Katie Rife

Overly simplistic piece of Southern poverty porn, which asks questions it’s not really prepared to answer and proceeds from a set of dubious assumptions that undermine whatever nuance it does possess.

The Night Clerk will be remembered, if at all, as a movie de Armas was way too good for — an unfortunate mile marker on her road to movie stardom.

The film flounders a bit in its second half, as it struggles to maintain the tension of its inciting incident. But Harduin’s performance as Gloria goes off her meds and descends into her own private world would be impressive for an actress of any age, let alone a 13-year-old.

While the film is kinetic, colorful, and frantically paced, it’s also not quite as outrageous as Miike’s gonzo ‘90s yakuza movies.

The film is propelled by a confident lead performance from Alexandra Daddario.

Its clever comedic writing couldn’t quite overcome its sometimes subpar camerawork.

On a moment-by-moment level, the action in Birds Of Prey is compelling, drawing more from the Hong Kong style of unbroken takes designed to show off the choreography than the chaotic quick cuts of most American blockbusters.

If one of the boundaries being tested in this film is viewers’ patience, the reward for—to use a refrain repeated throughout the film—“trusting the darkness” is well worth the commitment.

Even thought it’s a bleak and uncompromising film, it’d be unfair to call Beanpole “misery porn.” The questions it’s asking are much more complicated, and more cutting, than that.

Dolittle is full of anachronistic pop culture references and poop and fart humor, jokes delivered in suspiciously low-impact style by the film’s animated animals.

The Murder Of Nicole Brown Simpson is directed like a Lifetime thriller, relying heavily on stark lighting and ominous music to create suspense. (Neither is effective.)

If you’re looking for something truly groundbreaking—or hilarious—Like A Boss isn’t it.

Overall, though, the director and co-writer’s merciless style is muffled by The Grudge’s over-reliance on clichéd jump scares; more damningly, only some of these are effective, even in terms of cheap thrills. This becomes especially true in the film’s second half, when the ghosts become at once more human and less creepy.

Stanley does a remarkable job keeping the film grounded in emotional reality all things considered, but it’s admittedly an idiosyncratic movie about unconventional people made by an offbeat director.

Soaked in neon and coated with a thick layer of 16mm film grain, it’s a visceral throwback to the gritty action fare that lined video store shelves in the early ’80s as grindhouses gave way to the VHS boom—coincidentally, also the era that made VFW’s core cast famous.

Puts a forward-thinking feminist bent on the Riverdale school of neon Twin Peaks fetishism

It’s impressive to see such sophisticated camera work from a newcomer. But to combine that with experimental narrative and sound techniques, and place it in a detailed mid-century modern environment, and to have all these ambitious gambits (mostly) work, all on an independent film budget...well, it’s quite the feat.

Bliss approaches its aesthetic with a straight-faced intensity, pummeling the viewer with woozy handheld closeups and violent bursts of montage until you feel like maybe you might have been dosed somehow on your way into the theater. The only irony here is that Begos says it’s his most personal movie to date.

A slick and thrilling take on the intersection of mental illness and creative inspiration that also doubles as a commentary on toxic masculinity.

The thing that haunted me the most about the film afterwards—aside from Riley Keough’s choking screams in one particularly intense, symbolically loaded sequence—was the ludicrousness of its plot.

Sure, the cast is full of exciting names, but all of Jarmusch’s absurdist thematic flourishes—the Romero tributes, the meta commentary, the political humor—are half-baked and inconsistently applied.

Horror remakes don’t have to be inferior rehashes, as films like Jim Mickle’s "We Are What We Are" (2013) and Luca Guadagnino’s "Suspiria" (2018) have demonstrated. But this Rabid nibbles where it should clamp down hard.

The film is a snappy, glib tour of recent history in the Adam McKay mold, hydroplaning through the stormy real-life events that led to Ailes’ departure from Fox News with windshield wipers on high and blinders strapped to each side of its head.

Little Women is the best kind of Hollywood film: thoughtful yet escapist, sophisticated yet accessible, expertly crafted and deeply felt. The performances are all top notch—Ronan and Pugh, especially, breathe new life into their characters. Gerwig’s direction is also first rate.

As a result, it isn’t as cohesive or inspired as her penultimate film, the Oscar-nominated Faces Places. But as a parting gift from one of the most singular creative minds of the 20th century, it’s as life-affirming as they come.

The overall look of the film has the shiny, empty appearance of a newly rehabbed condo, and the quips about women’s love of cheese and gigantic closets have a similarly hollow sassy-greeting-card feel. But the outfits in those closets, it must be said, are fabulous.

There’s really not much to recommend about this film: the animation lacks texture, the score is overwrought, the plotting is scattershot, and the character design is uninspired.

This accessibility actually hurts the film, exposing the flimsy balsa-wood architecture under all those frills.