Graeme Guttmann

Little Death is two vignettes — one more compelling than the other – that only loosely come together.

Some may find this despairing and baffling, but Ducournau finds a strange layer of hope and love beneath all the dust and grime.

It's one of Adams' best performances in a career full of them, messy and feral and unwiedly, just like Nightbitch itself.

That's what makes Forbidden Fruits feel both timely and timeless. We rarely leave the inside of the mall, giving the film a claustrophobic feel. The girls use cell phones – it'd be strange if they didn't – but any recognizable social media are absent. It feels like a distinctly modern take on female friendship, but one that owes a great deal to the films that have come before it. And it's lost the sort of optimism that those films often came with.

Shell is funny and nice to look at it, but it lacks the depth or the darkness that it needs.

It’s a fun B-movie with timely elements and some exciting kills. It may not be much more than that, but sometimes that’s enough.

Despite some of Bunnylovr's shortcomings, Zhu has a knack for filmmaking, and it's an exciting debut for the young artist.

Despite finding a sweet spot, The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer falters as a whole. Buscemi, Magaro, and Lower give great performances, but it does little to fill in the gaps of the story.

By the time the film turns off autopilot, it's far too late, and the ending lands with the dull thud of a long-rotted body wrapped in an old rug.

Unfortunately, Reminders of Him isn't a very good film, at least in the traditional sense. But, like Regretting You, there's a certain level of lizard brain enjoyment that transcends much of the film's flaws and allows for all the soapy, melodramatic elements to be enjoyed at their own level.

Luck may not reinvent the wheel — at this point, what can? — but it does what films like this do best, bringing forth a message about family and perseverance with humor, heart, and a lot of magic.

As a piece of horror, the film is certainly effective, achieving a kind of discomforting aura that is sometimes missing from the too-polished genre fare released all-too-frequently.

Along with its genuine humor and a frank exploration of the different ways queer people live today, Jimpa is an emotional experience that feels authentic in a way that can be difficult to capture.

In the end, Samaritan commits a cardinal sin of the superhero genre: It thinks a high-profile actor with vaguely defined superpowers is enough to make the film interesting when it clearly needs something more.

There are great moments in the quiet of Treasure, the scenes where director Julia von Heinz's camera lingers on a look, an item, or a landscape. But Treasure finds itself stuck in the middle of these tender moments and a heavy-handed way with emotion that has good intentions but doesn't land the same.

There are a few bright spots in Rise of the Beasts, but these are largely overshadowed by a lot of generic parts that would not be out of place in any of the previous six Transformers movies.

Cave's assured direction creates a sickly sweet, dreamy world, and though its story sometimes lacks the dynamism it needs to fully connect, Kidman, unsurprisingly, carries the film over the finish line.

The beauty of a musical isn't just in the songs themselves, but the feelings they leave us with as we exit the theater. Leave One Day opts for a cheerier disposition that undermines staying power beyond its infectious tunes.

Despite sturdy performances, Without Blood doesn’t fully come together.

As much as it tries to be a mash-up of several genres, it would've been much better had it picked one lane and leaned into it.

It needed something to make it feel fresh beyond dazzling visuals, but by stripping away much of what made the first film great, Pinocchio feels like the same old story, even if its fantastical elements shine onscreen.

There's something comforting about the way in which My Fake Boyfriend doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. It's content living in its charming version of New York where everything works out in the end.

The film is unsure if wants to be a portrait of a man on the verge, a slasher, or a psychological chamber piece, and it ultimately fails to live up to any of these ideas.

It never digs deep enough which, when looked at through the fairy tale lens, is appropriate, but ultimately seems like a missed opportunity for the film.

Rent Free doesn't veer too far into dramatic territory, but when it does, it feels earned, a sobering moment that snaps the blurry edges of our protagonists' perspective into crystal clear view.

The script is caught between wanting to be a full-blown horror movie and wanting to be a tense psychological thriller.

Serious People doesn't deal in cynicism. Its quiet ending wraps things up too tidily, but there's a strange sort of optimism to its idiocy that is quite endearing.