Aurora Amidon

Sigh. If only a good cast was enough to salvage a plodding, tedious film from the snowy wreckage.

The Desperate Hour, while consistently entertaining and confidently boasting a tight, no-frills script, fights too hard to explain that it does not exist purely by virtue of it being a fun kind of story to tell.

If only Jeunet had instilled his story and characters with a little more of that ingenuity, then Bigbug might have been a more substantial watch.

With a solid cast and decent predecessor, Tall Girl 2 could have been a compelling watch, if only it didn’t make the mistake of relying on a premise that the first one had to go to unreasonable lengths (or heights?) to disguise as something else.

Still, despite the fact that there is hardly anyone in the cast that hasn’t either been accused of being a cannibal or anti-vaxxer, or is lacking in charisma, or both, Branagh does a masterful job of keeping the film’s spirit alive.

In a world full of soulless, self-conscious CGI-rampant action flicks and superhero movies that seem like they were made by robots, Emmerich seems to really care about this movie. And that’s a trend I can get behind.

It’s not a stretch to expect that a film about the infamous Munich Conference to be a ripe bundle of nerves and apprehension. But the film ends up being as suspenseful as a 1990s rom-com.

Instead of ever actually showing sex, Osteen skirts around the issue by offering up campy, G-rated, fantastical sex-metaphors. Sex Appeal’s contradictory nature never truly lets up.

Like its confusing title, Mother/Android never really figures out what it wants to say.

It is not fair to assume that every film is going to stray from the beaten path; many are much better off if they don’t. What should be a standard, though, is that a film’s stakes be quantitative, and if it’s about giant mutant monsters engaging in a succession of epic, high-stakes brawls, it should be at least fun to watch.

Gyllenhaal’s extraordinary direction, paired with exceptional performances from The Lost Daughter’s lead actresses, culminate in a perfect storm that yields an astute portrait of the painful expectations of womanhood.

In its unapologetic leaning into tropes, stellar casting, idyllic locations and occasional venturing off of the beaten path, A Castle for Christmas does something totally underrated: It gives us exactly what we want this holiday season.

The nun horror subgenre is a particularly difficult one to master because it is so overdone, and it inherently engages with so many ambitious themes. If you’re brave enough to tackle it, you’d better be sure you’re bringing something special to the table and, with it, have something substantial to say.

Even with effective individual scenes, Silent Night fails to launch; it sets out to deceive its audience, but only really ends up deceiving itself.