Courtney Howard

A Perfect Pairing may lack a unique complexity and leave some sediment behind, but its finish is pleasing nonetheless.

These filmmakers are eager to explore the delicate facets of a forceful, fully-formed woman, and they do so with imagery that’s both stunning and subtle.

Ultimately, Marcel’s clever creators reward our willingness to believe he and his world are real, while offering an opportunity to look at our own world from a different perspective.

The world-building in Barbie is exceptional.

Dever is as excellent as ever as the acerbic, quick-witted, jilted ex. She coaxes the hilariousness and heartbreak out of each scene with ease and authenticity.

This true-life tale about perseverance, compassion and second chances cuts right to the quick. While it doesn’t stray from a predictable path, the journey is rarely dull, making our travels and these characters’ travails feel worthy of the big screen.

Its lack of legitimate wit, cleverness, and focus makes a promising concept feel like a wasted wish, conjuring little of the magic that made its predecessor feel so memorable.

It’s decent but a tad too restrained for its own good.

For those who choose to take this riveting journey of discovery, they’ll find this picture gets them to a place of inspiring enlightenment and keeps them in that mindset far beyond the end credits scroll.

This gentle, unfussy romance contains a heart-clutching finale that’s as classically restrained as it is emotionally resounding.

What’s there demonstrates a modicum of decent world-building, from which filmmakers can hopefully spin-off better, more capably crafted capers.

Meg Ryan not only dazzles before the camera in What Happens Later, but behind it as well, as director and co-writer. Through the prism of one former couple’s relationship woes, this effervescent, enlightened romantic comedy explores our innate need for reconciliation within ourselves and with each other.

Out of My Mind is a worthy and unique coming-of-age tale. Despite the speedbumps encountered, the filmmakers drive home the poignant message that a person’s disability shouldn’t impede their growth and independence.

The movie is often darkly funny as the characters lob barbs at each other. Nevertheless, the story feels a tad truncated in spots. An elongated run time would service the action and narrative a bit better—and, as Mann fans know, he does love releasing a good director’s cut.

The cinematic catharsis the Barrs and company have carefully crafted stands as a fully realized portrait of grief that’s universal in its texture. By focusing on living with the specter of grief and the discovery of its blessings, the filmmakers highlight the human struggle, breaking through to the gutting truth of the matter.

Though this ’80s-set horror-comedy takes an old-school approach to capturing the horrific happenings, the stunts are lackluster and the comedic hijinks are a tiresome bore. With very little interest conjured from the filmmakers to properly develop their characters, there’s little incentive to stay interested.

In a film that sings the praises of heavy metal music and reveres those who create it, Metal Lords stumbles in its ability to truly rock.

Society Of The Snow may be the best version of this saga told so far. Still, it feels incomplete and doesn’t dig deeper even as it hints at greater pathos beneath the surface.

The warmth and touching tenderness of All My Life melts even the coldest of hearts in its quest to deliver happy and sad tears.

Director Sammi Cohen and screenwriter Alison Peck bestow this hilarious, heartrending adaptation of Fiona Rosenbloom’s novel with an uplifting, effervescent vision and vitality, giving voice to a young Jewish girl’s struggle to figure out who she is before the most important night of her life so far.

Gratuitous sex, gruesome torture, copious amounts of gore, and garish imagery populate the picture. Those qualities might be reason enough for some to watch, although a great many others would do well to scroll right past it on their Netflix feeds.

With irreverence, charm, sparkling cinematography, and a catchy pop soundtrack, this marks the series’ youngest-skewing, most comedic Earth Day documentary yet. That’s not a bad thing, however.

While imperfect and at times predictable, the adventure these filmmakers and performers take us on feels like a warm tropical breeze.

Like any good, inspirational athletic adventure, the film forges a strong connection with the human side of the story.

While not a total slam dunk, Hustle plays admirably with a lot of passion, artistry, and intelligence.

Hart and her team have carefully and craftily built the ultimate sequel. The narrative advances the perky protagonist’s internal and external objectives with a gentle yet profound arc; technical contributions complement her journey, both visually and sonically. The film never betrays its lead character in any fashion.

Filmmaker Nicholas Tomnay’s sophomore feature percolates with atmospheric dread and austerity, but only superficially explores the twisted amorality of the 1% and those who service their whims. While not always successful in cooking up tantalizing commentary on human behavior, it offers a decent helping of Hitchcockian intrigue.

This documentary is not an infomercial for the Smith Ridge Veterinarian Center, but rather a wildly compassionate call to arms for a profession in need of advancement.

Funny, vibrant, yet schmaltzy to a fault, this Disney Plus family film can carry a tune, but falters in crafting a runaway hit.

In King and company’s capable hands, the care package delivered is a soul-warming cup of cocoa. Sweet yet never saccharine, cute yet never cloying, their hyper-stylized portrait of an iconic literary and cinematic figure is not only powered by the pure imagination that inspires the songs’ spectacle, but it’s also filled with audacious flourishes of charm, whimsy and poignancy.

While Dandelion begins on a promising note and intermittently strikes the right chords, this cinematic symphony sours during its crescendo when it should be intensifying, bringing its stirring sentiments together in resounding harmony.

Rather than major fits of laughter, chuckles of acknowledgement pepper the audience’s viewing experience, at least for folks over the age of 25.

Spinning a winning, delicate love story would be almost impossible if not for the performances of the leads. Ali and Harris have impeccable chemistry, making us feel the profundity and stakes of their romantic relationship.

Howard’s film winds up as a rote retread, transitioning from headline news to big-screen snooze.

While there are major missteps, overall its bright, spirited attitude and attractive, propulsive gusto power a delightfully wicked journey.

It jams too many villains, themes and gags into a brief run time. Many of its bigger ideas focused on therapeutic conflict resolution fail to coalesce, leading to an overall tonal imbalance.

All The Bright Places would be nowhere without Haley’s vision and deft ability to deliver all of the feels. He finds places to let his bright intellect shine, perfectly crafting heartrending melodrama through tonal pacing that’s never cloying nor disgustingly saccharine.

Feeling like a well-balanced cross between an investigative procedural like Spotlight and ’90s-era chillers like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle where a seemingly harmless helper disguises their sinister self, the filmmakers have created a strong throwback thriller.

Confronting that larger crisis directly is not the goal here. Though “Cherry” dips a toe in those troubled topical waters, it does so only gingerly, preferring instead to spin an uncomplicated, timeless tale about a woman coming into her own.

Perhaps the best sequences are multi-purpose. They’re both funny and genuine, add a bubbly buoyancy through deft wit and charm, and tweak genre conventions.

With heartening, encouraging messages that speak to the target audience and beyond, Good Girls Get High doesn’t stray too far from the formula, but manipulates it in such a way that feels fresh.

This fun, feminist-friendly feature, about a woman devastated by the disintegration of her long-term romance and the two best friends who rally around her for one final night of frivolity, taps into that collective yearning for more. It gifts us with the next big “Girls Night In” event, for which Netflix has cornered the market.

Stacie Passon, director of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, sharply channels the author’s atmosphere of dread, paranoia, and isolation, making the past feel prescient.

While more than an hour and a half seems like a long time to make the simplistic statement that the internet is bad, Balmès has greater profundity in mind when disseminating astute observations about how modern necessities and communicative devices impact cultures and ecosystems.

Genuinely funny, charming and sincere, it’s a respectful and revelatory update in a world where those are few and far between.

Despite some pacing issues and predictable plotlines, the film keeps us wholeheartedly engaged with well-drawn, well-performed characters, grounded shenanigans and sweet, sentimental commentary on heartache.

The path to the inevitable but deeply moving conclusion is lively and thoroughly entertaining. Friedlander gets us there by throwing in unexpected yet true-to-life twists and turns that will likely be all too familiar to new parents, who typically don’t have the help of a second couple to share the responsibility.

With a solid cast, healthy sense of humor and polished visual effects, the film rises above so many of the sub-cinematic slogs littering the streaming fray. Expecting it to be memorable proves to be a big ask from the filmmakers, despite their hunger for a Marvel-style, Amblin-esque franchise starter. Still, the ease with which we forget its blights might just be the project’s real superpower.

Thoroughly self-aware (perhaps to a fault), stocked with self-reflexive gags and gorily-orchestrated kills, the picture is endearing with its delightfully zippy charms.

While it’s expected that creative liberties will be taken, especially given its roots as a tabloid-style news story, it’s surprising that the filmmakers chose to leave out details that would have enhanced their portrayal.

Not unlike other studios’ Peter Pan interpretations, like Steven Spielberg’s Hook, P.J. Hogan’s Peter Pan, Joe Wright’s Pan, and Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy, Lowery’s version does just enough to make it his own. However, with no real laughs, no genuine thrills, and no memorable scenes, its legacy will soon be forgotten.

The feature’s genteel, sweet spirit and radiant lead performances rescue it from forgettable mediocrity and genre familiarity.

The result is a genuinely moving, absurdist autobiography of a dynamic persona in flux that’s as campy as it is charming, ridiculous as it is rapturous, preposterous as it is profound.

While it suffers from a rocky beginning with burdensome amounts of kook and quirk, the unfolding spell it subtly casts holds profundity and wisdom.

The handful of explicit scenes feel like they’re included solely for shock value, coming across as schlocky and inert. That’s not to say the performances are at fault.

The story’s core strengths are undervalued in the translation from book to screen.

Jacknow’s genuinely disturbing imagery crawls under our skin, lingering long after the tense, bleak finale.

The filmmakers raise some interesting points, but it becomes an exercise in frustration to interpret the calculated connection between disordered eating, the metaphysical, and religious, medieval martyrdom. With nary any tangible scares, or much to truly unnerve or unsettle except from an empathetic humanistic standpoint, this feature-length directorial debut is assured, but far too ambiguous for its own good.

Director Carlson Young and screenwriters Christine Lenig, Justin Matthews and Luke Spencer Roberts ground sharp, soaring sentiments in a reachable reality, innovatively remixing the genre’s familiar formulas to create their own meaningful and rather endearing movie.

A distant cousin to “Zodiac,” with splashes of “Seven” mixed into its homages, this thriller falls short of its influences yet carves out a small space of its own. It makes a searing indictment of the sloppy, sexism-laced police work that might’ve resolved the case, and pays tribute to the two women who broke the investigation wide open.

Even though the feature reflects WWE’s core values built on family, teamwork and inspirational aspirations, and contains healthy messages about proving one’s mettle using wit and wisdom, The Main Event sags far too frequently.

Even though the kid is the hero we should clearly be rooting for, the filmmaker conjures equal amounts of empathy and compassion for the monster. That serves to add complexity to the characterizations, but balancing both sides muddles the poignancy of the climax.

Leads Kapoor and Bhatt have an excess of charm and style that leaps off the screen and grabs your heart.

It’s an audacious feat to combine multiple genres into one compelling feature, but The Gorge does just that.

The filmmakers’ renewed vigor is our reward as, similar to its unfussy title, this sequel deals in clean-lined action and suspense, removing much of the excessive weight that bogged down the original.

By pumping up the darkly comedic undertones, augmenting the frigid chill of the original, Moland’s terrific, riveting noir-tinged picture distinguishes itself from other rote, reductive remakes.

Gunn adeptly exercises a necessary modicum of visual dexterity to emphasize character drive.

The romantic comedy genre’s broad, patented hijinks and hilarity are indeed on display, but cleverly cloaked by a beautifully-realized portrait of delicately faceted characters and their relatable conundrums.

Painfully simplistic in its execution, which frequently undervalues its clever set-up, and featuring unlikeable, poorly drawn characters, the movie works overtime to make the audience actively dislike it.

This is a case of one movie with two endings, and neither of them totally satisfy.

Sweet, silly and sincere, director Prarthana Mohan’s spin has a clear understanding of what makes its source material revelatory and resonant.

Though not all of its clever ideas come together efficiently in the finale, its thematic ruminations on grief, sanity, rebellion and redemption are intrinsically intertwined to harrowing, claustrophobic effect, heightening the hallucinatory horrors and dread-soaked atmospheric pull.

Though its narrative contains some subtleties, and Hancock’s aesthetic polish gives it a nice gloss, the picture’s pacing and character-driven momentum frequently sputters, ultimately leading to diminished results.

It’s unusual for a typical Illumination broad comedy to include a heartrending message that makes parents feel less alone in their very real, visceral struggles. It’s just cloaked in a shenanigans-soaked romp about what pets do when humans aren’t looking.

With nimble performances, slick polish, dark-pitched wit, razor sharp sentiments, and a Yacht Rock-infused soundtrack, the film proves a seductive high.

Instead of finding the perfect balance of humor as the other films did, jokes outweigh and occasionally undercut the few resounding sentiments on personal evolution.

Even though this Netflix original doesn’t condescend to its targeted teen audience, it fails to surmount basic issues dealing with narrative credulity and the outcome’s predictability.

Offering the winning combination of a subversive spin on a well-established villain, Orphan: First Kill is a gnarly, wild and absolutely demented ride.

Because of its unwieldy aspects, primarily those shoe-horned into the climax, its simplistic conclusion draws ire instead of the inspired elation these filmmakers crave.

Containing razor-sharp witticisms about feminine intuition, gendered sexual politics and relationships (both platonic and romantic), it excels beyond its self-deprecating title.

Despite its smattering of shortcomings, A Castle For Christmas is gently disarming, heartening, holiday-themed escapism that’s as satisfying as a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night.

Closure is inevitably attained, of course, but at a cheapened cost that dramatically lessens the impact of its main characters’ journeys. And that’s truly dispiriting.

Despite its efforts to present a well-rounded portrait of this determined starlet, the film ultimately feels like a glossier, slightly less salacious iteration of an “E! True Hollywood Story,” appealing primarily to those who relish tragic tales of the rich and famous.

The soulful, comforting sentiments at the core of Basilone’s feature are really what ring true.

It stretches credulity, as well as our patience.

Even moderately seasoned viewers will find few surprises in its twists and turns, and little to excite them on a purely visceral level. That leaves Pine and Foster as the constant—and a reliable one—in this emerging cinematic universe of theirs, but even they might not be enough in this to earn another installment this time around.

Trish Sie’s middling and at times mawkish film not only makes us hate the game, but also its players.

With its saccharine score, saturated cinematography, and trite platitudes, the film is formulaic and forgettable except for Russell’s performance as the lovable legend.

Despite a heartfelt sentiment that one person has the power to uproot societal structure and inspire change, and the filmmakers’ desire to raise awareness about an abhorrent practice, packaging it in a family-friendly narrative proves to be wildly problematic.

Boneta and Barbaro’s chemistry adds a simmering, sultry sway to the material’s rhythms, gifting it with an uplifting buoyancy. They’re magnetic together, driving our rooting interest for the couple.

In Janney’s capable hands, our heroine is fully fleshed out, yet lean with more gristle on the bone than meat. She delivers zingy one-liners as well as she does a knock-out punch. Her refreshing spin on this archetype, blending masculine bravado and bluster with feminine wit and wisdom, elevates the spartan material.

Overall, Roth crafts a resonant picture, purposefully threading in themes centered on identity and degradation with a sensitive, deft touch. Where it falters in properly contextualizing its pervading sentiments, it often finds resilient strength in the smart parallels between animal and human.

Ultimately, the absence of any meaningful sentiment about grief or personal growth (or anything else) makes the story’s maddening, rote familiarity feel especially lazy—which is why Clerks III lives up to the legacy of its uninspired characters in all of the wrong ways.

Any crass consumerism is eclipsed by disarming, demonstrable themes and meaningful sentiments woven throughout the film’s textured fabric.

It establishes its own identity, occasionally improving upon its cinematic predecessor enough to make it a worthwhile watch.

Director Julia Stiles constructs something fresh. The actor-turned-filmmaker, who co-adapts with Carlino, instills the source material with a clear-eyed sense of emotional authenticity, from its fantastical romanticism to the characters’ delicately-faceted relationship dynamics.

Underneath the gimmicky title of Hot Frosty lies a sweet, disarming feature about healing from tragedy. It’s also just a goofy, lovable no-brainer to click play on when craving escapism.

Love in the Villa’s building blocks may be as phony and manufactured as that balcony, but romantics will assuredly see and feel that the sentimental thematic resonance surrounding love and destiny comes from a genuine place.