Josh Larsen

What’s missing from Johnson can be found in abundance in two brief, supporting turns. Zoe Winters, as one of Lucy’s clients, and Louisa Jacobson, as a skittish bride, knock out their slim scenes by bringing a unique verve and vitality to every second. Their characters pop as interesting, complicated, compelling humans, whose stories we want to hear. If Song had cast one of them in the lead, Materialists might have really been something.

Certainly The Phoenician Scheme still fits within what I’ve come to call “Wes Anderson’s restoration cinema.” It just does so more plainly, less poetically.

The screenplay, by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, shows sophistication both in its characterizations and as a trauma narrative, although I was a bit unclear on the mechanics of Laura’s grand scheme, especially during the gonzo climax.

I’m not exactly sure what tone Friendship means to set, but the movie itself feels confident in its own skin. And that counts for a lot.

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning fumbles its own legacy, largely by believing it had one in the first place. With apologies to Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, this has never been a franchise powered by our emotional connections to its characters, much less any sort of overarching, thematically resonant narrative. The Final Reckoning belatedly attempts to conjure up such qualities, while skimping on what has always mattered most in the series: scintillating stunt work.

Before it strangely peters out, lost in its own conspiracies, The Shrouds registers as a mournful, if macabre, meditation on losing a loved one—as only writer-director David Cronenberg could manage.

Burge and Potrykus are both quite good—the director at one point even delivering a pitiable soliloquy/panic attack—but Vulcanizadora mostly unnerves due to the filmmaking.

While the baby Ochi is something of a Grogu-Gizmo hybrid, the use of puppetry and animatronics gives it an idiosyncratic scruffiness. It feels as if you’re encountering a new species, not watching a digitized fantasy film.

There is no denying that for most of its substantial running time (including a haunting post-credits sequence), Sinners sings.

One of Them Days is propulsively directed by music-video veteran Lawrence Lamont, who knows how to frame a punchline, from a sharp script by Syreeta Singleton, who wrote many episodes of HBO’s Insecure. The same mixture of hilarity and humanity is on display here.

The Fishing Place registers more as a calculated, intellectual exercise—particularly in the bold decision to break the fourth wall with 30 minutes left in the film and remain there, again via a single take.

Partly an impale-the-rich horror comedy, partly a fantasy monster movie, and partly a father-daughter trauma drama, Death of a Unicorn tackles more tones and ideas than a firmly established filmmaker could probably manage, so it’s no surprise that writer-director Alex Scharfman, making his feature debut, struggles to rein this in. But you have to admire the ambition and bonkers vision.

At its best, Eric LaRue interrogates the rush to healing and forgiveness that can sometimes follow tragedy in Christian communities.

Gazer owes an enormous debt to a few obvious influences, but the movie has just enough vision and atmosphere of its own for the makings of an unnerving, lo-fi, neo-noir.

Written by David Koepp, who also penned Soderbergh’s Kimi and Presence, Black Bag displays the twists and intrigue you’d expect from a top-rate spy flick, along with some scintillating dialogue. But it’s the movie’s intellectual provocation and formal invention that marks it among Soderbergh’s best work.

Mickey 17 may not be my preferred mode of Bong Joon-Ho, but it’s the mode we need right now.

There is cuteness, to be sure, but also an honesty about dirty diapers, runny noses, and the sheer exasperation of the situation.

Sean Baker’s movies see people for their humanity first and their circumstances second, an approach that has never been more clear than in Starlet.

In Grand Theft Hamlet, high art collides with low expectations, resulting in something like a renewed faith in humanity.

In spite of the clinical approach the filmmakers bring to No Other Land, the activist documentary nevertheless enrages. It boggles the mind (and moral compass) to watch ludicrously overarmed Israeli forces repeatedly destroy the homes, schools, and water-supply systems of Palestinian families who have lived on the land in question since before the establishment of the state of Israel.

Directed by Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, The Sisters Brothers), whose heart might be in the right place—the movie at least honors Emilia’s dysmorphia, rather than using it as a plot gimmick—but whose execution resembles something like community-theater Sicario, pulsed in an erratic blender.

Unlike its protagonist, Babygirl is too easily satisfied.

As someone with only a basic knowledge of Bob Dylan, I can’t say I came away from A Complete Unknown with much more of an understanding of the man, his music, or his cultural significance.

As for the werewolf effects, I appreciate that they appear to mostly rely on practical elements, but the end result still leaves you wanting: this wolf man is less rabid animal than angry burn victim.

Nickel Boys overflows with formal ingenuity and daring.

Soderbergh, who serves as editor, cinematographer, and director, gets significant mileage out of the visual conceit alone.

Nasty stuff—of the sort, lord knows, that I’ve praised plenty in my time. But in this case the return on icky investment just isn’t there.

The movie has a self-aware streak that isn’t too self-impressed, as well as an amusing flair for the absurd.