Randall Colburn

Flanagan’s scares are so precise, so exquisitely timed, that they’re able to imprint the mind as much as quicken the pulse.

Morgan isn’t hard sci-fi. It isn’t trying to solve the questions that have suffused the genre since its inception. Rather, it couches those ever-more-timely concerns in scenes of high action and affecting character connection.

Johnson, being a primary voice behind some of this century’s most important documentaries, is a particularly qualified candidate to chronicle life in this way, and her greatest feat, one I can’t imagine anyone else achieving, is her ability to tell the story of her life without ever once talking about herself.

Rabe’s performance here is nothing short of stunning.

It’s vacuous, ugly, unfunny, and, somehow, not a satire. It might be the worst movie of the year.

A rich, complex drama that’s as much about consequence and justification as it is destiny.

Jump scares are all Sandberg seems to have in his bag of tricks, and each is clunkily executed and met with an agonizing, ear-piercing shriek. Watching Lights Out is like standing next to an idiot with an air horn, never quite knowing when it’s about to blow in your ear. It’s a far cry from the freaky grace of his short.

This is the kind of film that follows you home, that makes you scared to enter a dark alley or go in the basement.

The film’s comical bluntness could also be construed as off putting, but to criticize that is to deprive yourself the joy of such pulp. And this is pulp, from the brazenness of its violence to the dull bite of its clunky dialogue. What Election Year offers isn’t nuanced satire, but rather a kind of catharsis, a release that’s not so far off from what the Purge itself purports to provide.

Central Intelligence is genuinely funny, intriguingly plotted, and quite frankly one of the biggest surprises of the year.

At its core, it’s a simple and triumphant tale of sisterhood, but with so much ladled on top of it it begins to feel as though it’s grasping for a grandeur it doesn’t need. Sometimes, even the most intense emotions can benefit from a light touch.

In the end, it’s not Weiner with whom you’re furious, but a media climate that routinely prioritizes scandal and lewdness over the intricacies of a candidate’s platform. With the circus that is our forthcoming election rapidly approaching, this message is all the more resonant.

Don’t Think Twice is a brisk, engaging watch. It’s sweet, it’s melancholy, and, perhaps most importantly, it’s hilarious. And despite the film’s soft teeth, it’s still the most honest and unfiltered exploration of improv comedy you’re likely to find out of Hollywood.

London Has Fallen is terrorism porn, an alarmist, jingoistic piece of CGI-soaked garbage that implores its audience to fear nothing after sensationalizing the slaughter of innocents and the destruction of a major city.

This is a film about sisters, yes, but also the identity we all must forge independent of our families, and the pain that comes with outgrowing the innocence that once defined our sibling bonds.

Hart, the firecracker that he is, has a fitting comedic (and crime-fighting) partner out there somewhere. But it’s not in the Ride Along series.

Poekel and Audley keep exposition to a minimum, allowing the truth behind Noel’s breakup to emerge organically, in the weight of an object or his reaction to a beaming couple. It’s elegant filmmaking, seamless in its storytelling.