Andrew Crump

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.

Greenland isn’t some self-insistently timely movie and it probably isn’t the movie we “need” right now. But it’s the movie we have, and its honest to goodness but unintended genre resonance makes it easy to embrace.

The atmosphere that Franz and Fiala maintain isn’t a replacement for thoughtful writing, and their visual inventions are undone by the secrets that inspire them.

Where Grabbers is a raucous gem, Unwelcome is subdued, more polished but sadder.

There’s much to like about his work here. Just skip the canapes.

The Limehouse Golem has costumes, and drama and an abundance of severed appendages, splattered gore and artfully dismembered bodies, and maybe that’s all any horror fan can ask for. Still: There’s nothing wrong with hoping for more.

With In the Earth, Wheatley hits a brick wall, but he hits it hard enough that whether one sees the film as successful or not, the effort remains admirable.

Garai’s array of filmmaking techniques are impressive and haunting, breathing an unsettling melancholy into her script.

Even at their breeziest, Crano’s punchlines cost exorbitant amounts of discomfort.

Dunham’s filmmaking remains disciplined throughout, building pressure within that’s eventually released in explosive violence. That’s what the title promises, after all. But that promise doesn’t blunt the jolting effect of The Standoff at Sparrow Creek’s storytelling or the gutpunches dealt in its climax.

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.

Does the experience improve under the influence? Possibly. Then again, Yuasa’s work is effectively intoxicating on its own merits, squiggly and colorful, animation off-kilter enough to send you on a cinematic trip so long as you let it wash over you.

Like the best “food porn” movies, Ramen Shop is an expression of authentic passion, the kind fostered by abiding connections not simply to food but to the people, places and times food recalls.

The Rental has De Palma vibes with Fincher’s cool, but lacks the former’s exploitative pleasures and the latter’s cinematic expertise. It is, however, satisfyingly composed in terms of approach, giving the audience flashes of brutality to come or shooting it from a distance, heightening the shock and lending bloodshed sharp flinching power.

If The Year of Spectacular Men makes any kind of statement, it’s that Madelyn and Zoey ought to work together more often. Put simply, they’re amazing, lively, sharp, snarky with a side of cheer—for the time being The Year of Spectacular Men feels like their gift to us, an unexpected blend of comedic tones and a perfectly bittersweet summertime respite.

There’s a way to find the humor in life with mental illness. The Year Between, with exceptions, isn’t it.

Lingua Franca has a lived-in sensibility facilitated by Sandoval’s empathy and understanding of what Olivia’s going through. It’s the film’s best quality: a firsthand knowledge driving an earnest request to be seen and respected, as an American and as a woman. Olivia isn’t asking for much. There’s no reason to deny her.

It’s an honest to goodness real movie with a mind of its own; practical FX work and creature design help, too, as essential to what distinguishes The Wretched from its influences as the Pierce brothers’ writing.

Wheaton is the film’s first exceptional element. The second is Stevenson’s restraint.

It’s impossible to watch Bruckner’s adaptation without comparing it to Barker’s. Barker tapped into the darkest locus of human desire and expressed it on screen as shocking carnal violence. Bruckner sands down that perverted, forbidden lust into an accessible blueprint: Setup, kill, exposition, repeat.

Kingsman: The Secret Service may lack the sophistication of its peers, but damned if it doesn’t know how to have a good time.

Like many of the bright suggestions The Pod Generation offers, it would have been better left trimmed from the story, not because the outcomes and repercussions of the tech shouldn’t be explored but because there isn’t room to explore them all in under two hours.

All the components for bite are here, from unflattering character portraits to hideous amorality, but The Commune never clamps down quite as hard as you’d like it to. Your time won’t be wasted with the movie, but it won’t send you out of the theater scarred, either.

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

There’s some surprisingly compelling footage, played over the end credits, of real life Juggalos providing testimonials about what their community means to them, and in that a message about understanding the misunderstood.

If Aporia’s airiness gives the story a bit of distance from the world we’re living in right now, the film nonetheless does what good science fiction is supposed to, forcing viewers to bring the future conundrums it raises to their present.

A remarkable real-life, low-artifice spy thriller becomes unremarkable fiction.

There are problems with Mrs. Hyde that have nothing whatsoever to do with Bozon’s puzzling creative choices, though for perspective’s sake, the problems are dwarfed by the choices.