Kimberley Jones

In Passages, Sachs’ enthralling eighth feature, he and his regular co-screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias return to the more experimental bent of Keep the Lights On, echoing that film’s elliptical nature and naturalistic presentation of sex, its dizzyingly destructive relationships and Euro-arthouse affect.

Barbie, the toy, see-saws in the culture between extremes: Is she an aspirational figure, or the fastest way to f*ck up a kid’s relationship to her body? A gateway to the imagination, or a slammed door? Barbie, the movie – an exhilarating, generous, deeply handmade comedy about a mass-market product – revels in these extremes.

Alongside Kathy Bates and Laura Linney, Smith is one of three grande dames of acting headlining The Miracle Club. Disappointingly, director Thaddeus O’Sullivan doesn’t put any of them to good enough use in this featherweight Irish dramedy set in 1967.

What the film itself is trying to communicate proves more elusive; whatever meaning Millepied meant to impart by tethering this “entirely new and unique artistic endeavor” to a century-and-a-half-old opera never quite made sense to me.

Tilting surprisingly dark – I suspect the film is at least in part about how we process trauma – but also somewhat impenetrable on first watch, it was another startlement when I realized I was crying. I can’t wait to go back.

But in going to such great lengths to avoid that film’s grim weirdness, the Super Mario Bros. Movie filmmakers have flattened the concept into benign nothingness. They’ve course corrected into the side of a mountain. There’s no heartbeat here.

Admirers of Hansen-Løve’s previous film, her English-language debut Bergman Island, may be surprised at how straightforward One Fine Morning is, how resistant it is to delivering a capital-letter Cinematic Moment.

Scaffolding his story on an illogical foundation, Braff (Garden State, Wish I Was Here) continues to be an aggravatingly unsubtle filmmaker, over-relying on totems of profundity (a train set, a tattoo) and showboating with the camera in ways that distract rather than enhance the drama.

By trying to give these women happy endings, or proposing fake reasons for how they came to produce indelible works, these alternative histories only achieve the opposite. They rob them of the truth of their lives.

For a movie that’s ostensibly about scratching at real feelings, it comes off as phony as a perfume ad.

This material is so rich probably any halfway decent filmmaker could assemble a competent doc tallying the two men’s extraordinary accomplishments. But only Lizzie Gottlieb could make a film where she does that plus needles her pop about wearing sweatpants for his sit-down interview.

On film, goosed along by Thomas Newman’s jaunty score and a generically weepy power ballad co-written and performed by Hanks’ wife and producing partner, Rita Wilson, the effect is hollow, placating. They’ve turned themes of great love, loss, and the will to keep going into … easy listening.

She Said is a respectful, serious-minded effort that works so hard not to sensationalize the material, it works against its dramatic impact.

Forbidden love! Terrible betrayals! Decades-old repressed truths! The plot elements are all there for something emotional wrecking, but Grandage and his cast approach it with such enormous restraint, the oxygen is cut off completely. This is bloodless filmmaking.

Tilt your head and you can catch the ghost of combustive screen trios past: Design for Living, Band of Outsiders, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But Amsterdam’s three leads – individually charismatic performers all – collectively can’t sell the film’s sentimental, facile idea that love beats all, even those pesky fascists. And that breaks my heart a little.

For all the fierceness of the elements, co-directors Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis, who previously collaborated on the well-regarded 2015 indie film The Fits, are in no rush here.

A swing and a miss is too timid a dismissal. It’s a sumptuously dressed table that ends in a wet fart.

Genial and unbothered, Confess, Fletch never climbs higher than mere adequacy.

This pandemic-made feature teems with fertile ideas and observations – about social media, California Goopiness, reproductive trauma, feminist porn – that don’t always feel fully formed – more like purged – and her essential glibness undercuts the potential for real catharsis.

Spiritually, Official Competition’s closer point of comparison may be the films of Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure), which similarly chronicle humans at their worst (gawwww, humans really are the worst) with visual wit and from a wry remove.

“Freely inspired by a true story.” That’s the filmmakers’ cunningly phrased hand-wave acknowledging the gap between actual history and the moony-eyed imagined romance proffered here. Still, it’s a curious deployment of the creative license: You’d think the construction of one of man’s greatest monuments would supply sufficient drama on its own.

Die-hard Downton fans aren’t going to grumble at the chance to spend more time with well-loved characters, and there are plenty of bright spots along the way.

The film’s greatest strength is its unabashed sentimentality. The look on these artists’ faces – their obvious pleasure in being in the room with their heroes, making great music? It’s not just good on the ears; it’s good for the heart.

There are no insights here, only lavishly budgeted cosplay.

If tradecraft is what you like best about the espionage genre – the dead drops and dead-of-night tailings – then All the Old Knives will feel comparatively pokey, especially put up against the kind of spry spy entertainments long-form television so capably produces.

The story – two guys, one girl, much deceit – is eternally contemporary. Sometimes gigglingly so in the hands of ever-erratic Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pan), who injects horny, corny musical theatre-kid energy into this latest iteration of Rostand’s doomed love triangle.

Doggedly mediocre actioner The 355 is the cinematic equivalent of gathering together Formula 1’s finest drivers and tossing them the keys to a Yugo. With two Oscar wins and four Oscar nominations between them, Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger, and Lupita Nyong’o are gonna do some pretty nifty work with a Yugo. Still, actors this capable deserve better gear.

This heartfelt portrait, which brings the artist tantalizingly close, will certainly bring greater renown to Dalton. But she remains, stubbornly, unknowable.

For his part, director Stephen Daldry synthesizes the predominant beats of his film work, which has vacillated between feel-good awards bait (Billy Elliot) and feel-bad awards bait (The Hours, The Reader). Feel-good/feel-bad is Together to a T. It feels wonderful.

In fact, I liked wrestling with Nine Days, liked feeling the act of moviewatching as an active, not passive, one, and the way Antonio Pinto’s strings-forward score nudged my brain to stop churning long enough for pure emotion to kick in

Dwayne Johnson may not be the world’s most nuanced actor, but he’s a marvelous showman. His and co-star Emily Blunt’s combined “it” factor transcends the sillier stretches of this somewhat forgettable but still chuckling good-times ride.

It’s a lot, but also very little: The action amounts to multiple variations on “try not to get wet, or caught out” to push along a plot that dispenses the usual life lessons about being brave and valuing friendship.

There are a million reasons why couples break up. If only We Broke Up had landed on one, they might have really had something here.

The title, with its built-in weightiness ... well, it’s a tall order, one this latest Pixar animated feature falls just short of. The dominant mood here is not so much soulful as spirited, which is still better than most – and a most welcome gift.

The love match is cringing; as a rom-com’s raison d’etre, their limp connection pretty much sinks the thing. But when the script settles down and stops feeling quite so much like an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink thesis project, it has its bouncy moments.

It smartly skips the goofier aspects of the original, too. Once you’ve shed musical numbers and Eddie Murphy cracking wise as a dragon, you’re in far less jocular territory...And that feels right for the material.

Mostly it will just make you hungry to revisit Ashman’s work. That’s perhaps not the intended result of this fond tribute/merely serviceable survey of a too-short career – but it’s not necessarily a bad one.

The plot isn’t sturdy enough to fill two hours. An honorable mention, but no best in show.

Odom Jr. won the Tony for his performance here, a fact that’s been somewhat dwarfed over the years by Miranda’s tsunamic success, but the neat trick of this filmed version is to time-machine viewers back to an extraordinary moment in American cultural history – to put us, to borrow from Miranda, in the room where it happened. It feels like such a gift.

From the most generous angle, All I Can Say functions as a found footage précis of the perils of fast fame, illustrating Hoon’s deepening addictions as the band’s profile rises.

Shirley is probably too niche to attract the Academy’s interest in Moss – how has she never been nominated? – but it’s a big, messy, masterfully itchy performance and yet another notch in her belt.

I’m coming down harder than I meant to. If you’re a fan of the series – and I am – you’re still going to fan. (There’s no entry point for newcomers; it’s too in medias res.) The scenery is lush. There’s ever the pleasure in Steve and Rob’s company. I just wanted to feel by film’s end like I’d arrived somewhere new. Like the journey had been pulling me somewhere inevitable but still enlightening.

Still, it takes a special someone to sell this larger-than-life character onscreen, and to make you forgive how the galloping script glosses over some crucial beats.

Although the filmmaker’s presence in her own film is never remarked upon, I imagine she felt compelled by a feeling of kinship with the artist; Dyrschka, a first-time feature director, is the first filmmaker to profile af Klint, which is a notable achievement. But I don’t think we’ve had the definitive film portrait yet.

The filmmakers’ decision to stay out of the way and shape the story largely in the editing room bears different returns – a less mediated, more immersive, and ultimately quite moving portrait of hopeful youths headed into a harder adulthood.

It’s thrilling.

The sensation that dogs Hope Gap is that they forgot to roll camera on the most dramatic parts. What’s left over isn’t bad, only underwhelming.

Neeson, taking a welcome break from his late-career reinvention as a man of action, and Manville (Another Year, Phantom Thread) are such gifted performers, and they play this couple – their tenderness and stress – at a likably subtle frequency.

Did I imagine a gloaming quality to this film, or was that just the influence of my own trudge toward middle age? That, of course, has been the steady brilliance of this series: No matter your own pace on life’s arc, you can always catch your reflection in the fishbowl glass.

Out of a terrific ensemble cast, Pugh (Midsommar, TV’s The Little Drummer Girl) emerges as the star.

This is a vastly inferior toy-to-film IP expansion, with duller songs, dumber jokes, and forgettable voice work.

What is notable is how the film gives children a framework, and the language, to process this act of violence, same as it does the pain of grief, the bitter rub of mortality. I don’t know if that sensitivity will translate to a gajillion more princess dresses sold, but as a teaching aid for kids – a tool for taking on more adult concerns – I found it surprisingly impactful.

Yes, the 84-year-old Maggie Smith is back as the Crawley materfamilias, and as ever she’s the MVP.

It’s only in the last quarter of the film, when Wang strays from her own family’s touchstones to explore a case of separated twins, that One Child Nation loses just a touch of its urgency.

The overall vibe is JV-squad swashbuckling, evoking "The Goonies" and the "Indiana Jones" films for a tweens-and-under demographic, and all without the exhausting quippiness of the "Lego" franchise.

In the Aisles is a triumph of mood, aided by an eclectic soundtrack that skips from Delta blues to electro-pop to Strauss and Donizetti, and a worthy stage for Rogowski to continue introducing himself to an international audience.

Graham’s film teems with fascinating characters – ultimately, too many for the abbreviated running time.

Twenty-four years ago, the original Toy Story broke ground as the first-ever entirely computer animated feature film. What’s more astonishing now is how all those ones and zeroes are harnessed to produce something so utterly lifelike.

So yeah, Booksmart is a different kind of teen comedy – clever and buoyant, proudly feminist and wonderfully reassuring that, yeah, the kids are alright.

Oliver and director Ry Russo-Young (Before I Fall) cherry-pick a few of these digressions and give them an artful, collage-like treatment; they don’t go far enough to mask the skimpiness of the story, which has been whittled down to Natasha and Daniel almost exclusively.

If the film’s conclusion reads a touch too much like a sales pitch, I didn’t mind; the Chesters’ thoughtful approach to living in harmony with nature is one we should all buy into.

The script, and Theron, matter-of-factly illustrate the old adage about Ginger Rogers, that she did everything Astaire did, only backwards and in heels. That the film actually gives her credit for it? That’s the best kind of wish fulfillment fantasy.

A thriller wants to entertain you. Little Woods wants you to think, and feel. I did both.

That spiky aunt is played by Estelle Parsons (Bonnie & Clyde); one of the pleasures of Diane is the rare platform it gives older actresses, including Andrea Martin, Phyllis Somerville, and Deirdre O’Connell.

If Dumbo 2.0 does have to exist, then you could do far worse than this sweet and occasionally quite nifty revamping.

Gloria Bell is its own thing. Lelio inflects the film with a believably Californian vibe, all washed-out easiness, and the faint feeling that so much easiness must take an awful lot of work. And Moore can so exquisitely convey two emotions at once, the actorly equivalent of patting a head and rubbing a stomach at the same time.

These dragons are rendered so expressively, and they have become so dear. We may not deserve them, but that doesn’t stop the heart from wanting.

A spectacular misfire – is a 180 from Locke’s lean brilliance, overstuffed with plot complications, overheated with bad acting and maudlin sentiment.

McKay has made a protest film, plainly seething – a primal howl from a guy who used to just goose howls of laughter.

The internet is infinite. So, too, are the ways it can breed creepy behavior and new opportunities to commodify human connection. People’s Republic of Desire explores only a tiny swath of the internet of grossness, but it’s a subject so epic it deserves much longer examining than a quick 95 minutes affords.

What I learned from Monrovia, Indiana is that I – personally – am bored by mattress shopping, City Council arguments over fire hydrants, and high school band concerts I am not obligated by shared DNA to attend.

On the strength of this sequel – a dense yet deft return to the high standards Yates set with the Potter films – count this Muggle’s heart and mind all in.

In The Grinch power rankings, this one trails Theodor Geisel’s original 1957 storybook and Chuck Jones’ cheeky 1966 TV special by a long mile.

Reilly, Phoenix, Gyllenhaal, and Ahmed – a murderers’ row of outstanding character actors who all moonlight as leading men – take the script’s raw materials (daddy issues, the trauma of being bullied, the civilizing effect of a toothbrush) and forge new bonds with a few words, a light look. The film treats their growing intimacy, in all its permutations, like an objet d’art, to be turned over and examined, delicately, from every angle. When they’re together, the film is electric.

What is lost in translation from Wolitzer’s novel is her particular vision of Joe – short, Brooklyn-born, Jewish – and her sidelong portrait of midcentury men of letters like Bellow and Roth. The Welsh-born Pryce makes a halfhearted swipe at mimicking an Outer Boroughs accent; he’s better at capturing Joe’s gluttony and overgrown-child sulks.

The film opens with a camera slowly swirling around a skull. Red droplets splash on the cranium. In Michael Nyman’s score, a brass section booms rhythmically like blood in your ears. The effect is brooding and provocative. It’s pure drama. It’s perfectly Alexander McQueen.

Wu quite simply is a stunner. Best known for playing the tough-love matriarch from ABC’s "Fresh off the Boat," she betters the book version of Rachel by making her earthier, steelier, and more playful.

Kunis and McKinnon don’t exactly set the screen on fire with their chemistry, and there are only the most perfunctory shadings to their characters.

Parker has cast credible young versions of all the original players, although in most cases vintage outperforms new grape.

Neville’s film isn’t making a case for canonization. But it is a call to action.

While Kate Novack’s documentary suffers from a certain vagueness in the telling of Talley’s life, what’s clear is that it’s been an exceptional one.

What keeps Outside In interesting throughout is the nuanced work of its so very watchable leads – especially Duplass, who spent the first half of his career behind the camera writing, directing, and producing film and TV with his brother Mark.

Dissent – or a remotely critical eye – doesn’t have any place in RBG; this is an entirely admiring doc.

Inelegant but not uninteresting, Ramen Heads is a bronze contender at best.

They (Mirren and Southerland) give potent and particular performances, bright buoys at sea in an otherwise nondescript picture.

For all the pratfalls, this is a grim, dispiriting work. It dares not to be liked, and there’s a lot to like in that daringness.

The opening act, I’m sorry to report, is a mess.

Why do I feel like a bummed-out tourist gone home with dashed hopes? “I was promised a new-millennium mindfuck, and all I got was this crummy pick-the-bodies-off horror.”

Early Man is wanting: of a cleverer narrative, of memorable characters. It’s not bad, necessarily. It just feels like an early draft of a better movie to come.

The lion’s share of the work then is on Bening and Bell’s shoulders to flesh out dramatically thin characters. That they do.

The Death Cure is at its absolute best when something’s getting blown up, or a plan is being hatched to blow something up: Series director Wes Ball is aces with action, and almost as effective with the procedural steps to get to said action.

This bland romance doesn’t take its own advice. It’s all water, no whiskey.

What sets Phantom Thread apart is that it isn’t an apologia, or an exorcism. It’s a Valentine. The heart, after all, is our strongest muscle.

As for words? The script gives Stuhlbarg – a character actor who elevates everything he’s in – the monologue of a lifetime, which he delivers sotto voce, all kindness. And that is perhaps the prevailing note of Call Me by Your Name – of kindness, of tenderness.

Busy and boring and oppressively computer generated, Justice League screams we’re back to business as usual.

Turning Poirot into an action figure with a gun is simply heresy.

Despite the notable camp value of Blanchett channeling Gloria Swanson, Cruella de Vil, and an extraterrestrial succulent plant, the doomy villain thing is rote.

You feel Lucky’s frustration and gloom, how they burden him, without Stanton opening his mouth. But thank goodness he does, otherwise we wouldn’t get to hear him croon the lover’s lament “Volver, Volver” with a backing mariachi band. The moment is sublime – gawdam, Harry could really sell a song – and piercingly poignant.