Glenn Kenny

This picture is not as ridiculous as a “Sharknado” movie — Harlin is out to make a genuine nail-biter, and he largely succeeds, maintaining interest even as the two-hour mark approaches. But it’s not enough to make you genuinely afraid to go into the ocean this summer.

In addition to serving up heaping helpings of suspense and action, “Fuze” abounds in twists.

Rather than extend the epic sweep of this picture into the cosmic ineffable, he just wants the viewer bouncing along and rooting for its female hero. And the film succeeds admirably in this respect.

If the movie’s conclusion is more along the lines of Voltaire than it is to, say, Costa-Gavras’ “Z,” the hair-raising route it takes to get George to a spot of tentative complacency is memorable and eye-opening.

The violence is pretty graphic, and some of it is played for laughs, which would be distasteful if the laughs didn’t actually land. Oh well. Sometimes you enjoy a movie, and you don’t feel good about it in the morning.

Make no mistake: this is a horror film; as you stare at the screen, the abyss it represents stares back at you.

It’s an earnest account of a religious movement that still resonates — Whitefield’s practice was instrumental in the growth of the Methodist church, and his sermons and lectures are still in print today.

While this film is often funny, its ultimate bit of wisdom, from the New Testament, is dark and undeniable: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

While the picture, directed by Rick Gomez, has an often jaunty tone, it’s really at its best when it leans into the sadness that shadows the father-daughter relationship. Those scenes are where the two Zahns do their best, most affecting acting work.

While Loznitsa’s films, particularly his documentaries, often have a terrifying epic sweep, “Two Prosecutors,” as its title implies, is an altogether more intimate undertaking. And no less terrifying for all that.

The movie steers into a “beat the system” narrative that packs some stirring “Erin Brockovich” energy.

Reminders of Him deserves credit for serving it all up unabashedly and without a single wink. This is largely thanks to the stupendous Monroe, and also Withers.

“Hockey will teach you what you need to know about life” is a cliché, and while Underwood’s delivery of the line almost redeems it, James’s work makes you believe it.

As tough a life as Preston had, the music that buoys this chronicle is a constant source of joy.

Cold Storage strikes a nifty balance between the sardonic and the stressful and throws a lot of gnarly gore and gook into the scenario, as a bargain.

There’s a reason that “Road Trip” is premiering in the middle of Black History Month. While expansively anarchic to a fault, the movie’s anger, and its pride, is convincing.

Besson doesn’t build up the romantic emotion he apparently aspires to with his efforts, but “Dracula” gets by on the power of his (and Landry’s) conviction.

The spy-versus-spy scenario set out by the screenwriter Ward Parry isn’t going to give the maestro Mick Harron (“Slow Horses”) any sleepless nights. But as a vehicle for Statham’s bone-breaking escapades, it’ll do. And the story avoids some of the expected clichés.

The hair-raising narrative content notwithstanding, the movie doesn’t create much emotional traction.

While some institutions are legitimate, Shuffle, a shocking and confounding new documentary directed by Benjamin Flaherty, lays out in painstaking detail the collusion between moneymaking rehab treatment centers, double-dealing insurance entities and predatory social-media “scouts” who make sure cash flows into corporate pockets while the sick and suffering never get well.

Magellan, about the titular Portuguese explorer, clocks in at a relatively tidy two hours and 45 minutes, making it practically an ideal starter picture for those curious about Diaz’s work.

While the lead actors are clearly committed, the movie gives them little to do besides exchange verbal invective.

A moving account of music as a way of coping with war, as well as keeping it at bay.

By putting the garrulous, sometimes cranky Hersh on film, “Cover-Up” reveals, in the behavioral sense, the obsessiveness that makes an investigative journalist.

Today, Duritz is a reflective figure. The documentary, directed by Amy Scott, will pull you back from any “pity the poor celebrity” eye-rolling with its revelation of his struggles with mental illness, which he endured, undiagnosed, during the ups and downs of early fame.

Filmmaker Waller is here trying to have things both ways: to pay a sincere tribute to the classic Japanese samurai movies in the widescreen frames and spurting blood it borrows, and also to make a genuine thing, a samurai qua samurai picture. He eventually gets there, or almost does.

The movie, written and directed by Hailey Benton Gates, wants to be a lot of things at once, including a satire and a dark rom-com. It bites off more than it can comfortably chew. However, the cast, also featuring Tim Heidecker, Chloë Sevigny and Channing Tatum, is charismatic and at times piercingly funny.

Sorrentino and cinematographer Daria D’Antonio color coordinate each and every frame to a fare-thee-well. Even scenes set in an Italian prison have real visual flair.

As concert films go, “You Got Gold” is pretty straightforward. It doesn’t need to be anything more than that. Prine’s songs are full of wisdom, drama, laughs and heartache.

The director Celia Aniskovich, using Owen Long’s 2022 New York Magazine article “Secrets of the Christmas Tree Trade” as a starting point, has at her subject with commendable verve.

What comes across most vividly in this movie, ultimately, is the fact that what happened almost half a century ago is a trauma that still weighs heavily on the people of Vietnam. And many Americans.

Curtis shows up late in the picture, and her grounded presence helps Powter’s hard-luck story resonate more sympathetically. The documentary ends not with the promise of a comeback, but with a resolution to restore some, well, sanity to Powter’s life.

Being Eddie is a great time. Murphy is good company, and he’s hilarious as ever.

The energetic and arguably strenuous performance by the lead actor, Riccardo Scamarcio, is something of a flex, to be sure.

Last Days manages to be thoroughly disquieting without overtly judging its subject.

The irrepressible tone of mordant giggliness this movie hits so often is entirely its own, keeping the movie buoyant throughout its over two-hour running time.

No matter its flaws, Truth & Treason is very well acted.

The movie chronicles eventual triumphs that are invariably tinged with sadness. Through it all, Osbourne’s devotion to his family, his fans, his bandmates and, yes, his art is palpable.

Anchoring it all is the ever-great Moss, who is also a co-producer on the picture. The actress is always heartbreakingly good playing character forced to endure a lot of humiliation, and in this scenario, she gets it coming and going. She illuminates the serious mess that this farce is about, underneath it all.

This moving film’s sense of hometown pride is subtle but apt.

Brian Kirk, the director, has a good feel for this formidable, intimidating setting; the viewer appreciates its beauty while maintaining a keen sense of how awful it would be to get stranded there.

Watching Coppola land on his head and then pick himself back up again and point himself at another brick wall is ultimately strangely inspiring.

The lens through which the movie views these kids is objective and balanced, but there’s an empathy at work that makes the viewer understand what each of the subjects is going through.

Like a lot of other stuff in this movie, it actually transcends the clichés of the genre while acknowledging those clichés as containing kernels of truth.

While the movie’s production design has considerable mojo — the trappings of a “Bachelor”-style reality show are sharply drawn, and the swimming hole on Trey’s ranch is practically Edenic — the anodyne writing reins in whatever satire one might have expected.

Bloom plays his role with a feral commitment, and while Turturro has portrayed several villains in his career, here his refusal to ingratiate even slightly yields a genuinely frightening characterization.

Bigelow’s ability to take a series of hypotheticals and render them into narrative actuality has never been more pinpoint accurate or merciless.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a breathtaking coup, an exhilarating riposte to the conventional wisdom about dream projects. The writer-director makes something almost new, and definitely rich and strange, out of a story we all thought we knew well.

Aiding their investigations is an underappreciated policewoman appealingly played by Naomi Ackie. The proceedings are marshaled with affection by the director Chris Columbus.

It’s a little surprising that these proceedings are led by the director Ron Howard, since this subject matter is more perverse than anything he has set his sights on before. The actors are up to the task, however.

Structurally sound while at the same time lacking anything you could call a “plot,” “Suspended Time” invites you to listen in your own life to that which is often neglected or unheard.

The movie resolves into a relatively deft combination of message picture and suspense thriller.

Jean Dujardin, who’s best known here for a still-controversial performance in Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist,” is utterly flawless as Picquart, maintaining proper military bearing even as he begins to seethe with indignation.

Even as they find themselves running out of things to do, each actor hangs on to his or her charisma and manages to land a line every now and then.

The directors Pierre Perifel and JP Sans put the narrative across with a blithe bounciness, and the all-star voice actors play along nicely.

There’s nothing like a good Irish movie with some edge to it. So it’s too bad that “Four Letters of Love” is nothing like a good Irish movie with some edge to it.

The movie is, indeed, the tragedy of a ridiculous man. On the other hand, he does manage a maneuver by which his heirs avoid the estate tax. How ridiculous is that?

It’s refreshing to see children’s animation makers use surrealism, instead of winking pop-culture references, to charm adults.

The sobering note on which the movie ends recalls a stone-cold classic from a sadly long-gone era of moviemaking. The homage actually functions as a token of this movie’s integrity and heartfelt sadness.

It’s loud albeit harmless japery, best appreciated with your air-conditioning cranked to movie theater levels.

Serra’s meticulous shooting and cutting relate to phenomenology; that is, it delivers an account of subjective experience. It implies that Rey’s “personality” is superfluous to his being.

Turkiewicz apes Tarantino’s great film by giving chapter titles to its sections and setting multiple scenes in a diner. These sequences don’t resemble “Pulp Fiction” so much as they do television ads for Chili’s — a locale where you’ll have a better time than watching this utterly misbegotten movie.

“Blues,” playing now in a 40th anniversary restoration, is a constant charmer. Watching it is a buoyant experience even when the humor is a bit tasteless, including a bit involving mistaken sex partners during a blackout.

The movie’s not a barn-burner or future classic, but new Westerns are thin on the ground these days, and this ultimately is a better-than-decent one.

The ensemble is packed with seasoned acting professionals across the board, who more than sell their drunk scenes and deliver more than a few laughs on their way to redemption.

Topping it all off is a deliberately shaky and agitated shooting and cutting style that heightens nothing. Just watch “The Exorcist” again.

Armstrong’s version of tech-bro bantering is a lot more literate and zingy than actual tech-bro bantering would be, otherwise the picture would be rather a bore. After a while, it begins to evanesce, like ice-breath does in the mountain air.

The movie quickly establishes itself as a revenge narrative, and each bad guy goes down in a way designed to suit the viewer’s justified bloodlust.

The movie acknowledges its many antecedents.

Despite the best efforts of the cast and technical crew here, The Kiss winds up in the land of “meh.”

Mamet’s stark existentialism comes to a shudder-inducing yet mordantly satisfying head in this expertly rendered picture. The text might not be vintage Mamet, but it’s a real meal.

Watching this largely misbegotten movie (which seems to fulfill all of its aspirations with an utterly tacky ending), then, sometimes brought to mind the sardonic Steely Dan tune “Show Biz Kids.”

If this movie leaves Cage adrift, he doesn’t seem at all uncomfortable about it.

One is hard-pressed to understand why grown-up thrillers like this one don’t get bigger pushes, but if you’re a “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” type when it comes to genre, do have a look at this. It’ll very likely hit an old-school sweet (or sour) spot or two.

The documentary doesn’t quite cover everything — their collaborations with Joni Mitchell and Martin Scorsese go unmentioned, for example. This is still a rollicking account that will make even non-herbally-inclined viewers root for the fellows.

The movie is at its most fascinating in its depiction of Lennon as a pragmatic activist.

The movie convincingly posits that Fonda was, cinematically, the embodiment of America itself. Horwath has gathered a vast amount of archival material from film, television, radio and more to make his case.

The work Watts and Murray do in this sequence is both emotionally raw and acutely thoughtful, rife with specificity. It’s career-high stuff.

Viewers looking for a tidy narrative and gratifying conclusions will come up short with this movie. But if you can roll with atmospherics that are their own reason for being, “Grand Tour” has plenty, and they’re all beautifully realized.

While Juan Salvador is a shameless exhibitionist, Coogan’s performance is understated; he conveys Tom’s softening without nudging the viewer too much.

It’s a satisfying cast all the way down.

While it’s inevitable that some, maybe many, viewers will find the dual role a distraction, those who hunger for De Niro in mobster mode will get more than their fill.

Ultimately, this is one of those movies where it seems okay if you like this sort of thing for a while, but after it crosses the 90-minute mark, it seems irretrievably a little much even if you like this sort of thing.

Lesage supplies exemplary tension and intrigue over the course of two plus hours, while at the same time suggesting to the viewer, accurately, that anything in the way of a definitive resolution is not in the cards.

The movie’s energy doesn’t pay off in dividends of real pleasure. Anarchy has never been so mere as it is ultimately rendered here.

The director remains near-merciless in his approach, never shying away from showing his vulnerable characters (and the tormentor played with twisted relish by Lithgow is, ultimately, as unprotected as any of the others) in states of utter abjection.

Harris and Murray are such reliably engaging screen presences that they provide a few glimmers of entertainment, provided you’re able to set aside the movie’s practically all-encompassing repulsiveness.

Directed by Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse” is a remarkably cogent and compelling presentation not just of Spiegelman’s life story but also his personality and art.

For all the elaborate weaponry, production design and (eventually) frantic action offered here, this movie crackles most as a lively pas de deux between Taylor-Joy and Teller, who commendably take their material seriously no matter how seriously ridiculous it gets.

If you’re someone who treasures the music of Led Zeppelin more than you’re interested in the legend—or the gossip, or the dirt, or whatever you want to call it—of Led Zeppelin, this movie is absolutely for you. I’m one of those people, and I ate it up.

This portrait of already wounded people who can’t stop inflicting pain on themselves and each other has a great deal of integrity. But if you’re seeking ennobling sentiment, you’ll do well to look elsewhere.

Marcello Mio, written and directed by French filmmaker Cristophe Honoré, and starring Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, and a host of other European artistic luminaries, is a cinema in-joke elongated beyond all reason.

While it speaks well of Nelson’s integrity as a performer that he doesn’t make much effort to render Buck as ingratiating, the result is that the character can be a bit of a drag. His affection for his wife, Margaret (Annabel Armour), shows his softer side.

This strikingly eye-filling movie, directed by Matty Brown and shot by Jeremy Snell, is deliberately low on exposition.

More than just a shaggy dog story, Grand Theft Hamlet is a pointed, entertaining and moving examination of interdisciplinary conductivity at its most surprising.

Even if you don’t care for Warren’s tunes, this movie is likely to make you a fan.

The first movies of any given year are usually among the worst. Not this one. It’s a keeper, so treat yourself to a scary New Year’s celebration.

It’s hard to settle on what’s more bombastic: Carrey’s admittedly virtuoso double act, or the teeming computer graphics gadgetry of death and destruction spilling out of every corner of the screen.