Monica Castillo

It would have been interesting to see a better version of a working class “Eat Pray Love” or “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” that swaps thrilling destinations outside the U.S. for a bus ticket somewhere in the States to reconnect with who you are. Juanita feels like an approximation of this experience.

Its uneven, heavy-handed approach to breakups and bad exes may quench some urge for revenge, but our main character’s heart isn’t in it.

You can soak in the movie’s basic premise and overacting just as long as you know this pool’s shallow.

Between its amateurish direction, pedestrian cinematography, and overly plotted script, the narrative and visuals don’t coalesce into a story that feels restorative, cathartic, or even joyful.

No matter, after much sound and fury the movie is more of a molehill than a mountain. Betty Gilpin deserves better and so do we.

To Marcello and and co-writer Jay S. Arnold’s credit, there are a handful of surprises that defy some of the more expected youthful rom com tropes. But the rest is a lot of the same teenage romantic tribulations we’ve seen before.

Unrest is an intriguing period piece but a flawed curio that never quite achieves its soul-stirring goals.

The Unheard has its shining moments, but they are not enough to cover for some duller missteps. Although the premise is strong, its execution is less-than-convincing.

Ad Vitam, which in Latin means “for life,” is at times brisk but narratively unclear, delivers its share of action, but not the characters to keep you emotionally invested.

Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself packs in enough narrative twists and turns to leave viewers with a sense of emotional whiplash. One tragedy bleeds into another so often that the events begin to blur.

“Don’t Look Up” told a story while jackhammering its message, but “2073” plunges its audience right into police violence and terror with little thought in the sci-fi aspect of the narrative. It’s merely the aluminum foil to deliver the filmmaker’s thesis.

Ricky Stanicky feels like a throwback, and not in a nostalgic fun way either. It’s more like a rehash of tired bits and jokes with nothing particularly innovative or clever to say.

With unbelievable dialogue and a truncated timeline of events, Song Sung Blue ends up dabbling in “Walk Hard” territory, making the film seem silly even when the couple at the heart of this story only ever wanted to play the hits.

It’s unfortunate that the finished tribute doesn’t quite come together, and the tension between needing a compelling narrative and paying respects to bands whose music changes our lives never gets resolved.

Many fans wished to see these two actors trade witty barbs once again, but the pair’s new movie, Men in Black: International, strips away just about everything fun from the duo except their on-screen presence.

Unfortunately, Mary Poppins Returns falls quite short of being practically perfect in every way. The cast puts on a good show, but very little can be done to salvage the forgettable numbers by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and dance routines that already look dated.

With leaden performances and puzzling camerawork, it’s hard to feel in tune with the movie’s frights outside of the occasional jump scare.

Paradise Hills wants so badly to be a sci-fi movie with a message for right now — perhaps to tap into the feminist anger out there now or to cash in on the interest in women filmmakers — but it feels like a rushed draft. There are a few good ideas, a few good twists at the end but not enough to make up for the rookie mistakes that undercut its potential.

The movie’s basic appeal––that of rebels rising up against evil empires––still works to some extent, but Desert Warrior does little to make it memorable beyond its historic production.

The movie’s few bright spots feel unintentional, like mistakes left in because no one else noticed the absurdity of some scenes or the comic potential in others.

The film is rife with homages to the "bullied kid learns martial arts" classic, The Karate Kid, but never quite finds its own footing in the ring. The editing is choppy and the dialogue sophomoric, however hard the actors try to deliver it dramatically.

The movie’s premise isn’t as bad as the forced, unnatural dialogue. Even the reliable Ms. Applegate and Mr. Church can’t salvage the screenwriter Jeremy Catalino’s clumsy lines.

Despite its feel-good title, The Kindness of Strangers is a rather bleak movie, one so tied to the miseries of its characters that it’s difficult to see the point of it at all.

The women’s missteps seem to come straight out of a cautionary morality play. And the movie’s dismal outlook even extends to the dimly-lit cinematography. It doesn’t need a miracle to see the light. It needs a full pardon.

The movie flouts its intolerance in an attempt at provocative humor. Unless you laugh at fossils, I have no idea why you should buy a ticket to gawk at this dinosaur.

There are almost too many references to other movies for this one to become its own monster.

The lack of a solid narrative means Stardust cannot compensate for the production’s modest budget, which lacks a noticeable amount of Bowie songs and includes many scenes filmed on the cheap.

The unappealingly named comedy Eat Wheaties! is a tedious exercise in patience that, like a bowl of soggy cereal, I would not recommend to anyone.