Kim Hughes

For viewers of this doc, Strike A Pose, though perhaps overly long and repetitive, is a touching reminder that we all occupy the same world and are vulnerable to its pitfalls… even those lucky (or unlucky) enough to have briefly dwelled in the shadow of the almighty Madonna.

Destroyer is all about Kidman as tortured, haggard detective Erin Bell. A single look into those bleary, bloodshot eyes alerts us to the fact that this character has been through the wringer. Destroyer is a forensic study of how Bell got this way. The trick, I suppose, is making us care.

There is joy in seeing this gifted ensemble have fun with their broadly scripted characters with Los Angeles in all its trashy splendour backdropping it all. But this angel comedy doesn’t quite reach for the heavens.

But what lands with Land is underwhelming; not quite a disappointment but considerably less than what was hoped for given Wright’s professional toolkit and the endless possibilities a subject as complex as profound grief offers.

Dazzling.

There is a lovely kookiness to The Persian Version which elevates an essentially straight-up mother-daughter conflict story with myriad snappy visuals and storytelling devices before settling into its main narrative trajectory, advancing the idea that we are all just doing the best we can with whatever tools we have.

The film’s best parts, apart from abundant vintage footage and those groovy 60s-era threads, are recollections from those at ground zero, like club operators as well as performers Jimi and Judy Mamou.

Much as I had hoped to love it given its cast and source material, Midwinter Break just never took flight. Not all great books make great movies.

Saoirse Ronan as Mary and Margot Robbie as Elizabeth offer rich, committed performances and highly passable accents. There’s also a certain thrill in being transported to another very real-feeling world: inside elaborate stone mansions lit only by candles and furnished with stiff but fancy furniture. The costumes, jewelry and makeup, too, are fabulous. But a hard-to-pinpoint pall hangs over Mary Queen of Scots.

Wilson is beautiful but far from typical Hollywood beautiful which underscores the film’s wink-nudge absurdity. She’s also funny as hell, delivering deadpan with Aussie-approved aplomb.

Given the devotion Ball continues to inspire in fans, it was perhaps too great a challenge for anyone to live up to casting expectations. Still, Being the Ricardos hits all the right notes, making these larger-than-life people seem at once pointedly human and even more ground-breaking than ever.

Here’s the thing: it’s hard to care about anyone presented on screen. Sorry but… they’re just not very nice. Nor are they fascinating criminal masterminds pulling off complex, game-changing capers.

Fuze’s denouement is terrific, completely unpredictable and surprisingly funny. It’s as if summer blockbuster season came early. Fuze is… wait for it… a must-see blast.

Semi-comic tales don’t come blacker or more twisted than writer/director Mirrah Foulkes’ quietly electrifying Judy & Punch, which might be subtitled “When Scumbags Get Bigtime Comeuppance.”

If you can get past the faintly ridiculous-slash-icky premise, underscored by the film’s double-entendre title, No Hard Feelings plays its broad comedy gamely and with some snappy dialogue to boot, albeit much given away in the trailer.

Let’s just say the film — scripted by Bader’s nephew Daniel Stiepelman with the Justice’s blessing — successfully splits the difference between capturing Ginsburg as a contemporary folk hero and as a fiercely ambitious intellectual competing for footing in an era when mixing a killer martini was the very height of wifely prestige. No one will mistake it for a documentary.

It’s an exceedingly black comedy threaded through with intense drama that completely deconstructs the rom-com, casting it as both a shiny and sinister thing… and one frequently inducing vomiting.

McDonagh’s sumptuous version of the novel —which premiered at TIFF last year — is utterly faithful and thus note perfect, capturing its resonant ruminations on social inequity, racism, and cultural tourism in a sweeping Moroccan desert Sheltering Sky novelist Paul Bowles would recognize.

A little distance — and considerable trimming — would have served the story better.

Even those with no particular interest in fashion will be gripped by this story and dazzled by Galliano’s undeniably artistry. It’s impossible not to be. The film is also a profound reminder of just how complicated we all are.

If I was a teenage girl, I might love it. But as an adult reviewer, I can’t help but feel weary about this earnest but mostly needless retread of a smart and engaging teen comedy, a genuine stand-alone classic.

The Hummingbird Project is a fun enough ride though one with significant logic bumps that may prove as intractable as the terrain its characters hope to traverse.

Spinster adds up to more than the sum of its parts, even if its primary takeaway — a woman doesn’t need a man to be happy and/or successful, yada yada — is hardly ground-breaking.

I have not read the graphic novel Sandcastle upon which Old is based so I can’t vouch for its faithfulness to the source material. But it’s hard to believe anyone would call this a winner.

A bittersweet dramedy about an exceedingly fraught mother/daughter relationship and the ties that nevertheless bind, Tammy’s Always Dying is buoyed by a superb cast and a palpably stark setting (mostly Hamilton, Ontario with forays into Toronto) that combine to elevate the film above its more predictable aspects.

Viewers are better served by submitting to the immersive thrill of it all, in the context of a film that doesn’t ask us to ask too much of ourselves.

If you’ve seen the red-band trailer for Strays, you know the dog-centric, live-action new comedy is profane and outrageous, slapstick and amusing in that distinctly stoner-friendly way.

As much a showcase for Kristen Stewart and the fabulous frocks of the 1960s as a glimpse at a very low moment in U.S. governmental history, Seberg is an entertaining if simplistic drama that would have benefited from more grit and less gloss.