Jordan Raup

Lau’s ambition to strive toward similar aims is worthy of commendation, creating a tapestry of moods of detachment alongside a city symphony of isolation, yet it’s hard to shake the sense that not much new or complex about our modern way of life is conveyed.

While Donzelli’s latest feature is a well-acted, stifling study of domestic violence, one wishes there was more to take away than a schematic lesson in the horrors of abuse.

Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina’s new documentary attempts to elucidate the thought process behind these daredevil theatrics. Yet it ends up doing more to glorify and celebrate their life-threatening, thrill-seeking actions than interrogate the complexity of why they have devoted their existence to an insane diversion that has seen many of their friends fall to their deaths.

My Old Ass yearns to go down easy and succeeds at such, but one wishes it dug a bit deeper into its Pollyannaish script and aesthetic.

This is the kind of comedy one imagines will only earn a few chuckles when it eventually arrives on a streaming platform.

With its whirlwind, surface-level observations of fascinatingly complex lives, The Thief Collector is the kind of scattershot true-crime documentary that grips in the moment but, with reflection, is more entertaining to discuss than revisit for additional clues.

Initially intrigues with its lo-fi sci-fi ambition but has too much on its mind without saying anything interesting at all.

Every so often the semblance of a promising adaptation peeks beyond the surface, but ultimately it all gets swallowed in a reductive muck of misguided choices that over-explains what the short story left up for discussion.

William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth follow-up Eileen is lacking in a considered formal approach but strives to make up for this misgiving with a script that offers its talented ensemble an unexpected mix of sensual longing and perverse thrills. While this clash of tones doesn’t entirely gel, part of its appeal is the shock of such contrasts.

A ruthlessly nihilistic beast of a movie, Elijah Bynum’s second feature Magazine Dreams provides a one-note powerhouse acting showcase for Majors, who ends up getting lost in the drawn-out second half as thematic points that initially sting get repeated ad nauseam and red herrings meant to shock become unnecessary side plots.

If The Pale Blue Eye dances around potentially intriguing ideas––the dehumanization of being in the military and who ultimately answers for the crimes carried out in the name of religion––it’s all window dressing for what is ultimately a murder mystery lacking momentum.

While a murky, laborious affair, Pinocchio never feels wholly inept with the consummate craftsman at the helm, yet it’s certainly the director’s laziest time behind the camera.

The film is all the better for not over-explaining its gleefully outrageous final moments, but one wishes the journey getting there was handled with more consideration.

Bits and pieces work—an underused Maria Bakalova, in one of her first post-Borat roles, stands out as she contends with Dieter’s advances; there are a few laughs seeing Carol dealing with a crumbling relationship at home with no way to intervene; Dustin placing more importance over this franchise than his newly adopted son––but The Bubble‘s vast majority plays as Day for Night for dummies. Comedy can certainly be extracted from the strange new world we find ourselves in, but Apatow’s project is a meta experiment in search of a purpose beyond delivering a few scant chuckles.

The Sky Is Everywhere is certainly a delight to behold; one just wishes Nelson mined a bit deeper in the adaptation process, pulling back on trite verbosity and letting Decker’s fanciful, psychologically striking vision do the talking.

Delivering a happy ending that feels like a cheap way out of the story, Resurrection may initially shake one to their core, but by the finale it devolves into little more than a diabolically outrageous genre outing for two great actors.

Despite an under-developed script, Wolfhard and Moore both deliver strong performances as their characters continue their parallel tracks, with narcissism blocking the desire to achieve their true goals and neither truly listening to the person they want to make happy.

Slathered in nostalgia for past moments in the franchise yet still introducing entirely new backstories, this humdrum antepenultimate adventure leaves one convinced those steering the series don’t have a firm grasp on where it’s heading.

In a Hollywood where sequels are mandated to go bigger and expand the I.P. to chase the dollar signs of a cinematic universe, on paper, it is refreshing that Krasinski decided to stay relatively small-scale with the sequel. Yet, in carrying over the narrow scope, the narrative hang-ups of the first outing are only expounded upon here with a rinse-and-repeat blueprint to the stakes that feels all-too-repetitive. Considering the resources at Krasinski’s disposal to do something genuinely exciting, it’s disappointing to see the lessons that went unlearned as the same tricks get duplicated.

The actual experience of watching this gonzo dystopian samurai western is far from the shock-a-minute journey that one would expect, but even in its more banal sequences, Sono’s imaginative eye peeks through.

This tedious film’s biggest issues don’t lie with its simplification of politics or often taking the feel-good easy route, but rather how flat the comedy lands. This in part due to how weakly formed its characters are across the board, as well as the peculiar tonal approach that is taken.

Mortensen is clearly attuned to the emotional toll of maintaining such a relationship—loving someone even if they don’t show any love back—but once this idea is firmly laid out early on, the repetitive narrative doesn’t expand to reveal more layers of complexity.

Troop Zero drowns in its cloying aim to please at every moment. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but that wouldn’t be a problem if its familiar heart and humor landed in any memorable way.

By lacking a sense of vision in embracing what came before and ignoring the recently laid path for where this story could go, The Rise of Skywalker is not only a disappointing end to this saga–it’s also an ill-fated harbinger for Disney’s future in storytelling.

The entire saga of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is compelling in showing the burden that journey can take, even if the end results don’t make for Gilliam’s finest hour (or two).

The groundwork is laid for a rich playground of political intrigue and sci-fi thrills, but Captive State is continually hobbled by acting more like a mouthpiece for the state we are in rather than a memorable genre outing with characters we can root for.

Them That Follow has a compelling hook, but what’s left is nothing but an unfortunately wasted opportunity.

Has a compelling hook ... but the follow-through leaves something to be desired.