Natalia Keogan

Unfortunately, even False Positive’s shortcomings are uncharacteristically boring, generic and empty.

While the film contains some impressive scares, a phenomenal lead performance and steadfast central message, Run Sweetheart Run is far too preoccupied with speaking to a cultural reckoning that is truly only occurring in terms of optics and vernacular.

Equal parts captivating and cringey, writer/director Nathalie Biancheri’s Wolf flounders in the face of articulating its own thesis.

The End’s major downfall, aside from being overlong and ideologically tepid, is that its musical numbers are dull and discordant.

Clerks III is far from a perfect film. Absolutely drenched in masturbatory nostalgia and teeming with timely Marvel references, it milks the last drop of creative potential these nearly 30-year-old characters are capable of providing. Yet, somehow, these marked setbacks don’t completely bog the film down.

Despite clearly aiming to craft an intentional aesthetic, writer/director duo Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp’s film is inundated with tributes to irreverent indie crime film staples without bothering to carve out a unique voice of its own.

Silently dumped onto Netflix and non-existent as an entry on Letterboxd, Blasted is a perfectly fine sci-fi comedy destined to fade into obscurity.

The Woman in the Window succeeds when it comes to constructing an adequate cinematic language to tell the story of its original source material, but tends to overcompensate for its narrative shortcomings.

One could argue that the fairly straightforward biographical approach is meant to act as a primer for those have never once tuned into Turner Classic Movies; on the other hand, rapid-fire references to Godard’s contemporaries, including petty feuds and clashing reputations, are calibrated so that cinephilic savants can pat themselves on the back for getting the reference.

Though Cohen has made a formidable name for himself in the visual aesthetics of rock ‘n’ roll, his feature debut is unfocused and emotionally flimsy, no doubt a product of Cohen’s first-film inhibitions.

Aside from the one chilling scene grafted straight from The Ten Steps and its gorgeous, historic filming location, The Cellar just isn’t that deep.

Musings on motherhood, performance, and power are never fully articulated, leaving a flurry of concepts up in the air without resolve.

Lacking distinctive social commentary, meaningful character development, or a salient environmental angle, the update feels all but incapable of speaking to the moment.

Though it’s clear that Bloat is riffing on the digital ghosts of Ringu and Pulse, this approach doesn’t mesh with the mythology it attempts to flesh out for itself. But it’s unfair to say that the film is completely devoid of commentary.

The strength of the cast alone can’t elevate Sing Sing to the realm of truly socially conscious cinema.

Lake of Death would have been better off talking less, and scaring more.

Ambiguous, open-ended storytelling is by no means a defect in its own right, but Spin Me Round becomes increasingly frustrating in its tendency to introduce narrative tangents without any intention to elaborate or connect them.

Without a tangible connection to the material—most notably to Iraq and its people—Gates’ viewpoint feels unguided, doomed to be influenced by the same pervasive prejudices that Atropia ostensibly attempts to combat.

While incredible practical gore effects and stunning set pieces make Álvarez’s installment well worth watching, it’s as void of meaning as space itself. There are no answers, not even questions, merely what we manage to project onto vast emptiness.

The film is replete with striking visual flourishes, yet its storyline suffers from the inclusion of an unnecessary air of surrealism.

Though its thematic threads are never woven into salient social commentary, there is a perverse pleasure to be had with Emilia Pérez, even if its positions on gender, sexuality, and broader Mexican society lack proper nuance.

Though the premise is gripping and the acting overwhelmingly solid, Here Are the Young Men falls short when it comes to communicating the raw emotional essence of preemptively coping for a future in decline.

For all of the horror subgenres crammed into Hold Your Breath, it never conjures sufficient scares.

Messy and muddled in its presentation and messaging, Kiss Of The Spider Woman needs more than just compelling performances to raise this project to the level of esteem granted to its predecessors from 30 and 40-odd years ago.

A protracted folkish horror story that mistakes miserablism for period accuracy.

Feliciano’s effort is particularly marred by hackneyed tropes. Whether it be that Latino fathers operate out of the same withered copy of a machismo manual or the simple assertion that kids simply “need a father,” Women Is Losers certainly won’t win over those yearning for something new.

This approach fundamentally misunderstands Eno’s entire creative ethos, which relies on technology to elevate—not replace—the unique human ability to create art, a quality that is sorely remiss here.

While the Netflix Original film manages to sneak in a few genuinely funny moments, it’s not nearly as action-packed, suspenseful or humorous as it aims to be.