Andrew Crump

Army of the Dead is a film full of pleasant surprises, but Matthias Schweighöfer, playing a German safecracker with a hair-trigger for impassioned speeches about locks and bolts, is perhaps the most pleasant surprise of them all.

What Buffalo Boys lacks in originality it makes up for in spirit. There’s a verve in Wiluan’s direction, a sense of joy shaping his approach to the tried and true familial vengeance hook.

What makes Body at Brighton Rock such good fun is understanding where Wendy is coming from, and connecting to the very specific engine that’s fueling her fear. The movie’s truth doesn’t disappoint, because the truth is that nature plays tricks on the mind.

The film’s abundance of tenderness and lack of cringe laughs, save for that opening sex scene, lets it stand out from its feel-bad comedy peers.

Maybe this isn’t the sophomore picture we’d hoped for, but it’s sharp and insightful regardless.

Wild Indian doesn’t have answers. There aren’t any. Instead, there are experiences, and Corbine Jr. captures his protagonists’ personal transformations with steeled honesty.

Dour as Paris appears through Lubtchansky’s lens, Garrel’s filmmaking is dexterous enough that A Faithful Man feels merry all the same.

Just like the black ichor seeping into Laura, Matriarch saturates viewers’ senses until it pays off its many adumbrations with unexpected revelations.

It’s possible to fuse pulp with prestige while still saying smart things about the seismic political shifts required for creeps like the Proud Boys to skitter from the rocks they live under and infest society’s better elements. The Wrath of Becky makes no such effort. It’s built to thrill and made for chuckles, offset by Seann William Scott’s looming menace.

It’s her unstoppability, her tireless drive to see through the work she believes needs doing in the field of sexual enlightenment that gives Ask Dr. Ruth real urgency, lifting what’d be an otherwise breezy character portrait to near essential levels.

Slattery and Bernbaum’s adherence to genre standards may hold Maggie Moore(s) back from doing anything new in its space, but not from doing anything worthwhile. There’s nothing wrong with a messy low-level crime movie done right.

The China Hustle handily clarifies opaque topics and moves like a bullet, but the bullet catches us right in the gut. By the time the film ends you’ll wish you could go back to being ignorant again.

There isn’t an action movie out there in 2017 that’s quite like it (for better or for worse), no action movie either as crazy or as committed to its craziness.

Consider The Forever Purge as the “well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions” meme as a horror film.

Anybody could direct this kind of story, and many already have. But There’s Something Wrong with the Children is right in Benjamin’s wheelhouse, and her skill with this familiar set-up is a major boon.

The Commuter isn’t a tough puzzle to solve, and it veers closely to being obvious at times. But easy, unsubtle, unabashedly masculine action films don’t need nuance as long as they’re this much of a goofy pleasure to watch.

The Third Murder may not be Kore-eda’s best work, but the film proves a satisfying challenge, a complex exploration of sin and righteousness in an amoral world.

Posley balances Bitch Ass’ moral dilemma with clever, exuberant filmmaking.

As an exercise in suspense and genre mimesis, Burial is exceptional. But Parker slacks on the details that function as musculature for the film’s core entertainment.

As a showcase for its leads, it’s delightful. All it’s missing is a touch of honest-to-goodness gravity to keep the story anchored.

Mosquito State is a profoundly annoying film. Believe it or not, this is meant as the highest compliment.

More studio comedies should take chances on their principal cast members the way I Want You Back does. Even if little else here worked, at least Day and Slate do.

This isn’t a movie in search of a greater meaning. It just needs to be entertaining. But it does both, and better still, it bothers to be creative.

Lee’s making finely tuned action here; organizing history lessons isn’t his job. But the ferocity of Hunt’s combined action and momentum let him bristle over past atrocities even if those atrocities aren’t his focal point.

Alien takes the long way around the barn to get from its creator’s fundamental psychic “stuff” to the genre classic it is today; Memory: The Origins of Alien, dissects the journey from concept to conception in microscopic detail, and w

As delightful as relentless CGI monster mayhem is—and there’s plenty to go round as The House with a Clock in Its Walls rolls through its final act—it’s the lovely character work that makes the story memorable. Roth and his cast pack a surplus of exuberance into a children’s fantasy mold that’s by now grown musty.

In Search of Fellini isn’t a sophisticated movie. Instead, it’s a joyful movie, and the lack of refinement, whether embodied by the overuse of Fellini clips or the lack of juicy material for Bello and Rajskub to sink their teeth into, shows without stymying the movie’s intentions as a love note to its namesake.

The Beach House plays an adept slow burn game. Brown fleshes his characters out nicely, giving them all ballast without worrying about whether we’d want to sit down for shellfish with them.