Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

The quirky Save Yourselves! is not necessarily a genre reinventor but a good example of how much fun you can have on a non-studio budget.

Not a whole lot happens in The Midwife, but there’s never a dull moment, thanks to the opposing yet equally stellar performances by the two Catherines in the lead.

Siff gives a modest but poignant performance that rings true for women of a certain age and career.

Mid90s, for all its darkness, is uplifted by its hilarious moments and joyous skating shots.

When a movie that feels this scientifically far-reaching lacks heart, the viewing experience is a dreary, soulless one.

It is not without tender or enjoyable moments — that’s the beauty of a formula — but there’s a tonal imbalance of comedy and drama. The two constantly deflate each other.

Spanning more than half a century, Tigertail goes back and forth in time, tracing the events that allowed Pin-Jui to achieve his American dream yet made him so aloof to his loved ones. It does this to mixed results.

Director Ben Hania has a rhythmic, urgent sense of filmmaking, but she makes the odd creative decision of dividing her film into nine chapters, each a single take.

Given how nauseating it is to watch Hunter perform increasingly perilous acts of self-harm in her prison of a mansion, neither the payoff nor the psychology behind her actions makes Swallow an illuminating enough addition to the woman-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown genre.

Dupieux pulls off this bizarre procedural in a lean running time while hitting the notes of darkness and drollery just right.

Despite some moments of tenderness and easy chemistry between Zeke and Mo, “Big Time Adolescence” doesn’t have enough heart or humor to save it from becoming just another movie about white dudes bro-ing out.

Balmès doesn’t arrive at easy, scathing conclusions about the internet. Instead, he lets the camera journey to unexpected places, leading to a different kind of meditation that strikes with deep emotional resonance.

While so many recent renditions of the rom-com have tried to upgrade the genre — usually by going the raunchy route — Set It Up feels so purposefully classic and familiar that it plays right into that nostalgic feel-good spot.

A perfectly enjoyable way to spend 81 minutes.

Though it’s not without charming moments, this story of women standing up to the big bad guys is diminished by unimpressive song-and-dance numbers that feel like Michel Legrand throwaways.

The forbidden romance has its will-they-or-won’t-they thrills, but this first feature by the directors Amp Wong and Ji Zhao, becomes a basket of tangled snakes when Blanca faces far too many obstacles.

There’s no hint of irony in this film (I don’t think it would work if there were); in fact, Jeannette succeeds in its earnestness, adapting its words from Charles Peguy’s works, but countering it with the pure, joyous silliness of its presentation.

The film stumbles in delivering a cohesive vision.

The film betrays its own less-is-more philosophy and becomes weighed down by exposition — but it’s a tense, thrilling ride nonetheless.

I’m still hopeful about Shawkat’s screenwriting career — especially since her performance always feels so genuine, adding substance to an otherwise deflated story. But other than the script’s daring premise, the material doesn’t rise up to the potential she hints at here: a comedy of ingenuity that takes advantage of Shawkat’s fearless frankness.

Netflix’s Kodachrome is good fall-asleep-with-the-TV-on fare, and I mean you should snooze out immediately unless you want to be subjected to a criminally mediocre family drama.

The beauty of a single-location thriller is how the tension escalates in containment, but Moverman fails to seize that built-in advantage.

The biggest show is, naturally, saved for last.... Nothing in all of the Fast & Furious movies has ever felt bigger or more ridiculous — two things F8 rightfully thrives on. It’s exhilarating. Now how will they top this one?

By the time the killings start, the film already feels draining, with no characters worth caring about, much less watching.

Zoe Lister-Jones’s The Craft: Legacy, produced by Blumhouse (“Get Out”), is a disappointing distillation of the original that’s mostly devoid of personality.

Gutierrez works some twists on the familiar premise, and one standout thrill of a chase scene employs Brian De Palma’s signature split screens. But as it nears the two-hour mark, the film becomes exhausting, shedding very little light on the futuristic implications of the story.

The film, written by Oberli and Cooky Ziesche, satirizes class divides and xenophobia (“the Pole” constantly carries a derogatory connotation here), but never takes the satire far enough to be memorable, challenging or anything beyond whimsical.

It’s not difficult to be moved and impressed by Gretarsdottir’s life story, especially when she details the secrecy of her struggles, but the story falls short in tying these emotional threads with her athletic accomplishments in an eloquent manner.