Mark Olsen

Though it is only now receiving a U.S. release, it says something about the ever-prolific filmmaker’s consistency and extremely high level of proficiency that the film still seems fresh and enchanting, by turns delicate, romantic, mysterious, witty and crushing.

Rae and Nanjiani have a quicksilver chemistry, flashing from playful banter to genuine, hurtful arguing in an instant.

The Wrong Missy is a lightweight throwaway, the kind of movie it is difficult to suggest one actually choose to watch, but if your algorithm somehow lands on it provides a certain harmless diversion.

The original film was not a time capsule; it was a snapshot, capturing a unique time and place. The new film simply doesn’t have the same spark and energy.

Amiably paced with comfortable, lived-in performances, Arkansas isn’t so much a crime drama or dark comedy as a depiction of a world in which illegal activities and their aftermath are simply part of a way of life.

With The Infiltrators there is an audacity, an unrestrained boldness, to both the events depicted onscreen and the way in which they are portrayed in the movie itself.

Extraction would be better if it just doubled down on being dumb. Instead, although the movie does indeed have some dazzling action sequences, they are interspersed with dramatic scenes that feel increasingly belabored, giving the movie a peculiar stop-start rhythm as it makes its way to a lumbering, extended gun battle final set piece.

An ambitious combination of suspense thriller and brooding treatise on existential themes, The Quarry feels like a throwback to the era of late-night cable movies, when art, ambition and genre pulp would often collide.

Endings, Beginnings has some genuinely engaging moments somewhere in between its beginning and its ending, but too much gets lost in a saggy, shaggy middle.

The movie feels disjointed and made up of parts that Dolan couldn’t bring together as it shuffles between three story strands.

After a strong start the movie steadily declines, one set piece after another, and there are many moments where the mind wanders and then asks: “Is this still going on?”

Always Be My Maybe is pleasant without being particularly powerful, appealing if not exactly transformative.

And so while Gilliam has undoubtedly made better films and certainly greater films than The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, there is something about the ridiculous effort and mixed results that make this arguably the most Gilliam-esque. For anyone struggling with whether to give up, concerned that the result will not match the effort, Gilliam seems to be planting a flag — or more accurately charging a windmill — to say the effort is the reward.

The movie is all over the place and there is no attempt to weave it into a coherent whole — which is regrettable as scene for scene it often works.

Von Trier has managed to cobble together just enough of interest — odd moments, pieces of performance, stray ideas and the simple audacity of putting this mess out into the world, that it feels like there may be something there worth considering, a maddening possibility. And that may be his cruelest prank of all.

It’s not difficult to decipher where McMurray and DeMonaco’s true allegiances are, but by delivering the story within the framework of genre cinema at its most trashy and garish, the filmmakers convey any message as a bit of rough pleasure amid the kicks and thrills of a movie.

With his latest work, Bong has created a heroine for our times, an indelible movie creature, a story that balances heart and head and a movie that engages with the boundaries of technology both on-screen and off.

Free Fire is a savagely funny and viciously precise distillation of one of the pair’s favorite themes: Men are idiots.

The film's maximalist storytelling, both expansive and precise, snatching specific emotions from its torrid swirl, is best exemplified by the fact that the title card doesn't appear until an hour in.

The movie is handsomely mounted with upscale production values, but it feels sluggish and disjointed.

The film is not quite smart enough to overcome the clichés and stereotypes it acknowledges but can’t entirely dismantle. At the same time, it often isn’t quite outrageous enough, as if it should be more willing to be outright offensive.

Like husbands who think that carrying in the groceries is really pitching in, Lucas and Moore have their hearts in the right place, but their efforts have little real insight or impact.

For a project that is a showcase for his talents as both actor and director, Bateman never gets too showy on either front, keeping the emotions of the film at something of a restrained simmer.

"The Next Cut" manages to be entertaining and thoughtful, harmless fun but just serious enough not to seem frivolous.

The movie isn't fantastical enough to sustain itself outside the bounds of reality, yet every time something real creeps in, the movie stumbles and cowers.

The ostensible college comedy Everybody Wants Some!! is like a stream that looks shallow but once you're in the middle of it reveals an unforeseen depth.

It is designed to be fun, efficient and accessible and delivers precisely and exactly on that and nothing more.

In its best moments, it's a sly exposé of the frailties of the contemporary male self-image and in its lesser moments a simplistic slapstick. This being a Will Ferrell comedy, sometimes those moments are one and the same.