Jared Mobarak

Its in-depth dissection of what the concept of “truth” has become in an age of blindly devoted acolytes spreading information faster than it can be confirmed.

These four actors provide their roles with a bold presence both in their ability to impersonate physically and embody spiritually.

On its most superficial horror flick level, Jay Baruchel’s latest directorial effort Random Acts of Violence works

The filmmakers’ obvious ambitions fall prey to cinematic convention.

Doff may have thrown in a kitchen sink of clichés, but he knows exactly how to marry them together. The result is an endearingly uproarious affair.

Despite the on-the-nose delivery of its messaging being intentional, Coetzee’s script will surely alienate some viewers. The slow pacing won’t do it any favors either, considering it promises weightier drama than that heightened, moralizing tone could ever provide.

The result might not be unique in its narrative about a misunderstood man devoid of the means to get out of his own way, but Calm with Horses is stunning in its execution nonetheless.

It’s the type of human-interest story that touches upon the surface of what occurred in a way that hits audiences emotionally without actually saying much.

It takes us beyond the nuts and bolts we all heard while watching these battles unfold via the twenty-four news cycle and into the nuanced day-to-day struggles of the men and women working around the clock to curtail federal government overreach. This is the story of unrelenting, heroic lawyers.

A faulty delivery device doesn’t diminish that truth or take away from the requisite happily ever after we know is coming. Purefoy, Hayman, Middleton, and Mays are too good to let that happen. They’ve willingly embraced the clichés to honor a story brimming with the kind of hope we need currently and it’s worth following their lead.

Amulet in effect lulls us into a false sense of familiarity by positioning genre conventions and gender norms as an artificial façade waiting to be torn down.

[Satrapi] does what she can to give some life to Thorne’s rather staid screenplay, but even that can’t stop the film from risking its audience’s attention with by-the-numbers plotting.

It’s through these actors that we see how their characters process their pain above and below the façade created and understand why they’re incapable of looking beyond their tragic wealth of regret.

You couldn’t ask for a better guide through the psychological landscape of her character’s desires than Slate. Her ability to be hilarious despite a quiet role like Frances lends an indelible charm that ensures we’re in her corner from the beginning.

I do think the second half of The Beach House proves an effective survival horror, but it is tough to really stick with the characters due to a lack of resolution before the chaos hits.

Where Fisk follows a lead, uncovers details, and logically extrapolates what probably happened, cable news takes his hypothesis, makes it sacrosanct, and does more damage than good.

I went in expecting a generic plot-based thriller with Max knocking on doors for a mystery that risks his life and mostly received an emotionally introspective character drama about mortality and grief instead.

The result can be frustratingly militant in its desire to show all angles of its central conflict (and how it sparks others), but the questions it makes us ask ourselves are worth it.

It’s a beautifully intimate look at how a place can affect your identity and actions so wholly and how history is never just something you read.

A genuinely suspenseful ride thanks to all the moving parts and multi-layered motivations.

While Poser and Adams do so much to overcome the production’s limitations, they unavoidably show through nonetheless.

Because Lerman and Hawkes are so good, Adalsteins can let their resentment and fear exist unspoken.

Their newfound friendship strips them down to their raw humanity in a way that allows them to see each other like no one has ever seen them. They grow together, acknowledging self-destructive natures without passing judgment until inevitably unearthing the undeniable truths even they refused to see within themselves.

Inheritance might have benefited from its third act being a tad subtler, but I get the allure of throwing away nuance for splashy suspense.

The script is sadly too shallow to bring everything together.

Alice is truly independent like never before and she’s confronted with the unfair fact that she probably won’t be able to maintain it if she also hopes to keep Jules. To watch Piponnier weigh that abhorrent truth is to witness the internal struggle every woman who’s experienced this type of coerced acquiescence faces.

Capone isn’t a knockout comeback, but it’s an undeniably striking and bold endeavor that transcends genre constraints and conventional molds.

Neulinger dives in headfirst to break down every single aspect of his journey towards the truth.

The film bills itself as a suspense thriller due to the predicament Kyle and Swin must eventually try to escape, but it works best as a comedy using that narrative drama to entertain regardless of the stakes.

The result is bittersweet and poignant in its complex truths, but also saccharinely convenient in its execution.

While the uncertain nature of the sport lends a suffocating tension to the whole, the complexity of [Morgan's] character’s day-to-day struggle as a man who knows nothing else does too.

Things get heavy pretty quick once the drugs take hold and not everyone will get out alive. While Klein lets that genre conceit cut some chaff for him, however, he doesn’t lose the overarching perspective that those who do narrowly get back home aren’t out of the woods.

The film doesn’t nail every beat . . . but what it gets right is unassailable.

Despite the underlying emotional complexity shared via triggered vignettes of memory, the film too often chooses to live in the present and thus within the love triangle it so desperately wants to subvert.

Rather than get bogged down in action and conflict, Luchetti allows her characters the room to grow alongside each other with their own internal wars supplying more than enough intrigue until Manfredi finally knocks on the correct door.

What makes The Quarry compelling is the fact that we know from the start that Whigham isn’t a monster. His performance is too full of heartbreak and remorse for that to be true. This man is caught within a loop he knows he can stop if he only finds the courage to do so. It’s not easy.

It’s like we’re watching a self-serious episode of whatever random police procedural CBS airs each week with an impossibly odd perpetrator rather than the opposite. That’s why the start can feel boringly redundant despite what Chip’s ass is doing throughout. It’s also why flipping the switch so depravity can reign late still entertains.

These people are so greedily narcissistic that the best fun lies in what they’re willing to do to each other and how they react upon realizing that truth.

Hardiman takes special care to ensure her narrative is steeped in real world plausibility.

We Summon the Darkness reveals itself to be a fun ride when all is said and done because nobody on-screen knows what he/she is doing.

It means something to see activists in Wisconsin band together and dig for the truth even if the damage has already done its job. Dashed hope is still hope after all. Every example—failed or not—reminds us that we can fight again.

Things do get extra silly by the end, but the blackly comedic tone is consistent enough to allow for such a wild turn of events to feel at home nonetheless.

I have to give the filmmakers a ton of credit here because they walk themselves to a point of no return as far as where things are heading and they do not blink. They lift the curtain to briefly show us the horrors beneath the sterile walls of this prison and let them exist as inevitability rather than something that can be altered.

Poésy, Kerekes, and Röhrig steal many scenes with their emotional investment to their respective roles. Schweighöfer is easy to hate . . . and Eisenberg is effective yet again as a “genius” whose pragmatism borderlines on Asperger’s if not full-on misanthropy. If the story itself doesn’t grab your attention, their performances within should.

We learn everything there is to know about an entire country through the Heise family’s words. Some passages prove better than others, but none are inconsequential to the whole.

Inspired by his grandmother’s institutionalization for OCD and propelled by his own experiences having identified as both genders during his lifetime, writer/director Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ fictional feature debut Swallow provides its lead an escape through pica.

While things do ultimately get heavy-handed at times (Grace comparing Edward’s act to murder is one thing, him comparing it to the utilitarian sacrifice of war is another), it never gets boring.

Sheridan lends his role the necessary nuance it deserves and de Armas imbues hers with a wealth of unspoken pain, but neither effort receives its payoff. The film conversely squanders both instead.

A lot happens during the course of director Matthew Pope and co-writer Don M. Thompson’s Blood on Her Name … too much. This can prove problematic for what starts as a simple plot before things start turning convoluted real quick thanks to new revelations shedding light upon secrets and lies. Surprisingly, however, that perpetually escalating noise is justified.

The plot’s obviousness melts away because we’re having a genuinely great time as these flawed men grow ever so slightly with each passing minute. They feel real.

What’s mostly a vérité document of lead character Tina’s (Carlie Guevara) trajectory towards chemically transitioning from male to female despite being an undocumented immigrant in an expensive city like New York, Flavio Alves’ The Garden Left Behind is also a rather potent expression of humanity’s collective dysphoria.

McArdle and Brallier have thus rendered VFW an efficient us versus them scenario with Fred’s crew possessing an infectious, three-dimensional rapport opposite Boz and cronies leaning into their one-track yearning for a fix. Begos then brings the grainy and gritty aesthetic its predecessors possessed to really deliver a throwback vibe augmented solely by new advancements in violently realistic gore.

Nélisse and Pniowsky are a big part of the drama unfolding authentically with ample disdain and irritation respectively, but The Rest of Us truly is Graham and Balfour’s show.

Kroll is very good in a role that allows him to pivot away from his usual comic relief persona to be sweet and funny and complicated, but Pappas is even better as a woman unsure of her very identity outside of the sport to which she’s dedicated her entire life.

The result is at once empowering . . . heart-wrenching . . . and inspirational.

While Avnet’s film is effective melodrama, it’s hardly a completely honest depiction of what happened.

There are no sides when it comes to appreciating soldiers like William Pitsenbarger—only awe. Rather than epitomize a great military man, he exemplifies what it is to be a great human being. That’s why his story can change the priorities of a man like Huffman and why those he barely knew can dedicate their lives to his honor.

The Wave is more interested in supplying a good time and that should be enough for some.

Bielenia delivers a fantastic performance as his character overcomes insecurities and regret to speak the words he knows from experience can help those who’ve lost their way.

The imagery of water fish swimming in the sky while Hina floats towards an uncharted “marine” habitat of clouds is stunning to behold and the humor earns some big laughs even if much of it centers around teenage horniness and sex-based assumptions. Beneath all that, though, is a resonant tale of empathy and romance.

Utilizing the style he honed as Terrence Malick’s editor and on his directorial debut The Better Angels, Edwards supplies Richie’s inner turmoil through poetic imagery.

It’s often inspiring.

Tinnell captures the warmth of kinship and tradition while displaying the truly unique immigrant experience of putting down roots and working to improve life for future generations. We should all aspire to experience that much love because nothing calls out its absence more than remembering its abundance.

Dale is a force as he runs the full spectrum of emotions to reveal why he matters and why he must also be forgotten.

Despite the filmmakers investing so much time in unnecessary biopic exposition, the whole is an exciting and informative history lesson.

It deserves every accolade and opportunity received due to its unrelenting authenticity and complex themes.

For all its redundancies—the film enjoys telling us its definitions of sequel, remake, and reboot while also highlighting the myriad ways it knowingly embodies each—this authentic character growth is wholly new.

Low Tide isn’t groundbreaking or unique, but it knows its setting and characters enough to make the journey authentic despite its lack of surprises.

Loro has a ton of style and effective performances across the board.

With an unhinged Weaving chewing the scenery as Nix and a perfectly cast Radcliffe doing his best to survive while also finding it impossible to keep Miles’ snarky thoughts in his brain out of his mouth, it’s hard not to be entertained.

This is powerful stuff that transcends time and place despite the production design being impeccably executed.

Bad Education is a roller coaster ride from start to finish as the surface sheen of success is peeled back to reveal the proverbial bodies buried to achieve it.

This is a very personal story to Marder and it shows in the intricate ways he uses sound to place us within Ruben’s plight.

Rather than have the plot manipulate his characters, Johnson lets them manipulate it. That’s an extremely rare Hollywood feat.

This is a very quiet and contemplative film driven by characters above plot.

Benson and Moorhead removed all excess—great for propulsion, but a detriment to investment. Actions become almost robotic at times as their inclusion is more about advancement than character building.

So even though the whole can feel a bit cutesy at times, there’s real weight beneath that façade.

Iannucci is picking and choosing our alignments for us with his desire for as much humor as possible. Devoid of the breadth necessary to make these characters more than comic relief, however, it becomes difficult to buy the pursuit of David’s victory above all others.

We need more unrelenting work like this to use as catharsis for a youth put in peril by the inaction of aging politicians. Riot Girls proves just as much about a new generation taking the reins as it does empowered women expunging toxic male entitlement.

There’s simply too much happening with little to no purpose besides distraction from the task-at-hand to fill out the run-time.

It’s an interesting glimpse at his process with Buñuel doing despicable things alongside beautiful ones.

The potential to open things up with secondary characters like a prostitute who takes an inexplicable shine to Frank (Karolina Wydra’s Simone) and her obnoxious pimp Trip (Sean Owen Roberts) is there to capitalize on. Ku and Newman would rather cut that bait loose, however, and let Cage go wild instead. It’s a jarring tonal shift.

López’s fairy tale is one seeking to remind us of an innocence not yet stripped clean.

A big part in combating the otherwise obvious plotting and overt coincidences beyond their family-friendly messaging is that Dreyfus commits to this performance.

Its effective visceral hold on our imagination guarantees its inevitable cult status.

Sword of Trust proves an enjoyable curio of eccentrics getting themselves in way over their heads.

These two couples are literally here to be targets and are thus more frustrating than not whenever they unsurprisingly escape the multiple harrowing moments of homicidal fun.

The events onscreen are semi-autobiographical for Sama and thus a document of the turmoil those his age at the time faced when external expectations and internal hopes clashed. At its center: love. The power it has to bring us together opposite its potential to tear us apart.

I was entertained and perplexed in a way that seemed intentional — my confusion a result of Naishtat giving his audience the credit to read into things with their own historical and political interpretations.

While humor is present (to varying effect) thanks to its teenage protagonists and its roller coaster ride of random encounters does prove more unhinged than The Conjuring‘s streamlined confrontational drama, it still revolves around intimately personal battles independently fought within Judy and Daniela.

Toy Story 4 was somehow baked to perfection.

Child’s Play becomes a matter-of-fact A-to-B progression devoid of wiggle room where obstacles manifest as physical impediments to survival instead of narrative blockades to our understanding of what’s happening.

I do think it’s improved upon the original insofar as relying on narrative cohesion (episodic or not) above random acts of pandemonium. I still believe having three episodes of television to focus on one character at a time is the better way to go, but their convergence upon Snowball and Daisy’s adventure is authentically drawn regardless of convenience.

It’s a mesmerizing look behind a curtain torn away so Mayfair can reveal an authenticity too often masked by historical precedent and conservative acquiescence. Love is created in rebellion, but ultimately stifled by the need for survival.

The filmmakers do well to avoid creating a dense puzzle that will only alienate youngsters when leaning on the Pokémon for comic and narrative relief can keep things moving.

This insane stable of A-list actors finally got to show their chops. Downey Jr. gives some of his best work during act one with Johansson, Renner, and Evans coming a close second to matching his pain as they try to lick their wounds.

The dread becomes so palpable that the implausibility of a wooden door with three tiny locks somehow containing the Devil actually proves itself scarier as a result.

A just world would place [Bell] in the awards conversation, but ours will probably not give Skin the platform necessary for that to happen.