Jude Dry

With a thinly sketched premise and a Hail Mary pass at emotional depth arriving late in the final act, the film feels like a series of vignettes draped around Stalter’s charms. Unfortunately, charisma alone doesn’t make an interesting narrative.

"It’s Only Life After All” paints a holistic portrait of two artists who became one, crafting a stirring collage of queer history with the engaging archival footage.

The film makes plain the experience of being caught between a rock and a hard place, a boldly incisive metaphor for the trans experience.

The title “Mutt” suggests something in between, caught between worlds and languages, genders and sexualities. But Feña doesn’t seem caught at all; he seems quite self-assured. It’s the conditions of his life that are causing him stress. That is as illuminating a message as any.

Enduring racist policing, violence, poverty, and employment discrimination; they also found joy, humor, sisterhood, and community. By celebrating these women’s humanity and spirit without minimizing their hardships, that duality is what makes The Stroll so markedly different than what’s come before it.

While there are moments of committed physical comedy and a few good line deliveries, the circumstances are neither believable nor outrageous enough to add up.

Featuring a stirring breakout performance from the luminous Rosy McEwan, Blue Jean grounds the political with the personal — without losing sight of queer joy.

Intimately tender and boisterously fun, Something You Said Last Night announces the arrival of a vital new voice in trans cinema.

Secure in his standing as a marquis comedian, Maniscalco makes movies like a guy with nothing to prove, and his confidence buoys and brightens About My Father.

The action delivers, but the film’s third act suffers from an excess of set-ups, cameos, and minor deaths played up as major losses. After all, they have two more to go.

If they can look past their own internal biases, The Mother should satisfy even the most diehard action fans, while leaving the door to some new ones.

Though the well-crafted film makes use of a unique regional setting for some moving moments, its straightforward approach to well-worn territory offers few surprises

Though it’s all satisfyingly silly, Mafia Mamma never quite find its tone. Hardwicke doesn’t seem to know if she’s doing Quentin Tarantino or Mel Brooks, and the two styles are so far apart that splitting the difference lands the movie out at sea.

As the action progresses, the film seems more concerned with the hitting beats of the story than sending its characters on an emotional journey.

With Vermont jokes that read like the musings of someone who’s only ever been for ski season, and the embarrassingly half-baked attempt to critique sexism by writing a kind-hearted womanizer, every stroke of Paint misses the mark. Bob Ross deserved better.

Though Pugh valiantly muscles through the melancholy beats of Braff’s melodrama, there are too many other characters and plot threads to allow her to do much besides heave the story forward.

Plaza steals the show with her killer instincts and comedic timing. If she can keep an operation this overstuffed afloat, there’s nothing she cannot do.

Perpetrator suffers from a novice lead performance and a script that tries to do too much. It’s an ambitious addition to the feminist horror genre with blood and guts to spare, but it’s no game-changer.

Rampling brings a quiet gravitas to the surly character, and there is something elegantly moving about watching her watch the world go by.

The blatantly ridiculous appeal of “Cocaine Bear” is proof enough that the project isn’t lacking in self-awareness, but to what end? It’s not unhinged enough to qualify as full-blown parody, and not smart enough to be called satire. Banks seems uninterested in directly referencing exploitation movies of the past, or in burying winking cultural critiques within the outlandish action. Maybe that’s too much to ask from a movie called “Cocaine Bear.” Like its title, what you see is what you get.

While Of an Age leans a little heavily toward sentimentality at times, a sharp wit and a few wild shifts in tone keep things afloat.

Both bloody and/or creepy thrills are few and far between, but striking images and standout performances keep it cohesive.

The movie’s casting montage may feel stilted and long, but it’s easy to imagine Tatum’s actual thrill at assembling the best dancers from around the world. When they stop talking and start dancing, that’s when the real magic happens.

Each time the film shows the urgent revival of someone experiencing an overdose, we are reminded this is an everyday occurrence for these unsung heroes of the street. Pulsing with candid immediacy, Love in the Time of Fentanyl implores the viewer to bear witness to the humanity behind the term “opioid crisis.”

Objects become subjects in Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s sweeping yet focused analysis that exposes the truth about the power of images to shape the world’s views of women.

Voiced by executive producer Dakota Johnson, the film relies on Hite’s writing as well as many television appearances to speak for her. An engaging writer driven by her indignation at women’s oppression, she is a galvanizing narrator of her own story. She writes frankly about her emotional state.

Smith’s music and photography instincts carry the film cinematically, but the real stars of Kokomo City are its honest and dynamic subjects.

Though Latimore and Cole have enough charisma to skate by, the movie lacks the originality and scrappiness of its inspiration. Trading on celebrity cameos and impressive set pieces, House Party feels like an uneven amalgam of so many studio comedies that came before it.