force Majeure was). I can only judge the film for what it actually is, and on that front I think Faxon and Rash have done a reasonably nice job.

The first narrative feature to be allowed to shoot inside the Olympic Athletes Village, Olympic Dreams is a strong, emotionally-pure indie drama that took my breath away.

Harley Quinn’s emancipation and the birth of a new group of female crimefighters is one I happily stand to applaud, and if this ragtag group’s adventures continue in the future trust I’ll be first in line to witness them firsthand.

The Gentlemen races towards an inventive conclusion that brought a smile to my face and sent me out of the theatre with a skip in my step. Ritchie returns to his Brit crime caper roots with thrilling aplomb.

Bad Boys for Life is an enjoyable action-comedy throwback that remembers to put its two main characters first and all of the adrenaline-fueled theatrics second. It’s a heck of a lot of fun.

For me, though, even if I could chat with a chimp in chimpanzee, converse in polar bear, curse in fluent kangaroo or answer with a boisterous, “of courserous!” if asked if I could speak rhinoceros, Dolittle still would have been one talk with the animals I’d rather have not engaged in.

Thanks primarily to the cast I can’t hate on Like a Boss, but that doesn’t mean I found it worth recommending, either. It’s instantly forgettable, and by the end of January it will probably have slipped out of my mind completely.

Cats might be a mess, but it’s a one-of-a-kind incredibly memorable mess (for better and for worse), and for all I know that’s entirely by design.