Brian Tallerico

An improvised thriller should feel dangerous and unpredictable, putting viewers in the shoes of a man operating on instinct, but My Son often feels the exact opposite, a thriller that’s as routine as they come.

I’m Your Man may not break the mold, but it operates within it with confidence and grace.

As a performance piece, The Eyes of Tammy Faye connects. But is that enough?

Jake Gyllenhaal delivers as one would expect, proving again that he’s one of the most consistent actors alive.

While this kind of manipulative melodrama is often easy to dismiss, what makes The Starling even more frustrating is the amount of talented people who got sucked into its spin cycle of sadness.

Even the crazy twists of this story that don’t quite work impressed me with their ambition in a film that gets incredibly dark and narratively insane.

It’s a Russian nesting doll of intentions, betrayals, and self-delusions that presents its story of deception in a manner that's constantly surprising.

It’s all the more disappointing when a techno-driven montage of dark imagery kicks in or some other choice that feels cheaper than this movie needed to be. No Man of God ultimately sinks into the shadows of so many similar and superior projects, and it feels cheap. It just doesn’t have enough to add to the conversation or a strong enough artistic POV to justify its shallowness.

Last Man Standing is a startlingly scattershot piece of filmmaking from a director who normally has a sure, personal hand on his projects.

Whatever is keeping Neill Blomkamp so reserved that he delivered a film as dispiritingly rote as Demonic—that’s what needs an exorcism.

The sounds that go bump in the night, the wet footprints on a dock when no one else should be there, the writing in the fog on a shower mirror—these beats are brilliantly handled by Bruckner and Hall, who understand that uncertainty is the scariest state of being. Especially at night.

While Larraín has an undeniably strong eye, this film completely collapses without a believable performer in the title role, one who can sell both regret and passion, sometimes in the same dance move. Di Girolamo never takes a false step.

An enjoyable cast, including movie-stealing work from Jodie Comer, holds it all together, but one can still see just enough glitches in this matrix to wish it was better.

Walker’s film might have worked better as a docuseries—one feels its two-hour length—and she has a habit of over-writing some of the narration, but it’s still a detailed piece of work, a surprising angle on a terrifying new reality about living in certain parts of the world, and an inquiry as to whether or not we’re going to do anything about it.

Anchored by powerful performances by two deeply underrated actors, Lorelei is a heartfelt drama that succumbs to some thin dialogue and set-ups but feels like it truly loves its outsider characters, and that empathy allows us to root for them too.

Sonia Kennebeck’s Enemies of the State spirals and swirls in a way that’s meant to enhance the “isn’t this crazy” aspect of its true story, but its filmmaking tricks have become cliched in the era of True Crime obsession.

Ultimately, For Madmen Only is essential for comedy fans and historians. It’s something that anyone interested in theater as a career or even anyone who does improv comedy on the weekends should check out on VOD.

Only the man who wrote Tromeo and Juliet could deliver something this gleefully grotesque, vicious, and unapologetic, and the DC Universe is all the better for it.

It is scary, sexy, and strange in ways that American films are rarely allowed to be, culminating in a sequence that cast the whole film in a new light for this viewer. We're all just sitting in that banquet hall, listening to the story requested by King Arthur, told by a master storyteller.

From the “how do you mess that up” school of filmmaking, Blood Red Sky takes a phenomenal concept that mixes genre hits like From Dusk Till Dawn, Snakes on a Plane, and Train to Busan and just blows it on poorly choreographed action, momentum-draining flashbacks, and an interminable runtime.

With a strong cast and an intriguing premise that basically transports a Western plot into outer space, Settlers should work, but it simply sags in the middle, only barely sparking to life again in a more suspenseful final act.

Sadly, the film crashes when it decides to offer some sane explanations and connect dots that didn’t really need to be connected. There’s a much stronger version of “Old” that ends more ambiguously, allowing viewers to leave the theatre playing around with themes instead of unpacking exactly what was going on.

It’s a fascinating, moving documentary that transcends mere profile piece to reclaim a legacy, and it’s as inspirational as its subject.

No Sudden Move is like watching a musician return to the themes and ideas explored throughout a career but with the renewed insight that comes after decades of success.

Producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller bring that non-stop energy of their other projects like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The Mitchells vs. the Machines even if the writing sometimes feels bizarrely dated.

It’s ultimately a film that works on its own terms, a long-delayed enriching of the story of a beloved character that will make her ultimate sacrifice in “Avengers: Endgame” feel even more powerful in hindsight. Every blockbuster this Summer is being touted as the sign that the world is back to normal—“Black Widow” is more a reminder of what fans loved before it shifted off its axis.

The characters are bland, the dialogue is atrocious, the action is mediocre, and even the heist is a boring bust.

Petzold keeps his mystery afloat (sorry) thanks to his impeccable craft even if this is a tale that sometimes feels like it needed a more magical and less direct approach.