Jake Kring-Schreifels

Much like the blur of quarantine, in which days and weeks bleed into months, the movie seamlessly skips through time, following its protagonist through a collection of moments that—as portrayed in rich black and white—often feel like memories. They have just enough story to be considered vignettes, distinguished by changing facial hair and locations, and held loosely together by its restless energy.

The risk for these kinds of stories––the best ranging from 12 Angry Men to One Night in Miami––is that they lose momentum after the initial setup. You need strong, convincing characters to make persuasive arguments and unearth deep-seated secrets. Brooklyn 45 supplies such.

Newton’s dynamic performance keeps you hooked.

To her screenplay’s credit, Pankiw manages to avoid a full-on mystery. The worry in these kinds of movies is that the effort to obfuscate and hint at the heart of the problem doesn’t pay off. But the reveal here is thoughtfully constructed.

Is it possible to stand out and disappear at the same time? Matt Damon makes a convincing case study in Stillwater.

Even with a dense backdrop and textured surroundings, Union County sits on the shoulders of Cody, and the movie succeeds largely because of Poulter’s still, shy performance as a young man quietly reckoning with life on the ropes.

These people and places read more like figments of imagination, part of a borough Holder wants it to be. As such, the movie is a rough, painterly sketch, a first draft that’s easy to read, provokes warm feelings, and deserves just a little more detail.

This is a movie engineered to resemble a thrill ride, a greatest-hits carousel powered by fan service and corporate recycling. It practically embraces Marty’s designation—and that’s OK. Despite their noted limitations, theme parks like this still offer plenty of fun.

Suburban Fury is a reminder that even the most candid historical figures are never fully transparent.

The Wanting Mare is a soft and silent seduction, an alluring yet unfulfilling poetic fable that leaves you wanting more.

This is a sure-handed debut with a reliable group of actors.

The loose spiritual ends don’t stitch together to produce the kind of scares that stick with you after their initial jolt.

While The Damned sometimes resembles a reenactment, Minervini makes a valid attempt to highlight war’s aimless priorities on its marginalized and unheralded members.

It feels like a short that’s been stretched to breaking point.

Murphy keeps Steve on the tracks. Among his great gifts is an ability to convey feelings while internally processing information.

As the movie’s romantic arc unfolds, everything just feels a little too goofy and distracted, considering the earnest monologue that Fayruz gives near the end that questions why so many young men and women are dying for causes they don’t understand.

Lee has crafted strong, sensible character studies, filled with long pauses and reflective beats. It’s just trapped in the wrong vehicle.

The narrative manipulation is the only thing clouding an otherwise crystal-clear dip into sublime terror.

A romantic comedy that functions best as a fable of friendship and self-reflection, Am I OK? is the kind of lightweight, amiable movie that just barely earns the emotional beats at the heart of its story.

You need some urgency and momentum to carry a movie like this. The incoming armageddon, occasionally seen as a small CGI blip in the blue sky, doesn’t have it. But as the day ends, Lister-Jones and Spaeny have enough chemistry to supply the real drama.

The ingredients look enticing enough, but director Nicole Beckwith isn’t cooking with real spice. Her insular drama operates at a consistent slow burn—it has just enough steam to keep you interested without ever bubbling over into interesting.

It runs pretty thin pretty quickly, a monotonous circle of arguing, indecision, concerned looks, and anxiety that stalls out the whimsy and momentum and all unique aesthetic possibilities of Freyne’s under-explored setting.

Call Jane is a competently made, well-acted historical drama that doesn’t give its charged subject matter the stakes or urgency it needs.

You can sense Bautista making the best of Snyder’s father-daughter formula, but pacing feels off. And the script, which Snyder wrote with Joby Harold and Shay Hatten, settles into mechanical plotting that undercuts all the zany, pop energy that began its trajectory.

Sans some overarching Avengers narrative providing these standalone epics their thrust, Thor: Love and Thunder plays adrift and uneven, once again resistant to use its untethered narrative and leading hunk in any meaningful—meaningfully sexy—way. By film’s end, when one character tells another to “choose love,” I could hear a handful in my theater beginning to sniffle and cry. It’s hard to understand why. The only thing my eyes could do was roll.

Thankfully you can still bank on Carrey and his obscurities (there’s a delightful scene where he dances inside his laboratory) to paper over some of the cruelty and staleness.

Down Low doesn’t know where to end and what to center. It’s eager for a happy ending and forgets the necessary work to produce one.

The characters here are half-baked, archetypes meant to fit into this semi-supernatural mystery box without the cathartic release that defeating various hate-groups should have.