James Berardinelli

It’s an enjoyable enough parfait but far from a theatrical destination.

Offering inspiration in both the truth of its basis and the way in which it is presented, The Boys in the Boat is an antidote to the pervasive cynicism of the modern era.

The 2023 The Color Purple is a handsomely mounted motion picture and there are fleeting moments when it touches magic.

As a well-acted standard-order bio-pic, Ferrari delivers but as something more, it falls short.

This is an American tragedy. Although the participants may be famous, the demons they fight in their intimate moments are familiar and relatable.

Although not as openly crowd-pleasing as Cooper’s A Star Is Born remake, there are enough interesting touches in the film – both in its aesthetic and some of the individual scenes – to demonstrate Cooper’s evolution as a filmmaker.

Gifted with a surprisingly large budget (reportedly ~$70M), Bayona is able to effectively recreate not only the crash but the dangers faced by the survivors while seamlessly incorporating on-location footage with studio-based material. The remarkable accomplishment results in a breathtaking motion picture that enthralls across the length of its 140+ minute running time.

It’s challenging but neither inaccessible nor impossibly dense. Kore-eda invites intellectual engagement but doesn’t leave the viewer unrewarded. This is one of the year’s best movies – the third time in the last decade I have made that statement about one of the director’s productions.

Even though it is rather obviously trading on a familiar and beloved brand, Wonka is nevertheless a fun and imaginative family film – certainly better than one might expect from a production crassly viewed by some as a “cash grab.”

This is one of the most effective depictions of Arendt’s “banality of evil” that I have seen and that’s in large part due to the unconventional tactics employed by Glazer in bringing this story to the screen.

American Fiction is the best kind of satire – one that is full-throated in its message, which it delivers with a cutting edge, while simultaneously taking the time to develop the characters in a meaningful way.

Regardless of whether the future will bring another Miyazaki movie, The Boy and the Heron is a wonderful gift for everyone who expected The Wind Rises to be his swansong. It’s proof that, no matter how hard Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, and others try, there’s only one animator who finds magic in every release.

Poor Things offers an opportunity for cinematic discovery. It’s brave, unconventional, and unique and easily one of the year’s best.

Is Woo using this ultra-violent experience to make an anti-violence statement? Perhaps, but even if that’s the case, it doesn’t work. Whatever the director is trying to do with the movie, it makes it for one big lump of coal in the 2023 cinematic stocking.

Godzilla Minus One isn’t just a good Godzilla movie. It’s an excellent Godzilla movie – arguably among the best ever to grace the screen.

With its offbeat blend of warped humor, dramatic and horror elements, social commentary, and Talking Heads, Dream Scenario may not always be comfortable but it is undeniably provocative.

I’ll be the first to admit that not everything in Saltburn works and, during some of the cringe-inducing instances when it fails, it does so rather spectacularly. Yet Emerald Fennell’s film is just bonkers enough to be wildly entertaining and completely disturbing in equal parts.

Napoleon was without a doubt a complex and controversial character whose shadow loomed large over the first quarter of the 19th century. He deserves a better-focused, more passionate movie than the one Scott has provided.

This may be the worst major animated film Disney has released in the past 40 years and its lack of creative energy doesn’t augur well for the immediate future.