Peyton Robinson

Despite an overall unsatisfying resolution to these inquiries, the ideas that the film prompts, coupled with Foster’s nuanced performance, make for a compelling enough character study.

Hinging on the nitpicking anxieties of the true crime genre, “Strange Harvest” maintains an air of abject horror, even if its penchant for ease nudges focus out of the way.

Corner Office is a sometimes-funny satire stuffed with capitalist ennui, but it bites with dull teeth, failing to provide enough support for its sentiment to stick.

Bob Trevino Likes It is overly convenient but touching, nonetheless.

The strength of the film is its heart, and Summer’s relationships are used not only narratively, but structurally. With frequent narration from Summer’s daughters, and a heavy focus on their childhoods with a loving but distant mother, their desire to understand her beyond her parenthood and into her personhood is the the movie’s foundation.

While its horror elements and overall structure lack gratification, it's the woman at its center and the submergence into her spirit that make it a poignant, wonderfully personal character study.

Magic Farm is eye-catching with its high saturation and punchy editing choices, but the seduction of bright and bold visuals is incompatible with Ulman’s unwieldy script. Her hands are full, and oftentimes clarity slips through her fingers.

The project of Anthem is special and compelling, but the documentary lets itself down.

Based on the book by A.M. Shine, “The Watchers” is Ishana Night Shyamalan’s directorial debut, a fabled narrative that seesaws between fantastical whimsy and proposed horrific terror with lots of ambition but little finesse.

There are certainly chuckle-worthy moments in the film, but they’re counted with a single hand.

With a repeated sourness in the film’s comedic efforts and a tragically misused ensemble, Haunted Mansion misses the chance to become a Halloween classic.

Peak Season feels like a bunch of friends making a film; at times, this intimacy and dialed-back scale is charming. At others, it pokes holes in the facade of the fourth wall, and immersion is lost.

The whole film feels like a production of calling in favors, as the relatively hotshot cast it drew seems incongruent with its content: a clichéd story of a disordered family over the holidays.

Putting on display the day-to-day reckonings of Palestinian life under violent Israeli occupation, Nabulsi’s film touches the heart but loses grip on the mind as it journeys to juggle more subplots than its hands can handle.

It’s passable for an easy watch and some uncomfortable chuckles but is bearable only on behalf of Hunter’s loyal antagonism while falling short just about everywhere else.

The primary struggle of Chernov’s documentary is that it leans into the impersonal in an attempt at devastation. It can’t rely on the men as the crutch of the film’s emotion.

Dark Harvest misses many beats necessary for a fully realized narrative. And yet the concept and its action-driven execution make a fun watch with some laughs of incredulity.

Rustin was undoubtedly made in admiration of its subject. Yet, with a stale approach to its plotline and confused narrative priorities, the film is more like an educational outline than a spirited story.

A Lot of Nothing takes a fraction of a stance on how Black people are socially caricatured and systemically discriminated against. So when the film reaches its big reveal and the discussion of it, it spins any assumption of intention into obscurity.

The moving parts of this thriller are subservient to nailing plot points down on a bulletin of perfectly wound red twine. On account of this, “The Woman in Cabin 10” entertains enough to pass the time, but certainly doesn’t thrill.

Sykes steps into the role enthusiastically, but Miller’s script (with cowriter Anita M. Cal) is beat-you-over-the-head melodramatic, making Sykes’ committed effort to deliver heartfelt pathos all the more difficult to buy.

The opening moments of the first act are rendered as the film’s best, as No One Will Save You continues to fall apart due to a frustrating lack of narrative context.

It’s a bit of a tropey mess, but the intent is clear: to have fun. And while the fun-having of the filmmaking itself translates well to the screen amidst a few genuine laughs, “London Calling” is mostly stale.

Where the central four characters' friendship and intersecting romantic relationships are meant to be the film’s grounding center, there's nothing but flimsy connections and dead air. There’s no chemistry between the characters and no genuine feeling in their performances.

Perhaps with less questions left unanswered, “Drift” would permit a more sympathetic lead, but the flatness and flippance of its context leaves everything on the surface.

The hazy horizons and warmth of the Wild West lend to stunning cinematography, but the bones of the visuals are not enough to support the film. Mandler’s direction is effective for the genre, but there’s a fatiguing number of posed cowboy-against-the-horizon shots that begin to feel kitschy on account of their frequency.

With the added threads of female-specific and child celebrity woven through, “Trust” had the potential to be not just thrilling but thoughtful. Yet with an unfocused eye and clumsy pen, it falls way short of the mark.

The circumstances of “Couples Weekend” are simply too convenient. Its simplicity hinders absorption, shielding viewers from taking in its vulnerability or lessons to heart. And with its similar struggle to elicit its intended laughs, Kirkpatrick’s film is a flat rendering of its jagged proposal.