Barry Hertz

Slowly, but not always confidently, Dowse and Mack begin to upend obligations of the structure, play fast and loose with the limits of good taste and wind up with, while far from a comedic masterpiece, an enjoyably reckless piece of vulgar entertainment.

Entire passages stretch along at a too-leisurely pace, allowing whatever anger Jia is surely carrying to too frequently cool off. Still, by the film’s New Year’s Eve-set finale, there’s little doubt Jia can create masterful cinematic moments when he so desires.

Mank is, overwhelmingly, so very interesting. But it is also something of a half-masterpiece mess: thematically scattered, awkwardly paced, overlong and curiously uninterested in the inner life of its title character.

Despite all these challenges, the performances that Mantello wrings make the 2020 effort worth everyone’s trouble.

Rarely, though, has cinema been so devoted to idealizing the importance of journalism than in Collective.

The reason Diane (the film) exists is not to propose and then solve a mystery, but to engage with Diane (the person).

It is messy, it is incendiary, and it is frustrating. It may not be what you wanted or were promised by the slick and smooth marketing materials provided by Netflix, the streaming giant that is partnering with Lee here for the first time. But Da 5 Bloods is what you need.

The plot is threadbare, but cutely disarming in its own way.

We’re watching Buckley electrify the screen today. May her voice rattle in your head for the rest of the year.

The impact of modern vice upon the Wayuu is a captivating tale never told before, and the final few minutes are brutal in the best possible way

The bulk of Fire and Ash feels distressingly derivative of what came before, down to ultra-specific plot beats

Just as it seems that Noé will tip over into the truly extreme, he backs off. If this is the dawn of a new, slightly restrained Noé, we might need five more stages to process the pivot.

A skilfully executed thriller that is narrowly aimed at one demographic – audiences over 50 who like a little violence with their late-life dramas – but succeeds at entertaining just about anyone who comes across its dusty, blood-soaked path.

If this is the film that is destined to divide the movie business, it’s as weird and imperfect a choice as could possibly be.

Early in the film, Morgan is careful to highlight Abe’s talent in predicting a movie’s twist (“She poisoned his drink!”). It is extremely doubtful, though, that anyone could guess what happens at the end of The Kid Detective.

Leigh Whannell’s new film is exactly the kind of pure trash that feels suited to spaces that are dirty, neglected, a little bit worse for wear. But this is no insult.

As usual, Levine rounds out his supporting cast with a suspiciously stacked roster of comic actors – Randall Park, June Diane Raphael, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Bob Odenkirk, and Andy Serkis, the latter taking his love of heavy makeup a bit too far this time – and keeps the story moving with a breezy briskness that should be studied by any aspiring rom-com director.

In a Hollywood ecosystem obsessed with brands and inoffensive genericism, there is something admirable and fresh about a movie that has nothing on its mind other than delivering 87 minutes’ worth of gory gator-chomping thrills.

Thor films have traditionally landed with a heavy foot. Thank goodness Waititi taught the big guy how to dance.

Sallitt is grasping for something profound here – a portrait of friendship seen both up-close and from a distance. Fourteen may ultimately be just that – a grasp – but it is worth reaching out for all the same.

There is a semi-frustrating sense that Frias hasn’t quite made the movie that he wanted to – that either time was not on his side or that he fussed too much in the editing booth.

If you have ever heard of the term “catfishing” – and if you haven’t, I’m impressed and envious – then you’re already one step ahead.

The overall product is so tightly assembled, and so emotionally satisfying, that any complaints end up being inconsequential.

In the case of Sam Mendes’s First World War thriller 1917, I am willing to concede that this is indeed a cinematic experience that demands the largest canvas possible.

This is a tremendously entertaining trip through the births of both America and the musical form, with each institution given a lightly revisionist torque by Miranda, who approaches the material with a scholar’s dedication to detail and a showman’s slick wit.

While Rich’s script misses a few trickier opportunities to further dig into questions of religion and history – Herschel sleeps his way through the entirety of the Second World War, yet there’s never any discussion of how the Holocaust has irrevocably changed the world he wakes up in – An American Pickle is a movie that your bubbe will love.

The Israeli author’s melancholy work might on the surface be an odd choice for Portman, but as writer, director and star, she takes to it with a fierce sense of devotion and even protection, creating a Hebrew-language drama about the tight, complex bond between a mother (Portman) and her son (Amir Tessler).

There is semi-purpose and not insignificant pleasure to be had in Apatow’s experiment. The Netflix production isn’t the comedy kingmaker’s best film by a wide margin (though it is his shortest, which still isn’t saying much), but it works in spite of itself.