Rex Reed

The result is a colossal bore that is never passionate, exciting, sexy or entertaining, with an ill-fated titled performance by Joaquin Phoenix that borders on catatonic.

Nothing new in any of it, but the tenderness of his performance stretches Bernal’s talents to the point of heartbreak, and his fearless and startling determination to “let it all hang out” results in a challenging star performance that is a thrill to watch and a privilege to applaud.

It’s as scary as a pumpkin pie left in the oven too long. Instead of horror, it’s pretty funny.

At the Gates is a noble film that forces you to think about both sides of a controversial issue in a new light. Not exactly a masterpiece, but highly recommended.

It’s been years since either Meg Ryan or David Duchovny appeared in a feature film, but now that they’re back, co-starring in a two-hander called What Happens Later, it’s fairly obvious that neither has forgotten anything about charm or how to keep a mediocre movie alive. They’re still appealing. This film is not.

Based on her one-dimensional book Elvis and Me, the movie is a superficial chronicle of minutiae in the life of a naive girl, blinded by phony illusions of glamour, longing for affection from a child-man who never grew up, and trapped behind closed doors of toxic fame from Hollywood to Graceland. In the darkness beyond the klieg lights, it wasn’t much of a life—and it’s not much of a movie, either.

The result of so much consecration and loyalty to the subject matter is a movie of uncommon exhilaration.

In the end, I recommend seeing it, but I think Killers of the Flower Moon is the kind of movie you respect and admire without much actual enjoyment. With all the evident hard work, dedication and fidelity to facts, it’s still an hour too long and not a film I would ever want to see twice.

A real-life story with social issues about capitalism that is entertaining and funny while it makes you think, without being too earnest and serious.

Written and directed by Garth Davis from a 2018 novel I never want to read by Iain Reid, Foe is not just a bad dream. It’s a colossal nightmare.

Written and directed with muscle and grit by Kitty Green, The Royal Hotel is loaded with grim ambiance, and there is even some suspense, mainly while the viewer waits to see if anything will ever happen.

Not a bad film, just a dull and inconsequential one. here today and gone tomorrow.

The movie needs more of that charisma and fewer cigarette butts to make Golda a woman as memorable on the screen as she was in real life.

The point finally arrives when you realize an initially interesting plot ceases to make much sense, the screenplay by Christopher Salmanpour is nothing more than a series of elaborate red herrings, and director Nimród Antal has nothing to do but increase the noise level and blow up as much of downtown Berlin as legally possible.

It’s pretty foreboding, loaded with atmosphere, dark as midnight and thick as a deadly fog. Also very well made and justifiably terrifying.

A feel-good fairy tale that collapses under the weight of its own silliness, Red, White and Royal Blue is a gay rom-com that dazzles visually but defies all attempts at anything resembling plausibility.

Sachs gives his actors the space to develop complex characters that make us feel their unhappiness and disillusion. The film captures the moods of relationships in transition without ever being condescending or judgmental. The sex scenes and nudity are so graphic that it’s safe to say this is not a film for everyone, but is as relentlessly moving as it is fascinating.

A fact-based film about the life-altering pain of failure, the thrill of belated success, and the challenges inherent in both, Dreamin’ Wild is a testament to a musical family who epitomize the old saying “No matter how long it takes, if you wait long enough, your dream will come true.”

It’s not dull, you won’t dare doze, and there’s something to be said about a cast of bloodthirsty carnivores in the middle of an actor’s strike.

Sweet and well-intentioned but bland and disappointing, The Miracle Club is one of those slow, meandering Irish dramas that inspire more respect than excitement.

The saga of the guy who was the Tom Cruise of the 1950s now forms the shadow and substance of a funny, sad, meticulously researched and painstakingly detailed documentary, Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, whose debut film Seventeen showed great promise, this maudlin soap opera is a disappointment, despite a strong performance by the extraordinarily gifted veteran actor Brian Cox. He makes every moment he’s on the screen throb with understated honesty, but Prisoner’s Daughter doesn’t boast much of anything else worth remembering.

Loren & Rose is the kind of exemplary film that depends on the value of feelings expressed through words. Fortunately the economical direction and illuminating dialogue, triumphs of nuance and revelation, are both by Russell Brown, a pliant and meticulous filmmaker worth keeping an eye on.

Like all Wes Anderson movies, it is enigmatic, artificial, infuriatingly self-indulgent and irrevocably pointless.

Expertly mounted, beautifully acted and meticulously detailed, it’s another harrowing Holocaust drama in the line of endless films about World War II, notable primarily as a rare entry in the filmography of Vadim Perelman, the highly regarded director of House of Sand and Fog.

The Boogeyman, a pointless, misguided and totally incomprehensible waste of time, is yet another horror film that exists for the sole purpose of exploiting the endless desk-drawer doodlings of writer Stephen King.

This one is certainly different. That doesn’t mean it’s good. It’s just different.

The dialogue is witless and dull. The direction by Tony Dean Smith gives the actors nothing meaty to do beyond mouthing words designed to move the narrative forward.