Jourdain Searles

Opting for very few close-ups, Hosoda mistakes a large scope for compelling images and achieved something fans never thought possible: he’s made a film that looks generic.

Mann, Hoffman and Feldman are clearly having a good time, and their comedic chemistry carries the film. But for the most part, Poetic License feels just as aimless as Liz, wandering from scene to scene without much of a vision.

Ultimately, The American Society of Magical Negroes is a film bogged down by its filmmaker’s inability to make the central joke work. The film simply is what it is satirizing: way too concerned with how white people perceive Blackness to the detriment of every single Black character in the film.

Despite the best efforts of the directors, Hell of a Summer just isn’t scary. Bryk and Wolfhard know how to tell jokes, but struggle with establishing a truly creepy atmosphere.

Divided into seven narratively ill-defined parts, Sorry/Not Sorry moves like the first draft of an article that has all its sources, but doesn’t quite have a thesis yet. Rather than contemplating the nuances of C.K.’s rise and fall, it is simply an information piece, adding footnotes to the story we already know.

As the film’s themes announce themselves again and again, it weakens the mystery. The film seems to be yelling at us who the culprit is while hoping we remain engaged by mugging and hijinks alone.

All the pieces are there, but Late Bloomers ultimately fails to sell the film’s core relationship.

The Epstein conspiracy here is ultimately merely an excuse for taboo fetish play, culminating in a bloody finale that any viewer could see from a mile away. In the end, Nekrasova is too preoccupied with cultural relevance to actually craft a compelling film.

Overall, Les nôtres fails to dive into the depths of its subject matter, hinting at a dark underbelly that it never full explores.

Riegel seems to still be hung up on Winter’s Bone, making a slavishly imitative film with few flourishes that allow it to stand on its own.