Jared Mobarak

Just like Issa López did in Mexico with Tigers Are Not Afraid, Brazilians Gabriel Bitar, André Catoto, and Gustavo Steinberg have crafted Tito and the Birds as a powerful metaphor utilizing reality’s horrors to drive home a point too many have resigned themselves into ignoring.

The Standoff at Sparrow Creek isn’t about finding hope in a hopeless situation through a broken man willing to be the hero rather than villain. No, it wants to show the monstrousness of complicity and the helplessness of a conflict too far-gone to solve.

Ignorance to technology is a running theme throughout both to earn easy laughs due to the ageist nature of the joke and intrigue as far as which man — if any — is in control. That probably won’t be enough to get some audiences on board what is a pretty straightforward genre film, but it’s enough to provide its own spin. Between that and the sheer joy of seeing these actors comment on their careers through these characters, a good time should be had.

Authenticity of character is All These Small Moments‘ strongest suit because each proves honest whether or not their inclusion in the larger story does.

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

The film becomes a document of Ola’s lost innocence, hardening her to the reality that faith only gets us so far.

Maybe The Mercy‘s greatest strength is that pragmatism to fuel its eleventh-hour chastisement of anyone blind to Hallworth’s complicity.

So we’re left with a problematic façade that can’t avoid tainting the thought-provoking crime mystery unfolding beneath it.

For forty minutes we become intimately aware of Oliver’s sci-fi conceit through heightened emotions, visual puzzles, and potential betrayals. It’s the perfect set-up for a thriller built on exclusion and yet it becomes much more.

At a time when Islam has become weaponized as a synonym for ISIS, we need glimpses at its positivity and humanity. That doesn’t mean Mu’min sanitizes things (a lot happens that could reinforce reductive stereotypes of social conservatism and familial oppression), only that she’s creating healthy representations at once relatable, laudable, and flawed. Nothing is black and white.

It’s a shame because McDermott effectively toes the line between dorky and menacing (before the film explains which is real), Plummer is great playing with a loaded deck of anxieties and insecurities, and Beaty performs her role perfectly until the writing abandons what made her necessary.

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.

Letting the “monsters” dispatch each other lets our “heroes” retain their fear and expendability — they can die when you least expect it because they aren’t our only means towards victory. This universal animosity keeps things interesting so the battles can be short and sweet without any monologues extending the opportunity for table turning.

Bullitt County almost becomes two separate entities in the process, one half comedic romp and the other a bloody depiction of human nature left festering. The second part is vastly more interesting and yet it’s not given enough room to breath considering we already spent forty-five minutes languishing in false exposition.

By letting the cast improvise their reactions through the lens of their experiences, Esparza finds truth instead. By highlighting Bleechington and Williams’ performances, he exposes how injustice is the new “normal” and how the consequences of one’s misfortunate reverberate well beyond him/herself.

Loving Pablo had the opportunity of making Virginia Vallejo its star. It should have pushed Escobar to the background so Bardem could shine as a villain-in-waiting instead being gifted the spotlight.

It all combines for an enjoyable if slight adventure.

A Crooked Somebody develops into a resonant character study depicting the myriad ways we take advantage of others.

It might be hyperbolic to call Smallfoot the most dangerous film of the year, but it wouldn’t necessarily be wrong.

I need to therefore believe Judy Greer selected it as her directorial debut because she thought she could somehow infuse a little satire and approach highlighting examples of masculine vulnerability — a goal that was sadly not achieved.

McCarthy and Grant’s rapport in these roles cannot be beat. Their caustic wit is mutual so each biting takedown is either appreciated or met by another in return.

So while the whole is less than the sum of its parts, there is a lot to like. The cast is unique, the visuals mesmerizing, and the music ready to get your toes tapping in the theater.

The film doesn’t supply easy answers and also has its characters making some unsurprising choices in ways that let us know how much it will haunt them. Even with this sense of complexity, however, Monsters and Men still can’t stop itself from dipping too far into hyperbolic moments made more powerful by artifice than they ultimately prove.

It’s as though Hill wrote a much longer script and decided to ultimately pare everything down without realizing just how hollow he was rendering supporting players in the process.

An off-putting drama full of red herrings meant to distract from a predictable end, despite those artificial performances being intentional, the sheer fact I wasn’t sure if I should be laughing renders the result less than successful.

Every little detail — straight down to a smiling child holding out a melting ice cream without caring that it’s pooling atop her hand — carries weight. Not a second is wasted.

What makes Ever After so intriguing is how Hellsgård and Vieweg put these familiar characters and ubiquitous premise into a mythology that’s wholly unique.

There’s too much going on. Maybe if Fogelman had a season of television to delve into these characters’ connections and inject the vigor of Will’s chaotic mind into the quieter passages that follow, Life Itself could be great.