Alan Ng

If you’ve ever felt alone and ignored in life, Dear Evan Hansen may touch you in profound ways.

The fun of Sigourney Weaver in directors Wallace Wolodarsky and Maya Forbes’ feature, The Good House, is watching a master actor create an everyday character so believable that she could literally walk into a room and pass as one of us. By the way, everything I said about Weaver equally applies to her co-star Kevin Kline as well.

One could say that I Love Us can’t decide what it wants to be. Is it a crime thriller or a family film? This split focus is a legitimate criticism, but somehow director and lead actor Danny Abeckaser manages to pull it off. It’s far from perfect, but it works well enough.

Good movies make you feel, even if that feeling is not good. Chon ensures you’ll have feelings at the end of Blue Bayou, just not the happy ones.

Montana Story is a solid film set on a standard story structure.

The description of the actual re-claiming of the prison by the corrections officers and the national guard is told in horrifying detail, and the torture and punishment of the surviving prisoner are much worse. I dare you to watch it today and not get angry about the racial divide that existed in the 70s.

Tim Roth is great as Neil.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an origin story, and director Destin Daniel Cretton, working from script he wrote alongside Dave Callaham and, Andrew Lanham did a masterful job telling a story that’s not only Asian-American but a Marvel movie at the same time.

The Seer and the Unseen has more to offer by showing us the kind and gentle landscape and people of Iceland. It’s best to take the movie for what it is at face value. If you’re the type of person, who just wants to mock an old lady, then you best move on to a different film.

The Protégé is just good action-y thriller-y fun with great repeat value. It falls in that mid-range budget for an action film, maybe just a few notches below the Bourne films. So it’s the perfect popcorn and movie outing for the weekend.

I’d describe A Dark Foe as a dark ride at Disneyland. You’re invited to step into a vehicle, buckle up, sit back, and enjoy what happens around you. The steady progression into darkness moves rather quickly through one revelation after the other.

Liesl Tommy extracts the proper emotion from every scene, and the music is like truffles on top of a fantastic meal.

The ending does have a pretty good payoff to push Masquerade over the recommendation line.

No one is safe, and decency is thrown out the window. Not since Deadpool has a movie ever been so f****d up. Though Deadpool wandered more into the sexual and scatological terrain, The Suicide Squad, instead, blurs the line between cartoon violence and gory realism.

Jungle Cruise is just plain, good, not-to-be-taken-seriously fun.

Sheep Without A Shepherd is good fun as both an action flick and a heartfelt crime-thriller at the same time. In case you were wondering, the ending is fantastic, which is traditionally problematic for thrillers in general. It wraps everything up nicely and in a satisfying way.

The highlight of Snake Eyes is the action.

I recommend Die In a Gunfight to any film fan that wants to see a different take on the mob love story. I think the romance takes a back seat to the violence when I think an equal footing would have made the film so much better.

If there is any complaint to be laid against Big Hero 6, it is that the team itself takes a back seat. The story is primarily about the relationship between Hiro and Baymax. This is not a negative comment because the relationship between the boy and his robot is endearing and effectively told.

Homeroom is a fantastic piece of documentary storytelling

Pig takes itself way too seriously, making some interesting storytelling choices.

Anyone familiar with the global gender-gap problem will find nothing surprising about the themes presented in Platform. However, where Mossayebi’s documentary sets itself apart from other similar stories is how he captures the drive and determination of the three sisters and their good luck and misfortune along the way.

If you want to make an indie comedy, watch and study Eat Wheaties!

Though I may not have connected with the final product as intended, if the idea of a psychological thriller about pregnancy appeals to you, then the movie might be your cup of tea.

Stolakis presents the facts in a studied but engaging manner. The testimonies from her subjects are genuine and heartfelt, especially as they continue to struggle with their faith in light of what is seen as God’s “failings” in their lives.

As a comedy, Mark, Mary & Some Other People keeps the laughs light and the story grounded.

Not since The Florida Project have I felt this emotional about a story of children forced to grow up way too fast.

As a movie, I thought Jon M. Chu did an incredible job bringing In The Heights to cinematic life. There’s nothing wrong with the actual production or cast. It’s all great, but my issue is with the source material, specifically the songs.