Jared Mobarak

There’s also some commentary about twenty-first century technology and cellphone culture, but I don’t think Taylor goes far enough to make it more than throwaway insight soon forgotten for crazed violence. As far as the latter goes, Mom and Dad delivers crazy in an exciting way that never bores.

Nothing Blakeson gives us is necessarily new or unique, but his ability to put it all together into this very American capitalist greed package is fresh enough to enjoy that familiarity for its sheer hilarity.

Oh is fantastic as the earnest socialite who appears to have never lifted a finger towards work her entire life, but she’s also superb at the contriteness necessary to believe in a rebirth. Heche revels in playing a narcissistic taskmaster.

If some things could perhaps be narratively tightened, you always get the gist of what Fessenden is going for while knowing those moments which might be lacking aren’t a product of intent. And if you somehow find yourself unable to get past them, it’s impossible not to enjoy the stellar cast of supporting players.

Level Up feels familiar without boring us because we’re unsure how Matt will get out of his next predicament devoid of the skillset necessary to fight his way through.

The title De forbandede år [Into the Darkness] isn’t therefore solely about Hitler’s shadow absorbing Denmark into its empire. It’s about the insidiousness of white supremacy consuming those who believed themselves immune days earlier.

If anything it simply reminds us of his onscreen charisma and endearing humor, his handle of Hughes’ descent into eccentricity and insanity proving memorably entertaining. While he’s not the lead, he is the glue.

The result is an introspective character study caught against a gorgeous yet volatile backdrop. While I personally believe the payoff is worth the journey, however, I wouldn’t begrudge others for feeling as though they’ve been jerked around.

Where things go is easy to guess considering the plot’s rather simple trajectory of personal growth and emotional maturity, but the pathway is always surprising.

It’s using a taboo topic to compare/contrast how those existing within it can be angel and/or demon. It’s not, however, trying to comment on that topic, so don’t expect a message movie. This is a genre film utilizing its subject matter as a springboard towards drama.

Picking one direction and sticking to it may have served the whole better, but at least these issues can be dismissed as hiccups more than deal-breakers. They hold it back without sinking it. Credit the actors for this truth because they ensure the fun never ends.

You won’t get the gravitas of Rocky, Raging Bull, or Creed, but you will get a character worthy of immortalization thanks to spirit and shenanigans.

The marketing may try to dress it up like a prestige picture, but Magnificent Seven is a summer season thrill ride.

That pace can also lead to some wonky performative moments, but everyone is earnest and charming enough to overcome brief lapses pushing for a laugh.

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.

Cvetko isn’t therefore interested in mining what it means for these three to get together. That they join is inevitable. It’s what this relationship gives them that matters.

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.

A walk through the woods is thus the scenario that brings up the two genres. Mona sees promise and excitement being alone with Faruk while he sees the shadowy unknown harboring monsters ready to pounce. The film ultimately exposes that neither is true thanks to Drljaca’s decision to keep things firmly rooted in the uncertain volatility of reality—these teens crossing paths creating as much room for strife as joy in the grand scheme of things.

He’s taking themes he’s seen countless times over and playing with them to earn laughs that hit as much upon the joke as they do the clichéd situations in which they occur. Landis embraces those contrivances and uses them to his advantage.

Is the tonal marriage perfect between the over-the-top hijinks about the gross commodification of “wokeness” and melodramatic exposure of the cost those actually fighting must pay as a result? No. In many instances it seems Shephard does want us to pity Danni (Deutch’s performance almost deserves it too once she finds a conscience hiding below her vanity) despite her endgame proving the opposite.

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.

Roessner hasn’t written an anti-war or pro-war film. Sand Castle merely shows the honesty of war’s infinite complexities.

The journey is ultimately as sweetly funny as it’s emotionally tragic.

Butler’s film may be beholden to certain clichéd conventions and formulaic familiarity in its progression, but its characters evolve within them with an authenticity that dismisses such convenience as a way of life.

Despite moments that risk subverting the vile treachery of Nazis in a bid to humanize this would-be soldier underneath his uniform, Asante refuses to erase the complexity of the situation at hand.

Barlow and Senes do a great job keeping things entertaining and plausible insofar as how casualties cross the path of their killers.

The Night Eats the World gazes upon what’s left of society through a lens of pragmatism. It acknowledges that humanity is barely beating back its own extinction, that survivors are the minority and therefore minutes from oblivion if they cannot adapt.

I won’t lie and say Mystery Road kept me on the edge of my seat for its duration, but there is a lot to enjoy in its delicately peeled back layers.

Pesce is meticulously constructing the perfect murder only to systematically dismantle it for devilish fun. Maybe it’s a spoiler to call Piercing a comedy, but that’s exactly what it is.

Sable becomes a nexus point of preservation and destruction. Lucas captures it all as data while Mills unleashes the artistry of those numbers courtesy of sight and sound. Beauty lives in death. Suffering is born from life. Everything is connected.

The Immaculate Room isn’t breaking the mold on this type of conceit; if anything it’s purposely embracing a narrow scope of mental fracturing the scenario can ignite and counting on the actors to make it compelling.

Alexandra Simpson’s No Sleep Till plays out in a slice-of-life documentarian style. It’s a quiet piece with gorgeous images (kudos to cinematographer Sylvain Froidevaux) and interesting characters engaged in the seemingly wild juxtapositions inherent to maintaining a mundane status quo through the uncertainty of impending chaos.

DeMonaco has his finger on the pulse of our struggle and has found a way to put it onscreen as all good horror does. Sure he and Jason Blum are making money, but you cannot deny they aren’t also forcing us to acknowledge the social science at play.

It’s often inspiring.

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.

Credit Rosenberg for keeping things ambiguous because it does make the film more interesting. Without this lingering sense of potential artifice, Approaching the Unknown becomes a slow-moving descent into acceptance — not quite a riveting plot with the suspenseful intrigue a descent into madness brings.

While billed as an action film, The Contractor proves more suspense thriller in the end.

The case here is secondary to the lengths its protagonists will go to solve it. It’s about the paranoia that builds when a lead seems good and the demons that take control of our actions once the system proves ill-equipped to dole out the justice we “know” to be deserved.

As a journey inward into the roiling waves of memory and regret, Ahari fulfills his promise with an unapologetic air of penance and disgrace. That its success happens despite his exploitation of Neda as a character and woman doesn’t, however, negate that egregious misstep. And the latter being highly triggering unfortunately renders any blind recommendation of the former a reckless proposition.

As a comedy with a good-natured soul doing bad things to earn his surrogate brother freedom, Stockholm is a success.

There are some solid supporting performances in small dramatic doses (Koechner, Hochlin, and Walger) and comedic ones too (Jeong, Venskus, and Tituss Burgess do well in mostly thankless roles), but the topline trio is where Then Came You is at its best.

By fast-forwarding through the initial carnage and fallout of what civilization’s destruction wrought, Mendoza is able to create a fresh environment of extremes.

We feel the futility of this reality with every exasperated sigh Blaze lets loose and defeated look that escapes Ruth’s usually stoic demeanor.

The biggest draw is watching Cage embrace a character with the unironic comedic flair we haven’t seen from him in quite some time, but it only works effectively if he’s able to balance the realization that Gary Faulkner isn’t a joke.

Don’t expect to find yourself on track to the usual happy ending—or usual sad one for that matter. Many of the stops will seem familiar, but the ways in which they’re experienced are authentic and perhaps even surprising.

Thoman spins a suspense thriller with all its genre underpinnings around Miranda to take the control she’s always carefully ensured was hers away.

The acting is good (Jakubenko and Bowden’s relationship feels especially real), the effects are great (moving above and below the waterline to show shark and lifeboat is a nice cinematic touch), and the suspense effectively earned my investment. This film might just surprise you too.

Just let the rage unleash in whatever convenient way is necessary to get the blood flowing faster. What’s good enough for John Wick should be good enough for Kill, so wake the boogeyman up and let him loose. Because we’re all here for the brutality anyway. There’s no point pretending otherwise.

It’s a good role for Brody by simultaneously feeding on the typecast nature of him being neurotic Seth Cohen from The O.C. and rejecting it by toning down the sarcasm and replacing it with fatigue.

The After School Special vibe at the back of Marshall Burnette’s Silo isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. Because beyond creating a captivatingly suspenseful premise with which to build a plot, grain entrapment is a significant enough issue to demand a path towards awareness as much as cinematic entertainment.

Mahdavian gives us enough for context and motivation before letting Colie and Hollyn take over with their enthusiasm and love of nature, and this opportunity to absorb it on a level very few people can. Because it won’t last. Life will interfere. So embrace the awe without regrets.

While Elstree 1976 appears to target a niche audience of Star Wars aficionados, you may be surprised to find it’s just as informative for cinephiles seeking insight into the industry as a whole.

What appears to be a run-of-the-mill drama that will surely fall into the usual clichés of perseverance and eventual victory about a woman standing up to a small town of bullies that sees her as an outsider is actually much more complex.

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.

By documenting the struggle, Underplayed preserves the artists’ voices and shames the gatekeepers so history can’t be retroactively rewritten without receipts.

Lords of Chaos the film ultimately could care less about the music when the psychology of this scene’s progenitors is what intrigues. So those expecting to learn about the genre will be sorely disappointed. This is about aesthetic, notoriety, and paranoia.

Despite my enjoyment in this turning of the tables to focus on our being duped rather than his being found out, The Program has its failures.

Mazzei expertly creates this sense of contrasting arguments through the mystery she’s crafted, letting its terror metaphorically represent the struggle sex workers combat psychologically thanks to America’s prudish nature forcing them to lead dual lives.

The only certainty is a parent’s love for their child and those excruciatingly tense 32 seconds post-kill. Add a memorable atmosphere of hazy dread augmented by a couple long-takes and the journey proves itself worthy.

Expect a breezy affair with good-natured laughter and low stakes. You’ll learn some things and remember others en route to watching as Poitier’s legacy is reinforced with a carefully curated mix of family and friends driven by the sole goal to immortalize their hero.

We’re allowed a peek behind the scenes to witness the emotional toll this lifestyle wrought and realize that what we do is sometimes secondary to what we learn.

While Bracken helps create the nightmarish mood, Doupe is left to suffer its wrath and humanize the ordeal by struggling to readily believe the unfathomable.

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

Boseman brings this badass attorney oozing warranted confidence to life opposite Gad’s non-confrontational everyman experiencing the true power of his occupation as a result. And Brown steals the show with an emotional turn able to earn empathy from the most jaded audience member like Spell did Marshall. It’s time new generations learn Thurgood’s name.

Northam is very good in the lead role.

Definition Please‘s strength is its authenticity and normalization of minorities away from blatant stereotypes. It acknowledges the struggles endured with honesty and humor in ways that are as relatable as they are unique.

Along with these first-hand accounts––and there are some spicy ones, considering the semi-final match between Italy and Mexico needed to be called ten minutes early after all hell breaks loose––the footage of the games themselves amaze too.

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

The unassuming man in the corner is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight and he handles the pressure with aplomb, ducking and dodging and building a new narrative. It’s a role that demands a presence such as Rylance because the whole is very theatrical in its one-set staging.

Estevez isn’t afraid to swing for the fences and elicit some tears from empathetic audience members, but he’s also willing to stop himself short of full-on exploitation via senseless violence. That’s what makes The Public a success despite the convenient characters and constant paralleling showing the merit of second chances. Estevez never forgets the humanity he’s striving to spotlight.

The result is imperfect (the acting can be uneven outside of Howard’s innate talent to demand the undivided attention of everyone on-screen and off), but its messaging and execution is a lot more resonant than I expected going in—a less successful sibling to Blinded By the Light.

It’s so well-paced that the final twenty minutes hit with an urgency I wasn’t expecting.

It’s a very funny romp with a fantastic comedic performance by Pednekar.

The film is at its best when it lets Elbaum to dig further back into the canvas’ history and the connections born from it.

It’s a delicate scenario that treats its characters with the respect and complexity they deserve.

With a central conceit revolving around a possible alien invasion, it’s easy to perhaps be disappointed to learn the science fiction in Brian Ackley‘s latest film Alienated is relegated to the background. Much like Nacho Vigalondo’s Extraterrestrial, however, this can be a good thing.

The film proves more than its conventional story presumes. We’ve seen its depiction of mid-life and quarter-life crises—many times with the music industry at its back—but this newest iteration possesses an authenticity rendering it worthwhile nonetheless.

I feel like Day could have made three documentaries out of his footage: one about Greif’s journey, one about street artists, and one about the art world’s old and new guard.

What’s really great about Archenemy is that Mortimer never shies away from that darkness. By toeing the line of mental illness, he can expose the cost of comic book heroics and the evil being fought against.

The ability to toe the line between those results isn’t something that should be undersold. Neither should the casting of McCarthy and Richings with their keen awareness to maintain earnestness despite the narrative’s tonal cartwheels that surround them.

Those uninterested in cinema’s experimental and formal qualities probably won’t find themselves sitting down to be disappointed or bored by its very insular nature anyway. So those seeking it out will be the ones with the desire to embrace its unorthodox narrative style and subtle progressions.

Everyone involved does the best with what they’re given, though, perhaps saving The Long Night from being even more forgettable than it already is. The script does none of them any favors by fearing its own mythology and hiding it in a way that makes it seem like it has none.

At a time when everyone’s aging parents and grandparents are proving how out of touch with the twenty-first century they are in politics, biases, and entitlement, these old friends still playing platform tennis every day after decades of competition on their Dorset, Vermont home’s courts reveal the opposite.

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.

The funny thing is, though, that it does somehow work despite its flaws. Its A-to-B propulsion added onto Maikranz’s environmental framework might be basic and familiar, but it gets us to the end without too much manipulation.

Kruger and Nyong’o elevate the material to a level it probably doesn’t deserve with Chastain and Cruz following closely behind.

The end result isn’t bad; its potential merely creates disappointment.

Gifted proves cutely endearing and effectively poignant if not especially memorable in any “everyone needs to see it” way.

Luckily the familial and personal stuff has the strength to stick in our heads when the battle on the court fades because the work the actors put in is effective.

The extended musical performances showcase Hiddleston’s chops, but the script can’t provide enough assistance for us to care. He embodies Williams and the singer/songwriter’s story is up on screen, but I can’t say I remained interested beyond his transformation.

It’s a humorously tragic scenario that excels thanks to its performances.

The film’s simply a bit off-kilter—written with influences blatantly on its sleeves yet uninterested in subverting any assumptions that fact guarantees. I must be missing something.

Giuntoli and Simmons do very good work to help make the film a successful comedy worth a look, but they can’t help being overshadowed by Flula’s larger-than-life personality.

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

These characters are sufficiently complex and intertwined to remain interesting, but how they interact can be uninspiring.

It can be a bit too pandering at times when things that read visually and emotionally are also explained verbally, but I don’t think these moments ruin the effectiveness of the over-arching narrative propulsion. The central journey works quite well in motive and deception to hold our interest as far as discovering where it will all lead. From start to finish that trajectory kept me hooked.

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

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that, like this duo’s supplies, returns diminish with every passing day.