Odie Henderson

Truth be told, Get on Up isn’t really interested in exploring how important Brown’s music was to any of the numerous styles it influenced. Instead, it just wants to play some of the big hits you love while ticking off a checklist of standard biopic milestones.

The actors turn in great work, but the true stars of “Blitz” are the production design by Adam Stockhausen and the cinematography by Yorick Le Saux. Collectively, they put you inside the Tube stations and shelters that were occupied by Londoners trying to escape the Blitz.

This dramatic two-hander partners one of the cinema’s greatest talkers with one of its best listeners, Julianne Moore.

This musical should have taken center stage in Theater Camp. The dreadful story surrounding it deserves to get the hook.

It’s the cinematic equivalent of a classic-rock station, except instead of getting the genuine articles to serenade you, you’re stuck with a bunch of actors cosplaying famous folk singers.

Only a true grinch would grumble loudly at a film that delivers its pro-environment message with a light touch that avoids preachiness.

Raiders! is a love poem to film geeks everywhere, giving them heroes whose own geekdom is a pinnacle of aspiration.

Unfortunately, The Stanford Prison Experiment is a dramatization, and no matter how much it may adhere to the well-documented specifics of Zimbardo’s work, it is a massive failure.

Once again, Streep is a fierce force of nature, slaying all with an icy stare and a cutting verbal wit.

Though I’ve had weeks to roll “Emilia Pérez” over in my head, I still haven’t reached a conclusion about it. If nothing else, this movie will lodge itself in some corner of your brain that you’ll return to now and again.

The rare film in this genre that serves as both entry point and continuation. For a change, you can walk in cold and you won't be too lost.

As a documented record of Hill's story and her achievements, Anita is a serviceable, at times riveting documentary.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is full of crazy ideas, but its most daring leap occurs when Grabinski’s screenplay finds room for an investigation into the feelings of its characters. The film takes the time for everyone to get personal and emotional gripes off their chests, and does so in such earnest fashion that it balances out the absurdity.

A charming, informative and funny documentary.

All movies are manipulative by default; the effectiveness of that manipulation is the more valid measurement to inspect. On that scale, A Man Called Ove is a morbidly funny and moving success.

Studio 54 is at its best when detailing the history of the New York City clubbing scene.

Alone gives us little reason to care if our hero makes it out alive, but I have to give credit where it’s due: Jessica isn’t written as some damsel in distress. Though she does make a questionable choice or two, she’s more crafty and engaged than a standard victim.

Along with an equally superb Scott Ellis Watson, who plays Davidson as a teenager, Aramayo is the best thing in this movie. Unfortunately, the rest of it is Biopic 101, which at times makes the story feel too simplistic and thin.

I prefer, and recommend, the original, but I’m on the fence about this one. Your mileage may vary.

In addition to observing the humanity of its heroes, The Old Guard also employs Prince-Bythewood’s penchant for grandiose, melodramatic gestures that shouldn’t work at all yet play out masterfully.

In surveying this setting, one might think Almost There is a documentary about impoverished, elderly folks who have sadly fallen through the cracks in the system. Instead, it’s an uncomfortable journey through the later life of an artist, a warts-and-all look at the filmmakers’ process that fails to get past its most troublesome wart.

While Double Lover is as squeamish as most Cinemax-style wank material about a certain male organ, it’s more than charitable about its female counterpart. One can’t be faulted for expecting greatness from a film that opens with a close-up of a stretched out vagina morphing into an eye.

On paper, it sounds iffy; in execution, however, it’s absolutely glorious, a gleeful glide through adolescence that doesn’t gloss over pangs of grief or grimmer thoughts.

Song deconstructs rom-com tropes in service to a much meaner drama, with unlikable characters, a flimsy love triangle, and a dark subplot that is poorly handled.

After watching the worst Anderson movie yet, I was envious of the guy who blew up; he got to leave after only two minutes of this wretched comedy, the title of which sounds like a Robert Ludlum novel adaptation.

As with any documentary where the star tells the story, “Faye” occasionally comes off a little lighter than a more objective look might have been.

God’s Creatures is yet another movie about a mother realizing too slowly that her son may be a dangerous sociopath. Screenwriter Shane Crowley’s thin characterizations do little to make this tired trope worth revisiting, instead opting to shroud the film in mystery regarding its central crime.

It primed me for a deeper discussion on how “clothes make the man,” then disappointed me by devolving into a huge commercial for fashion designers past and present.

I’m on the fence here. I enjoyed the animated version of this movie quite a bit, so I’m torn between being happy this film was nowhere near as bad as I’d expected and being frustrated that I sat through a carbon copy. Your enjoyment will depend on whether your Toothless nostalgia has a full set of teeth.

Honey Don’t!, the neo-noir by director Ethan Coen and his wife, co-writer Tricia Cooke, is an unsatisfying mishmash of plot threads that neither intrigue nor coalesce.

The Outside Story is barely 85 minutes long, but Henry's performance is rich enough to make this small film feel rather epic.

It felt like I was watching a Wayans Bros. movie instead of one that expected me to take the ideas of dying and grief seriously.

If A Life in Dirty Movies had a tagline, it would be “Come for the sex, stay for the love story.” It’s a deeper, more rewarding experience than its title suggests.

Of an Age successfully captures the fear that the object of one’s queer affection may be straight and unwilling to reciprocate.

Ultimately, Joy Ride is an uneasy melding of “Girls Trip” and “Return to Seoul”; it’s two pieces that work well by themselves but clash when forced to collaborate.

This Denzel Washington family affair (Washington and his daughter, Katia, produced it, his son directed it, and his other son plays the lead) is well worth watching. It captures the spirit of Wilson’s magnificent prose, moving the audience the way the author intended.

A film with this incendiary of a title needed to have more to say about being LGBT in a hostile environment.

There’s a bittersweet poignancy in watching the children bond with animals and people during their travels before beginning the next leg of their journey.

It’s a fable that ties up too neatly to be believed, and it’s a story I’m tired of hearing.

Though I could easily predict what’s coming next in Carry-On, that didn’t stop me from having a good time. The twists were executed successfully, and I liked that the heroic characters did some unlikable things in order to save themselves.

Marty, Life Is Short allows you to be a fly on the wall for all that relentless merriment while reminding you to enjoy your own life while you can.

Would you enjoy a movie where Warren Buffet robs a bodega — and kicks the bodega cat for good measure? Because that’s what American Animals feels like.

Though it doesn’t break any new ground, “The Wedding Banquet” does occasionally zig when you expect it to zag. These moments, along with the performances and the unobtrusive direction by Ahn, make this a successful and fun remake.

With this entertaining, funny, and informative movie, McKenzie can add documentary filmmaker to his CV. I doubt it will convince anyone who has bought into the legends of cryptocurrency to change their outlook, but skeptics will definitely get a kick out of this three year journey, which started during the pandemic in 2020.

This Looney Tunes mega-fan went in fearing the worst, and came out happy that I took that left turn at Albuquerque.

This isn’t really for kids (I’d say it’s PG-13 level), and it’s so entrenched in its country’s myth-making that I wonder if sheer spectacle alone will be enough to entice American viewers.

To feel seen is a potent, potentially life-changing emotion, and only those who were never in the dark would have a moral problem with it. Rafiki makes this serious point quite effectively, never losing its ebullience.

Movies like Just Mercy spoon-feed everything to the viewer in easily digestible chunks that assume you know nothing, or worse, don’t know any better.

Seeing Superman save, and work with, more than just white people is refreshing, but it really struck a nerve with fans who rely only on hearsay. Gunn doesn’t care if you’re offended; he’s too busy showing us a good time. “Superman” is a surprisingly entertaining reboot.

The cooking scenes comprise the best moments in this episodic film.

People Places Things treats its characters a lot messier than most romantic comedies, which makes it delightful at times. It also makes it disappointing when the film falls into the same traps that plague romantic comedies.

A documentary that plays as cringe comedy. Like that sub-genre, it comes packaged with a star whose irascibility often leads to eye-covering levels of discomfort.

Despite the fine acting, Rustin is still a standard-issue biopic that traffics in the expected tropes. It’s the film’s perspective that elevates it, as no major movie has witnessed this era through the eyes of a gay man. I did find myself wishing it were a bit grittier; there’s a level of optimism flowing through the film that threatens to dilute some of its darker elements.

It’s simultaneously cathartic and heartbreaking.

Akilla’s Escape is undone by its own lack of faith in the viewer, opting to explicitly tell rather than rely on its fine actors to show us who their characters are.

While I admit I would have preferred a documentary about the people who have passed this tradition down from generation to generation, director Ricky Staub’s fictional feature serves as a worthwhile introduction.

This is the End finds a balanced tone most horror comedies fail to deliver. Grossout humor melds easily with grossout horror, sometimes at the same moment.

Foster and the rest of the cast are so good, I almost want to recommend that you go just for their performances. After all, it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts. That is, unless you’re making a murder mystery.

Jay Kelly would make a good double feature with “Sentimental Value,” another film about a driven moviemaker seen from the perspective of the daughters, not the father. I think this film is the better of the two, even if it is more conventional in its storytelling.

Though it delves into some dark territory, Shortcomings has a light touch and is at times very funny. The hilarious Cola is easily the film’s MVP, but Mizuno and Maki are also quite good. The film’s self-awareness and humor about its protagonist are its greatest assets.

The Great Hack will be catnip for data wonks and mathematicians, but I sense its desired purpose is to be a cautionary tale for the general viewer. I think it’s a tad too long and a bit too wishy-washy when it should be angrier, but I was fascinated by it for a very specific personal reason.

The Green Prince gets its power from the back-and-forth of listening to each side tell its story, and from the moment the two sides converge in a final, very different collaboration in the United States.

The problem with gruesome true stores is that, if the outcome is known, a film needs to work well enough for you to patiently wait for it to get to the climactic re-enactment of the crime. Mope does not garner enough interest in either a storytelling or visual regard.

The Legend of Ochi is being pitched as a family movie by A24, but I don’t believe most kids would enjoy this slow-moving slog set in the Carpathian mountains.

Like Lee Daniels' hit TV drama “Empire,” Furious 7 is stuffed with situations that require go-for-broke absurdity, but even Daniels and his nighttime soap predecessor Aaron Spelling would pause before attempting the level of “get the f—k outta here!” style shenanigans director James Wan and writer Chris Morgan employ.

It’s one of this year’s best movies. I don’t know how it will fare at the box office, but I can see it becoming a beloved favorite in the same way “The Shawshank Redemption” ultimately did. Like that classic, this one really makes you think about life and the things we take for granted.

There’s an infectious joy to how the actors handle the morbid humor here, and it is never mean-spirited.

Once “M:I-TFR” kicks into action mode, the film becomes riveting as we await whatever crazy stunt Tom Cruise is going to spring on us.

Though it occasionally pulls its punches, the blows Chevalier does land sting and leave a mark.

The true stars of “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the dinosaurs, are often left unidentified; we’re not sure if they’re real or some genetically engineered, made-up monstrosity. The film is so disinterested that it simply throws them onscreen with occasional bits of human beings stuck between their teeth.

Barbershop: The Next Cut belongs, as the entire series does, to Cedric the Entertainer.

Blink Twice may be aiming for a feminist statement, but it’s ultimately just a slasher movie with a bunch of one-dimensional Final Girls played by Alia Shawkat, Trew Mullen, Liz Caribel, and “Hit Man”’s Adria Arjona.

The plot description is a good old-fashioned okey-doke, a distraction that lulls you with its absurdity so you’ll be blindsided by the lean, suspenseful and effective movie director Jon Watts delivers.

It’s commendable that the film is committed to the character-based world building evident in the first “Creed.” With this sequel, however, the Creed franchise seems destined to travel the same road the Rocky franchise did; the intensely personal and original vision of its creator is slowly being corrupted by the seductive demons of fan service.

The movie is big and ostentatious when its delicate, sad story needed to be more quietly told. Anderson definitely understands this idea; despite playing a chaotic and unlikable character, she’s the most stable element here.

At 105 minutes, Elstree 1976 became a bit of a slog for me. Visually, the talking heads-style of documentary can be very dull.

It’s Mortensen and his smokes that seal the deal. Puffing away, he is dangerously sexy and morally dubious, the latter of which makes perfect sense as we are in Patricia Highsmith territory.

A sex comedy that just lays there and expects you to do all the work. Gordon-Levitt's direction is repetitive and dry, and his screenplay is a collage of badly cut out pieces from other movies.

By giving his actors a three-dimensional world, del Toro sparks their imaginations — and ours. The result is a beautiful, bittersweet, and occasionally horrific look at what it means to be human.

It’s not as memorable as the original, but like a good piece of chocolate, Wonka is at its most delectable when you’re consuming it.

If only this movie were as interesting as the truth. Tatum’s sparkling charm can only take him so far; the script, by Cianfrance and Kirt Gunn, spends way too much time on a romantic subplot filled with sitcom scenarios and uninteresting characters.

Gillespie and his editor Kirk Baxter cycle through scenes of these one-dimensional characters, headache-inducing montages of cable news footage, YouTube re-creations, and TikTok videos. The pacing is frenetic, but the content is mind-numbingly dull.

Black folks don’t need the classes in Racism 101 “Master” offers; life gives us PhD’s early on. It’s not for horror fans because it’s a complete failure as a horror movie.

Ron Howard’s latest directorial effort is a tedious, mediocre retelling of the June, 2018 incident where 12 Thai adolescents and their soccer coach were trapped in a flooded cave for 18 days.

While I enjoyed “Elio,” and I appreciated the animation and Rob Simonsen’s lovely orchestral score, I felt that this film was more tailor-made for adult sci-fi fans rather than their young kids. To be clear, I’m not saying you should leave your kids at home — there’s nothing objectionable here. I’m just saying they might be as bored as you usually are at some of these movies.

The big surprise is that none of these talented voice actors bring anything new or interesting to their one-dimensional roles.

Summer of 85 plays like a bad parody of movies like Love Story and Summer of ’42, stories where some undeserving male learns a valuable lesson from a love affair and death.

Colman and Banderas have a great time hamming it up, and their fun is quite infectious. Walters is also at her spiky best. They help make this a worthwhile afternoon at the cinema.

I’ve seen Ismael’s Ghosts twice, and both times I got the feeling that I was missing something. The film feels very personal, as if writer/director Arnaud Desplechin were sorting out his thoughts, processes and demons onscreen.

This is one overstuffed horror movie recipe, with a dash of “The Exorcist” and a spritz of “Ghost” among its tasty ingredients.

Unfortunately, the film gets derailed by tonal inconsistencies and a clichéd plot that undermines the strength of its memorable outlier sections.

Driving Madeleine is held together by the funny and dignified performances of its two leads.

I am always game for a movie that makes me reckon with my personal feelings and biases, and I’m glad this one exists because representation will always speak volumes. If nothing else, Critical Thinking reminds you what a chess player can look like.

Though there’s nothing new or transformative here, The Courier stays afloat due to the acting by Buckley, Cumberbatch, and Ninidze.

Though Courtney and Harrison give their all, this is a slick-looking yet routine exercise that wastes an ideal premise.

Though “Twisters” lives up to the sequel maxim of being louder, larger, and busier, director Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) and screenwriter Mark L. Smith don’t deviate from the first film’s formula. Watching the sequel is like playing Mad Libs with the original’s plot.

The beats play in a suspense thriller’s register, creating a heightened tension that is often unnerving. We are living the story through the eyes of a lover desperate to reconnect with her beloved, and her feelings of desperation, concern and fear bleed directly into the frame.

The absurd plot twists in “Drop,” might be tolerable if the film weren’t so distastefully tethered to domestic violence.