Marya E. Gates

That this catastrophe is director Wanuri Kahiu’s follow-up after her sublime debut “Rafiki” makes it all the more disappointing. Where that film has rich characterization, this has generalities. Where that film has vibrant cinematography, this has dreadful, bland compositions. Where that film has a detailed sense of place, this film has a disjointed, geographically murky portrait of L.A. and what appears to be a sponsored by SXSW and Whataburger view of Texas.

Lasse Hallström‘s latest film, The Map That Leads to You, has the makings of a Gen Z “Before Sunset” meets “Eat Pray Love,” but unfortunately, it also has the depth of a mediocre beach read weepy. That is to say, I enjoyed it as I watched, but it has had no lasting effect on my memory or, even worse, my heart.

There is a time and place for sincere brooding, but this kind of blood-soaked saga calls for something grander.

Common Ground is a well-meaning PSA that waters down the complex history, practices, and systems of American industrial agriculture into something palatable for audiences looking to feel good about the bleak future of this dying planet without actually having to do any hard learning, thinking, or direct action.

Regardless of its shortcomings, Candy Cane Lane is a frenzied family friendly film as overstuffed as a Christmas stocking, as nutty as a chestnut, and, ultimately, as warm as an open fire.

Overlong at a mere 87 minutes, there's nothing timeless or elegant about this flop entirely composed of elements derived from much better films.

Unfortunately, memorable moments are few and far between here, and those are mostly spoiled by the film’s trailer.

Despite its minor flaws, "Irish Wish" is as pleasantly diverting as the kind of paperback romance novel Maddie edits for Paul, and just as forgettable.

Like its lazy title, Murder Mystery 2 settles for the lowest version of itself.

Ultimately, “La Dolce Villa” is about as authentic an Italian experience as a night at the Olive Garden.

Ultimately, To Catch a Killer blames all of the gruesome violence it depicts on the perpetrator’s mental health and offers only a surface-level exploration of the system that failed him.

Mafia Mamma lives in the uncanny valley between incompetent and unwatchable.

What drew this cast to this film? One that boils its characters down to cardboard copies of real people whose only aim in life is traditional heterosexual, Christian, nuclear family units without any defying characteristics beyond their roles within those units.

The People We Hate at the Wedding is a career nadir for this cast, an asinine, poorly executed-excuse for a comedy. A little advice? Save yourselves and just RSVP no to this disaster.

The film proves to be just another retread of “spooky” Catholic-themed horror tropes without adding any insight or originality to the subgenre.

Overall, Our Little Secret is a fun, mostly family friendly Christmas screwball comedy with Lohan working in the comedic mode she does best.

By keeping the film’s emotional core at a distance for most of the film, the only catharsis the audience feels during its denouement is from the relief that this bleak, miserable slog is finally over.

It’s more like a reusable ribbon bow. It's not great. It's nothing special. But you can keep it year after year and place it on presents as long as you have scotch tap—or Lohan’s irrepressible charm—to hold it together.

Like its predecessor, "Code 8: Part II" uses its high concept sci-fi to critique the increasing violence of the militarized police state, especially in the age of surveillance.

Imagine a J-horror plot involving a child possessed by a swamp demon told through the aesthetics of the screenlife found footage subgenre, and you can pretty much imagine how writer-director Pablo Absento‘s new film, “Bloat,” will play out.

Frankly, the musical, with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and book by Steven Levenson, itself is where the fault lies. There were few redeemable qualities to begin with, and Chbosky’s dreary, washed-out direction adds nothing to its already bleak, vapid existence.

Like a magpie, it takes bits and pieces from better films and cobbles it together with some paper-thin characters into something that is a movie in definition only.

Philip Noyce is a natural choice for this kind of film. He’s great with actresses in peril and at keeping tension ramped up to eleven. But using the collective trauma of a generation of parents and children as the backdrop for a real-time thriller, whose lives have proven time and again to matter less than the right to own an AK-47, remains unconscionably distasteful.

A morality play wrapped up in gothic horror tropes, “The Dreadful” is definitely committed to the bit, and its darkly medieval setting is a refreshing change of pace. I just wish it were a medieval tapestry that worked as a whole, rather than just in fits and starts.

It’s nice to see McCarthy and O’Dowd in roles that showcase their emotional range; one just wishes it were in a project worthy of their talents.

Mildly diverting from time to time due to its beautiful production design, The School for Good and Evil is mostly an unmitigated slog, filled with underdeveloped characters, absolutely terrible dialogue, and a world that feels both completely ripped off from better things and unnecessarily complex.

Incoherently directed, thematically muddled, and poorly acted, writer/director/producer/star Livia De Paolis’ drama The Lost Girls should have stayed on the page.

While it doesn’t quite live up to its grand ambitions, it’s refreshing to see a movie so beautifully and sleekly filmed attempt to wrestle with humanity’s deeper questions. Foxhole might not be in the top tier of the great anti-war film canon, but it's not too far away.

Allen’s mawkish performance aside, the rest of the cast do the best they can within this all too easy structure.

The unfortunate misfire What Comes Around, from director Amy Redford and screenwriter Scott Organ, is what happens when filmmakers lack tact and land squarely in the realm of exploitation.

At first, it seems Carpet Cowboys, the debut documentary from co-directors Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier, intends to merely tell the unsung story of this niche industry and the quirky artists, businessmen, and scientists who earn their living working in it. But the filmmakers use it as a launching pad to chart the deconstruction of the American Dream.

Whatever it is that Mizrahy finds interesting about this subject remains frustratingly oblique, ultimately leaving "Space: The Longest Goodbye" a muddled bag of contradictions and underdeveloped threads and themes.

While the script from John Gatins, who wrote "Flight," is mostly decent (there is some laughable dialogue peppered throughout), Dean Israelite's direction is so fussy, frenetic, and disjointed that it renders moot any charm the story may have once contained.

Frustratingly, despite being jam-packed with facts, there is not much insight into what makes Bird tick, what makes her a great player, or what her legacy actually means to the sport.

It's a pity, then, that Gorman's direction isn't always this razor sharp as there is a current of mordant humor throughout Williams' script that could easily have made this whole affair a pitch-black comedy.