Kate Taylor

It’s a film that considers young heartbreak so earnestly, it risks taking itself too seriously, too.

Today, homophobia may still blight many a queen’s family relations, but Stage Mother feels dated and formulaic.

To watch German documentarian Thomas Heise’s marathon family memoir Heimat is a Space in Time, the viewer has to continually analyze the relationship between text and image.

Mainly, this movie chatters when it should sing.

Ambivalent and tepid as it attempts to fashion a tick-tock thriller from Ailes’s downfall.

Both shocking and beautiful, the film impresses itself on the viewer with the awesome scale of the imagery – and with the urgency behind it. We have entered an epoch in which human activity is shaping the planet more than any natural force. Anthropocene bears witness that something’s got to give.

Perhaps the bravest thing here is Banderas’ reserved performance: Selfish, hypochondriacal and sadly cocooned, his fictional film director is not a flattering portrait of an aging auteur.

The culminative effect of the cinematography is inconclusive as the character remains trapped in grief.

The restaurant story is wonderfully taut, with Egoyan in full control of his always extravagant imagery.

It is extremely difficult to make something as invisible and ineffable as religious faith seem real, let alone touching, on film; doing that is only one of the achievements of Fernando Meirelles’ unusual look inside the papacy.

The nerd’s coming-of-age is a well-established genre, as is humiliation comedy, yet Coky Giedroyc’s How to Build a Girl is different enough to stand out.

With exuberant naturalism from its non-professional actors, and a standout performance from Kosar Ali as Rocks’s best friend, the film covers the highs and lows of female adolescence with compelling sensitivity.

The problem is not so much Satrapi’s theatrical approach to the subject, which veers wildly from the overwrought to the dramatically compelling, as it is Jack Thorne’s abysmal script, full of clunky exposition about isolating elements, curing cancer and refusing sexism.

The meta-fiction may be overdone, but that and the director’s feeling for tone create the expansive atmosphere in which a talented multiracial cast lead by Dev Patel can master everything from pure melodrama to high comedy.

The detective plot is shaggy and never fully resolves itself, but the implications of the story resonate like a distant drum.

It is not simply that this film is utterly unrealistic – perhaps that can be overlooked; it’s a fable of sorts, set in a scrupulously neutral pan-European setting. What is unforgiveable is that Langseth’s approach to complex emotional issues is unsubtle at best and untruthful at worst.

This film, about a French war correspondent and the Kurdish Amazon with whom she is embedded, has the worthy intention of telling the story of the women’s battalions in Kurdistan, but it’s formulaic and melodramatic.

Ruben’s story may be as oddly illogical as any of his nightmares, but the animation here is a dreamy delight.

With strong performances in a scheme of both sensible updates and clever revivals, Mary Poppins Returns is as impressive as the 1964 version it joyfully recalls – except in one key area.

Perhaps you can accuse all historical fiction of presentism, the sin of applying contemporary values to historical events. Why does the past interest us if not for the comparisons it provides with the present? But with the example of "The Favourite’s" wittily anachronistic romp through the 18th-century court of Queen Anne so fresh at hand, it is hard not to judge the earnest Mary Queen of Scots for its ignorance of the problem.

As Kurt finds his true art in the West, thanks to the help of a fictional version of Joseph Beuys, the film turns gripping, but it ultimately reduces art appreciation to the autobiographical.

The results are highly affecting – so much so, that viewers who suffer from motion sickness may find the film hard to watch. If the approach feels empathetic rather than pretentious, it’s thanks to a crucial anchor: Willem Dafoe’s subtle and humble performance conjures a pitiable van Gogh, shredded by doubt and estranged from people, yet urgently aware of his painterly vision.

For all its successful debunking of the market, there isn’t enough of this prickly love in The Price of Everything.

A critic needs only two words to dispense with The Grinch; the first one is bah.

Both leads fit their performances seamlessly into this destabilizing scheme, providing a provocative timelessness to the characters.

So, the safely scary and often amusing formula holds. Meanwhile, the movie’s conclusion includes enough plot about Stine’s fate to suggest Goosebumps 3 will feature more of the elusive Black and that can only be a good thing.

There are only two erotic scenes between the two women, and Macneill, Sevigny and Stewart handle them with conviction: For all the horror of her situation, Lizzie needed some larger motivation to wield her axe. Lizzie dramatically provides it.

Love, Gilda reveals this but does not probe it. With various soft and admiring interviews, it relies mainly on Radner’s own words to hint at how dark things got.