Allison Shoemaker

None of the curious friction of its story, nor in its cast, results in any sort of frisson of excitement, dread, or even shock. The best Yuba can inspire is indignation. You get all these folks together, Tate Taylor, and the end result is this?

Uncle Frank anchors itself to the war within Frank, but it’s the conflict within the film itself that’s most potent. That’s a fight no one wins, least of all the audience.

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.

In attempting to tell the story of this young woman’s death — not her life, no time for that either — I Still Believe cheapens it.

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 is neither disaster nor dream, landing firmly somewhere in the disappointing middle.

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

The film has spent so much time telegraphing its own depth that it forgets to create any, and thus when that wig arrives, we have no reason to view it as anything other than ridiculous.

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.

Together, Weaver and Keaton sometimes manage to tease out the movie inside the movie, the one drawn to the connections between death and joy, youthfulness and mortality.

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.

Serenity is often stylish. It is never, ever dull. It is also deeply stupid.

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.

Good actors can’t make up for narrative inconsistency. Beasts can’t erase the frustration of seeing characters you love behave in ways that make no sense. One can forgive retconning backstory where it doesn’t belong if it feels true to the fictional world you love. That doesn’t happen here.

Because it’s Claire Foy’s turn, The Girl in the Spider’s Web cannot honestly be called a colossal waste of time. It’s merely a moderate waste.

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?

It’s a shame, because Garner’s herculean efforts throw the film’s sloppiness into even sharper relief. Like Keanu Reeves, Garner has a gift for making every kick, punch, bullet, and desk dropped on someone’s head feel like a spontaneous decision.

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.

Uprising plods around like the giant robots that occupy so much of its space, moving too quickly to let almost anything resonate emotionally, but not quickly enough to lend much of an adrenaline rush.

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.

When Lawrence plays to the cheap seats, the film comes to life. When she’s the blank slate expected of a spy thriller, it falters, because it doesn’t play as though she’s concealing or deceiving. It plays as though she’s empty

Give or take one excellent joke about the practical applications of handcuffs — delivered with expert awkwardness by Dakota Johnson, who remains the only moderately charming element of the trilogy — the film is as devoid of wit as it is of subtlety, and that combined absence, courtesy of screenwriter Niall Leonard, leads to some of its biggest unintentional laughs.

There’s a good movie hidden somewhere inside 12 Strong, probably tucked between the many explosions and the endless exposition. Unfussily directed by Nicolai Fuglsig, this is a film that’s all business.

It’s not that the film doesn’t have an opinion on Lewan, it’s that the opinion seems to change every few scenes.

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.

It’s better than you may expect, a mostly tolerable movie made occasionally enjoyable by a few lively performances, one good fight sequence, and a solid punchline or two.

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.

Everything, Everything is a film that achieves its ends in appealing fashion.

What we really get is a film made of utter nonsense that’s even less interested in its characters than it is in telling a story.

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.

Ghost in the Shell is a visually arresting film, even occasionally an entertaining one, but profound it ain’t. That’s no crime, but dressed up as it is in the trappings of a much smarter film, its significant shortcomings stand out every bit as much as a pair of pert breasts on a supposedly utilitarian body.

Dull at best, damaging at worst, and not worth a moment of your time.

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 film’s flaws aside (those will come later), Blunt’s performance is a hell of a thing, wholly lacking in vanity and brimming with honest, ugly feeling.

It’s visually sumptuous, a heady blend of Burton’s usual broken-doll aesthetic and some seriously impressive visual effects. And most importantly, while long, it’s rarely boring. The bad: It simply doesn’t add up to much.

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.

If Lucas and Moore do their six stars...a disservice with their muddy script, it’s nothing compared to the problems heaped upon the film by their direction.

Imagine all the best parts of E.T. (written, like this film, by the late Melissa Mathison) and all the worst parts of Hook, and you have a pretty solid picture of what it’s like to spend two hours with The BFG.

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 all too calculated to really have an impact, to grant audiences an honest chance for catharsis.

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

Where the sequel falters is where its uneven predecessor, which is both less ambitious and undeniably funnier, excels: its ostensible villains just aren’t very interesting.

Approach 10 Cloverfield Lane on its own terms, let Trachtenberg and his top-notch cast (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr., and a ferocious John Goodman) yank you into their world, and try not to sweat through your clothes.

It’s great when a film leaves you wanting more, but not when you weren’t given much to begin with.

Blakeson and screenwriters Susannah Grant, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Pinkner don’t seem to care much about telling the story. They’re just checking off the boxes.