Leigh Monson

It’s commendable to avoid further clichés with regard to the portrayal of physical difference in film, but Unstoppable fails to pin down what exactly should take their place.

If anything, the rarity of a franchise film that seems principally concerned with appealing to a new generation is more in line with the legacy of the original series than any film that has come since.

For all that its baffling narrative may be explained by deleted scenes, there is no excuse for how tediously non-threatening AfrAId is as a horror movie. Almost entirely bloodless and with half a handful of kills, there just isn’t enough visceral terror to make up for the disparate, thematically muddied nonsense that’s been cobbled together into the shape of a movie.

As a dramatic interpretation of Moore’s characters and their hardships, it’s hard to think how a direct translation could much improve upon what Mabry and her cast have put on screen. But without that context, the cavalcade of pain is excessive, perhaps even bordering on farcical, without the breathing room that the novel’s prose provides.

My Spy The Eternal City is so unconcerned with its obligations as an action-comedy that it fails to either thrill or amuse, making it a chore to actively pay attention to.

Good Enough is a few bland chuckles uttered in a vacuous 90 minutes you struggle to remember even as the credits start to roll. Good Enough is a black hole, of which Despicable Me 4 is the singularity.

Despite its limitations, 20,000 Species of Bees is crafted from a place of empathy so often lacking in conversations about trans childhood.

When brand perpetuation is as soulless and milquetoast as this, it seems unlikely that it will create any new fans at all.

Not every story needs to follow the hero’s journey, but it’s a bold choice to craft a main character who does nothing but reject the call to adventure. Poignant? Perhaps. Entertaining? Less so.

On one level, it directly lampoons the artificial mechanisms by which big-budget blockbusters tell their stories, yet it also provides an avenue for deeply personal storytelling within the framework of our shared cultural mythology.

The film is named after the dog. The memoir upon which the film is based is about the transformative meeting with this dog. It seems clear that this should be a story about a dog! So it’s baffling to realize that the dog is almost an afterthought. Instead, it’s yet another star vehicle for Mark Wahlberg to unconvincingly sell himself as a likable everyman.

And that’s perhaps the most amazing thing about Lisa Frankenstein: its instant timelessness. Sure, it may be a pastiche, or a love letter to previous eras, or any other euphemism for cinematic recycling, but that doesn’t prevent it from being just as much a singular creation as any of its forebears, sidestepping derivative rehashing in favor of an original take on teen angst that isn’t bound by its homage.

Though not without its rough edges, McGlynn’s film is emotionally raw and willing to engage with the complexities and nuances of her situation, providing a fascinating look at the intersectionality of burgeoning womanhood, intersex identity, and messy sexuality that doesn’t adhere to rigid or widely acknowledged labels.

The songs and the performances thereof have been packaged in such a way that they are now more accessible than ever, for an audience that mostly never got to see them performed as originally staged. Yet the film that inspired them has been reduced to a hollow shell in which to carry them, like so much plastic meant to be thrown away.

Poor Things is such a rare combination of talented collaborators working in perfect concert that it’s hard to consider the film anything short of masterful.

Director Nia DaCosta provokes some incredibly likable performances from her cast, and stages some truly memorable set pieces that are suffocated by a rote plot that only distracts from that breezy appeal.

Bayard Rustin deserves to be remembered for the entirety of his being, both as an activist and as an openly gay Black man in a time when it was criminal. As much as Rustin attempts to balance both, it carries the former better than the latter.

An exorcism movie may not need to be compelled by the power of Christ, but something about it still needs to be compelling, and slapping the name The Exorcist on a screenplay that reads like a brainstorming session is just not enough.

For what it’s worth, Strays is nominally funny, but in a way that rarely provokes genuine laughs, just chuckles of appreciation. It’s a breezy, inconsequential film that will drip from the wrinkles of your brain like slobber from a chew toy, but as a late-summer distraction, maybe that’s enough.

Insidious: The Red Door is not a broken movie by any means. It’s a comprehensible experience, though perhaps less so if viewed as a standalone feature instead of the presumably final chapter of a continuing narrative. But Wilson was tasked with telling a pretty dull story, both in terms of its visceral horrors and its thematic ambitions.

Joy Ride is a real blast, offering its sentimentality as a garnish to a road trip that emphasizes the sex in sex positivity.

These are jump scares done right, where the struggle to see what’s there is much more effective than any cheap lurch into frame.

But when it comes to picking out what parts of Ariel’s story to tweak for the new medium, the remake still emphasizes the wrong pieces, consequentially bloating a previously brisk story into a meandering pile of producers’ script notes.

Still is a solid reminder of why Fox is a magnetic camera presence and why he continues to be beloved, both as an actor and an activist for Parkinson’s research. As rote as many celebrity navel-gazing documentaries have become, it’s refreshing to see a film that can still find the strengths of the format.

This is a funny, sweet, heartfelt exploration of pubescent self-discovery that lives up to its namesake.

This is a reaffirmation of the author’s impact and importance to an audience that already agrees with that assessment, leaving the film as unchallenging as it is pleasant.

Rye Lane never tips over fully into cartoonish exaggeration, but the playful presentation of ids and egos through the dreamlike perspectives of its leads goes a long way toward making the film stand out as more than just a showcase for freewheeling chemistry.

Knock At The Cabin is a harrowing and intense home invasion thriller that feels like a step in the right direction for Shyamalan.