David Rooney

The fact that the outcome is wide open to different interpretations makes Men a more ambiguous work than Garland’s sci-fi horror hybrids, Ex Machina and Annihilation. It’s also more menacing and viscerally creepy.

Even the acerbic bons mots delivered with crisp aplomb by Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess, Violet Grantham, don’t match the tart-tongued precision of her best retorts. And the direction of Simon Curtis — the man who made even Helen Mirren dull in Woman in Gold — seldom rises above serviceable.

The film is affecting, because it outlines the saddening end of an adored American icon. But for all its promises of unheard insights, it seldom goes much deeper than an E! True Hollywood Story.

A far more decorous affair than its macho-burger title would suggest, this is a classy production with a first-rate ensemble cast, splicing the story’s intrigue with a poignant vein of melodrama.

The Northman is certainly a lot of movie, and while its hysterical intensity at times veers into overwrought silliness, it’s both unstinting and exhilarating in its depiction of a culture ruled by the cycles of violence. The cohesion of Eggers’ vision commands admiration, as does the commitment of his collaborators, both in front of and behind the camera.

The storytelling moves along at a steady hum, maintaining intrigue as different pieces of the puzzle come together.

A slapdash comedy with an embarrassment of misused talent.

It’s just a shame this opening salvo takes itself too seriously to have much fun with the mayhem, despite the potential in Smith’s devilish turn for amusing interplay between the antagonists.

Lyne’s take on the material, scripted without distinction by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson, manages to drain all the subtlety and psychological complexity from Highsmith’s story of marital warfare, transgression and obsession.

It’s clearly a labor of love, a unique reflection on an unforgettable summer, inviting us to share in a moment of communal spirit which now seems to belong to another world.

Nothing if not true to its title, this frenetically plotted serve of stoner heaven is insanely imaginative and often a lot of fun. But at two hours-plus, it becomes unrelenting and wearisome.

The result is neither funny nor thrilling, just exhausting.

Turning Red is original, funny and tender, an affectionate reminder that adolescence is a time of life not easily tamed, and sometimes the animal inside us demands release.

This glowering study in crime and punishment is meticulously crafted, vividly inhabited storytelling with a coherent, thought-through vision, and that makes for muscular entertainment.

In the end, the most remarkable thing about Against the Ice is that a real-life story of two men at the mercy of the unforgiving elements, of hunger and illness, possible attack and encroaching madness, can be so curiously deprived of tension.

The deadpan edge of much of the film’s 90 minutes of prattle conceals thoughts on the insularity of creative communities, the ticking clock of an artist’s life and the importance of remaining open to finding truth even in what appear to be random connections.

Perhaps more than anything, the doc celebrates the remarkable creative union between Cave and his chief collaborator and bandmate Warren Ellis.

Lovely, unforced Chekhovian notes grace the gently observed snapshot of a summer of unstoppable change and momentous upheaval. Even if there are moments of frustration in which Simón and co-writer Arnau Vilaró pull away just as conflicts are heating up, the film’s immersive, lived-in nature has a transfixing grip.

Peter von Kant is perhaps a bit too rarefied an endeavor to significantly expand Ozon’s following, and some LGBTQ audiences might conceivably flinch at its protagonist’s self-flagellation, much as they did with Fassbinder’s. But its skewering of celebrity is mischievously enjoyable and its declaration of love for a queer-cinema forefather disarmingly sincere.

The film spans several years in her life and that of her family, covering moments both important and relatively inconsequential. It’s a credit to Hers’ contemplative, never intrusive observational style that by the end of the two-hour running time we know them intimately.

The sense of love dissolving and lives thrown into chaos as a dormant past violently breaks through the surface is unexpectedly moving, all the more so because of the film’s rigorous rejection of sentimentality.

What in lesser hands might have been just another tiresome COVID-19 quickie, locking us into a reality we’re all desperate to escape, becomes a tautly suspenseful nail-biter in Kimi, thanks to tirelessly eclectic director Steven Soderbergh and seasoned screenwriter David Koepp.

For some of us who look back with affection on John Guillermin’s lush 1978 screen version, there’s a nagging feeling throughout that Branagh, while hitting the marks of storytelling and design, has drained some of the fun out of it.

Strong performances from the four leads, plus the film’s unsettling visuals and crafty use of score, sound and strategic silence make it both a tough watch and impossible to look away from.

A fascinating window into the psychological and emotional minefield of early puberty and the torn feelings of a vulnerable child watching her darkest instincts play out, Hatching delivers.

Sure, there’s some fun in all that meta-playfulness. But there’s also a facetiousness that wears thin and intrudes on the killing spree, making me often wish I was watching any one of the superior movies being referenced.

It’s all quite watchable and not without suspense, but the characters reveal too little emotional depth or complexity to make us care much about either their losses or their hard-fought victories.

Milkwater is a modest film that acquires pleasing depth as it progresses.