Matthew Passantino

Davenport is a blind actor who gives the proceedings some added depth because she’s able to convey a dramatic, manufactured scenario with some truth. See for Me, for its familiarity, offers enough thrills to merit seeking out.

Kempff walks the fine line of being frustratingly vague and trusting the audience to grasp the film fully. Knocking, for the most part, lands in the latter category.

The directors’ reverence is clear, but they don’t shy away from giving a three-dimensional examination of their subject.

Sisto certainly has an eye for the story he’s trying to tell, and there are moments throughout John and the Hole, which show he has what it takes to be an interesting filmmaker. [But his] visual flair would have been better served with a stronger story.

Yes, it was made during the pandemic, and the storyline serves as a metaphor for our current feelings and experiences, but it doesn’t use the pandemic as a tool to directly prey on our anxieties. It’s a bit more thoughtful and reflective than that. This drama gives us the green light to sit back and say, no matter when the end might be, perhaps we did just fine with our time here.

Heder infuses the characters and plot with such deep emotion it makes up for its lack of narrative originality.

The movie knows what it is, and undoubtedly offers some tense moments, but once the plot contrivances start to stack up, Unhinged becomes too silly for its own good. It leans heavily into the violence to distract, but the flailing story surrounding it.

While most of the plot of An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn feels like several different movies working at once, they all converge into a bizarre, madcap finale.

Summer Night has an easy, breezy presence about it, but there’s not much going on beneath the surface.

Tel Aviv on Fire moves with purpose, even if it occasionally trips over its own ideas. It has a lot on its mind but doesn’t tackle all of them deeply, focusing on the satire and outlandish comedy. Thankfully, that’s where the movie succeeds the most.

The greatest pleasure the movie has to offer is a chance to watch Spencer perform completely unhinged and relish every moment doing so.

Charlie Says ... missed a chance to explore the psychology of a cult and instead feels like a gauzy art installation without much focus.

As twists start to pile on, I Am Mother shifts from eerie to tedious, but there’s too much on display to outright dismiss.

It’s easy to disappear into the setting of The Sunlit Night but if only the narrative were as involving.

Luce is a quiet stunner, ready to unnerve you in unexpected ways.

The rapport between Thompson and Kaling, along with the entire supporting cast, make Late Night a lively and entertaining workplace comedy with its finger on the pulse of today’s entertainment industry.

The beautiful surprise of Honey Boy is it never feels like LaBeouf revels in the chance to put the spotlight on himself. He wrote the film while in rehab and every moment of the movie feels like an artist in search of a desperately craved and needed catharsis.

The Farewell is wonderfully specific towards the culture depicted, but there’s a universality to its issues regarding family. Just about everyone will be able to take something away from The Farewell.

At times, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is all about the performances because the movie itself struggles a bit with settling on a tone.

Freundlich’s approach to the film is respectful to the original but begs the question of why translate this particular film for a more mainstream audience. He does so deftly but After the Wedding trods in some familiar melodramatic territories, which may not have the same impact as the original.

Blue Night plods along for 96 Minutes, creating a surface-level exploration of its character’s life.

In a Relationship doesn’t break any new ground and Boyd understands that. Instead of attempting to reinvent the wheel, he focuses on his character’s flaws and insecurities offering biting one-liners and honest moments that elevate In a Relationship to a bit above the norm.

We’ve seen stories like Wildlife done many times before but rarely are they done with such grace and humanity.

A Boy. A Girl. A Dream may seem simple but every frame is a vibrant work of a passionate filmmaker.

Directed by Colin Minihan, What Keeps You Alive is an exercise in extreme style and visual trickery in the hopes of keeping the tension high. He isn’t subtle when dropping clues, cutting to an object more than a couple times as to warn us this will be important at some point. Working from his own script, the movie deserves some credit for not always arriving at the most obvious conclusions, even if it takes a well-trodden path.

The Happytime Murders eventually ends up spinning its wheels, telling the same joke over-and-over.