G. Allen Johnson

By taking the “dark” out of the dark comedy, “The Roses” can’t decide what it wants to be, and becomes as flimsy as its setting: Mendocino is played by a seaside town in Devon, United Kingdom, and it looks more like New England than Northern California.

Sarsgaard and Jones are good actors, and both are fine. The real star, though, is sound designer Ian Gaffney-Rosenfeld and his team, who bring a depth and dimension to the story that sorely needs it.

It's simply terrible.

The last half-hour of “Opus” is an unbearable slog, with an unsatisfying ending.

Like Disney’s tepid 2019 live-action remake of “The Lion King,” it’s virtually a beat-by-beat remake of the original, but without the original’s energy and movement.

Diamantino is one of those movies that looks super fun to make but is mind-numbing to actually watch.

It’s a train wreck, but certainly a watchable one that almost plays like fan fiction.

It’s a film that feels instantly antiquated, despite its attempts to capture Gen Z angst.

A final word about Bardem: He’s simply terrific. With his shaggy curly hair, exaggerated showmanship, athletic dance moves and operatic gestures, Hector is part Willy Wonka and part Gene Kelly — it’s Bardem’s most off-the-rails performance since his turn as a James Bond villain in “Skyfall.”

Not much of a plot, but the trouble is that Shana Larsen's script, as directed by Risa Bramon Garcia, isn't very deep. Worse, none of the self-absorbed characters are that likable nor are they funny.

The Front Room becomes an exercise in psychological torture porn; it’s a movie you endure rather than enjoy.

Taccone can’t find the right mix of comedy and horror in “Over Your Dead Body,” which is a faithful — perhaps too faithful — remake of a 2021 Norwegian film, “The Trip.”

Quickly degenerates into a grueling piece of unpleasantness.

Dead Man on Campus, a supposed black comedy produced by MTV, is simply awful.

It seems Joris-Peyrafitte can’t decide what film he is making, and as a result we’re left with a jumbled mess with a slapped-together resolution that will satisfy no one.

The problem with Ready or Not is that directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (“V/H/S”) don’t know what kind of movie they want to make, or what to do with their heroine. There are constant shifts in tone — is it a comedy, like the trapped-in-a-mansion “Murder By Death”? A satire on the rich? A kick-ass revenge picture?

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is provocative and irritating — and intentionally so. That makes it particularly annoying, because even as you’re provoked and irritated, you are also aware that writer-director Radu Jude wanted you to feel that way.

What we get are quirky characters who are such cartoons that they undermine the effectiveness of the scare scenes (Brad Dourif's turn as the weird doctor is an example) and well-composed camera angles that mean nothing.

What starts out as a bottom-feeder noir a la “Breaking Bad” or “Hell or High Water” transitions into scattershot ambitions of being a mythic tragedy.

Most of Arkansas — Duke’s home state, by the way — just falls flat, despite individual scenes here and there that work.

Blows an opportunity to be as great as its subject.

There’s more to life than just stories and really, Djinn and Alithea just need to get a life.

Petzold said he conceived of the film during the pandemic lockdown — that makes sense, considering the sparseness of the setting and small cast — and was inspired by the character studies of French filmmaker Éric Rohmer and Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Unfortunately, he needed inspiration from another great artist: Christian Petzold.

It is such a soul-killing exercise in narcissism — and not a very smart thriller, either — that yeah, you can buy into the notion that Tinseltown is a total drag.

Still, I’m not sure Kiarostami really intended this film to be a movie. It seems more like an art installation. Of note is the terrific sound design; the sound is credited to Ensieh Maleki, who captures full, rich, peaceful sounds of nature.

How can you screw up a movie that has Lady Gaga? Here’s how: Make it claustrophobic, with the first half a brutal prison picture and the second half an excruciatingly dull courtroom drama.

All this could work, but Perkins never finds the proper tone in what is almost a spoof of the horror genre.

It's downright boring.