John Fink

Ambitious and deeply flawed, Acrimony may appeal to hardcore fans of The Room–it’s not every day a melodrama comes along that’s this fun precisely because it never takes itself seriously.

Fast Color, like A Wrinkle in Time, provides an empowering message without much to latch on to. Hart, who impressed with her debut drama Miss Stevens, offers a banal, tired narrative, despite strong performances and occasionally beautiful visuals.

The New Romantic is the rare film that presents these relationships without judgment offering up the good, bad, painful, and confusing as a matter of fact.

Bujalski as a filmmaker has created a film as fascinating as anything in his previous output

Relaxer is a hard film to “like,” full of commentary and situations that push the bounds of good taste and camp but it’s one of Potrykus’ best pictures; watchable, hilarious, uncompromising, and even thrilling in its final moments–if you have the stomach and patience for it.

The film is wholly original taking on issues of the day from parental rights to mental illness and later, the opioid crisis. But while there is plenty of depth here, Thunder Road feels a little too much like it has been cobbled together from sketches and ideas for a one-man show.

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

Blockers doesn’t pull off the impossible so much as it turns the tables on a common formula, finding something fresh, empowering, and hilarious in that time-old story of a group of friends making a pact to lose their V-card on prom night.

Intimate without being obtrusive, RBG doesn’t exactly demystify the Supreme Court so much as it brings us closer to one of its greats.

Well-acted and handsomely lensed by Aaron Kovalchik, Blame is an engaging debut that subverts the male gaze that might be associated with this kind of teacher/student relationship drama. It is objective without being titillating as it delivers low-key character driven thrills.

[A] hilarious and occasionally moving portrait of Jim Carrey’s time making Milos Forman’s 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic Man on The Moon.

Schroder and his subject do have a nice casual familiarity; hopefully he’ll check in on Ingels every ten years or so.

Fearless writer-director-actress Marianna Palka has crafted an bold, dark domestic comedy with Bitch.

Unintentionally timely, A River Below may be read as a Trump-era document, a tale of environmentalists versus local industry.

The New Radical is one of the more illuminating and scary documentaries of recent memory as it takes the time to make rational and disturbing arguments free from commentary.

Occasionally entertaining and cringe-inducing, it’s largely more of the same: a retread of previous Jigsaw/Saw outings that sets the series up for new revenue opportunities without slaying larger dragons.

Bill Nye: Science Guy mixes science and inquiry with an intimate look at the personal trials and tribulations of Nye as he struggles with guilt, seeing his brother and sister suffer from a neurological condition that he’s escaped.

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.

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

Well-acted by lead James Freedson-Jackson, the film takes its subject matter more seriously than it takes its plot. It’s one of those films that captivates in the moment until it all falls apart.

An illuminating film about poverty that one hopes can be a call for action even if the film itself doesn’t directly encourage advocacy, it’s clear that hashtags and temporary fixes aren’t enough to change Ahkeem’s life.

Carpinteros’ third act, as exhilarating as its build is, seems to abandon the social realism at the core of the picture, falling back on tired and true genre storytelling that feels like a mismatch between the film’s opening sequences.

A stronger character investment up front would have led to a fuller character study as we watch Cathleen walk through the fire.

Occasionally clunky pacing aside, the film is a delightful bit of cinematic comfort food.

Women Who Kill is a smart comedy about the fear of finding oneself vulnerable.

Mainstream summer comedies are not off to a terribly ambitious start this year and The House is one of the low points thus far.

Sick and twisted for the sake of being sick and twisted, Kuso is a certainly not a film for everyone, or perhaps anybody. I imagine the experience is like being high on something spiked with an agent that can induce awful nightmares. Though I’m not sure being drunk or high will make Kuso a delightful experience.

Well-directed and fun, if not a bit too long and perhaps concerned with a plot that’s not nearly as engaging as its leads, Vampire Academy is a little smarter than your average teen adventure, but it’s certainly not Heathers or Mean Girls.