Katie Walsh

Memory has a decent director in Campbell (“Casino Royale,” “Vertical Limit”) and a great cast (yes, that’s Ray Stevenson as a corrupt cop), but a crippling case of a bad script that can’t manage to make us care about any of these characters.

Marvelous and the Black Hole proves to be a small marvel of an indie gem and an assured debut for Tsang.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent knows that what it has going for it is Nicolas Cage, and Nicolas Cage is what makes this otherwise forgettable comedy worth the watch. It’s not necessarily only for super fans, but super fans will be richly rewarded by this love letter to Cage, who, remember, never went away.

It feels like a bad parody, a shadow of what a film is, not an actual film itself. The color palette is a dreary mud puddle of grays and browns, and there’s no sense of space or geography. It has no weight, no heft, no texture, no color, no sense of magic or wonder in the least. The story itself has no sense of stakes or resonance, and the actors vary in affect from lifeless to dutiful to pained.

It’s a remarkable story, but “Father Stu” is a broad, somewhat brutish film.

What Arnold manages to make tangibly cinematic in Cow is the soulful spirituality of these animals, their beauty and their emotions. It is as moving as it is devastating, and although this film requires patience and fortitude, it rewards with a singular and perspective-shifting cinematic experience.

It is startling, and sometimes disturbing, but hits a place that is intensely human — bittersweet and bloody and beautiful at once, and unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

The Contractor is decidedly Pine’s film. His performance is as efficient as the script, which Saleh mirrors with a crisp, smooth aesthetic. There’s nothing particularly showy about the style, but it serves the story of this professional warrior working his way through an unfamiliar place.

This one rolls right over any doubters, powered by Bullock and Tatum, in a film that lets them play to their strengths.

It’s a profound love letter from daughter to mother, an expression of a desire to remain close to her, and in fact, a love letter to all mother-daughter relationships that persist in spite of and because of all the flaws, foibles, and fallibility that comes with being human.

They don’t often make them like this anymore, a story cut, folded and stitched together with care. So “The Outfit” is worth slipping into and savoring.

The first half is the more intriguing as older and younger tussle with each other and ask the tough questions, figuring out their mission together. But it all falls apart in a hackneyed third act.

In its uncompromising vision, it may not be for everyone, but it’s definitely the movie that Batman needed.

It’s an utterly fascinating, mysterious, and often experimental character study of someone who is hard to understand because they fundamentally don’t understand themselves.

The jokes are stale, the energy is stilted, and the whole thing feels like a misbegotten vanity exercise cooked up in the pandemic to keep them occupied.

Typically, movies about dogs are unrelenting tear-jerkers, but Tatum and Reid resist sentimentality, resulting in a film that’s refreshingly frank and surprising when the emotional moments do hit (and do they ever).

Uncharted is fine, and entertaining enough, but while some moments are inspired, others are completely inert. It’s oddly neutered and bloodless, the stakes negligible. It feels like a project with so much potential that never fully achieves liftoff, stumbling when it should soar.

While undoubtedly a uniquely creative and singularly emotive film, it can be all just a little too, too much.

Though the situation is far from realistic, the dynamically directed and swiftly paced Marry Me remains emotionally grounded, which is crucial to the execution.

Jackass Forever transcends the body horror to achieve a kind of nirvana: The crew invite themselves to laugh so they don’t cry, and ask the audience to do the same. It’s a reminder that pain is temporary but friendship is forever.

Clean is so lean, it’s as if the story itself was sacrificed for atmosphere. Clean brings the cold, moody vibes and extreme violence, but narratively, it’s a mess.

There is potential to say so much more about sex, love, partnership, feminism and shifting sexual mores across cultures, but Simple Passion lets the bodies do the talking, and after a while, they run out of things to say.

Greis-Rosenthal delivers a fantastic and fierce performance as Maggie, and it’s impossible to take your eyes off of her, even when she shares the frame with Coster-Waldau. Thanks to her compelling screen presence, and Boe’s dramatically dazzling aesthetic, A Taste of Hunger is a delectable cinematic treat, one that deserves to be savored.

The plot proceeds at a punishing clip but there’s a tediousness to the proceedings, even at a rather tight 97 minutes, because no dramatic weight is given to anything that unfolds.

Stuck in this largely infantilized role, Cowen imbues Angel with as much verve and spunk as she can; she’s often funnier and darker than necessary, offering a refreshing dash of acid to temper the sickly sweetness.

The sensually crafted Stop-Zemlia is a fine conduit to bring forth those visceral sense memories of teenage life

Italian Studies is a unique curio of a film, a free sketch of time and place melting into a singular subjective experience that asks “does memory matter?”

The overall concept, and its execution in the writing, is classic “Scream.” If there are quibbles to be had, it’s that the new film’s attention feels divided between the old and the new, with not enough time or space to fully develop everyone’s personal motivations.