Katie Walsh

The effort put into making this film work is palpable, but the result is something deeply surreal and strange. Perhaps this story simply can’t work as a film, or perhaps it wasn’t a very good musical to begin with. It’s a question that may be debated for years to come.

Layered storytelling that tests the limits of the screen and the fourth wall allows for Clark and Brownstein to play at playing themselves, making for a sharp, comedic commentary on the way fame complicates identity.

As Chon calibrates a wide variety of emotions, allowing space for all the agonies, ecstasies, repressions and excesses, he crafts a tale of intergenerational traumas and personal redemptions that is an emotionally complicated yet ultimately cathartic viewing experience.

Queenpins does nothing other than waste your time with bad wigs and poop jokes, and that is the biggest crime of all.

It’s underwritten yet over-stuffed with songs, and the production itself feels chintzy and airless.

No Man of God is impeccably and carefully directed by Sealey, and the craft on display is remarkable.

DaCosta, who made her directorial debut with the remarkable abortion drama “Little Woods,” firmly announces herself as an artist at work with Candyman, a genuinely terrifying and artful horror film that speaks with a bell-clear voice to the current moment, the product of centuries of racist power structures.

The modern noir style and genre innovation are such a neat cinematic twist that it’s a bit of a letdown that the world doesn’t always feel fully fleshed out.

Larraín crafts a mesmerizing cinematic rhythm that alternates between montage and slow camera movements; the film’s push-pull tempo mimics that of Ema’s own intimate machinations.

Reynolds is a bit too glib and smug to buy as the romantic lead. It’s actually a relief that the movie salvages the romance by relegating it to the game world. But the whole film remains a bit too glib and smug anyway.

Written by Scott Wascha, the script is simultaneously crude, rude and whip-smart. Wexler‘s direction is a rapid-fire attack of highly stylized skirmishes and aestheticized action.

Taylor plays Dawn’s slide into this mental health crisis beautifully, and with conviction, and Owen is stunning as the high-achieving, yet fragile Melanie, who seeks oblivion and solace in a risky boyfriend (Ian Nelson).

Joe Bell is a tale of emotional redemption for a man who relearns what it means to “be a man,” and his moments of triumph are the quietest ones.

It wants to comment on the algorithms that rule our lives, spewing constantly recycled content at us seemingly at random, but it is exactly the thing that it points to: an upcycled Frankenstein’s monster of intellectual property spraying a stew of Easter eggs and Halloween costumes at the viewer, praying that something sticks.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is a pastiche of its predecessors, using this mosaic of tropes and formula familiarity as a shorthand to keep the film pared down to the basics of what exactly makes it tick: increasingly sadistic puzzles and a great cast of characters.

Pribar’s humane and heartbreaking drama is beautifully photographed and performed; a loving, warm, and even sexy film about death and dying that is teeming with life.

Zola’s authorship and Bravo’s respect for her storytelling make Zola a wholly original experience. It’s a brutally honest account of sex work, often dangerous and infrequently sexy, punctuated with Zola’s one-liners, observations and recounting of laugh-out-loud moments.

DeMonaco and Gout cook up such delicious comeuppance that you can’t help but indulge in the pleasure of revenge, even if the terrors and pleasures are incredibly fraught.

Lee (who directed episodes of “Broad City”) and Glazer swerve from comedy to horror, using the genre as a vehicle for social commentary about modern motherhood, misogyny and manipulation. False Positive is Glazer’s “Get Out,” which is a phrase you want to scream at her character, Lucy, over and over again.

In F9, bonkers on top of bonkers results in a truly delightful and vividly sensorial time at the movies.

Some may enjoy the cacophonous, raunchy, lowest-common-denominator dreck that The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard has to offer. To those I say, godspeed. But it’s undeniable that the actors, the audiences and the filmmakers all deserve better.

Censor is a bold artistic statement, inspired by the history of its own genre, though it’s not an uncritical assertion, posing complicated questions about media effects without offering easy answers.

[Barden] becomes the vessel to express Riegel’s quiet cri de coeur, which is not just yearning to escape one’s own circumstances but the absolute necessity of it.

Johnson-McGoldrick’s facility with both the tropes of the "Conjuring" films, and the Warren’s relationship, keeps the film swift and emotionally resonant, while Chaves pushes the cinematic aesthetic to the max.

Spirit Untamed is a sweet film with a moving message about embracing family, heritage and most importantly, yourself, just the way you are, even if that means bravery and recklessness often go hand in hand.

What’s so maddening about A Quiet Place Part II is the unused potential. Krasinski opens up the world and timeline of the film, but doesn’t utilize it in any meaningful way, introducing new ideas but then jettisoning the opportunity. Again and again he falls back on more of the same old tricks from “A Quiet Place,” which was a bore to begin with.

At times, it can feel a bit like “Clue” with so many plausible characters and motives swirling around and around, but Bana keeps it grounded, as a professional trying to do his job the best he can, while caught up in memory and trauma.

Lindon’s youth is remarkable, because her point of view on the experience of the teenage girl is so immediate. But such a confident and self-assured debut would be remarkable for a filmmaker of any age, as “Spring Blossom” is a finely wrought, sensitively felt and artistically bold work.