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My Old Ass
(2024)
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Johanna Schneller
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Park doesn’t telegraph her big ideas, but they bob around throughout, as jewel-like as those cranberries shining in their sunny pond: Would you want to know what was going to happen in your life, even the bad stuff?
Posted Sep 19, 2024
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Wolfs
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Too quickly, Watts’s story slips from mildly interesting to extremely irritating, and there is no amount of gentle ribbing between various eras of People’s Sexiest Man Alive that can compensate for such narrative derivativeness.
Posted Sep 19, 2024
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Transformers One
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Ultimately the film struggles to balance its various commitments, with a screenplay that never seems sure of whether it wants to be a pure comedy, a lore-packed adventure or a peppy children’s film that shuffles kids straight to the toy aisle.
Posted Sep 19, 2024
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Never Let Go
(2024)
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Sarah-Tai Black
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It is the director’s polished technical work and deft weaving of themes alongside a lush but dreadful sense atmosphere and looming danger that shape the film’s most engaging moments.
Posted Sep 19, 2024
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Ick
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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As much as Kahn delights in toggling the line between engaging and overwhelming the eye, Ick is a film rich in themes, even if its ideas are layered in between gobs of goo.
Posted Sep 18, 2024
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The Substance
(2024)
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Sarah-Tai Black
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Fargeat’s no-holds-barred, wholly beyond your wildest expectations approach with The Substance will leave genre fans kicking their feet up in glee.
Posted Sep 18, 2024
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Speak No Evil
(2024)
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Sarah-Tai Black
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Where the original film utilized spectacle as a means of exploring an entirely wicked philosophy, Watkins engages spectacle as spectacle, leaving audiences cheering along rather than utterly despondent.
Posted Sep 13, 2024
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Reagan
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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No life, certainly not one so monumental and complicated as Reagan’s, can be satisfyingly condensed into a single feature film, of course. But this is a Coles Notes level of biography that is convinced it’s The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Posted Aug 29, 2024
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The Crow
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Incoherent and cheap, with its aesthetic sensibilities seemingly cribbed from an elevator pitch of “John Wick goes goth,” Sanders’s version of The Crow is a truly ugly thing to endure.
Posted Aug 22, 2024
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Close Your Eyes
(2023)
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Saffron Maeve
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Though this intricate scenario neatly develops upon its director’s catalogue, Close Your Eyes still feels singular and prodigious -- a film that works just as well for those unfamiliar with Erice, moving with the viewer to unveil its secrets.
Posted Aug 22, 2024
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Strange Darling
(2023)
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Sarah-Tai Black
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It’s filmmaking that is preoccupied with the performance of auteurist grandeur rather than the basics of good scriptwriting.
Posted Aug 22, 2024
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Between the Temples
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Although sometimes dizzying and disorienting, the visual language of Between the Temples is relentlessly alive, with the camera never considering-slash-allowing for the possibility that its audiences’ eyes might wander.
Posted Aug 21, 2024
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Blink Twice
(2024)
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Radheyan Simonpillai
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A fun and unsettling showcase for Kravitz, who proves herself to be an intentional and provocative filmmaker, putting jarring edits, precise framing and a sensational ensemble cast to great use.
Posted Aug 21, 2024
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Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story
(2024)
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Brad Wheeler
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Denied a second act, Shane is recognized with a heartfelt film that celebrates an undersung icon who lived her authentic self, sparkled on her own terms and defied the squares.
Posted Aug 16, 2024
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Summer Qamp
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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Director Jen Markowitz’s film arrives like a cozy fireside chat: tender, caring and warm. There are no political agendas here, only an honest portrait of kids being themselves.
Posted Aug 15, 2024
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Daughters
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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The film builds to a crescendo of eye-watering emotion. Yet the filmmakers never condescend to their subjects or audience, letting the various families’ stories build naturally. The result is a documentary as intimate as it is overwhelming.
Posted Aug 15, 2024
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Alien: Romulus
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Along the way, Álvarez makes one error so egregious that he just about makes you want to root for the xenomorphs to gobble this franchise whole before acid-spitting it back out.
Posted Aug 14, 2024
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Balestra
(2024)
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David Davidson
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Dorsey is proving to be more adept at marshalling the opportunities of commercial filmmaking than her contemporaries. While bigger does not always mean better, she demonstrates a real mastery of the tools and resources at her disposal.
Posted Aug 13, 2024
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It Ends With Us
(2024)
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Johanna Schneller
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Incredibly, Lively makes it all work. Beyond nailing Lily’s exact shade of auburn hair... she also conveys her luminousness and strength, and reminds you how pleasurable it can be to watch a romantic thriller.
Posted Aug 13, 2024
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Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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The aesthetic trick also plays nicely into the themes of Minus One, given that the film rewinds the franchise’s kaiju mythos back to the very beginning.
Posted Aug 12, 2024
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The Instigators
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Certainly, all the ingredients are here for a fun night in, from the absolutely killer cast to the familiar Damon/Affleck stomping grounds of Boston. But nothing quite clicks in this tale of charming low-life thieves.
Posted Aug 12, 2024
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Borderlands
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Tonally messy, narratively janky and slathered with pasted-over narration that reeks of creative indecision, the film is an embarrassing affair for even the most hardcore of gamers.
Posted Aug 08, 2024
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Sugarcane
(2024)
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Radheyan Simonpillai
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Co-directors Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie approach this painful conversation with the sensitivity and empathy it’s rarely afforded, and their film shows how it is almost impossible to adequately speak to this trauma.
Posted Aug 07, 2024
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Cuckoo
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Neither actor can figure out where their director is going with all this madness or where he might want to be at any given moment, tonally and thematically.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Kneecap
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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A meta-contextual music-world biopic whose success relies upon one giant bet paying off big, the new comedy Kneecap is a riotous delight that will have even the most staid audiences ready to flip the bird.
Posted Aug 01, 2024
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Dìdi
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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A wonderfully uncomfortable, deeply hilarious coming-of-age movie, the new film Didi plays like an extended and surprisingly welcome visit to the filmmaker’s childhood bedroom.
Posted Jul 30, 2024
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Sing Sing
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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This is as big, immersive and knock-down-drag-out impressive a vehicle as any leading performer could possibly hope for. And Domingo makes an absolute five-course meal out of it.
Posted Jul 29, 2024
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Leo
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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Leo is a surprising, touching delight. Packed with witty original songs and threaded with a genuinely affecting narrative that speaks to kids and adults alike, the film earned the entirety of my attention.
Posted Jul 26, 2024
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The Dead Don't Hurt
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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In its unconventional narrative structure and its tender perspective on a brutal era, Mortensen’s film acts as a mirror of his own public persona: tightly drawn, deeply felt, refreshingly unconventional.
Posted Jul 26, 2024
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Deadpool & Wolverine
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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There is a difference between tossing out references and making a movie that is genuinely funny, thrilling, energetic and innovative. At nearly every turn, Deadpool & Wolverine aspires to work in direct opposition to such goals.
Posted Jul 23, 2024
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Twisters
(2024)
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Radheyan Simonpillai
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Nearly three decades later, Chung has nothing new to offer but a couple nifty combustible CGI tornadoes and reverent twists on the original.
Posted Jul 18, 2024
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Widow Clicquot
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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That all sounds like ripe, juicy material for a historical biopic, yet as directed by Thomas Napper, Widow Clicquot falls flat. From its very conception, the whole production feels off the mark.
Posted Jul 17, 2024
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National Anthem
(2023)
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Saffron Maeve
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A tender and uncomplicated tale about a young man feeling through his sexuality after a troupe of queer ranchers take him under their wing.
Posted Jul 15, 2024
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Fly Me to the Moon
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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[Fly Me to the Moon] is so drained of colour, chemistry and comedy that it feels like a cruel gravitational gag. Don’t for a second think that movies can lift you off the ground, at least not when they’re this leaden.
Posted Jul 11, 2024
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Longlegs
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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I have both good and bad news: Longlegs is not going to transcend your nightmares, infest your soul, or cast a plague over your household... [But] this is an imaginatively conceived, impressively scaled, and surprisingly funny ride.
Posted Jul 10, 2024
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Touch
(2024)
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Radheyan Simonpillai
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Touch, adapted from Olafur Johann Olafsson’s novel, is handsome, sentimental and restrained (admirably, in parts). But it also leaves a lot to be desired -- yes, a movie about yearning left me yearning -- chiefly when it comes to the central romance.
Posted Jul 09, 2024
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Yintah
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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A commanding and seductive portrait of resistance. Yet the volume of the film’s message is also cranked up to such an intense degree that the quieter, messier facts of its story are unnecessarily muted, resulting in a doc that only feels half-realized.
Posted Jul 09, 2024
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Kill
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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For action-movie purists, Bhat’s train ride hell needs no translation. Bite your tongue, and keep your kicks high.
Posted Jul 05, 2024
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Despicable Me 4
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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The sequel isn’t a masterpiece of children’s entertainment by any stretch, but it is sufficiently bizarre and thrilling enough to turn the head of any kid, parent or fully grown and childless adult around and around till the room resembles a Looney Tune.
Posted Jul 03, 2024
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Ru
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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A film that feels both tender and just tough enough, its edges shaved down just so.
Posted Jul 02, 2024
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A Family Affair
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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Such an oddly conceived and executed production that it must be seen to truly understand what the big algorithms think subscribers want. And if it’s easy titillation, unfortunately A Family Affair isn’t going to get you too hot and bothered, either.
Posted Jul 02, 2024
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Last Summer
(2023)
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Saffron Maeve
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One can lodge the complaint that Last Summer is redundant, though Breillat’s aims differ significantly from el-Toukhy’s. The trouble lies instead with the inconsistency and loathsomeness of these aims.
Posted Jul 01, 2024
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Brats
(2024)
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Johanna Schneller
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Watching it, I felt something quite different from what McCarthy, now 61, intended: a shimmering nostalgia for the once-great power of magazines.
Posted Jun 28, 2024
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A Quiet Place: Day One
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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I’m all for pulling a page from T.S. Eliot and ending the world with a whimper instead of a bang, but the new prequel A Quiet Place: Day One speaks so softly as to say not much of anything at all.
Posted Jun 27, 2024
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Daddio
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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Perhaps a sharper, genuinely sexier screenplay could have enlivened such a cringe-inducing affair. But the worst side effect of Hall’s thin and sizzle-free script is that it encourages Johnson and Penn to go overboard in a bid to compensate.
Posted Jun 26, 2024
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Green Border
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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If enough people end up watching the masterful and soul-shaking Green Border -- and absolutely everyone should, as soon as possible -- the collective conscience of the world could very well shift, even just a bit.
Posted Jun 26, 2024
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Kinds of Kindness
(2024)
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Barry Hertz
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A truly torturous experience for almost everyone involved, the film is an aggressively juvenile and tedious dissection of the notion of free will.
Posted Jun 25, 2024
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Thelma
(2024)
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Sarah-Tai Black
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A tender comedy at heart, Thelma is a delightful romp that focuses on the different textures of the human experience and the poignant (and sometimes very silly) moments that come with it.
Posted Jun 20, 2024
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I Am: Celine Dion
(2024)
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Brad Wheeler
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An affecting pageant of intense emotional moments chronicling the Quebec singer’s struggle with stiff person syndrome.
Posted Jun 18, 2024
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The Bikeriders
(2023)
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Barry Hertz
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It is an anthropological drama that never cracks its subjects open – an approach that might work on paper, but feels beset by engine troubles on-screen.
Posted Jun 17, 2024
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