The 355
The 355 may boast an impressive array of acting talent (Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Bingbing Fan, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Sebastian Stan, Edgar Ramirez) but it fails to be a movie that lives up to the expectations that their presence creates.
The film contains some well-executed (though rather underwhelming) action and moderately well-developed characters. It just doesn’t have the charm, personality, or edge that it needs to stand out from all the other generic actioners being produced today. There is nothing glaringly wrong with The 355, but there’s nothing particularly right about it, either.
GRADE: C
The Adam Project
The Adam Project is an endlessly entertaining, fun, and surprisingly heartwarming family science fiction/adventure film. While it owes a significant debt to just about every eighties family favorite you can name (it sometimes feels like a cinematic mixtape of classic eighties scenes), it still manages to be entertaining and unique in and of itself. Ryan Reynolds finally pushes himself to move beyond his nervously sarcastic shtick with an effortlessly charming and emotionally moving lead performance.
GRADE: B+
All Quiet on the Western Front
This Oscar-winning German production is an exceedingly well-made and overall mesmerizing film about WWI. Following in the footsteps of such classic WWI efforts as Paths of Glory and 1917, the film isn’t exactly something we haven’t before seen. Despite its lack of originality and its occasionally uneven pacing, the film is still a highly memorable one that is full of extraordinarily committed performances, downright exquisite filmmaking, and deeply harrowing depictions of battle and its aftermath.
Based on the classic novel by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front is an exceptionally haunting effort with some truly brilliant moments that powerfully reminds us of war’s pointlessly destructive and saddeningly painful nature.
GRADE: A-
Ambulance
After a bank robbery goes awry, two criminals (an energetic Jake Gyllenhaal and a sympathetic Yahya Abdul-Mateen III) hijack an ambulance and lead the police on a high-speed chase. There is no denying that director Michael Bay knows how to execute an action movie. There’s also no denying that he rarely gets a full handle on tone, character, or story. Ambulance is an intense film with nonstop action that is filled to the brim with Bay’s signature techniques (glossy lighting, constant camera movement, kinetic and nonlinear editing). However, the film’s often serious-minded tone flattens its overall experience and impairs a significant amount of its much-needed entertainment value.
Ambulance is a highly well-made movie with solid performances that, unfortunately, doesn’t always know how to hold its audience’s attention.
GRADE: B-
Amsterdam
This ‘30s-set, partially truth-based comedy/drama/mystery from writer/director David O. Russell is a frustratingly wasted effort. It boasts one of the most impressively talented casts in recent memory (Christian Bale, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Andrea Riseborough, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Taylor Swift, Rami Malek, Zoe Saldana, and others), but not a single performance escapes coming off as lifeless, uninteresting, and flat. From its bland cinematography to its poor pacing to its overly whimsical and redundant score, the film’s execution is uninspired in just about every imaginable way.
It’s hard to say what, exactly, is going on in Amsterdam because it becomes progressively harder to pay attention to it as it progresses. It is a hopelessly boring film that entirely lacks the dramatic power it needs to keep its viewers’ interest.
GRADE: D+
Babylon
This three-hour-plus epic about Old Hollywood primarily examines the silent film era to the beginning of synchronized sound. For the first two hours, writer/director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land) both revels in and satirizes the debauchery that has seemingly always taken place behind the scenes of major studio productions. Its last hour focuses on the inevitable downfall that such excess begets, expertly shifting tones to something that is much darker and increasingly devoid of the humor that is so present in earlier scenes.
The all-star cast consists of Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Olivia Wilde, Tobey Maguire, Samara Weaving, and many others. They all deliver typically committed, highly exceptional, and intelligently heightened performances that fit the film’s thunderous execution quite nicely. Babylon is a highly revelatory film that both celebrates and cautions against the intoxicating magic of the silver screen.
GRADE: A
The Banshees of Inisherin
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson give priceless performances as formerly close friends whose lives are shockingly upended when the latter decides that he no longer likes the former. This is yet another brilliantly written, flawlessly executed, darkly hilarious, powerfully poignant, and oddly moving effort from writer/director Martin McDonagh. The Banshees of Inisherin is a great film that masters many conflicting tones with expertise and finesse, making it an unforgettably vibrant and endlessly unpredictable cinematic experience.
GRADE: A
Barbarian
A young woman (Georgina Campbell) arrives at an Airbnb where she made a reservation and nothing goes as planned or is the way it appears to be or should be. To say any more would risk giving away the countless surprises that this gleefully twisted horror film contains. Barbarian is a wholly unpredictable, endlessly shocking, and dementedly thrilling experience that never lets up on tension or terror until its very last frame.
GRADE: A
Bardo: False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths
A Los Angeles-based Mexican documentarian (Daniel Giménez Cacho) returns to his homeland seeking self-discovery, world examination, and the many hidden truths behind his heritage in this film by co-writer/director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant). Comically surreal, absurdly satirical, and dramatically powerful, Bardo: False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths is an artistically daring collage of different tones that evokes comparisons to Fellini’s most fantastical efforts and to Malick’s most poetic.
Iñárritu’s voice and style are as bold and as sensitive as ever, though the film does sometimes cross over the line to self-indulgence with its endless flights of fancy and its near-three-hour runtime. It’s a film worth seeing, for certain, but also one that could have used a little less of, well, everything in order to convey more of a direct point.
GRADE: B+
The Batman
On a technical level, co-writer/director Matt Reeves’ latest incarnation of the classic superhero/vigilante character is an exceedingly well-crafted and well-designed film. It lacks the vision and the courage of previous cinematic Batman interpretations, however, by failing to deliver anything new. The Batman’s reality-grounded approach is just too similar to Christopher Nolan’s films and is, simply put, not as good. The film has no distinct vision or heart, and it’s lacking a certain emotional grandness that we’ve all come to expect from a Batman movie. The near-three-hour runtime is also completely unnecessary and overly indulgent.
Despite being an excellent actor, Robert Pattinson has little to offer the role of Batman. His interpretation is all broodiness and moodiness, and he spends a good portion of the movie acting like he’d rather be somewhere else. Much like the film itself, Pattinson’s performance lacks personality and character.
GRADE: C+
Beast
While on vacation in South Africa, a widowed father (Idris Elba) and his two teenage daughters (Leah Jeffries and Iyana Halley) must thwart a killer lion’s non-stop attempts at making them its prey. While it’s not anything particularly special, Beast is still a moderately thrilling and suspenseful movie that knows how to entertain and engage its audience. Likable and well-developed characters, sturdy performances (Elba always knows how to own the screen), and capable filmmaking make the film rise above its potentially ridiculous storyline.
GRADE: B
Bigbug
This intelligently satirical French-language sci-fi/comedy centers on a group of people who are trapped in a suburban home during an artificial intelligence uprising. Director/co-writer Jean-Pierre Jenuet (Amelie, The City of Lost Children) delivers another unique piece of eye candy that is filled to the brim with quirky humor and highly innovative concepts.
Bigbug’s main fault, like some of Jenuet’s previous works, is that its constant business can sometimes be over-stimulating and exhausting to witness. The gorgeously designed film may lack subtlety, but it more than makes up for it with its endearingly endless stream of ingenuity.
GRADE: B+
Black Adam
Despite the presence of the always-affable Dwayne Johnson in the title role, this entry into the DCEU is a noisy, annoyingly busy, and overall hollow film that offers absolutely nothing new to the superhero genre to which it belongs. The movie is full of dizzying spectacle, but its relentlessly rapid and action-focused pace fails to emotionally engage the audience in its events or characters. Instead, the movie lifelessly and uninterestingly goes through the motions with a hopelessly generic and overly familiar style and storyline.
Black Adam wholly lacks inspiration and increasingly comes across as little more than complete and utter nonsense.
GRADE: D+
Black Crab
Noomi Rapace, today’s ultimate cinematic badass, stars as one of a group of post-apocalyptic soldiers who has to skate across a frozen body of water in order to deliver a top-secret package. Black Crab contains an intriguing plot, solid performances, refined filmmaking, and some thrilling, impeccably executed action sequences. It is occasionally bogged down, however, by sketchy character development, muddy subplots, and a distracting flashback structure that causes uneven pacing.
Complaints aside, the film does still manage to be a predominantly entertaining experience that is lifted by Rapace’s fierce intensity and wholly watchable presence.
GRADE: B-
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Despite being an overall moving tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman, this sequel to Black Panther seems to be grasping at straws as to what to do without him. The story is unmemorable, the action and spectacle are uninspired, and the development of characters and their relationships is spotty at best. Not to mention, the near-three-hour runtime is highly indulgent and completely unnecessary.
Like many of the film’s contemporary MCU entries, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever overall follows a formula that is becoming increasingly tired and stale. The excellent actors who comprise the cast (Letitia Wright, Angela Basset, Winston Duke, and Lupita Nyong’o chief amongst them) can’t save the movie from its overall lack of originality.
GRADE: C
The Black Phone
A thirteen-year-old boy (a fully committed Mason Thames) is kidnapped by a serial killer known as The Grabber (an impressively and disturbingly sinister Ethan Hawke) and held captive in a basement where he is able to communicate with the killer’s previous victims by way of a disconnected and mysteriously powered phone. Directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson (Sinister, Doctor Strange), The Black Phone is a strikingly well-made, suspenseful, and creepy horror/thriller that knows how to keep its audience’s attention. The film has a plethora of positive attributes that are only slightly muffled by the fact that it doesn’t always fully utilize and/or develop its best concepts.
If The Black Phone had a slightly more finessed screenplay that matched the quality of its filmmaking and flawless performances, it could have been a masterwork. As it is, however, it’s going to have to settle for being highly watchable and very good.
GRADE: B+
Blasted
This Norwegian sci-fi/comedy, which centers on a bachelor party that has to fight off an alien invasion, is perfectly funny and enjoyable. Though its fast-cutting and wildly shot style are highly derivative of Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright, the film still offers enough surprises and moments of big laughter to be worth your time. Blasted may lack originality, but its highly energetic and endearingly effervescent tone mostly makes up for it.
GRADE: B
Blonde
This artfully challenging examination of Marilyn Monroe’s painful internal life is, sometimes, as hypnotic as it is, at other times, frustratingly difficult and exhaustive to sit through. Based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel, the film dives deep into Monroe’s emotional torment, mental instability, and toxic relationship with fame. Writer/director Andrew Dominik takes a Lynchian approach to his subject, presenting Monroe’s story in a dream-like, surrealistic haze that often morphs into an unsettling and expressionistic nightmare. Though the filmmaking is exemplary, it doesn’t always emotionally connect with the audience and, resultingly, the film doesn’t quite reach the greatness to which it is aspiring.
As Monroe, Ana De Armas gives it her all with an effectively raw and emotionally volatile performance. Though she looks like Monroe, it’s sometimes hard to fully believe her in the role because her voice and accent are noticeably flimsy and inconsistent. Despite its roughness and faults, however, Blonde can still be regarded as a courageously ambitious and bold piece of filmmaking. It just could have used a little less artistic showmanship and a little more straightforward storytelling to fully convey the extraordinary pain behind Monroe’s sunny public image.
GRADE: B
The Bubble
Co-writer/director Judd Apatow makes one of the biggest blunders of his career with this star-studded yet excruciatingly unfunny comedy about a nightmarish film shoot that takes place during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bubble is loud and obnoxious, overstuffed with expensive set pieces and ambitious VFX but far too short on good writing, developed characters, and laugh-out-loud comedic moments. The sluggishly and loosely paced film is, to put it bluntly, quite painful to sit through.
The Bubble is a poor example of comedic wit and the perfect example of a big-budget and excessive waste of colossal talent.
GRADE: D+
Bullet Train
A group of criminals led by Brad Pitt converges on a fast-moving Japanese bullet train, resulting in a plethora of brutally violent moments and tiresome attempts at cleverness. This action-packed, distractingly hyper-edited, and frustratingly over-stuffed film tries very hard to be exciting and darkly charming, but its embarrassingly over-confident nature only makes it increasingly unappealing as it unfolds. Bullet Train lacks almost all likability and is hopelessly marred by its own obnoxious bravado and forced wit.
GRADE: D+
A Christmas Story Christmas
This sequel to A Christmas Story comes nearly thirty years after its classic predecessor. At first, it seems to be as dated as its early ‘70s setting. During what is roughly the film’s first half, the silly humor primarily falls flat, the overly light and falsely sentimental tone lacks edge, and the characters don’t exhibit much personality or relatability. However, as A Christmas Story Christmas progresses, you can’t help but get sucked into its nostalgic charms and its magical holiday feelings. The film’s destination is quite worthwhile, but the road to getting there, unfortunately, isn’t always so great.
GRADE: B-
Clerks III
This entry into Kevin Smith’s View Askew universe is a charmingly nostalgic, big-hearted, and emotionally moving effort. You pretty much have to already be a fan and have knowledge of Smith’s previous movies to find value in this particular one, but that’s hardly a valid criticism because the movie was rightfully, unabashedly, and whole-heartedly made for his fans. The in-jokes, endless self-references, already-developed character relationships, and overall comforting familiarity are what make Clerks III feel like the cinematic equivalent of dinner with an old friend.
GRADE: B+
Crimes of the Future
A pair of futuristic performance artists (Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux) proclaims that “surgery is the new sex” and perform live surgeries for the art gallery crowd as part of their act. From writer/director David Cronenberg (and based on one of his earliest independent films), Crimes of the Future is every bit as bizarre, surreal, nightmarish, and grotesquely rewarding as the filmmaker’s other “body horror” efforts.
Those familiar with and fond of the filmmaker’s previous work should be pleased, as the highly unsettling film is stylistically and thematically a significant continuation of his voice. Those unfamiliar with Cronenberg, however, will most likely find very little amusement or relatability in the film, as it is one of the most challenging and esoteric efforts of his career. Crimes of the Future is a must-see for Cronenberg fans and an enter-at-your-own-risk for just about everyone else.
GRADE: B
The Curse of Bridge Hollow
A young family (Marlon Wayans, Priah Ferguson, and Kelly Rowland) moves to a small town whose community takes Halloween decorating very seriously. When the town’s lawn decorations come to life on Halloween night, all forms of rambunctious havoc ensue. The Curse of Bridge Hollow is a fast, fun, and humorous film that entertains with an inventive and lively premise and warms the heart with its primary theme of family unity.
GRADE: B
A Day to Die
Kevin Dillon stars as a disgraced former police officer who is forced to pay a drug dealer (an impressive Leon) ransom in exchange for his kidnapped wife. Bruce Willis and Frank Grillo also have small supporting roles but, as is the norm for most of their low-budget endeavors, their top billing is quite deceiving. A Day to Die contains some interesting commentary on the war against drugs but that, along with good performances from all the key cast members, is all it really has going for it. The film is simply unable to sustain the weight of its overly ambitious execution, noticeably faltering throughout by trying to do far too much with far too little.
GRADE: C-
Deadstream
A struggling video blogger with a tendency for cowardice (Joseph Winter) live streams himself being locked in a haunted house overnight. The success of the film largely rests on the shoulders of star (also co-writer/co-director) Winter’s performance, and it’s, fortunately, a great one. Deadstream is nail-bitingly suspenseful, surprisingly scary, and playfully hilarious—and it all stems from Winter’s dramatic facial expressions, skittish physicality, and comically hyper-emotional reactions. He’s a likable, relatable, and sympathetic protagonist with human faults and painfully unheroic characteristics.
The film’s main fault is its uninspired and slightly cheap ending, but that’s not nearly enough to spoil the overall fun of this endlessly inventive and wholly entertaining horror/comedy.
GRADE: A-
Death on the Nile
Director/star Kenneth Branagh returns for his second round of bringing Agatha Christie’s classic investigator character, Hercule Poirot, to the screen. Death on the Nile is a beautifully shot, impeccably performed, and classily executed film that successfully engrosses its audience in its clever story and intricate murder mystery. Though the film is a bit too polite to make an indelibly dramatic impact, it’s still a highly intriguing and perfectly pleasant way to pass some time.
GRADE: B+
Deep Water
Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, Deep Water centers on a married couple (Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas) whose open relationship may be causing more turmoil than either one of them fully comprehends. Adrian Lyne’s return to the director’s chair after a twenty-year hiatus produces a sensual and hypnotic film that never lets up on intrigue, enticement, or tension. Though it somewhat falters with some shaky logic, a slightly unbelievable climax, and an abrupt ending, the film still makes an unshakeable and noteworthy impact.
Deep Water is the kind of intelligent, adult-oriented, and character-based erotic thriller on which Lyne founded his career and that we just don’t see enough of, anymore.
GRADE: A-
Dig
A father and his teenage daughter (portrayed by real-life father and daughter Thomas and Harlow Jane) are taken captive by two criminals (Emile Hirsch and Liana Liberato) and forced to dig up a dead body from a soon-to-be excavated home. Though some storyline details are a bit unclear due to some improper communication, the film’s tight pacing, excellent performances, and well-executed moments of suspense still make it overall worthwhile. Dig may not be anything groundbreaking (no pun intended), but it still manages to be an effective and entertaining thriller that mostly delivers on its intended excitement and tension.
GRADE: B
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was directed by Sam Raimi, one of the most unique and previously established talents to helm an MCU installment yet. While the film contains a number of his stylistic flourishes, it overall feels like it could have been directed by anyone, as it is an entertaining but, at this point, generic work that feels like an insignificant piece of a much grander design. In other words, this Doctor Strange sequel doesn’t really stand on its own, as it is too reliant on other Marvel films and streaming series to help explain its unnecessarily convoluted and overcrowded narrative.
Complaints aside, the film does contain a number of thrilling set pieces, some dazzling visual effects, and solid performances from its talented cast. It’s a must-see for hardcore Marvel and/or Raimi fans (the Bruce Campbell cameo alone makes it worthwhile), but doesn’t seem to be particularly geared toward anyone else.
GRADE: B-
Don’t Worry Darling
A housewife (the fantastic Florence Pugh) living in an idyllic 1950s suburban neighborhood slowly becomes aware that nothing about her life is as it seems. Though it sometimes buckles under the weight of its hefty ambition and the specifics of its involved storyline are ultimately and frustratingly a tad too vague, Don’t Worry Darling is still a highly powerful, astutely observed, and boldly nightmarish examination of female oppression. It’s a movie that meddles with the mind in order to prove a point that undeniably needs to be made.
GRADE: B+
Elvis
Co-writer/director Baz Luhrmann’s vivaciously energetic biopic of Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) centers on the icon’s relationship with his greedy and opportunistic manager, Colonel Tom Parker (an impressively slimy Tom Hanks). The film is primarily fast, fun, and exciting, capturing the power of Elvis’ eternal influence on popular culture and music. Even at almost two hours and forty minutes, however, Elvis just doesn’t seem to have enough screen time to fully explore its subject’s life off the stage with the same care and attention as it does his life on it. The film still succeeds, overall, it’s just not quite as fulfilling or complete as it should have been.
Though Butler doesn’t particularly look much like Elvis, he exudes his essence so accurately and has such full command of his voice and physicality that it’s easy to forget you’re not actually watching The King himself in grand and lifelike motion.
GRADE: B+
Emily the Criminal
The endlessly amazing Aubrey Plaza portrays a young artist who, buried under a mountain of student debt and unable to find a well-paying job, turns to credit card fraud as a means of survival. Emily the Criminal is a mesmerizing, intense, and tragically frank examination of an individual who, like so many in reality, is unable to comfortably fit into modern-day society.
The film is a bit too neat and easy in depicting its protagonist’s downfall and most of its supporting characters are too dull to warrant the screen time they’re allotted. However, Emily the Criminal still manages to be an overall riveting experience that packs a sizable and memorable dramatic punch.
GRADE: B+
Empire of Light
Writer/director Sam Mendes’ thoughtful, warm, and humane film takes place in 1980 England and focuses on a movie theater manager with mental health struggles (Olivia Coleman) and her close friendship with a younger, Black employee (Michael Ward). Though a tad sluggish in spots, the film is an overall beautiful effort that sheds light on past prejudices involving race and mental illness while also making the audience question how, after all this time, they are still so prevalent today.
Coleman and Ward are both outstanding, as is the rest of the supporting cast, which includes Colin Firth, Toby Jones, and Tom Brooke. Needless to say, the gorgeous cinematography by Roger Deakins only adds to the film’s exceptional quality.
GRADE: A-
End of the Road
An African-American family (Queen Latifah, Chris Bridges, Mychala Lee, and Shaun Dixon) traveling across the southwestern states faces one intensely dangerous misadventure after another in this engrossing action/thriller. The pacing is notably tight, the suspense is ever-present, and the ninety-minute runtime is effectively brief. The characters are all well-developed and the cast chemistry is effortlessly vivacious. Director Millicent Shelton takes time and puts care into emotionally involving the audience through the film’s charming and relatable characters before the plot kicks off into high gear.
The screenplay occasionally uses some minor contrivances and unbelievable conveniences to propel the plot forward, but End of the Road is still a highly engaging and well-executed thriller that contains a number of downright excellent performances.
GRADE: A-
Everything Everywhere All at Once
This ambitious, mind-blowing, and exceedingly well-made adult fantasy/adventure centers on a woman (Michelle Yeoh) and her escapades in parallel dimensions. The film’s bottomless energy and endless creativity are exciting but, at times, exhausting. Everything Everywhere All at Once is an overlong movie that is so overstuffed with inventive ideas and absurdly random events that it occasionally becomes unfocused and undisciplined. However, the film’s undeniable and unique charm allows for most of its faults to be forgiven.
GRADE: B+
The Fabelmans
This semi-autobiographical tale from co-writer/director Steven Spielberg examines an upper-middle-class Jewish family in 1950s and 60s America and a growing boy within the family who falls passionately in love with cinema and ambitiously aspires to be a filmmaker. The Fabelmans is a touchingly human film that succeeds in many ways, but it also can’t decide if it should give its primary focus to complex family drama or to depicting the start of a legendary filmmaking career. The two elements never work together as naturally as they could or should, and they are both unsatisfyingly underdeveloped and unresolved in the end.
Despite its sometimes-bumpy and unfocused design, however, The Fabelmans still manages to be a movingly honest and bravely personal film that shines a revealing and fascinating light on the early days of one of Hollywood’s most celebrated filmmakers.
GRADE: B
Falling for Christmas
Lindsay Lohan stars as a spoiled rich woman who discovers the true meaning of Christmas after getting amnesia from a skiing accident. Particularly in its first half, the film is blandly acted, contains a vomitous amount of forced sentiment, and is so predictable that it’s a chore to witness. Falling for Christmas mildly improves in its second half, however, to deliver some select moments of holiday cheer, feel-good warmth, and charming romance. These moments are few and far between, however, and don’t fully make up for the fact that the overall film is hopelessly and tiresomely trite.
GRADE: C-
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
This third (and, sadly, most likely final) entry into the Harry Potter prequel series is an enchanting, inventive, and entertaining effort. Mads Mikkelsen fills Johnny Depp’s shoes quite nicely (however unnecessary Depp’s termination may have been) as the villainous character of Grindelwald. Though it is a little too reliant upon previous films in both this and the Potter series to stand on its own and be fully understood, it is still hard not to be won over by Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore’s many magical charms.
GRADE: B+
Father Stu
This truth-based biography of a former boxer turned wannabe actor turned Catholic priest (Mark Wahlberg) is an endearing and charming effort that hits all the right notes of the standard biopic formula. Though Father Stu is nothing new and sometimes fails to be fully engaging due to its sporadically sluggish pacing, the film is still an overall nice, enlightening, and emotionally moving way to spend a couple of hours. Wahlberg delivers a wholly committed, impressively vulnerable, and intensely focused performance as Stuart Long. Mel Gibson, Teresa Ruiz, Jackie Weaver, Cody Fern, and Malcolm McDowell are all excellent in supporting roles.
GRADE: B+
Fresh
A lonely young woman (Daisy Edgar-Jones) with a nightmarish dating history meets the man of her dreams (Sebastian Stan) but is soon shocked to discover that he may not be exactly who he seems. To say anything more about its storyline would only risk giving away the film’s many wonderful surprises.
Director Mimi Cave and screenwriter Lauryn Kahn deliver a unique, rule-breaking, and riveting entry into the horror/thriller genre. While it slightly succumbs to a climax driven by a predictable thriller formula that the vast majority of the film intelligently avoids, Fresh is still, simply put, quite fresh. Jones and Stan both deliver fiercely committed and naturalistically believable performances.
GRADE: A-
The Glass Onion
This lively, quirky, and highly complex whodunnit follows up Knives Out and gives us the further adventures of its world-class detective protagonist, Benoit Blanc (an endearingly fantastic Daniel Craig). Writer/director Rian Johnson executes the storyline with cleverness and innovation, but he also has so many ideas that the film becomes progressively overcrowded and bogged down. The impressive ensemble cast (Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Janelle Monae, etc.) each get their individual opportunity to shine, but, at the same time, their excellent performances and interesting characters occasionally get lost amidst the film’s ever-increasing business.
Though it is an overall success, The Glass Onion either needed some screenplay editing and simplification in pre-production or some fleshing out and runtime lengthening in post-production in order to be the masterwork that it often comes so close to being.
GRADE: B
Glorious
A man (Ryan Kwanten) is forced to face himself and his past after he is inexplicably locked in a rest stop bathroom and finds himself at the mercy of a disembodied voice (J.K. Simmons) coming from within a stall. Glorious is an intelligent, character-driven, and technically well-made horror/comedy/drama that has high ambitions within its limited locations and low budget. Unfortunately, the film’s overall plodding pacing doesn’t always hold its viewers’ interest and its bigger ideas are underdeveloped, underexplained, and ultimately unclear. Though the film tries to pack an emotional wallop in the end, it winds up befuddling its audience more than wowing it.
GRADE: C+
Gone in the Night
Winona Ryder portrays a woman whose boyfriend (John Gallagher Jr.) goes missing after an overnight stay at a cabin with two strangers (Owen Teague and Brianne Tju). With the aid of the cabin’s seemingly affable owner (Dermot Mulroney), Ryder goes searching for what turns out to be a very convoluted and somewhat confusing truth. Gone in the Night is a technically well-made and well-acted film whose overly complex story persistently unravels as it progresses, so much so that there’s not much left of interest by the time it reaches its befuddling and unsatisfying conclusion. Though it’s good to see Ryder headline a film again, there’s not much else to this dull and confusing thriller to make it worthwhile.
GRADE: C-
The Good Nurse
Based on a true story, The Good Nurse focuses on a nurse struggling with heart issues (Jessica Chastain) who befriends the new nurse (Eddie Redmayne) in her hospital, only to discover that he might be sneakily murdering patients. The wholly hypnotic and engrossing film demands focus and sucks the viewer right into its drama. The voyeuristic cinematography by Judy Lee Lipes and the mesmerizing sound design by Morton Green aid in keeping the viewer wholly consumed. Chastain gives a typically strong performance, supplying her sympathetic character with the integrity and class she needs to be the film’s moral compass. Redmayne is a stunning mixture of affable warmth and cold derangement, giving an infallible depiction of someone who hides their true sinister character behind a well-rehearsed, though perhaps partially sincere, mask.
The film’s only true fault is that it doesn’t fully examine or develop the relationship between Chastain and Redmayne’s characters. Though it’s believable that they become close, there is never a satisfying moment that tells us how Chastain is affected when the accusations against Redmayne begin. There’s no moment of denial or confrontation, the topic simply moves forward without any dramatic weight. The film skips a step or two in its storytelling, something that mildly mars The Good Nurse without ruining its otherwise exceptional quality.
GRADE: A-
The Gray Man
Ryan Gosling stars in this action/thriller, portraying a rogue CIA operative who has to thwart attempts on his life by a psychotically determined former operative (Chris Evans). While the story is unimpressively formulaic and predictable, the kinetic, thrilling, and wholly inspired execution by directors Anthony and Joe Russo (Avengers: Infinity War, Cherry) more than makes up for it. The Gray Man is literally packed with colorfully inventive action sequences, so much so that the film becomes moderately exhausting and numbing by the time it reaches its final act.
Gosling is his usual smooth, effortlessly watchable self while Evans obviously has a great deal of fun portraying the dementedly vivacious bad guy. Julia Butters (Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood) and Billy Bob Thorton give memorable supporting performances. Ana de Armas is solid, though somewhat wasted, in a forgettable role as Gosling’s colleague.
GRADE: B+
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special
You pretty much have to be Ebenezer Scrooge if you aren’t moved, entertained, and filled with the holiday spirit after watching this 45-minute holiday special featuring most of your favorite Guardians of the Galaxy characters. It may not be a full feature-length effort, but this is still the most fun, most inventive, and most rewarding entry into the MCU since, well, the last Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
Writer/director James Gunn manages to expertly balance some amusingly demented humor with just the right amount of feel-good holiday cheesiness. The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is more than a mere appetizer to the next Guardians movie, it is a joyously unique accomplishment in and of itself.
GRADE: A
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Co-screenplay adapter/co-director Guillermo del Toro’s take on the classic fairy tale offers a refreshingly original approach to the material. Set in 1930s Italy during Mussolini’s reign, the film is darkly themed, historically detailed, and contains an awareness of the time’s violence in a frightening manner that is more geared towards adults than children. It is also a visually stunning and exquisitely crafted feat that is executed with unbelievably smooth and impressively detailed stop-motion animation.
Unfortunately, however, the film is sometimes marred by its uneven pacing, overstuffed narrative, overly long runtime, and ill-timed and wholly unnecessary musical numbers. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio still works, overall, but certain aspects of it should have been significantly less busy and ambitious in order for the entire film to qualify as the masterpiece that its exceptional craftmanship deserves.
GRADE: B
Halloween Ends
This (hopefully) final chapter to director David Gordon Green’s rebooted Halloween films is not just an unsatisfying sequel to the filmmaker’s previous two efforts, it’s an underwhelming and unforgivably boring move in its own right. This time around, we jump ahead four years from the previous film (which is already a bad idea that breaks the momentum built up by the first two films) to focus on the town outcast (Rohan Campbell), who teams up with a weakened Michael Myers after they share some ludicrous form of a Vulcan mind meld (or something like that). Nothing particularly interesting happens after that until the last fifteen minutes, which is the only part of the movie that actually feels like a proper Halloween sequel.
You have to give the creators behind Halloween Ends some credit, however, because they, at the very least, tried to do something different with the franchise. If only they were equally concerned about trying to do something good…
GRADE: D+
The House
The House is a trilogy of half-hour short films that are connected by storylines about the trials and tribulations of homeownership. The films are all surreally and quirkily comedic, and they all have differing dominant tones of ominousness, absurdly dark satire, and whimsical hopefulness. The extreme artistry and care with which each story is crafted—all in gloriously detailed and impressively smooth stop-motion animation—make up for the occasional sluggish pacing and for the lack of seamlessness between each contrasting storyline.
The House is a beautiful, though, as a whole, slightly haphazard viewing experience.
GRADE: B+
House of Darkness
Justin Long plays a man who drives a woman (Kate Bosworth) home after meeting her at a bar. When she invites him inside, things get increasingly tense, uncomfortable, and dangerous. Writer/director Neil LaBute (The Shape of Things, In the Company of Men) delivers an overall intelligent and suspenseful horror/thriller that is reliant upon well-written dialogue, a moody atmosphere, and organic human behavior. Though the predictable final reveal is a letdown, the events leading up to it are highly engrossing and well-executed by the talent both in front of and behind the camera.
GRADE: B
I Came By
A serial vandalizer/graffiti artist (1917’s George MacKay) with a purpose uncovers some dark and dangerous secrets after breaking into the wrong house. This British thriller is, overall, unpredictable and intensely captivating. Though most of the characters within the film suffer from underdevelopment and lack of charm, Kelly MacDonald (Trainspotting) somewhat makes up for it with her portrayal of a layered, likable. and sympathetic mother desperately searching for answers regarding her missing son.
I Came By may be a bit emotionally dry and dramatically underwhelming, but it still predominantly succeeds as a suspenseful and intelligent thriller.
GRADE: B
I Love My Dad
Patton Oswalt is, in equal measures, hilarious, painfully vulnerable, and despicably slimy as a father who poses as a young woman (Claudia Sulewski) online so he can talk to his estranged son (James Morosini). Needless to say, the result is squirm-inducing, but it’s also darkly hilarious and, ultimately, oddly moving.
I Love My Dad is an endlessly engrossing and surprising film that fearlessly examines some uncomfortable and messy human emotions. Writer/director Morosini delivers an original and painfully honest film that is executed with exceptional innovation and whole-hearted care.
GRADE: A
The Inhabitant
A teenager (Odessa A’zion) with a bloodline connected to Lizzie Borden experiences flashes of madness and soon comes to suspect that Borden’s murderous ways might be inheritable through a family curse. Though it has an intriguing premise and is overall well-acted, The Inhabitant falls short of being a success due to its stale execution and its annoyingly unclear plot details. It has moments of terror and a nice surprise or two towards the end, but the film is an otherwise lifeless and dull experience.
GRADE: C
Interceptor
Elsa Pataky makes a formidable action star and proves she can carry her own movie with this enjoyable action/thriller. Capitalizing on current fears of nuclear war, the film centers on a group of terrorists who overtake an American missile interceptor station and the badass woman (Pataky) who has to defend it. It may not be anything particularly original, but Interceptor delivers enough thrills, suspense, and likable, well-defined characters to be regarded as a quality piece of entertainment.
Executive producer Chris Hemsworth also has a memorable and amusing cameo in which he serves as the film’s primary source of comedic relief.
GRADE: B
Jurassic World Dominion
This is the sixth entry and third reboot sequel to the Jurassic Park franchise that began in the early ‘90s. Dinosaurs are freely and dangerously roaming modern-day Earth at the story’s beginning, and the greedy head of a corporation (Campbell Scott) wants to capitalize on the situation by controlling all food production. It’s up to a fun and nostalgic blend of newer heroes (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard) and older, familiar ones (Laura Dern, Sam Neil, Jeff Goldblum) to help save the day.
The movie is occasionally underwhelming with some minorly sloppy staging and editing choices that don’t always produce tension or suspense as well as they should. The movie overall survives its faults, however, due to its excellent cast, brisk pacing (the bloated two-and-a-half-hour runtime is, overall, surprisingly unfelt), and always-impressive visual effects. Jurassic World Dominion is an overall fun, exciting, and careless way to spend two-and-a-half hours of your time.
GRADE: B
Kimi
Zoë Kravitz stars as an agoraphobic woman who, while working for an assistive artificial intelligence company, uncovers the evidence of a murder. This modern-day Rear Window is a smart and suspenseful thriller with many Hitchcockian elements that are updated for the age of the internet and COVID-19.
David Koepp’s script is full of surprises and well-set-up payoffs, though it falls short of greatness because of its lack of clarity regarding its antagonists’ identity and motivation. Steven Soderbergh’s direction, editing, and cinematography are as top-notch and skillful as ever. Kimi is his best-paced and most focused film in quite some time.
GRADE: B+
Last Looks
A former Los Angeles police officer (Charlie Hunnam) takes a private investigator job to help solve a murder that involves a popular television star (Mel Gibson). While the film has plenty of charm and was obviously made with care and talent, its convoluted and conversation-driven story/screenplay (by source novelist Howard Michael Gould) is hard to focus on and follow. Though it has a number of impressive moments, the film’s dramatic energy too often falls flat, causing the story to sometimes lose momentum and, subsequently, its audience’s engagement.
Last Looks had a great deal of potential that is only partially realized. It could have been something truly special with a little screenplay finessing and tighter editing, but, instead, it’s going to have to settle on being a flawed work that houses some solid filmmaking and some highly memorable performances.
GRADE: C+
Last Man Down
After a pandemic wipes out the majority of the world’s population, a secluded soldier (Daniel Stisen) is forced to protect a young woman (Olga Kent) who is being hunted so she can be the subject of inhumane testing because it is believed that she holds the virus’ cure in her blood. Though Last Man Down has a somewhat generic style and storyline, it’s still an overall entertaining film with some thrilling and well-staged action sequences, tight pacing, and sympathetic and likable characters. Stisen is well-suited to his role as an unstoppable action-hero badass.
GRADE: B
Last Seen Alive
Gerard Butler stars as a frantic husband who takes matters into his own hands after his wife (Jaimie Alexander) mysteriously goes missing at a gas station. It’s been done before, sure, but Last Seen Alive is still successfully suspenseful and attention-grabbing due to its brisk and tight pacing, disciplined filmmaking, and committedly intense performances. Butler’s natural charisma and watchability make it easy to sympathize with him and follow him on his character’s exasperating journey.
GRADE: B
Lou
An ex-CIA operative (Allison Janney) braves a severe storm in the wilderness to help a young girl (Ridley Asha Bateman) who has been kidnapped by her dangerous father (Logan Marshall-Green). Though the film is functionally well-made and features outstanding performances by Janney (who is an unsurprisingly tough and believable action hero), Bateman, and Marshall-Green, there’s no life, personality, or inspiration to be found in the film’s story or execution. Lou is simply a bland, generically styled, and passionless film that overall fails to sustain interest and only fully succeeds in wasting some exceptional talent.
GRADE: C-
Luckiest Girl Alive
Mila Kunis gives a powerful and edgy performance as a rape survivor and high school shooting survivor who is forced to deal with the rumors that she may have had a hand in the latter’s violent events. Luckiest Girl Alive is an overall pertinent and harrowing depiction of two important topics (sexual violence and mass shootings) that deserve a great deal of examination.
The oftentimes-darkly humorous tone overall works, but is occasionally at odds with moments of strong drama and direct sincerity. Minor faults aside, this an exceedingly well-made and thought-provoking film that deserves to be seen by a large audience.
GRADE: A-
Lux Aeterna
This fifty-minute experimental feature from the explosively daring auteur, Gaspar Noé, takes place on a fictional movie set for a film about witches. While it is thrillingly inspired with its utilization of innovative filmmaking techniques, Lux Aeterna falls short of the greatness that most of Noé’s other films achieve because it’s hard to relate to or understand any of its characters. The film is aesthetically bold but, overall, dramatically flat and unengaging.
Lux Aeterna still manages to be mesmerizing in select moments due to Noé’s aggressively psychedelic style, but it would have been nice if the master magician had a clearer point with his fevered illusions this time around.
GRADE: B-
Mad God
Every frame of this nightmarishly surreal, beautifully grotesque, and predominantly stop-motion-animated epic is bursting with ingenuity and skill. All the painstaking effort put into this groundbreaking, thirty-years-in-the-making achievement by visual effects pioneer Phil Tippet is evident while viewing it. Mad God’s mad brilliance is something you just have to see and experience for yourself in order to believe it.
GRADE: A
A Man Called Otto
This charming character-based comedy/drama stars Tom Hanks as an antisocial widower who is plotting his suicide, only to constantly have his plans thwarted by unforeseen life events. Though the film is a tad too polite and slightly oversimplifies grief and depression, it’s still a highly thoughtful and overall moving film that is a terrific vehicle for Hanks’ bottomless talent. A Man Called Otto induces laughter, pulls at the heartstrings, and reminds us to look at life from different angles in a very endearing and sensitive manner.
GRADE: B+
The Man From Toronto
Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson star as a bumbling everyman/deadly assassin odd couple that is forced to work together despite their extraordinary differences (can you imagine?!). The story is tired, the jokes are stale, the tone is obnoxious, the action sequences are exhaustingly unspectacular, and the airtight pacing allows little room for character development. On the positive side, Hart and Harrelson display an effortless and lively chemistry, but it’s too underexplored and lost amongst the noise to save The Man From Toronto from being a creatively bankrupt production.
GRADE: C-
Men
A young woman (Jessie Buckley) rents a remote house so she can heal from the troubling death of her husband (Paapa Essiedu). Shortly after arriving, she is stalked by a mysterious male entity and soon finds that all the men with whom she comes into contact seem to hold an increasingly misogynistic grudge against her. Are these events real? Or are they all part of her traumatized psyche?
Despite its deliberately paced, downright brilliant, and utterly terrifying build-up, the film’s unclear final act proves that writer/director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) doesn’t entirely know how to make sense of his own story. And if he does, he certainly doesn’t seem to want to share it with his audience. Rather than being tantalizingly ambiguous in a Lynchian sort of way, the film instead falls quite short of dramatic satisfaction. However, the first hour of Men contains some of the best and most effective horror of its time, which alone makes it worth seeing. Just don’t expect any closure or catharsis. Enter at your own risk.
GRADE: B-
The Menu
A snootily enthusiastic foodie (the always impressive Nicholas Hoult) and his date (an equally impressive Anya Taylor-Joy) visit a highly exclusive restaurant headed by a legendary and brutally perfectionist chef (a steely, smooth, and typically brilliant Ralph Fiennes). The Menu is an overall unpredictable and gleefully shocking satire/horror film that is filled with intelligence, tension, and scathingly dark humor and absurdity. It succeeds with just about all of its many aspirations and is executed with expert craftmanship and endless originality. There is simply nothing else quite like this wonderfully shocking film.
GRADE: A
Minamata
Set in the early 70s, Minamata tells the story of the celebrated WWII photographer, W. Eugene Smith (Johnny Depp), who exposed the devastating effects of mercury poisoning on a Japanese city. Though its heart is in the right place, the film fails to captivate its audience on a dramatic or emotional level. Minamata is a good history lesson, but it’s one that is increasingly laborious to sit through the further it progresses. Depp gives as much character shading as he can to a role that is underwritten and underdeveloped.
GRADE: C
Morbius
This Sony/Marvel production lacks the heart and character it needs to stand tall amongst the plethora of other comic book movies. Morbius is sluggishly paced, blandly executed, and filled with uninteresting and thinly developed characters. Jared Leto does his best in the titular role, but his efforts can only go so far when he’s working with such an uninspired screenplay.
Morbius, despite the talent associated with it, is an inexcusably dull viewing experience.
GRADE: C-
The Munsters
Writer/director Rob Zombie’s reboot of the classic, spookily family-friendly series centers on the origins of the titular family of lovable monsters and how they came to live in suburban America. Though sometimes poorly paced and often thinly plotted, The Munsters isn’t nearly as bad as it should be. It boasts beautifully and boldly colorful cinematography by Zoran Popovic, innovative and eye-catching set and costume designs, and fun, bubbly performances by Sheri Moon Zombie, Daniel Roebuck, and Jeff Daniel Phillips.
Unfortunately, the movie is also a bit of a tonal and structural mess with sometimes-odd comedic timing, numerous unsuccessful bits that simply don’t know who they’re playing towards, and a runtime that is at least twenty minutes too long. However, there is still a charming and intentional silliness/childishness to the movie that should make it appeal to younger audiences and, at the very least, mildly amuse older ones.
GRADE: C+
My Southern Family Christmas
A journalist (an excellent Jaicy Elliot) gets the opportunity to meet her estranged biological father (a layered and likable Bruce Campbell) through the guise of a piece she is assigned to write for Christmastime. All-around good acting, solid filmmaking, and an intelligently touching script make this charmingly cute Hallmark movie a good fit for anyone’s holiday viewing list, no matter how formulaic it may be. My Southern Family Christmas is a holiday movie that is unabashedly designed to make you feel good, but it does so with striking intelligence and sincerity.
GRADE: B+
The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes
This documentary examines the tragic, painful life and mysterious death of America’s most iconic actress, Marilyn Monroe, by way of previously unheard interview tapes featuring those closest to her.
While the film is perfectly intriguing, it fails to be fully riveting due to its haphazard structure and uninspired filmmaking style. The audio clips are organized without concern for clarity or dramatic impact, and the visuals that accompany them largely consist of tiresome roaming shots from the point of view of a car driving through Los Angeles at different time periods. The film manages to raise interest in its subject’s questionable death, but it fails to be a wholly gripping or definitive examination of the topic.
GRADE: B-
Night’s End
An agoraphobic and anxiety-ridden video blogger (Geno Walker) suspects that his apartment may be haunted and decides to seek help in the form of an online exorcism, which has unexpected results. Director Jennifer Reeder’s feature follow-up to her highly inventive and genre-defying effort, Knives and Skin, is a bit more straightforward and an even larger bit less inspired than her previous film.
Night’s End is a low-budget effort with limited locations and cast members, and it does deserve credit for trying to accomplish a lot with very little. The film is well-made on a technical level, features some excellent performances, and has a notably strong first act. However, it just doesn’t know how to sustain its audience’s interest for the entirety of its duration and it, ultimately, fails to come together as anything memorable or impactful with its dull and unclear climax.
GRADE: C
Nope
This new and updated take on extraterrestrial invaders from writer/director Jordan Peele is, at the very least, uniquely executed. However, the overall storyline is unnecessarily complicated and intentionally jagged to follow, making it quite difficult for the audience to become fully immersed in the film. Peele, despite his massive talent, gets in his own way this time around by being more concerned with breaking new narrative ground than he is with telling his story with clarity and inclusivity. Considering all the talent associated with it, Nope could have been something much more memorable if it would have rethought and finessed some of its more frustrating and over-ambitious narrative choices.
GRADE: C
The Northman
Alexander Skarsgard stars a former prince turned Viking who seeks vengeance against the man (Claes Bang) who killed his king father (Ethan Hawke) and kidnapped his queen mother (Nicole Kidman). Co-writer/director Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse) pushes his bold filmmaking style to the limit with The Northman, a challenging, brutally violent, and visually hypnotic film that rises above what easily could have been a simplistic, revenge-themed storyline.
The sometimes-tediously paced film can come off a bit emotionally cold due to some underdeveloped character relationships. However, it’s still a work of undeniably high quality, as it features a number of striking performances, gorgeous cinematography by Jarin Blaschke, and a creatively courageous and overall unforgettable style of execution.
GRADE: B+
Not Okay
Zoey Deutch continues to prove herself as one of the most adept comedic and dramatic actresses of her generation with her layered portrayal of a depressed young woman who pretends to have survived a terrorist attack for internet attention. She conveys the wince-inducing situation by effortlessly shifting from hilarious, airheaded vanity to pained, vulnerable self-awareness. It is a highly complex performance that is all the more impressive because Deutch makes it look so effortless.
This intelligent and thought-provoking study of social media fame, gun violence, and mental illness challenges its viewers in a variety of ways. Writer/director Quinn Shephard creates a direct, edgy, and fiercely funny piece of satire, but also tackles the film’s subject matter with sincerity and open-minded, non-judgmental integrity. Not Okay refuses to simplify itself and never takes the easy way out, resulting in a film that bravely asks a number of important questions about today’s world without providing any false or easily digestible answers.
GRADE: A
One Way
This intense, minimalistic, and character-driven thriller is wholly engrossing from beginning to end. Featuring an excellent and hyper-focused lead performance from Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly) and directed with precision and skill by Andrew Baird, One Way never loses its momentum and never fails at keeping up the suspense. Though its supporting characters could have used a little more development and the ending is a tad abrupt, the film is still a surprisingly successful low-budget accomplishment.
GRADE: A-
The Pale Blue Eye
Christian Bale gives another committed, focused, and quietly hyper-intense performance in this darkly moody and tangibly atmospheric effort from writer (based on Louis Bayard’s novel)/director Scott Cooper. Bale portrays a detective trying to solve an inexplicable murder in 19th century New York with the aid of a young Edgar Allan Poe (an also excellent Harry Melling).
The Pale Blue Eye is an effective and engrossing mystery/thriller that contains beautifully dark cinematography (by Masanobu Takayanagi) and some otherwise excellent filmmaking. Its deliberate pace is hypnotic at its best, but sporadically sluggish at its worst. The two-hour-plus film could have easily been trimmed a good ten to fifteen minutes of its runtime to provide a steadier pace. Looking past this, however, The Pale Blue Eye still has a number of wonderful surprises and is an overall mesmerizing and impressive piece of work.
GRADE: B+
Phoenix Rising
This two-part documentary centers on actress Evan Rachel Wood outing her abuser, shock rocker Marilyn Manson, a decade after their toxic relationship ended.
Phoenix Rising is an inspiring and heartfelt look into surviving and standing up to emotional and physical abuse. Though the slightly unfocused and sometimes redundant film would have been more impactful if it were presented as a standalone feature with a half-hour shorter runtime, it still manages to make its point with clarity, empathy, and painstaking honesty.
GRADE: B+
Pinocchio
This (kind of) live-action retelling of the Walt Disney animated classic about a puppet who is on a mission to become a real boy is a simple and direct pleasure. The film doesn’t hold much appeal for adults, but it’s charming and innocent enough to bring out the kid in you for nearly a couple of hours, regardless. Director Robert Zemeckis and his team’s filmmaking is solid, the songs are mercifully brief, and Tom Hanks’ lead live-action performance as Geppetto is as loveable and as integrity laden as the actor has ever been.
GRADE: B
Prey
This prequel to the Predator series, about an alien race that hunts humans for sport, is set three hundred years in the past and features the titular antagonist sparring with a female Comanche warrior (an intensely focused Amber Midthunder). Though the outcome of each action sequence is relatively predictable, director Dan Trachtenberg still keeps us engaged with tight pacing and sturdy staging. Prey may not be overly wowing, but it does still manage to be highly entertaining for most of its duration.
GRADE: B
Resurrection
A single mother (Rebecca Hall) is terrified to discover that her abusive and controlling ex (Tim Roth) is slowly reappearing back into her life after years of absence. Hardly a conventional thriller, Resurrection deserves credit for taking what could have been a very formulaic premise and doing something highly expressive, thought-provokingly complex, and oddly surreal with it. Though it doesn’t fully come together in the end or make its points entirely clear, the film is too unique to be written off without, at the very least, partially appreciating its courageousness and originality.
GRADE: B-
Revealer
A stripper (Caito Aase) and a religious zealot (Shaina Schrooten) must face the apocalypse in ‘80s-set Chicago while being trapped together in a peep show booth. Despite its sometimes-slow pacing and an occasionally unclear storyline, Revealer mostly lives up to its amusing premise and provokes thought while delivering scares and laughs. Aase and Schrooten are both excellent in their lead roles, carrying the weight of the movie and inhabiting their roles with lifelike ease.
GRADE: B-
RRR
This relentlessly kinetic and endlessly inventive Hindi film centers on real-life Indian revolutionaries/freedom fighters Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan Teja). The film’s depiction of their friendship, forced antagonism, and eventual team-up against British colonialist invaders is purely and, in the best possible way, ridiculously fictional, however.
RRR’s many action sequences and its few musical numbers are brilliantly executed and loaded with emotion and imagination. Its protagonists are admirable and likable, and their motivations are always clearly defined. You never feel the film’s three-hour runtime (which is no small feat), and it consistently feels like it is simply bursting with impressive skill, intelligent and amusingly absurd humor, and extraordinarily sincere heart.
GRADE: A
Sam & Kate
A curmudgeonly elderly man (Dustin Hoffman) begins dating a hoarder (Sissy Spacek) around the same time their grown children (Hoffman’s real-life son, Jake Hoffman, and Spacek’s real-life daughter, Schuyler Fisk) begin seeing one another. Sam & Kate is highly affable and emotionally moving without containing a single contrived moment or false note. It presents its complex characters with realism and care, never shying away from life’s harsher realities but never dwelling on them to the point of being depressing. It’s a thoughtful, beautifully acted, and all-around well-made film that is ultimately as heartwarming as it is achingly honest.
GRADE: A
Scream
This self-described “requel” to the Scream series sees a new killer in the Ghostface mask stalking a new group of hip and attractive youngsters, some of whom, like previous franchise characters, participate in the film’s meta-awareness and commentary of horror movie “rules.” The new actors overall do a fine job with roles that are only occasionally interesting or fully developed. The return of Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette is welcome, as they all provide the film with the nostalgia it needs to appeal to fans of the original films.
There’s just not enough inspiration or freshness to its design to make this new Scream movie as memorable as the original films. Though it has a couple of nice surprises and contains sequences of aggressive suspense and brutality that are effective in and of themselves, the overall impact of the film is, unfortunately, rather dull.
GRADE: C+
See How They Run
This endlessly enjoyable, charming, and witty mystery/comedy centers on a backstage murder during a 1950s theatrical run of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap while its Hollywood film adaptation is in the midst of pre-production. Sam Rockwell is simply brilliant as a burnt-out inspector who is assigned to the case and given a new partner in the form of a young constable/sergeant-in-training (an affably naïve, comically uptight, and all-around pitch-perfect Saoirse Ronan). See How They Run is an inventive, fun, and funny film that provides highly amusing and engrossing escapist entertainment.
GRADE: A
She Said
Centering on the 2017 New York Times article that first exposed producer Harvey Weinstein as a sexual predator, this carefully handled, finely acted, and thoughtfully written film is a revelatory examination of the power and courage behind standing up to abuse. Completely avoiding all forms of sensationalism and exploitation, the film matter-of-factly relays its story through conversation and pained, hindsight reactions to the central abuse that drives it. The only downside to the film’s consistent integrity is that it sometimes lacks dramatic punch, something the intellectually stimulating film needs a tad more of to drive its point home on a more emotional level.
That being said, She Said is a highly intelligent and thought-provoking film that examines a very disturbing piece of recent history with endless class, good intentions, and impressive skill.
GRADE: A-
Smile
A psychiatric doctor with a troubled past (the excellent Sosie Bacon) witnesses a patient’s suicide, then experiences horrifying visions that could possibly lead to her demise. Smile is a smart, deliberately paced, and wholly terrifying horror effort that relies on simple but effective jump scares as much as it relies on intelligent, searing, and inescapable psychological horror. The film is, simply put, the best of both worlds.
The film has some minor faults, as it does take a little too long to find its footing in the beginning and its sometimes-sluggish pacing occasionally threatens to hurt its momentum. However, Smile is still an unforgettably creepy and disturbing film that uncomfortably lingers in its viewer’s psyche long after it’s over.
GRADE: A-
Spiderhead
This endearingly strange film offers a unique but messy blend of drama, humor, and science fiction. It is a bit too tonally haphazard to be considered great, but it’s also too interesting and original to be examined without praise. Spiderhead is a fascinating, though sometimes clumsy, film that knows what it’s trying to say but sometimes has a little trouble saying it.
Chris Hemsworth appears to be having a blast with his portrayal of a quirky, eighties rock-loving mad scientist who conducts drug experiments on prisoners. Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett are both excellent in leading and supporting lead roles.
GRADE: B
Sr.
This extremely touching, highly personal, and painfully forthright documentary focuses on legendary underground filmmaker, Robert Downey Sr. The film is an exploration of his provocative and endlessly innovative work, his relationship with his celebrated actor son, and his complex feelings about his life as he reaches the end of it. Sr. is a valuable and heartful exploration of an inescapable artist and a wholly individualistic man.
GRADE: A
The Staircase
This eight-part, reality-based miniseries focuses on Michael Peterson (Colin Firth) and nearly two decades of legal battles to clear his name of murdering his wife (Toni Colette). Creator, co-writer, and director of six episodes, Antonio Campos (The Devil All the Time), delivers a staggeringly watchable story that never ceases to be riveting for the entirety of its over-eight-hour duration. Consistently mesmerizing to the point of being downright hypnotic, The Staircase is a prime example of a richly developed story that benefits from, and doesn’t merely adjust to, its ongoing series format. Its events couldn’t have been conveyed as fully or satisfyingly in any other way.
The simply outstanding Firth delivers a highly complex and appropriately ambiguous performance. He portrays an inherently flawed and painfully human character, never once tipping his hat towards Peterson’s guilt or innocence. Colette, Juliette Binoche, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Dane DeHaan, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sophie Turner, Odessa Young, and the remainder of the supporting cast all deliver equally outstanding and deeply thoughtful performances. On just about every level, The Staircase is a massively impressive achievement.
GRADE: A
Tár
Though it is impeccably crafted and performed, there is little enjoyment to be found in this fictional study of a celebrated, world-renowned composer/conductor (Cate Blanchett). Writer/director Todd Field’s return to the director’s chair after an over-fifteen-year absence (his last effort is the excellent 2006 drama, Little Children) is a welcome one, but it would have been nice if he’d chosen/created material that contains a little more dramatic urgency. Tár has a number of exceptional qualities, but being interesting and engaging for the majority of its duration is not among them.
The film eventually has something to say about cancel culture and the corruption that power often begets. However, it takes far too long to get to its point and runs the risk of losing its audience by the time it does. Tár is the cinematic equivalent of studying for a final exam: it feels much better having done it than it does actually doing it. In other words, there is much to admire about the film after it is over, but sitting through it is nothing short of a laborious and painstaking chore.
GRADE: C+
They/Them
Gladiator and The Aviator screenwriter John Logan makes his directorial debut with this challenging, thought-provoking, and unsettling horror film. Taking place in a gay conversion camp led by a charmingly sadistic Kevin Bacon, the film focuses more on the internal struggles of the camp’s inhabitants than it does the masked killer who seems to be hunting them all. They/Them is a thoughtful slasher film that only occasionally contains slashing. While this allows room for in-depth character study, it also makes the film intermittently lose focus and have minor but noticeable pacing issues.
Though it has its faults, They/Them overall succeeds due to its unique point of view, topical storyline, and the exceptional talent both in front of and behind the camera.
GRADE: B
Thor: Love and Thunder
This entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe centers on everyone’s favorite god of thunder (Chris Hemsworth) taking on a new villain, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), with the aid of his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman), who has discovered a way to carry and execute Thor’s powers. There’s a lot of potential to be found in Thor: Love and Thunder. While a good deal of this potential is realized, an equal amount of it is squandered by a predominantly silly tone and oftentimes forced humor that don’t organically blend with the overall storyline.
There are still many positives to be found in the film, as it is just as lively, entertaining, and inventive in some parts as it is mildly obnoxious, uninspired, and scattered in others. It’s just too bad that the best and most interesting aspects of the film (Thor’s adventures with The Guardians of the Galaxy, Portman’s realization of her new powers, Bale’s fascinating performance and character) take a backseat to juvenile jokes that only occasionally work, tiring spectacle, and action sequences that are too derivative of Thor’s previous adventures to be noteworthy or memorable.
GRADE: B-
Three Thousand Years of Longing
This variation of the genie-in-the-bottle storyline is quite the antithesis to its director George Miller’s previous film, Mad Max: Fury Road. Since that movie is a masterpiece in just about every way, however, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Three Thousand Years of Longing is an overall sluggishly paced and dramatically flat film that forgets to engage its audience. Stars Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton give committed and professional performances, but the stale writing of their characters keeps them uninteresting and undefined. It being a Miller film, there are some beautiful visuals and some rare moments of stylistic ingenuity, but it’s not enough to save the film from primarily being a hopeless bore.
GRADE: C
Top Gun: Maverick
Tom Cruise returns as Maverick, the iconic character that made him a bona fide movie star in the eighties, in this long overdue sequel to Top Gun. In terms of story and character, the film is essentially a retread of ground already covered in the original film. Its biggest fault involves a very forced romance between Cruise and Jennifer Connelly that falls completely flat and pretty much wastes the latter’s talents.
An otherwise good performance from Cruise, impressive work by the young ensemble cast (Miles Teller, Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman, Glen Powell, etc.), and some truly breathtaking aerial cinematography and choreography make up for the film’s lack of originality. As formulaic and overtly nostalgic as it may be, Top Gun: Maverick still manages to be an overall impressive filmmaking achievement.
GRADE: B
Triangle of Sadness
Centering on a group of rich and privileged passengers aboard a luxury cruise ship, Triangle of Sadness is a refreshingly unpredictable, bold, and scathingly hilarious satire that examines (amongst many things) the flaws of capitalism and upper-class entitlement. The overly-long film’s loose pacing and its sprawling and meandering structure occasionally make it tiresome to sit through, but the otherwise intelligent nature of its screenplay, along with some solid filmmaking and excellent performances, make such faults overall forgivable.
Unfortunately, however, the film’s abrupt ending, which aspires to be cleverly ambiguous, notably hurts it by making it feel frustratingly unfinished. There is still much to admire about Triangle of Sadness, despite it falling short in a few capacities that prevent it from reaching the masterwork status that it comes so close to achieving.
GRADE: B+
Umma
Sandra Oh gives an excellent performance as a woman who is psychologically and spiritually haunted by her deceased mother (MeeWha Alana Lee). Umma uses the horror genre to explore realistic complexities and intricacies that are found in mother/daughter relationships. Though the film contains its fair share of horrific moments, it’s overall more thoughtful and revelatory than it is terrifying.
Writer/director Iris K. Shim is more concerned with the psychology and emotional reality of her characters than she is with pleasing genre fans. This makes for an interesting, relatable, and adult-oriented film. However, Umma only partially reaches its goal to be scary and never fully manages to get under our skin.
GRADE: B
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Nicolas Cage stars as Nick Cage in this wildly inventive ode to the world-famous thespian. The meta film centers on a plot where Cage is paid one million dollars to attend a massive fan’s (a surprisingly hilarious Pedro Pascal) birthday party, then somehow finds himself working undercover for the CIA. The film is exciting, hilarious, and bonkers in all the right ways.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a must-see film that both spoofs and celebrates one of cinema’s most creative and powerful performers.
GRADE: A
Uncharted
Uncharted is an action yarn based on a popular video game series of the same name. Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, and Sophia Ali star, portraying small-time criminals who go on an archaeological hunt for old pirate ships and lost gold. The actors do their best to add life and humanity to their underdeveloped characters and the screenplay’s overly busy storyline, but they can only do so much. Despite a couple of thrilling action sequences, the cluttered film is ultimately more tiresome and numbing than it is exciting.
Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) obviously knows how to deliver a funny and entertaining actioner, he just needs a better script with a more unique concept for his next effort.
GRADE: C
Vengeance
A New York podcaster (B.J. Novak) is mistaken by the members of a small-town Texas family to be the true love of their deceased family member that he only casually dated, and soon gets entangled in the mysterious circumstances surrounding her untimely death. Also the writer and director, Novak delivers a quirkily and darkly funny yet, at times, sincerely poignant dramatic mystery that relies more on character development and character interaction than it does on hitting progressive plot points.
The film, on rare occasions, loses focus and it also doesn’t quite reach the full potential of its dramatic impact in the end. However, Vengeance is still, overall, a captivating, surprising, and movingly heartfelt feature debut from an impressively solid filmmaking talent.
GRADE: B+
Violent Night
David Harbour stars as a burnt-out and embittered Santa Claus who rediscovers the spirit of Christmas when he is forced to battle brutal mercenaries who have taken a wealthy family hostage. The easily likable Harbor is equal parts comedy gold and action-movie-badass, successfully conveying a wide range of endlessly entertaining emotions. Though the film’s running time could have been shaved down to create a more consistently kinetic pace, Violent Night is still a gleefully violent, darkly humorous, and amusingly atypical way to enjoy some holiday cheer.
GRADE: B+
Vortex
Though far more toned down and introspective than the aggressive bouts of cinematic psychedelia for which he is best known, this Gaspar Noé film is no less innovative or profound than his previous efforts. Centering on an elderly married couple (Dario Argento and Francoise Lebrun) whose lives are under duress due to the wife’s increasingly debilitating dementia, the film is a brutally honest and lifelike depiction of the devastation that mental decay causes.
The film utilizes long, often interrupted takes that sometimes threaten to be gratuitous but also ground the film in a very deliberately paced reality. Split screen effects are also used throughout to highlight the increasing disconnection between the two characters. Noé’s inventive filmmaking, along with his newfound sensitivity and restraint, makes Vortex an unforgettable experience that bravely explores a very harsh and painful reality.
GRADE: A-
Watcher
A young woman (portrayed by an overall believable but sporadically flat Maika Monroe) moves with her husband (a charming but somewhat too relaxed Karl Glusman) to Romania and soon becomes obsessed with the idea that a man is stalking her. Watcher is the kind of frustrating horror/thriller whose plot progression is far too reliant upon unrealistically convenient story beats and the stupidity and unbelievably poor decisions of its protagonist. Though it is primarily well-made and contains a surprisingly intense and effective climax, the film never fully recovers from its sometimes-lazy writing and slightly uncommitted lead performances.
GRADE: C+
The Weekend Away
A new mother (Leighton Meester) takes a much-needed vacation to Croatia, then soon has to clear her name of murdering her best friend (Christina Wolfe).
The Weekend Away is like a Lifetime movie without the cheesy, guilty pleasure fun factor. There is no life or heart to the film, as it is merely a bland experience consisting of highly implausible events and underdeveloped character motivations. Though the film has a few nice (though highly unbelievable) surprises, they’re not enough to make up for its highly uninteresting and dully executed storyline.
GRADE: C-
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
This exceedingly clever and highly absurd spoof of the biopic format (kind of) tells the life story of parody musician “Weird Al” Yankovic by relaying it through parody. The film, on rare occasions, drags (it probably runs about ten minutes too long) and it doesn’t always take full advantage of its wild premise, but it’s still an overall hilarious and entertaining effort that is ultimately as inventive as it is charming.
Daniel Radcliffe is pitch-perfect and priceless as Yankovic, playing every moment, even the silliest ones, with complete commitment. Evan Rachel Wood steals every second she’s in front of the camera with a brilliant and endlessly amusing portrayal of a sociopathically ambitious and comically exaggerated Madonna.
GRADE: A-
Wendell & Wild
Two demons (voiced by Keegan-Michael Kay and Jordan Peele) take advantage of an orphaned teenager (voiced by Lyric Ross) to return to the land of the living after stealing their boss’ magical hair cream and discovering they can use it to revive the dead. The inspired creative pairing of producer/voice actor/co-screenwriter Peele and producer/co-screenwriter/director Henry Selick doesn’t quite live up to its promise, as Wendell & Wild doesn’t seem to fully belong to either creative visionary and never quite reaches either of their standards for greatness. Though it has an inventive story, dazzling visuals, and contains some of the smoothest and most refined stop-motion animation ever accomplished, the film lacks the heart, vision, and character it needs to fully rank alongside its creators’ most noteworthy accomplishments.
GRADE: B-
White Elephant
The exceptional talents of cast members Michael Rooker, John Malkovich, and Bruce Willis can’t help this hopelessly sub-mediocre action/thriller. Though it has plenty of bloody violence, White Elephant is low on excitement and entertainment due to its lack of ingenuity and bland execution. It offers absolutely nothing that hasn’t been seen before and done far better. Willis, whose voice sometimes sounds like it was dubbed by a different actor, deserves much more for what is, quite sadly, one of his final film roles.
GRADE: D+
White Noise
Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig star as a married couple trying to keep their family secure during a potentially apocalyptic scare that involves airborne contamination (or something like that for at least part of the film). Since I have not read Don DeLillo’s source material, I can only assume that writer/director Noah Baumbach didn’t fully utilize what makes the book such a classic piece of literature for his misguided and dull film adaption.
White Noise’s satire is obvious, its obnoxiously quirky tone is overbearing, its forced humor constantly falls flat, its character definitions are unclear, its story is a meandering and confused mess, and its pacing is unbearably uneven. What a colossal waste of time and talent!
GRADE: D
Windfall
Jason Segel stars as a man who breaks into a tech mogul’s (Jesse Plemons) vacation home, only to be interrupted by his and his wife’s (Lily Collins) unexpected arrival. Windfall is a well-acted, well-made thriller that is consistently surprising. The formula-averse film does a fine job of creating the feeling that anything unexpected could happen at any moment. On top of containing large measures of entertainment value, the film also manages to examine and provoke thought on the unfairness of widely separated social classes.
Though it’s a variant of the home invasion scenario that we’ve seen countless times before, Windfall is still an exceptionally intelligent and riveting burst of cinematic intensity that is unpredictable right up to and including its final moments.
GRADE: A-
The Woman King
This riveting adventure tale is inspired by true events that took place in 19th-century Africa. It centers on a teenage girl (the excellent Thuso Mbedu) who refuses her family’s orders to marry a rich man and, instead, becomes a soldier led by a skilled female general (the typically brilliant Viola Davis).
Director Gina Prince-Bythewood successfully balances meaty character drama with historical insight and thrilling, expertly staged battle sequences. Though the film’s momentum is occasionally disrupted by its unevenly paced first half, it mostly makes up for it with its near-breathless second half. The Woman King is an overall entertaining and enlightening film that exhibits many great performances and impressively skilled filmmaking.
GRADE: A-
Women Talking
This thought-provoking and exceptionally powerful film centers on a group of Mennonite women who have suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of some of the men in their community. They then have to decide whether to leave their home or stay and forgive those who did them so terribly wrong. Writer (based on the book by Miriam Toews)/director Sarah Polley delivers a wholly honest, sensitive, and intelligent film that depicts the painful aftermath of male aggression and violence directed toward women. The extraordinary ensemble cast is comprised of such massive talents as Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Frances McDormand, and Ben Whishaw.
Women Talking is a meditative, poetic, and revelatory examination of the unavoidable necessity of female empowerment and independence. It is the perfect antidote to the increasingly overt misogyny found in today’s backward-moving world.
GRADE: A
The Wonder
Set in 1860s Ireland, a widowed English nurse (a typically impressive and committed Florence Pugh) is hired to observe a young girl (an excellent Kila Lord Cassidy) who has, miraculously, managed to survive after not eating for four months. The film’s deliberate pacing is occasionally tedious but its sturdy filmmaking, rich atmosphere, and focused performances prevent it from being a chore through which to endure. Not exactly riveting though far from dull, The Wonder is an overall success that could have used a bit more dramatic power to properly communicate its fascinating storyline.
GRADE: B
Wrong Place
Finally! A latter-stage, low-budget Bruce Willis movie where he is actually in it a significant amount and deserves the top billing he receives. In the film, Willis plays a security guard who witnesses a crime, then has to rescue his kidnapped daughter (Ashley Greene) from the criminal who is trying to keep him silent. Wrong Place is an overall predictable action/thriller but it still delivers some moderately good entertainment due to some solid performances, tight pacing, and engaging action. It’s nothing special and is obviously cheaply made but it’s still great to see Willis doing his thing with a role that is meaty enough to deserve his presence and talent.
GRADE: B-
