John Fink

The gags involve cocaine, bees, primitive MMA, raw unions, and a selfie that goes horribly wrong with the queen, all of which are terribly tired and unfunny. This is the kind of damaged goods studios have been quietly selling to streaming services.

Yoga Hosers isn’t a bad time at the movies, but it’s painful when the gags fall flat.

Unfortunately, the gleefully absurd ingenuity of Geostorm stops at its title.

In the cinematic wasteland of January, Dirty Grandpa is a minor bright spot: perverse and subversive, if not somewhat predictable

If anything, it’s familiar and authentic while being completely on-the-nose, with certain passages of dialogue that should have been internalized over the course of a few drafts. Derivative of much better mob and boxing movies, it’s not bad, but one can argue the former might be worse.

The film is restrained — this is not a reality TV hit job — but the problem is that it glosses over many interesting parts of Anderson’s life while he goes on a type of soul-searching tour. It is as if the film was not part of the soul-searching, but more or less an ancillary annoyance for him.

Video journaling is nothing new and sadly Flames, though not without ambition, offers no improvement on the genre.

Fast-paced, informative and engaging, Blurred Lines: Inside The Art World takes the kind of material that’s fodder for an episode of the Slate Money podcast and fleshes out its points through multiple authorities showing how the sausage is made.

Documenting the socializing of gang members, Check It is a fascinating and comprehensive ethnographic portrait of inner-city youth that may inspire conversation and action without offering easy answers or artificial sentiments.

While not breaking any new ground in the genre, American Satan is a stylish psychedelic thrill in the mold of a zany comedy that grows dark, quickly.

Pet Names gets the emotional beats right even if it has a lot in common with lessor relationship dramas with lower stakes.

When She Runs is a film that’s beautifully restrained.

Despite a few over the top moments, Pig Hag is a nuanced and mature although not restrained portrait of someone who we all have met. This film sheds some light not only on swipe-dating culture but also the kind of people that are typically around the time Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ is playing and the house lights come on.

Nothing Stays The Same is an important piece of Austin history with great performances but it feels as though director John Sandmann respectfully stuck to too narrow a mandate.

While the film never quite elevates itself to a harmonious balance of camp and art house, The Empty Man doesn’t lack ambition.

499 is often as riveting as it is stunning to consume: a spiritual journey punctuated with inhumane acts of violence intertwined with a certain national identity. Reyes offers an ambitious and unflinching portrait of contemporary Mexico that provides a vague answer regarding the endgame of the violence in the country.

Fresh Kills gets much of the atmosphere and tone right, and at its best is an evocative character study of mob wives and daughters; A’zion lends a particularly fascinating performance as a tough-willed woman ready to stand her ground and look out for “her people.”

South to Black Power is a fascinating example of making the political science documentary personal.

The result, written by Julia Lederer (from her play) and directed by Kim Albright, is a film loaded with metaphors and similes where fragile hearts are made of paper and nothing is left to chance.

Striking a sweet, often humous tone, Arlyck navigates aging gracefully with a keen awareness of how parent-child relationships morph as time proceeds.