Asher Luberto

If you go into Little Dixie expecting nothing more than to watch Grillo take out some bad guys, you’ll be more than satisfied with the ride “Dixie” has to offer. Just don’t go in expecting anything more.

The plot moves as briskly as a ship sailing across the sea, which should please young viewers. While The Sea Beast has some timely messages, it’s mainly just a chance to escape from our living rooms.

A rich, old-fashioned story spun out of modern themes and postmodern storytelling, this film’s decade-long, country-wide examination of art, life, love, and, yes, illusion, has the kind of tone that brings to mind “The Sweet Smell of Success.” It’s a film of smirks and surprises, not least of which is that director Giannoli has taken this material and given it a tragic spin.

While the creators do their darndest to make an animated version of “Adaptation,” they’ve instead made an animated version of “Space Jam: Legacy”–a series of callbacks to IP that serves no other purpose than to remind you that they exist.

It’s a sweetly funny, damning, and poignant depiction of this very specific time in life–at once angsty and lovely–when anything is possible. And it has a killer soundtrack to boot.

This gripping, taciturn thriller set in a frozen landscape isn’t necessarily any different from the other titles, but the well-crafted drama is a good reminder of how tangible atmosphere can transcend predictable narrative. At least at first.

Andrew Gaynord’s All My Friends Hate Me is an incredibly funny look at social anxiety and a send-up to those risks, mixed with a shot of cringe and a dose of horror.

As good as she is, and as timely as the film can be, it is frustrating that the villain seems to have waltzed in from a 1930s noir.

The pleasures of Hotel Transylvania: Transformania are both visual and script-based, as they revolve around the writers’ ability to come up with more fish-out-of-water material.

It’s a twisty tale of secrets, cliches, and Lifetime characters that could only come out this month–it’s impossible to imagine this coming out in December, that’s for sure.

A Castle for Christmas delights in a stuffed-stocking of tropes and still offers a few surprises.

While Try Harder! is an important tribute to these kids and their work, it’s also a rebuke of college apps in general.

There’s a wealth of talent involved in this film, not the least of which is Snider himself. Unfortunately, Hard Luck Love Song doesn’t capture the essence of the musical source material, though one could argue there isn’t much emotional heft in the song to begin with.

Surge takes pointlessness to a whole ‘nother level: cruel, empty, airless; a glass storefront with nothing to see inside.

Some of the drama is a bit wooden, but it’s an animated movie that brings real issues into a surreal world. Plus, it’s mainly an adventure.

There’s an enigma here. If we believe anyone in The Lost Leonardo, we believe someone who is only here to cover their tracks. Koefoed knows this and plays up the mystery with compelling results.

To call it undercooked is an understatement.

It’s clear that Thorwarth was trying to say something about how we judge people by their color, not their character. But the message is garbled, doused in blood, and lost in viscera, which makes its weak, half-hearted attempts at something to say even harder to stomach.

The film gives the audience the feeling of being trapped in a tight and confined space. And that feeling is as thrillingly unpleasant as it is a sweaty-palmed nightmare.

If you’re in the mood for an action flick without imagination, then The Misfits is the film for you. Recycling genre tropes, characters, and camerawork, The Misfits feels like you’re watching a montage of better movies.

It’s light, sweetly frisky, and warmly inspiring, with a lead performance from Toni Colette keeping things on track.

The film plays with form the way Enola plays with words: dazzlingly, whimsically and sarcastically. It's a breezy escape from a world that seems to be getting darker by the day.

Cliff Walkers quickly drops us into this winter wonderland, all whites, grays, and blacks, and delivers some of the most mesmerizing landscapes you’ll see all year. But for a film about undercover operatives, it lacks thrills, and it doesn’t give us any characters we can latch onto.

Because this is a packed ensemble and a joke-driven movie, the characterizations are fairly thin. We don’t know much about Lori, just that she isn’t ready for marriage. Though the casting of Cash opposite Harper makes sense, and the performances make us believe in the pair, we aren’t given any reason to believe they were once a happy couple.

It’s an absorbing (if sometimes preachy) look at the horrors of becoming a housewife, and a splash of holy water on the demons of assigned gender roles.

Stowaway is surprisingly decent despite the drag near the finale.

Despite the best efforts of McCarthy, and a winsome Spencer as her sidekick, Thunder Force is more like Shazam! Lite. It wants us to laugh at genre tropes, but this crude and unoriginal dreck is just comedy Kryptonite.

It’s not just the premise that makes this work, but also the execution of light comedy and heavy horror. The humor is humorous, the horror horrific. Happily draws from genre conventions but feels completely fresh. It’s a trip, and if you’re willing to follow that trip to the end of the road, it’s a trip worth taking.