Odie Henderson

One of 2023′s best films, “The Taste of Things” is achingly romantic and devastatingly sad. You’ll spend the first two-thirds of this movie salivating, and the last third of it sobbing.

Johnson tries her best, and O’Connor is good for a few laughs, but “Madame Web” is a lost cause. The special effects are confusing and the action scenes are poorly edited. By the time we get a rote explanation of Webb’s powers, it’s too late to care.

Bob Marley: One Love opts to print the legend, but it will just make you want to listen to “Legend.”

If you love food porn, this movie will satiate your appetite for visions of French food while providing much insight into how that food is prepared.

Though the last third of the film feels rushed, and Bennebjerg’s performance hews dangerously close to mustache-twirling-villain territory, there is much to admire and enjoy here. Arcel has made the kind of cinematic spectacle Hollywood used to excel at, but doesn’t make anymore.

Argylle is a cynical cash grab that has the audacity to use that “new” Beatles song, “Now and Then” (itself a cynical cash grab pieced together with far more skill than this movie) as the basis for its score and the “love theme” for Aidan and Elly.

It’s not a fun time at the movies, but it’s an informative and worthy one.

This film isn’t terrible; it’s just empty. There are few things more disappointing than a genre movie that forgoes developing its intriguing premise to focus on cheap, failed attempts to thrill.

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

Though I enjoyed both films, I had the same problem with this “Mean Girls” as I did with the original: I didn’t know whom to root for as the story played out.

Samuel’s sophomore full-length feature is an ambitious misfire, a noble failure that starts off like “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” and ends like “The Passion of the Christ.”

Night Swim has its characters make infuriatingly asinine decisions to serve its plot.

It’s simultaneously cathartic and heartbreaking.

Driver and Cruz are perfect surnames for actors starring in a movie called “Ferrari.” That was just one of the many thoughts I had as the minutes slowly ticked by. At least the loud sound mix kept me awake.

The Color Purple ultimately works far better in pieces than as a whole. Considering those pieces contain some of the best moments I’ve seen in 2023, I’m able to put my concerns aside as a mildly nagging uncertainty.

Unfortunately, Durkin’s script is so shallow that every character is reduced to a simple sketch.

The satire isn’t as brutal as it could have been — and perhaps needed to be — but overall, I thought “American Fiction” was a rousing success that got me thinking about my own experiences.

Parents will be tortured by this film. If the whiny adult ducks and their even whinier kids don’t give them a headache, the garish animation will.

In a year of movies with bloated runtimes, Kaurismäki keeps his at a brisk and welcome 81 minutes, not one of which is wasted.