Katie Rife

The movie is a mixed bag, well shot and well acted enough to mostly keep the viewer’s attention, but meandering enough to frustrate at the same time. It’s bookended by flat, brightly lit, purely functional scenes that don’t quite erase the memory of the surrealist horrors that unfold at its peak, but do come close.

Always in control of its deeply bizarre, suburban surrealist tone, even when its story is more like a series of comedy sketches than a feature film.

What the film lacks in depth and focus, it makes up for in personality. Murphy’s obviously the star here, but Moore’s loyal entourage comes to the movie with plenty of charisma of its own.

In The Shadow Of The Moon is a disappointing misfire all around, but no matter—like so many other Netflix original films, it’ll be reabsorbed into the streaming void soon enough.

Whatever pleasure there is to be found in watching a film like The Golden Glove is in the intellectualizing, and the film does prompt a series of provocative questions about the implicit contract between artist and audience.

Breaux is able to wring great pathos out of the character of Adam with very few words, which only makes Henry and Polidori’s arguments about ethics, which increase in frequency as the film goes on, seem all the more tedious.

It’s campy, it’s gory, it’s a little bit titillating, and it features one of those novelty performances from famous actors that tend to bring a lot of press to otherwise under-the-radar productions.

The film isn’t an abject failure by any means; it has some funny jokes, a couple of really good performances, impressive creature and set design, and pleasing cinematography. But when it comes down to it, It Chapter Two just isn’t all that scary.

A meta-commentary on filmmaking in general and cinematic conceptions of beauty in specific, the film is clearly enamored with its own cleverness—which isn’t to say that it’s not clever, just that a more clear-headed film could have distilled its ideas better, and been more satisfying as a result.

Mostly, the action, while bloodier than one might expect, is as goofy and dim-witted as the dialogue.

The Angry Birds Movie 2 is the very definition of empty-calorie cinema—bright and shiny and satisfying enough for a few fleeting moments until it’s balled up and thrown in the trash. It’s also fast-paced, interesting to look at, and notably less irritating than the original, which is all you can really ask of a film like this one.

While the film boasts a refreshing premise — mob wives taking over their husbands’ territory when the men land themselves in jail — what lingers afterwards is the stale taste of its lukewarm execution.

Perhaps that’s why, despite some skillful scene-setting and committed supporting performances, Them That Follow is lifeless enough that small inconsistencies in accents, costuming, and set dressing appear more significant than they would in a more, well, thrilling thriller.

The Tigers’ rooftop hideout is like something out of Hook, and the film moves along at a brisk, Spielbergian clip; however, the combination of dark themes mixed with whimsical fantasy strikes a tone more similar to Guillermo del Toro’s early work.

This is Tarantino’s Eden, the unspoiled garden when the things he loves don’t have to be sought out or championed because they permeate every aspect of life. The sense of blissful immersion extends to the film’s costuming and production design, both of which are as meticulous as one might expect.

In a cinematic landscape where retro throwbacks are predictably bundled around the same small set of nostalgia-friendly filmmakers (we all love Carpenter, but come on), it’s positively invigorating to see a loving tribute to a director’s influences that’s also aggressively avant-garde.

As it is, it’s another jarring mismatch in a film full of them. The core issue seems to be indecision over whether this is all supposed to be camp or not.

For the most part, it works. True, the haunted objects are silly at times, but unlike The Nun, Annabelle Comes Home is only funny when it’s supposed to be. And it’s enjoyable because of its clockwork efficiency, not in spite of it.

As a show-business fairytale, Wild Rose is pretty standard. But as a character study, it’s something special. That’s due largely to Buckley’s star-making performance as Rose-Lynn.

Now, Garris’ unflagging enthusiasm for uplifting his fellow creators has found a new manifestation: Nightmare Cinema, a sort of sideways revival of the Masters Of Horror franchise.

Director F. Gary Gray, while experienced in both action and comedy, also struggles to keep the film’s picaresque plot on track.

Spencer provides her character the kind of human dimension only a performer of her caliber could muster.

You can’t just have two hours of kaiju slapping each other around like a gargantuan WWE highlights reel.

The Perfection takes deep, fetishistic satisfaction in pushing the envelope, then pushing it some more, building in seductive fits and shocking starts to an orgiastic frenzy of cinematic excess. Is it a progressive movie? Not especially, but that’s okay as long as you know what you’re getting into.

What good high school movies do is take the basics of the teenage condition and refocus them for a specific generation’s point of view. That’s where Booksmart excels.

Director Gail Mancuso, a TV comedy veteran, gets the desired effect — as manipulative as it may be — out of both the funny scenes and the sad ones, leading up to a finale that can only be described as weapons-grade tearjerker material.

While the chemistry between the core cast is easy and convincing, generated by skillful banter and impromptu singalongs, the scripted elements of Wine Country are more mixed.

For as much as Charlie Says tries to reframe everything we know about the Manson Family, its characterization of the women remains shallow.