Clint Worthington

It’s impressive what Jeunet is able to pull off with a shoestring budget, but the ideas and characters underpinning his visual imagination leave a lot to be desired.

There’s a lot to sink your teeth into with Emily the Criminal, between its strong Plaza turn and a pitch-black moral core that refreshingly commits to the bit. But outside of those devilish comforts, a lot of Ford’s debut is frustratingly thin, more concerned with giving Plaza plenty of opportunities to bore through the screen with her eyes in extreme close-up than in really breaking down her psychology and the perverse romance at its center.

If you’re looking for a lean-and-mean action picture where Chris Hemsworth absolutely bodies dozens of disposable henchmen, Extraction might fit the bill, at least for its first hour.

Get Me Roger Stone offers its audience an unblinking, if disappointingly straightforward, look at the infamous operator.

What the doc explores [is] the divide between the personal and business halves of Bob Ross, and which one should be allowed to occupy his legacy. Is he a face on a logo that sells increasingly kitschy merch of the man? Or is he the father of a son who loves him and wants to determine how he's remembered?

For as well-intentioned as Jarecki may be, The King starts with a conclusion and works backward from there, and the results are more than a little tenuous.

As the saying goes, inside of me are two wolves: one wishes “Out Come the Wolves” dared to explore the wounded masculinity and murderous love triangle of its first half, while the other wonders if that’d be any better or more interesting than the bone-cracking, arrow-shooting carnage of its second.

Lyne’s return to the sweat-soaked stage trades bodice-ripping intrigue for repetitive boredom and psychosexual mind games with a straightforward descent into semi-madness.

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot is an incredibly mixed bag, a complicated story told with an approach that would have made more sense as a follow-up to Good Will Hunting in the ‘90s.

Simply put, Prey at Night sacrifices its own identity to drench horror audiences in throwback familiarity.

There’s little to latch on here apart from its purpose as an actor’s showcase for Boyega, Beharie, and Williams, and its bittersweet status as a sendoff for the latter’s illustrious career.

It’s handsomely made, and Erivo carries the film on her shoulders, but its movements are too clumsy to give Tubman the actualization she deserves.

The performances are strong, and the film excels in isolated setpieces. It’s just a shame to see a neat idea largely go to waste.

MaXXXine can’t decide whether to be a showbiz parody or a giallo sendup or a cute ’80s throwback, and it stumbles when it tries to be all of the above.

As a Big Message movie about the racism inherent in the criminal justice system, Crown Heights succeeds admirably enough. As an effective drama, however, the film is frustrating in its unwillingness to engage with its characters beyond its broader strokes.

Carell, Chalamet and their supporting players can only spit-shine a relatively rote addiction story so much; by the time the thrill of their work passes, it’s easy to find oneself waiting for more.

If you’re looking for a heartwarming, affirming doc about how yes, you’re right to love Alanis Morissette, it’ll probably work for you. But don’t expect to learn anything new, or be wowed by its presentation.

It’s the awkward tween of gay coming-of-age movies: earnest and confident, but more than a little clumsy.

For all its gorgeous visuals, comforting score, and strong non-verbal performances, there’s just not quite enough there at the script level to make Land‘s broader points, well, land.

It’s steamy and transgressive in a straightforward way, an in-your-face bacchanal of sex and violence of the kind Fennell so delights in depicting. But as the film barrels toward its bonkers but highly predictable twist, the shine on Saltburn begins to fade.

Try as it might to blend the music-conscious idiosyncrasies of Portlandia with the varied persona of one of our weirdest, most valued artists, The Nowhere Inn ends up going, well, nowhere.

For its unconventional structure and occasional flights of fancy, The Glorias all too often reads as a bog-standard biopic more interested in recounting history than telling a story.

If you’re willing to lean into the movie’s complete and utter stupidity, Jumanji might just stumble through its languorous two-hour runtime on sheer charm.

Nerve is refreshing and frustrating in equal measures, mining a genuinely inventive concept for some memorable, Mean Girls-esque pathos about the ways in which the Internet is changing and magnifying social structures for young people today.

The Next Level just feels like more of the same, and some of its bigger swings might just even border on the irresponsible. As kids’ fare goes, this series remains weird enough to not totally write it off. But for the next version, they might have to work out some of the bugs.

While treating entrepreneurism like a classic Greek tragedy isn’t a bad idea in theory, Nguyen’s script is more than a little clunky, and the imagery nakedly self-serving. It’s a film about two people digging a hole so they can make ten more dollars per transaction, no matter how handsomely it’s presented.

Murray and Wever are as attuned to their roles as Smith is awkward and miscast in his. But perhaps that’s an appropriate fit for Harron and Turner’s divisive-yet-gripping take on this story: at the end of the day, the Manson women are deeper, more fascinating, and more worthy of exploration than the insecure man that connected them.

It may exhaust you, it may offend you; it may guide you through Hell into something more revelatory. And how you receive the film may depend greatly on how you feel about the man who made it.