Dominick Suzanne-Mayer

City of Ghosts is far less about the region’s troubled history than about the now, the daily abuses that continue to grow in severity as politics are talked elsewhere.

It’s not the savage darkness of Okja that lingers most after it ends, or even the political allusions. It’s the story of Mija and Okja, trying to make sense of a frightening world where good people and animals alike die each day, and the only thing that can usually prevent this from happening is more money.

Kuso is a hallucinatory, scatological, grotesque, and occasionally hysterical work of utter mania, the kind of wild cinema that cuts through the noise of all safer, more marketable filmmaking.

The Little Hours is reasonably entertaining, but it hints just enough at something deeper that it may well leave you wanting.

While the flagrant product placement is dialed back (at least on Bay’s curve) and there’s mercifully 100% less discussion of sexual consent laws this time around, the latest outing suffers from arguably the most fatal flaw a movie about giant fighting robots can: it’s brutally and relentlessly boring from start to finish.

All Eyez on Me is the opposite of an ideal biopic.

It aims for the kind of sprawl that could contain a film with so many big ideas about death and grief and cruelty and salvation, but it’s somehow at once too modest for how bizarre it eventually gets and too excessive to meaningfully deliver on those emotions.

While the connections Knappenberger draws between private and government corruption are sometimes belabored, they’re also accurate, and a stark reminder of the increasing popularity of “bought” news.

It’s a movie made of brief chuckles and obvious but well-meaning lessons, and if it lacks the grander ambition of some of the studio’s best and most memorable work, it’s still an enjoyable watch.

It’s odd to see Elliott in a performance that involves him appearing so adrift, but the actor mines Lee’s insecurities for a naked honesty that makes his arguments and apologies alike ring with a lifetime of remorse.

Beatriz at Dinner has an ear for the microaggressions that tend to constitute so much modern racism, and these moments tend to play better than the broader attempts at cultural commentary.

There’s no linear path to being “okay,” or to overcoming grief, and Band Aid is ultimately as much about how people have to do these things on their own as it is about a couple doing it together.

It’s still a reasonably funny movie when it hits its marks. It’s just a funny movie prone to going to some ugly, barren wells for laughs throughout as well.

It’s the rare Marvel sequel that manages to expand on what came before in new and rewarding ways, while also striking its own distinct tone even as some of its narrative devices skew familiar.

The Circle aims for slow-building dread, but Ponsoldt’s direction and the script are both so uncharacteristically stiff that the film’s tone never solidifies.

Furious 7 is at turns a celebration and a farewell, a film that goes for broke in using its many seemingly forgettable bits of established canon to tie together all of the films and pay its respects.

The Lost City of Z is as much about the struggle of progress as the real-life story it’s telling, and Gray sharply observes the ways in which mankind continuously tears itself apart, usually in the name of progress.

Even as Fate has its fun and chases its highs (a few of which are pretty satisfying), it’s hard to shake the growing sensation that the bloom might be coming off the rose.

Your Name is the kind of film that’s all the more striking for how easily it could have gone awry, but Shinkai has accomplished something unique and genuinely special here.

That world is so well-realized that the film is worth seeing, but it’s a mild letdown given the number of philosophical queries that it raises, only to leave ultimately unexplored.

Power Rangers ably sates all appetites: it’s absurd enough to avoid the self-seriousness that threatens to swallow it throughout, but just straight-faced enough to stop short of the kind of referential irony that would sink it.

In one sense, here’s a sequel to a ‘90s classic that trades heavily on audiences’ appreciation for that previous film. In another, here’s a film that uses that fact in service of an insightful, affecting commentary on how there’s no choice in life but to either move forward or to not.

If Raw is hardly subtle in its depiction of burgeoning womanhood, from the social to the sexual, Ducournau delivers the film’s parable with a candor that suits it perfectly.

Perhaps the most satisfying thing about the film is what comes after, when you stop to realize how darkly comic and sickly fun the film was after you’re done reeling from all the impaling and dismemberment.

It’s a genuine drag to watch talented actors struggle through tepid material, and Table 19 offers this more readily than it does its laughs or its pathos.

It’s a simple story of children who have to figure out, at too young an age, what kind of people they’ll be. And in its pervasive sense of hope, Barras seems to suggest that they can be anybody they want. There’s always still time, as long as love remains in the world.

What’s most unfortunate about Fist Fight is the wealth of talent it amasses for little to no discernible purpose.

Chapter 2 is a hyper-violent piece of pulp action cinema through and through, but it’s also an exemplar of how to make such a film with style and intelligence.