Jim Slotek

If Lorne really is “the most boring” doc of the Oscar-winning Neville’s career, it’s only because his career bar is high. As it is, Lorne is a terrific backgrounder for devout fans of Saturday Night Live. Fairweather fans, on the other hand, might find it like an overlong sketch.

For a movie that lazily spins its wheels, Fantasy Life is oddly amiable. The only wholly dislikable character is David, and he’s so great at being dislikable, you almost like him for it.

A sweet and uplifting documentary twist on the horror genre, Silver Screamers is, as they say in Yiddish, a “mitzvah” on the part of director Sean Cisterna, and a gift that keeps on giving.

Unfortunately, in Cold Storage, the first act sets too high a bar to maintain, and the rest, though watchable, is busy-ness punctuated by green splatter.

With its dark palette and atmosphere, Honey Bunch could have been a simpler, more disturbing and pointed story. There’s enough there to suggest as much.

It’s a new apocalyptic pallet to paint upon, and I look forward to where it goes next.

I’d almost recommend seeing the first act of Song Sung Blue and then heading home in high spirits. But it would be wrong to whitewash real life (rewrite it a bit, sure).

Well shot, well acted and with locations that vary from brutalist factory sites to beautiful nearby forests, No Other Choice is both believable and absurd as it unfolds. But its social relevance remains spot-on.

It’s, ironically enough, a terrific, serious performance by Will Arnett, arguably the best of his career.

It’s a decent, eye-catching, stay-the-course addition for Cameron, who has pretty much turned his entire career to this franchise, a la George Lucas with Star Wars.

The ironic thing about Ella McCay, James L. Brooks’ surprisingly slight politically themed comedy, is that it’s an aggressively feel-good movie that may leave you feeling bad.

I get a sense that Five Nights at Freddy’s and this week’s inevitable salad of a sequel Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, marks a turning point in how Hollywood approaches the visual medium that has been eating its lunch for decades. The lesson: Stop trying to make video game film adaptations that appeal to a general audience. A giant in-joke of a movie can pay off bigtime if the target audience is big enough. Screw the rest.

Hamnet is a sensitively told, beautifully realized pastoral tale, driven by Buckley’s magnetism, and a well-placed cast.

Christy is ultimately a redemptive story, complete with the discovery of an actual loving relationship. But the road to redemption is rough on the character and, at times, the audience. Still, it has a certain NASCAR charm (particularly in the early scenes), and characters who effectively carry it forward.

Bugonia is not Lanthimos’s best, but it is likely off-kilter enough for fans, or maybe introductory-weird for newcomers to his genre.

In the end, del Toro has created an impressive piece of entertainment that manages to retain the existential thoughts that inspired Frankenstein in the first place. Ultimately, it’s one of his best films.

Orwell: 2+2=5 is food for thought for sure, practically an all-you-can-eat buffet of thoughts. As a statement, it is all over the map. But as an experiential representation of Orwell’s warnings-come-true, it is worth seeing.

The fight scenes are initially impressive and artfully filmed, but eventually repetitive. As a selling device for UFC, The Smashing Machine falls a little short. Still, even if it seems like we’ve seen this movie before, Johnson does sell his character, no gimmicks, raised eyebrows or phony theatrics. He is believable, even if we never really discover who he is.

Lots of it doesn’t make sense, but a fever-dream doesn’t have to. There’s a disparity in the talent-level of the two leads that weakens the (ultimately-predictable) “surprise.” But what plays out is a fair allegory for a sport where men trade their well-being (bones, brain, etc.) for glory. Tipping even (over)uses an x-ray effect during scenes of violence, as if to underscore the injuries beneath.

We get it. This is their entry ticket into the MCU. And the space-age ‘60s vibe does add a little bubblegum to soften any attempt at over-seriousness (it brings to mind the use of ‘50s kitsch in the game-based series Fallout).

The Scottish green hills and forests make for an intriguing change of scenery for the series, with nighttime given that added edge of dread that comes with unseen menace and glowing eyes.

In short, Ballerina is as close to a John Wick 5 as you are going to get without calling it that.

This is not a rousing movie that people are going to come away from energized. Still, it’s an interesting approach to an extended ad for an album.

Their creative process in action is just one of the cool archival treats in Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie, a jam-packed two hours of pop cultural hindsight that is part extended sketch, part couples therapy, and part traditional documentary.

It would help if you were a deep-dive fan, hungry for ephemera and eager to hear stuff Young has rarely, if ever, played for an audience.

There are not many films on the release schedule with good writing and plotting, wit and solid acting. That’s an exceptional combination in a quick bite of the spy movie genre.

As a turn-your-brain-off, tech-heavy action movie, Captain America: Brave New World succeeds well enough. As a Marvel movie that connects with other Marvel movies in any meaningful way, or charts a new direction (other than that vague suggestion of a “New Avengers”), it’s little more than a space-filler.

There is a meanness of spirit to all of this, an uncomfortable awkwardness that seemingly can’t end well.