Brian Tallerico

It's a deceptively complex piece of filmmaking, something that feels artfully executed and organic at the same time. It has so many layers, all of them covered in the emotions that erupt when we reconnect with our families.

It’s a powerful feeling to witness art that reminds us that all aspects of our existence are valuable, especially our pain.

There’s so little “fun” here, feeling as if everyone is merely fulfilling an obligation. I was excited for another time jump movie with a twist. After this one, I just wanted my time back.

La Cocina is a phenomenal showcase for Briones, who gives one of the most mesmerizingly multi-faceted performances of the year.

To be fair, “Smile 2” does lose some of its many thematic threads about how fans feel like they own pop stars and how so many of them are asked to bury their trauma and just smile, but enough remain in the foundation of the piece to get it across the finish line.

It’s about empowerment, empathy, and the impact we can have on one another, even those we never meet. You’ll cry. It’s worth the tears.

Leone continues to grow as a filmmaker—and there’s something interesting about watching that unfold throughout the franchise. But his screenwriting continues to let him down, jumbling his concepts with shallow mythology, atrocious dialogue, and ridiculous padding, leading to another film in this series that pushes over two hours. I’m still rooting for Leone to figure it out, but it’s not in this one.

This doesn’t just go sideways. It goes in several directions at once, often in ways that are nearly impossible to follow, but it really comes down to how much you enjoy the challenge.

It’s anchored by a typically strong Sarah Paulson performance, to be sure. But “Hold Your Breath” is nonetheless a frustrating work, a sequence of powerful scenes that aren’t tied together with enough tension to make us care. It’s a film filled with moments but no momentum.

It’s no exaggeration to say there are scene transitions in “Salem’s Lot” in which it honestly feels like maybe you accidentally fast-forwarded a few minutes and missed the connective tissue.

Vigilante justice has taken a new form in an era of internet mobs, but Ryoo hasn’t made a simple cautionary tale about online justice—he’s crafted a film that’s wildly entertaining but also has a great deal on its mind about how far we should be willing to go to balance the scales. Is there such a thing as good murder?

Is this a satire of the American Dream? A horror movie about how it became a nightmare? Or a comedy about a buffoon who basically stumbled into the men’s room on the right day? It seems unwilling to really answer these questions, content to substitute easy shots for difficult conversations about capitalism, politics, family, and marriage.

Most effectively, Barfoot and his team turn this cold, remote estate into a character—returning to it provides none of the standard warmth of a happy home. We can feel the chill in the air.

Horror fans always look for new ways to tell some of the most timeless stories, and I think they’ll flip for it.

Jason Blum is a powerful, underrated force in the industry, but I wish he would empower his chefs to cook more interesting horror movie meals.

It’s a gorgeous film, but it’s also an emotionally intelligent movie, one that shifts and flows between comedy and tragedy, reminding us that life can only be lived forwards.

While this is one of the better “V/H/S” anthologies of late, I can’t but wonder if they shouldn’t take two years to make the next one.

Apartment 7A seems afraid to stray too far from Mommy, justifying its existence through the sheer power of the great Julia Garner’s skill level, but leaving little else to recommend it.

Just as you wrap your arms around what “Never Let Go” is saying or thematically symbolizes, it slips through your fingers. A hodgepodge of mental illness, trauma, overprotection, the existence of evil, and what feels like COVID allegories, “Never Let Go” fails by virtue of its competing ideas. It leaves too little to hold on to.

It’s still undeniably clever, buoyed by a great cast who know what to do with this sharp satire of world politics, but it feels a bit like a lark, a movie that is content with a chuckle instead of really biting its teeth into some of its complex subject matter.

Megalopolis is a film drenched in its science fiction and classical influences, captured with insane filmmaking choices that often place shallow performances against a backdrop of deep cinematic flourish.

It’s designed to quicken your pulse and your mind at the same time, which is too rare in genre filmmaking. It’s also gorgeously made, and wonderfully performed.

One could watch The Wild Robot with the sound off entirely and still have a rewarding experience—turn it on and you have one of the best animated films of the decade.

We Live in Time is a film that looks you in the eyes as it tugs on your heartstrings, a movie that would almost certainly fall apart with lesser performers to make this kind of shallow script feel organic. Luckily, this one has Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

Anchored by three of the best performances in a very long time and a graceful script from Jacobs himself, this is one of the finest films of the year, a movie that moves me so much that I can get emotional just thinking about it. Because it’s not just a showcase for powerhouse acting at its finest. Because it feels true in ways that movies about death are rarely allowed to be.

Most of all, Rebel Ridge is just a reminder of how thrilling it can be to see a genre piece with this level of artistry.

Consistently boring in a manner that almost feels defiant, “Slingshot” plays as a shallow COVID lockdown allegory for most of its runtime, before insultingly spiraling off the rails. It feels like a movie that hates its characters. And hates you too.

While spending time in one of the most captivating cities in the world is enticing, the main reason to check this out is one of the best performances in the career of Liev Schreiber.