Josh Larsen

Still a fantasy, though a less mealymouthed one than The Devil Wears Prada, this follow-up to the 2006 Meryl Streep-Anne Hathaway buddy fashion comedy nods to the real world in interesting ways—fast fashion, corporate restructuring, the implosion of journalism—while still remaining charmingly light on its Gucci-clad feet.

A collage of religio-goth gestures, Mother Mary never adds up to quite as much as it promises. But the movie has a somnambulant pull, thanks to its woozy imagery and cloistered, two-hander structure, in which Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel circle each other like figures in a hazy dream.

In The Drama, it never feels as if the two main characters are in conflict with each other as much as they’re in conflict with the film’s form and screenplay.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie) manage a coherent tone of genial wonder, while also offering some stunning, color-soaked space visuals, as well as a witty camera.

Shelley scholars will likely have much to quibble with here, but for Buckley admirers, The Bride! is a must.

“This is not your mother’s Wuthering Heights!” the movie howls back at the wind whipping over those moors. But it’s enough of Bronte’s.

Writer-director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan) does more veering that navigating, but stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson (the latter nominated for Best Actress) connect on such a genuinely exhilarating level in the music scenes (especially the early ones, where they’re refining their act) that you end up rooting for them and, by default, their movie.

A gory, violent consideration of end-times theology, the absence of God, and demonology, Bone Temple moves the franchise from the zombie genre into something closer to religious horror.

F1: The Movie is a corporate conglomerate on cinematic wheels.

Reinsve and Skarsgard work repressed magic in each scene they share—exploding on occasion, but still never directly confronting the deeper issues involved.

Predators lost credibility with me well before its stunt ending.

Pandora—the stunningly imagined planet of James Cameron’s Avatar enterprise—has been populated by something unexpected and extraordinary: compelling characters.

Moura captivates as the quietly seething central figure, while Filho’s use of saturated colors and lively diegetic music make The Secret Agent a sumptuously unsettling experience.

At once a time-capsule snapshot of the economic despair of American youth and a larger, existential consideration of how to find meaning in a seemingly callous universe, Boys Go to Jupiter is sharp, knowing, realistic, and yet somehow uplifting.

The result is a sci-fi fantasy that’s part Fantastic Planet and part Miyazaki.

The filmmaking is hypnotic, thanks partly to Kangding Ray’s thumping score but also to the early long takes of revelers in motion, as well as later, mesmerizing images of vans rolling across vast landscapes and open roads.

Some might balk at the literary Easter eggs, but thanks to the fierceness of the lead performances and Zhao’s equal commitment behind the camera, I always experienced this as human story first and Shakespeare fanfic second.

It’s like watching the problems of a pillow. Adam Sandler, as Jay’s manager, delivers the most interestingly human performance in the film, but he’s not given nearly enough to do. If the movie had been equally weighted between them, Jay Kelly might have been somebody.

The movie vacillates between a metaphorical meditation on the debilitating demands of motherhood in general and a reality-based drama about dealing with a particular child eating disorder, yet Byrne gives a performance that’s game for both.

Like Marty, the movie wants to impress us. And like Marty, there’s something about it I don’t trust.

When experimenting with his own techniques—Shackleton gets ingenious mileage out of slow zooms and pans in those location shots—Zodiac Killer Project works as a provocative, meta consideration of the genre’s form. When dumping on other films and the genre in general, the movie comes across as a bit hypocritical and smug.

Stunning on every account, however, is the cinematography by Claire Mathon (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Saint Omer). Working with an autumnal setting, Mathon manages to give each tree its own light, while also allowing the dark, mysterious undergrowth to add an unsettling darkness. Such shots are the most troublingly beautiful element of the movie.

Good Boy is a harrowing experience for dog lovers—or possibly anyone who’s noticed an animal staring at something you can’t quite perceive—yet the movie never quite unearths the subterranean chills of the most potent horror.

It’s gutsy and largely works, though something about the theatricality of it all kept me at a distance.

The Ugly Stepsister has macabre fun with what some women will do to make a shoe fit. It’s The Substance by way of the Brothers Grimm.

Time takes on a different tenor in Train Dreams, in which the life of an early 20th-century logger in Idaho both flits by in a blink and makes an eternal mark.

It’s ugly and tuneless, with characters whose actions are so arbitrary as to render any consideration of what it means to be “good” or “wicked” meaningless.

O’Connor (Challengers, The Mastermind) gives a remarkable performance, tapping into Father Jud’s spiritual struggle while also nimbly managing the movie’s sense of humor.