Bilge Ebiri

The unknowability of life is beautiful, but so too is our desire to know. To be human, La Grazia seems to say, is to fight and lose against uncertainty, and then to fight and lose some more.

White Reindeer is a deliberately awkward little movie, and it’s a hard one to shake.

When it succeeds, it’s impressive. But it also can’t hold a candle to Wilson’s original, and it can’t reconcile the fundamental tension between theater and film.

The danger of movies based on conceptual wit is that they will lose steam as things proceed and the filmmakers run out of ideas. Thankfully, Maddin and the Johnsons effectively develop their story — goofy and absurd though it may be — so that these constant digs at our ineffectual leaders do coalesce into something meaningful and alarming.

The sequel, Planes: Fire and Rescue, is still a DisneyToon production, but it does aim higher, with a visual zip that was lacking from the first. It is, in almost all respects, a better movie. It’s still not particularly good, though.

The Trip films have a remarkable (and welcome) tonal consistency, and there’s plenty here of those lively, escapist elements that have made these movies so charming and irresistible (and such a comfort at this particularly bizarre moment in time).

Climax isn’t so much about the inevitability of chaos, but about the sadness of watching something beautiful fall apart. And it is never less than electrifying.

It's a beautiful, reflective film even as it is also a brutal, visceral one.

Trumbo is a film that at times can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. At its worst, it’s musty and awkward; at its best, it’s irreverent and funny. Unfortunately, it settles for the former more than the latter.

Abu-Assad has made his share of films about the cruel absurdity of life under Israeli occupation, but here he lets all sides have it

Far beyond the courage of its convictions, The Armor of Light also has the intelligence and grace to embrace its contradictions. It’s a beautiful, conflicted piece of work.

Welcome to Me might as well have been called The Kristen Wiig Show, for better or for worse. It makes a splendid showcase for the brilliant actress’s brand of mousy absurdism, and for her ability to modulate tone. The film dances between hilarity and disquiet, between goofiness and pathos. But I’m not even sure it can be called a movie; it feels like a setup and a character in search of a story.

The anecdotes are mostly on brand for the musicians.

The peculiar charm of Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story ... lies in the way it’s driven by genuine curiosity about its subject. ... Watching Paralyzed by Hope, we start to understand why other comedians, including Apatow himself, would be so fascinated and electrified by Bamford’s work.

With The Old Oak, Ken Loach goes out with one last, full-throated call for brotherhood and solidarity. It’s the most hopeful the old soldier’s been in years.

Purposefully aggravating yet still beautiful, The Mitchells vs. the Machines is both a takedown and a celebration of our dissonant, tech-obsessed world. It gets us.

Cutler’s onscreen interactions with Stewart, as well as occasional forays into the way she treats the people around her, turn the picture into something a lot slippier and the subject into someone more captivating.

[A] haunting, beautiful movie.

One of the pleasures of a film like this is the knowledge that a new fold is always coming. Seen in that light, occasional narrative implausibilities (of both the psychological and physical kind) recede into the distance. The Outfit is imperfect, but it works perfectly.

What’s ultimately so disappointing about Cha Cha Real Smooth is its shallow vision of growing up, which might explain why the protagonist does so little of it.

Transporting, well acted, and occasionally powerful. It’s also a rushed, maddening mess.

The Pink Cloud is so good at portraying our pandemic reality that it becomes harder to discern its other, subtler concerns. I was impressed, agitated, terrified, depressed by this movie — but I also couldn’t help feeling like I had maybe not ultimately seen the film its director wanted me to see.

The picture may not fully cohere, but it has an infectious energy all its own. The Harder They Fall is a mess, but it’s a fun mess.

Star Trek Beyond might be the Star Trekkiest film of the new, J.J. Abrams–ified Trek era. That is to say, it's the one that feels the most like a turbo-loaded episode of the original series, and has at least some of that classic spirit of exploration and derring-do.

[Berg] keeps things simple, tight and taut, and does right by the folks who were there for the real thing. He’s made them the heroes of a genuinely exciting action movie.

The First Purge actually pulls back somewhat on that sense of bloodthirsty anticipation. The violence here feels more tragic than ever, and it’s also some time coming; when Purge Night does start, the killing doesn’t begin immediately.

Smile has such a visually powerful concept that it might take a while before you realize the movie is blowing it.

Borat 2 may not hit quite as many shocking comic highs as the first Borat, but it probably coheres more as a film — ironic, given that it appears to have been written, produced, and edited in record time, during a global crisis — and it also manages to walk a fine line between offense and revelation.