Allison Shoemaker

To watch it is both painful and vital, like taking a great deep breath with a set of broken ribs. It will hurt. The pain is worth the reward.

First Cow, adapted by Reichardt with frequent collaborator Jonathan Raymond from the latter’s novel "The Half Life," is many things. A simultaneously gentle and unsparing dissection of the formative flaws of capitalism, and thus of the “American dream”; a frontier story which captures the harsh realities and simple pleasures of a life built painstakingly from rock, wood, and soil; a heist movie; an argument for the power of baked goods.

While not particularly subtle or probing, The Invisible Man manages to do what many of our greatest horror movies have done before it: address a real-life, everyday nightmare in a heightened, bracing, and even cathartic way.

It’s not subtle, and it’s not pleasant. It’s angry, and it’s honest. Hugo would approve.

The strengths of the series are the strengths of the film. It looks great. It sounds great. If it could, it certainly would smell great (like rain, Earl Grey, green grass, and freshly baked bread.) And above all, it’s beautifully acted by a cast able to land both the punchlines and the punches.

Director Alex Holmes and editor Katie Bryer cannily draw out the story beneath the story, allowing it to bob along in the wake of Edwards’ tale.

It’s winning enough that you can spot its flaws and still don’t really care. Much of that is due to Kaling’s script, and particularly her writing for Thompson, who gets a role worthy of her dramatic talents, and her oft-underused expert timing.

It’s a thrilling, surprising, often funny film, centered on a terrific performance.

While the story may be flimsy in places, the performances are anything but.

It’s all well-trod territory. And yet — and here’s another cliché — The Mustang breathes new life into most of those conventions, thanks in no small part to Schoenaerts and his remarkable work.

Inflate its profundity, and you’re part of the joke; Dismiss its pleasures and layers, and you’ll miss a strange and sometimes rewarding experience.

There are touches of the freshness that percolated through Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok, two films that brought new points of view, loads of promise, and no small amount of political and social resonance to the MCU, but only a little of the sense of newness and boldness that Ryan Coogler and Taika Waititi’s films had in abundance.

Those who follow it down its strange little alley will be rewarded with beautiful music, Isabelle Huppert, and a table-flip for the ages. See it with your mom. It’ll be weird. That’s what Greta would want.

That said, Marshall is particularly well-served by Blunt and Miranda, who seem to be having such a good time together — both as characters, and as two movie starts making a sequel to a freaking classic in really cool getups — that even when floating through the sky on the tail of a balloon looks kind of dull, their charms are nearly impossible to resist.

If you walk into Mary Queen of Scots looking to be dazzled by some great performances and rich art direction, you’ll walk out satisfied, no question. If you want something more than that, it’s likely the reaction will be more mixed.

Like the women who populate its halls, it might be easy to see The Favourite as only one thing, to reduce it to one quality, but it contains multitudes. And like its three central characters, you underestimate it at your peril.

Its moments of creativity and daring, while effective and elevating, never even approach the audacity of the subject on which they center, and it’s easy to wish that Heller had pressed down a bit more firmly on the gas. But the overall effect is so simply pleasing, the performances so honest and engaging, and the story, frankly, so worthy of an earnest what the fuck? that it’s hard to work up the steam for any kind of complaint. It all works, and works well.

The master stroke of The Price Of Everything is that it asks the viewer, in Cappellazzo’s words, to see the intricacies of the art world and the way those two seemingly oppositional forces — the financial side and the creative side — are inextricably intertwined.

This is a film that’s tense from its earliest moments and tragic shortly thereafter, but never does it feel gratuitously punishing.

If Double Indemnity were a hangout movie, this would be its sequel. It’s delicious.

Lenz’s frank, admiring approach adds a sense of clarity that gives the film an undeniable potency. Here is what she made, it says; is it not wondrous? Here is the hand she was dealt, it says; is it not unjust?

In Andrew Bujalski and Regina Hall’s extremely capable hands, empathy becomes as active and compelling as any car chase, sword fight, or knock-down, drag-out fight. A simple thing, yes, but one well worth a valiant battle.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is one of the most batshit crazy pieces of outright nonsense this writer has ever had the pleasure of encountering, and while calling it an excellent film would be going way too far, I enjoyed every single goddamn second of it.

Clemons’ performance is a subtle, warm wonder.

An Ocean’s film should steal the breath from your body. Instead, it’ll draw some sighs, some smiles, and fervent hopes for a sequel more worthy of its cunning, charismatic thieves.

Vivid is a good word at large, here. There’s a freshness and energy to American Animals.

Restraint and simplicity are words that can be applied to every performance in The Tale, and nearly all of those performances are excellent.

The performances, like the film, are rich, layered things of tremendous feeling and complexity. The characters, like the film, are imperfect but well worthy of cherishing.

Shelton and Duplass may not stray very far from the path which, at the film’s outset, they seem likeliest to take, and not every moment along that path lands quite as well as it could. But like Bird’s score, Outside In knows how to take us from the outside and bring us, well, in.

In making a light, easygoing, heartfelt teen rom-com with a gay kid at its center, Berlanti and company have made a top-tier example of a familiar form with one essential and very important difference.

This is Meg Murry’s movie, and while DuVernay’s visually stunning film may occasionally stumble, Reid does nothing less than soar.

Robbie has been great in many films, including some pretty bad ones (what’s up, Suicide Squad), but she’s outstanding here.

It’s imperfect and gorgeous, and even if it is a dark movie, it’s one I can’t wait to see again. Being confronted with one’s own mortality is a small price to pay for something this good.

Wonderstruck is full of ache and of loss, and each stings just a little differently. The ache of a movie-that-could-have-been stings less than the rest, but it’s there, and more’s the pity.

Boseman, wildly charismatic, captures Marshall as a magnetic figure, and his drive and fervor are intoxicating.

If Battle of the Sexes is more than a little slight in places, it more than makes up for its shortcomings through sheer entertainment value.

For the majority of its runtime, Stronger manages to escape the traps that populate such films. It’s worth seeing, and worth your investment. Let’s just hope that next time around, Pollono and Green find a way to stick the landing.

While the ride is often entertaining and the performances mostly satisfying, it’s a frustrating experience, like watching the journal of the least self-aware person you’ve ever met come to vivid, whining life.

Step may be a touch too glossy, and unusually, a bit too short, but its power is undeniable.

There’s grace to be found in The Beguiled, and delicacy, but what’s most interesting is the brutality and power that seethe beneath the surface.

This film is a goddamned blast. To merely call it the strongest entrant in the DC Entertainment Universe so far is to call Jaws the strongest entrant in the shark movie canon. Say what you will about Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Deep Blue Sea, but Wonder Woman is in another class altogether.

It’s a feel-good film that honestly feels good, and even when it rings a bit hollow, it doesn’t stay that way for long.

Hidden Figures might not be as groundbreaking as the women whose story drives it, but like those women, it does what it does very well.

It’s as complex and surprising a character study as any you’ll see this year, a fact made all the more impressive when you remember that the woman in question has been turned into a collectible doll.

There’s something sad, frightening, or even disturbing around nearly every corner. Still, there’s delight in the world, and it’s hardly in short supply.

Doctor Strange lacks the bloat that’s made other recent, blockbusting superhero films fall flat. It doesn’t lean too hard on the considerable talents of its stars, nor does it waste their talents. It keeps a brisk pace, but doesn’t rush. It gets weird, but not too weird. And if all else fails, it’ll make your jaw drop from time to time.

The most surprising thing about Bridget Jones’s Baby has nothing to do with the perennial singleton’s offspring or the tropes of romantic comedies. What’s surprising is that, despite all the contrivances and stale conventions, this movie’s not half bad, and occasionally better than that.

Pixar’s latest has all the sweet, ricochet-fast humor of the original, the same brilliant animation and rich color, the same winning performances (complete with a few new scene-stealers), and the same simple, staggering emotional intelligence of its predecessor.

It’s quiet and strange and simple. It’s also unforgettable, in ways that can be easily named and in others that can’t.