Alex Harrison

It's almost like Cumming has made two films, one through aesthetics and atmosphere and one through story and theme, that ultimately can't coexist. Neither is a bad film, but the former makes a much greater impression, and I wish it had been seen through to the end.

Thankfully for us, though, a film is not a meal. We can watch The Taste of Things as many times as we'd like.

Tótem's camera is always studying the actors, exploratory and intrusive in the manner of a child's perceptive gaze.

Perhaps, Kaurismäki's movie suggests, disaffection is a valid response to this reality we live in. So, when these two people meet and sparks fly, it becomes all the more meaningful.

If entertainment is all you're looking for, you'll find it, and you'll even have the fun of debating the accents and VFX as you leave the theater. But there's also a lot more to find beneath its surface pleasures, making it a worthy Christmas capstone for what has been a very good year for adults at the movies.

Lord of Misrule feels like it was made with a lack of understanding of what actually works about its premise, and the result is a constant ebb-and-flow of being drawn in by the imagery and pushed back out by the storytelling.

Silent Night winks at us as often as it tries for genuine drama, and whichever tone you choose to accept will likely determine whether you have as much fun with it as I did.

Manodrome lacks depth as either social commentary or character study, in large part because of how it positions us in relation to its protagonist's perspective.

Keeping us close to the film's talented cast is a decided strength of this, and the performances add nuance to a largely straightforward viewing experience. But it's hard not to wish Fingernails had grander designs. It shows just enough of its full potential to leave us wanting to see those ideas expressed more fully.

This is not a biopic of an artist so much as a human artwork, capturing the many questions he provokes and the contradictory answers that define him.

I do not regret having seen it, and with all there is to recommend it, I feel comfortable suggesting you seek it out upon release. But do so with tempered expectations.

It's a journey as much defined by tedium as tension, but to paraphrase the assassin, if you can't handle a little boredom, this might not be the film for you.

Savor Hit Man, however you come across it - it's not every day the movies entertain us in this way at this level of execution anymore.

A lot happens, story-wise, but if the film had just followed Sylvia and Saul learning how to be around each other, it would've been enough.

While not flawless in execution, it's daringly creative — the kind of movie that will inevitably cause those who see it to start talking about other movies as a way of understanding

The heart of the problem is The Monkey King makes its central character, whose story has been told and retold for hundreds of years, uninteresting. Without that spine to hold it together, everything collapses.

It's a lighthearted, empathetic film that multiple generations of family can see together and all find something worth taking with them.

The material is not lacking in thematic depth, but how the filmmakers choose to express these themes makes for an inconsistently engaging experience. Dreamin' Wild is sometimes too caught up in its own artfulness, and all that weighted form ends up trapping its ideas rather than giving them heft.

Sympathy for the Devil is a missed opportunity with a collection of engaging moments, none sustained enough to really satisfy.

It is a richly layered work of art.

Jenkin doesn't leave the audience without any puzzle pieces; there are enough for multiple stories to be constructed, should the viewer wish to understand Enys Men on that level. At a certain point, however, it becomes so difficult to disentangle the real from the unreal that to try feels pointless, and the last act suffers for it.

The problem is one of focus, and had the movie trusted its protagonist enough to let her be the true center, it might have provided a viewing experience worth recommending.

Landon's latest will be best remembered for its multiple laugh-out-loud set pieces, and with the craftsmanship and performances on display, viewers will likely be willing to forgive its less-impactful stretches.

If One Fine Morning offers no great revelations, it is full of echoes, parallels, and sparks that leave the viewer activated beyond its runtime, perhaps engaging with the world a little more thoughtfully than they were before watching.

Viewers willing to give it the same, almost spellbound focus the protagonist gives this case will find it a compelling meditation on things as wide-ranging as racial otherness, fraught mother-daughter relationships, and the real-world slipperiness of concepts like truth and justice.

There is a modest feeling to There There, and the emotional impact of its actual content might display the limits of this extreme methodology, but its (smartly brisk) runtime is hardly too steep a price to see a small movie explore such big questions with such clarity.

Its absurdity is enough to appeal to the right group of adventurous friends, perhaps, but even those with the stomach for its grossest impulses might find themselves wondering what it was all for.

Beautiful, moving, and sporting a compelling metaphor for parenthood, Twomey's film is heartfelt in the way that Pixar and Ghibli films are, making it a worthy pick for a family movie night.