Monica Castillo

Los Frikis is a complicated movie with good intentions and the goal of sharing underreported stories from the island. I want that too, but I found Los Frikis too saccharine given its somber topic. Perhaps its harder edged critiques were softened for international audiences, but I would have preferred the film more thoroughly wrestle with the emotional, political, and social complexities at its center.

There are some fun ideas and moments in Dead & Beautiful, but Verbeek seems to want to avoid offending anyone with the suggestion that the rich are vampires—which is the premise his movie is built on.

If A Nice Girl Like You would have stayed the course of the book it’s based on, Ayn Carrillo-Gailey’s 2007 memoir Pornology, it might have been an interesting enough premise. Instead, Andrea Marcellus’ screen adaptation whitewashes the main character and moves the narrative into a more conventional territory, one centered on love over lust, tame over the risque.

Then there’s a third act that’s so wildly out of left field, it shifts the tone completely. It’s an almost comical departure, but it’s certainly a disappointing one.

Both Stewart-Jarrett and MacKay do a remarkable job wrestling with their character’s inner and outer conflicts, but so much of “Femme” is about the pain of queer life, that it leaves out its joy.

It’s frustratingly simple, the dialogue over-explains everything and while there are a few solid moments of suspense, there’s too much dead air in-between.

Andersen’s film, in its attempt to present various perspectives in this story, shifts the viewer’s attention from one character to another, diluting its emotional impact.

Michael Pearce’s grim thriller “Echo Valley” is a melodramatic mess redeemed by the performances of the film’s exceptional cast.

The Threesome ends up kind of a mixed bag, cute but a bit disjointed.

Written by Franklin, “Salvable” struggles to find its footing as both a family and crime drama, but it does one better than the other.

There’s a quiet intensity that runs throughout The Audition. Although most of it feels like a subtle family and teacher drama, sharp anxious pangs occasionally disrupt the film’s otherwise gentle pace. Eventually, these feelings spin the film’s main character out-of-control into a truly baffling conclusion that feels neither right nor earned. It’s almost as if it were the ending of another movie entirely.

While much of this Black Beauty strays from the original, the spirit of empathy and combatting animal cruelty remain intact.

On reflection, “Sight” is a beat-by-beat wholesome biopic built to leave its audience feeling good and inspired by its sermon.

Michael is an attempt to remind audiences why so many fans fell in love with him in the first place, but it doubles as a pretty clear bit of hagiography.

A disappointingly standard biopic, one whose technical flaws and paint-by-numbers clichés threaten to overshadow its subject’s compelling story.

Well-intentioned but at times insensitive, Papi Chulo is a complicated movie. It wants so badly to do the right thing when the situation is all wrong.

The story, the jokes, even Hank’s imaginary pill-shaped friends, and an expensive trip to the curador/local shaman are cheap tricks for a hollow laugh. Better to savor the few carefree moments of Camil’s stellar performance and the poignant lessons to learn about love, health and communication.

The musical interludes of rarely heard recordings are an impressive find, but the movie's messy approach to telling tango's hidden history seems at odds with itself.

The movie's flair for soap-opera-style pile-on becomes emotionally draining rather than moving.

The cast can’t cure all the movie’s problems, from its abrupt ending to a random acid-test scene, but it’s not without its curious appeal as a star-studded failed “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” experiment.

Performances aside, Glass is a pretty mixed bag of exposition-filled dull moments and pedantic dialogue.

For his part, Castillo makes the best of the clunky dialogue and cliché lines, but the story never lets his acting chops shine through.

Russo-Young (“Before I Fall”) takes some considerable risks in her direction to make The Sun Is Also a Star look different from the typical romantic drama. But not all of these creative decisions pay off.

Although Kristen Stewart pulls off Seberg’s short haircut, she hardly embodies any of the presence or persona of the French New Wave “It” girl. Stewart’s monotonous delivery makes her character sound uninterested and bored.

Josh Boone’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s “Regretting You” is a romantic drama with big emotions and plenty of both romance and drama. But too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, and in the case of “Regretting You,” the narrative buckles under the number of overblown emotional scenes and the commercial interruptions for product placements.

So, if the couple at the center of this romantic comedy lacks chemistry, can you at least enjoy the scenery or the retreat’s resort? Unfortunately, this is not “White Lotus.”

The couple doesn’t quite light up the screen with their chemistry, and the writing feels much too basic, given these are meant to be characters in a literature degree program. Thankfully, there are moments of levity, a number of cross-cultural jokes, and supporting characters to lighten the mood.

Imagine “Office Space” with forgettable characters and nothing to say about this next bleak phase of the business world.