Christy Lemire

Ever the fierce competitor, Molly has found a way to rule in a male-dominated world. If only Molly’s Game had let her win in the end on her own fascinating, complicated terms.

I'm No Longer Here (“Ya no estoy aqui”) is one of those Netflix movies you’ll wish you’d watched on the big screen. The film from Mexico City-born writer/director Fernando Frias de le Parra is so gorgeously shot and offers such a rich sense of place that it’s always visually compelling, even when the narrative tends to sag a bit.

Dior and I won’t tell you much about Simons’ personal life, or his family, or where he lives, or why he does this, which ultimately makes it difficult to connect with him. (Interestingly, a little online research reveals, he started out as a furniture designer.)

So why does Captain Marvel feel like a bit of a disappointment? It’s fine and often quite funny. It fits securely within the MCU but also functions sufficiently as a stand-alone entity. But the character, and the tremendous actress playing her in Oscar-winner Brie Larson, deserved more than fine.

The Iron Claw inadvertently shares a lot in common with the professional wrestling world it depicts. A lot of energy and passion clearly went into it, and there’s a drive to entertain and thrill, but it ultimately ends up feeling empty and superficial.

A twisty, Hitchcockian thriller mixed with trippy moments of magical realism. And if that doesn’t sound on paper like it would work, well, it does. And it doesn’t.

Ultimately, The Woman in the Window offers a lot of build-up, a lot of possibility. But the revelation of what’s truly going on here is anticlimactic—the equivalent of closing the curtains and turning away from the window with a disappointed sigh.

Depression is such a personal, intangible, mystifying phenomenon. Signe Baumane tries to make sense of it in unexpected fashion — through colorful animation and dark humor — with Rocks in My Pockets.

Within these oversaturated times for comic book movies, Madame Web is blissfully breezy in its pacing, which helps make it a more enjoyable watch than some of the super-serious, end-of-the-world fare we often see.

At the very least, The Bad Guys encourages kids not to judge a book by its cover—and maybe even read an actual book about these characters afterward.

Pacino dials down the manic, wide-eyed “Hoo-ah!” that has defined his screen presence over the past couple decades, and often rendered the Method master a parody of himself.

There’s trash, and then there’s good trash. Unforgettable falls into the latter category. Slick, glossy and radiating juicy villainy, it knows exactly what kind of movie it is and goes for it with giddy abandon.

Eventually it becomes a half-baked, sci-fi horror flick, and even a bit of a drama. Like “I Feel Pretty,” it uses its high-concept premise to explore notions of feminine power, at least superficially — and similarly, its execution ends up being problematic.

A well-cast, well-made, well-acted drama that you will probably forget about soon after you’ve seen it.

Blonde abuses and exploits Marilyn Monroe all over again, the way so many men did over the cultural icon’s tragic, too-short life.

The number of important, enduring 1960s and early ‘70s songs that a group of studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew brought to life is staggering.

What’s intriguing about The Maze Runner – for a long time, at least – is the way it tells us a story we think we’ve heard countless times before but with a refreshingly different tone and degree of detail.

Director Ruth Paxton puts you on edge from the beginning in “A Banquet,” and holds that unsettling mood throughout. But because the sound design is so vivid and Paxton’s eye for disturbing detail is so creative, it’s even more frustrating that the payoff is so unsatisfying.

It’s still a movie about giant space robots talking trash and smashing into each other, but Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is better than most offerings in the franchise.

Ultimately, the cacophony of all these plot lines converging and the weight of the messaging being conveyed is almost too much to bear.

Intimate and impressionistic but ultimately a little self-indulgent.

Producers Jason Blum and James Wan, both horror titans, once again show they know how to freak audiences out while maintaining a sly sense of humor.

Jagged rides the wave of that excitement, but avoids opportunities to explore deeper below the surface.

Both actors are gorgeous, of course, which heightens the romantic fantasy of it all, but there's also a naturalism to them that's appealing.

Because Users is so captivating from a technical perspective, it’s frustrating to discover how scattered it is narratively.

Little girls will absolutely love it, though. That much is undeniable.

Ultimately, the film registers less as an indictment of widespread financial corruption than as a shallow exploration of one man’s greed. But briefly, when it’s at its peak value somewhere in the middle, Money Monster is a solid bet.

With her debut feature, Bang Gang, Eva Husson captures the restless rhythms of adolescence—the push-pull of angst and boredom, of self-consciousness and the yearning to lose oneself completely.