Richard Whittaker

Habit is so desperate to be edgy that it loops all the way back around to derivative, and wastes any potential Thorne might have brought to play.

That energy placed into making the audience look and listen out to the edges of the film makes Beth's central placement even more vital and enthralling; and by moving to The Night House, Hall is finally given the space that every previous performance has shown she deserves.

Sometimes the heartstrings need tugging to an old, established rhythm, played here with simple charm by Zhu, and given high notes by Hu's dedication to highlighting what being profoundly dyslexic can mean.

Even if it becomes a little more familiar in the third act, especially to fans of that weird era of Nineties supernatural action thrillers like End of Days and Fallen, it's undeniable that Demonic rips open new technical possibilities for horror.

Grounded and sweet, delicately bawdy, and decidedly hilarious, CODA puts an effervescent and original spin on the coming-of-age comedy-drama.

6:45 is a deliberately uncomfortable watch, a loveless romance that’s left to bleed out again and again.

In its mix of angsty formalism and sing-along fun, Annette may be the closest that musical cinema has come to when Brecht and Weill put a knife in Macheath's hand for The Threepenny Opera.

Suicide Squad just never quite has the heart of Guardians.

Sisto's direction is a victory of glacial tone over actual content, and John and the Hole's frustrations outweigh its insight into the forces that can spawn a monster.

What makes Fully Realized Humans all the funnier is the couple's conviction that they're always doing the right thing: and, again, if it wasn't for the wide-eyed smart-naïve performances from Wexler and Leonard the whole thing would be insufferable.

It may be about little more than a guy getting his head a little more straight than he thought it was and burying a few resentments that he didn’t even know were sticking up, but Ride the Eagle knows that a small, sad, personal story doesn’t have to be a tragedy. I

Lowery’s version works because, like Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson’s rewriting of L.A. Confidential, it captures the nature and meaning of the story rather than getting caught up in individual events or plot beats.

Val, while often tragic, is also a deeply spiritual film: a benediction of forgiveness for those that wronged him, and a mea culpa to those he has harmed (most especially, it seems, ex-wife Joanne Walley).

Ultimately, the slow boil bleakness of the script, with its subtle ruminations of what it is to go on in a time of hopelessness, is what marks Settlers apart, even as it looks and feels like so many of the post-apocalyptic drought-plagued SF dramas of the last few years.

To be fair, at least Old captures the sense of time passing past too fast: Rarely have I felt more like my life was slipping away in the cinema.

As much as Gillan, Headey, and the three Librarians (Bassett, Gugino, and Yeoh) of the gunplay apocalypse embrace the visual stylization and harshly annunciated dialogue, Gunpower Milkshake is immemorable. Like a decent milkshake, it's fine while you're consuming it, but chances are you won't remember it after the last slurp.

At a time when so many people are struggling to find something of value in their lives, when people are fleeing jobs, cities, futures they thought they wanted, Cage has crafted a quiet soliloquy about grasping on to something that has meaning. In some ways, this is one of his most emotionally brutal films.

It may all be a flashback, but Black Widow is truly a bridge with a true direction as the MCU moves into its post-Avengers era.

Cuartas tenderly catches the scenario at the end of the road, leaving only the question of who, if any, will be able to walk away. Not that their existence is tenable for anyone that crosses their paths, and Cuartas' script gives plenty of space for the core trio to explore their tragic roles in this disaster.

A new comedy classic whodunnit in the honored tradition of Clue, Werewolves Within finds the laughs in the jump scare, and brings back the uproarious joy of the "it's behind you!" creeping fright.

After Tommaso, which was Ferrara at his least apologetic, it's so fitting that his most epic film is also his most introspective.

What Wright makes us understand is that it's never really been that hard to understand Sparks. Plus, "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" is a stone-cold classic.

As a simple story of a moralizer being brought down by their own bloody instincts, it works; but asides about the catharsis of gore, and the inner evil of humanity not needing horror movies to be seeded, imply the script wanted something deeper.

As a heartfelt feel-good story about industrial espionage and how to win the right way, Hero Mode is charming if undemanding, and feels at least a little authentic to its milieu.

Unfortunately, the formulaic Spirit Untamed never seems to know which trail it's taking.

Between the cardboard characterization, the heavy-handed emotional outbursts, the intrusive murder subplot, locker room morale-boosting speeches that should have stayed in the locker room, a strange lack of meaningful emotional beats, and the utter inability to tackle its white-savior subtext, Under the Stadium Lights is pee wee by comparison to Peter Berg's All-American.

Finally recovered from the archive by the George A. Romero Foundation, and restored by New York's IndieCollect from two faded 16mm prints, its mere existence as a lost Romero is enough to make it worth watching. But it's not simply a dated curio: it's a fascinating if dated curio.

Underlit, shot in the same murky beiges that plague so many low budget horrors, and not as profound as it thinks it is, it isn't quite exploitation schlock or a cerebral shocker, instead relying on both conventions for a hybrid that ends up with the satisfaction of neither.

Unfortunately, it's also graceless and predictable, with absolutely no surprises between the start of the family's off-road adventure and their inevitable rescue by park rangers.

In The Heights is unashamedly romantic, fearlessly thrilling, endlessly optimistic and given life and voice through sheer love of people, of place – of community.

It's not if Michael gets out of his rut (or when he gets to chasten Pineapple a little along the way), but how, and it's a fun ride with him until he reaches that destination.

Remember that meme format about how “men will literally x instead of going to therapy”? That’s arguably the elevator pitch for Riders of Justice, a spiky, sensitive, lewdly humorous, and sporadically violent meditation on obsession, vengeance, and statistical probability.

Sheridan's flair has always been in ensembles, but here that trait is caught in a stalemate with the desire to provide an underwhelming Jolie with a star vehicle.

For experts in the field, who this is most undoubtedly aimed at, this is a rare and incisive look at one party's stance on one of the most important diplomatic initiatives of our time.

With their debut, Charbonier and Powell proved a rare grasp of childhood horror, and keeping the perspective of youth among adult sins. The Djinn is even more reliant on that ability, and on their extraordinary relationship with the returning Dewey.

Even if you like Snyder's non-superhero work, this feels like a serious step down.

In a time when happy endings seem in short supply, The Water Man's sense of heroic wonder is the kid-sized epic we need.

Tran undoubtedly aims for an old school Hong Kong comedy martial arts movie feel, lighthearted and light on its feet, and he lands that blow dead on. But rather than a knockout punch, it's a tickle on the ribs and a tussling of the hair from this sweet and funny action flick.

That Silo centers around the people of the town is what differentiates it from a media satire like Ace in the Hole, and places it alongside The Straight Story, God's Own Country, and Minari: films that feel like studies of rural life.

There's a sense of joy, distilled through a juxtaposition of images of celebration and ritual: women in a forest in Belarus, placing floral tributes on water; an elephant illuminated in a street fair; lanterns lifting into the air over Thailand like shooting stars in reverse; a Chinese cormorant fisherman with his bird; masked revelers at Bolivia's Carnaval de Oruro.

After all, Street Gang absorbs what was truly important about the show: that not every lesson is going to be fun, but that doesn't mean everything is terrible. Most importantly, it taught small kids their ABCs and 123s, while showing them that a beat-up, diverse neighborhood just like theirs could be the best place on Earth.

Mugen Train plunges straight into the continuity that its huge fanbase wants, and that opening walk among the tombstones sets up that there will be no release from the historical horror aspects that have made the show such a massive success.

It's a film that you absorb, until it slithers around and engulfs you.

In her first feature, Bleed With Me, director Amelia Moses used vampirism as a tool to explore toxic friendships: in Bloodthirsty, it's clear that the lycanthropic fate that awaits Grey is less than metaphorical.

The narrative trick that worked within the narrower confines of Krista seems almost absurd here, a leaden feel-good ending that sits at complete odds with the formless opening. Beast Beast is far better when it's abstract and observational, drifting somewhere between the wistful compassion of Jonah Hill's Mid90s and the sociological immediacy of Larry Clark's Kids.

Mortal Kombat commits the unforgivable sin of actually being boring duing the middle hour of training and exposition. Even when it finally gets into full combat mode, there's no tournament, just a 30 minute throw down between a bunch of vaguely recognizable characters.

Most anthologies have the framing mechanism simply service the stories they contain: Instead, Spindell weaves each tale into the bigger fabric, like bloody fat quarters making up a gruesome but surprisingly snugly quilt. When the pieces all are sewn together, the fully assembled The Mortuary Collection may well be the most wickedly fun anthology since Trick'r Treat.

Monday asks, what happens when that thing you do with your life in lieu of a plan becomes the plan?

By turns funny, grisly, tragic and insightful, Jakob's Wife carries the smartness of years. Never has the idea that vampire and vampire hunter are caught in a codependent relationship been more elegantly and humorously framed.

Sinister and hilarious, psychedelic yet grounded, absurdist while still gripping, In the Earth will take root in you.

The Tunnel may be shrouded in blistering embers and fumes, but it never loses sight of the victims and helpers, of whom there are many. Just as it's an ensemble drama, so it's the community that saves what it can of the day, and gives a feel-good ending with a tinge of sadness.

Violation, much like Brea Grant's Lucky, strikes hard at the heart of the impossibility of revenge. In her elegantly-structured script, writer/director Sims-Fewer rejects the idea of a revelation changing the perspective on a moment we have already seen. Instead, she contextualizes what we are to see.

It may stumble into heavy-handed moralizing around the checkout, but Slaxx is definitely a good look.

Seligman's script will strike a sharp chord in anyone that has run into overly-complicated situations at a family gathering (i.e. just about everyone). It feels like a hurdy-gurdy that is just enough put of tune to leave you uneasy, a sensation of queasiness further unbalanced by Ariel Marx's discordant, scratchy, string-and-timpani soundtrack

Of course, everything leads to the massive final battle, the pay-off we've been promised, and Wingard delivers.

Who do you cast when you've got a mid-tier supernatural thriller that needs a low-key but charismatic, talented but not showboaty, and recognizable actor to play one of the leads? Guy Pearce, of course, and without him under Peter's decidedly unpriestly demeanor then middling supernatural chiller The Seventh Day would barely raise a flutter of attention, never mind a spirit.

Happily drifts into the same kind of sci fi-tinged bourgeois relationship drama territory as Elizabeth Moss/Mark Duplass four-hander The One I Love, or the dimension-hopping dinner party of indie fave Coherence. Snide, sleek, and effortlessly biting, Happily is wittier and meaner than either, but also curiously romantic, like an episode of The Twilight Zone with a score by the Mountain Goats.

Where The Toll feels like its overdrawn is in the narrative. Even at a sparse 80 minutes, the build of the tension and set-up of Cami and Spencer's mistrusting relationship is too extended. If the film is asking asking you to pay it in time, the return on investment may seem a little low.

Just like the best of the 1980s actioneers, Nobody has just the right mix of brains, brawn, and gut-busting laughs.

Gaunt, reserved, unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight having risked life and limb to avert nuclear war, he's a figure from a bygone time, a bygone culture, and that's what Dominic Cooke captures so perfectly.

Cherry is a small-scale tragedy, one repeated over and over again in broad sweeps, but still specific to this one instance. The issue is that, when the audience knows the inevitable path, there are limited opportunities for surprises – especially since the Russos set the entire story as a flashback.

It's easy to see this coming out in 1998 with Ashley Judd as Rebecca, and Carey Elwes under Victor's tattooed skin. However, this midbudget drama doesn't have quite that star power, and it definitely lacks the visual flair of that era's overdriven and weird procedurals.

For a film that is so fresh, thrilling and overdue in its very existence, just by having three Asian-American women leads, the narrative seems hidebound: for a story that break so far from the traditions of the Disney fairytale, it's still deeply predictable.

Lucky is not simply not a rape-revenge film. It's a brutal, brilliant rebuttal to the idea of a fit of cathartic violence.

Sweet, silly, with that profoundly bizarre world view that makes a snail trail gag open to everyone for a laugh, this may not change SpongeBob forever, but it's more SpongeBob as we love him, and that's all the fun you can need.

Huang's understatement often seems flat. There's nothing visually distinctive about his depiction of diverse working class NYC, and major events bubble up with surprisingly little impact. With so much on the line, Boogie just sort of dribbles to nothingness.

There are some great sequences of just Tom and Jerry that feel like Tom and Jerry. There's just so much else, too much else, going on, and most of it involves the cast staring at animated animals added in post.

The audience is required to invest their emotional energy in seven people who consistently make terrible decisions and give even worse advice, and it's not worth the return.

Anodyne and asinine in equal measures, The Violent Heart is just brainless.

Witty, astute, perfectly absurd in a plausibly grounded way, and political without feeling like a polemic, Hutton' quiet satire is merciless about life in the daily hustle - and a lesson about the power of the worker.

That's the nuanced naturalism that makes Minari so captivating, so intimate: It doesn't tell a complicated story, instead letting the roots and branches of its family drama grow and become entwined with the audience's own stories.

First time writer-director Zoé Wittock takes an absurd idea and imbues it with such heart, soul, and beauty that you'll automatically look past the inherent ridiculousness. Instead, you'll simply absorb its glowing sense of wonder.

The Mauritanian wants to be a fusion of Papillon and A Few Good Men, but it cannot work out whether it wants to make a purely emotive argument, or engage in a brutal cross-examination of the legal system.

Bateman's worldbuilding introduces stranger elements that are always counterbalanced by more grounded emotional developments, keeping the audience engaged as hard as the esoteric mythology pushes them away. In that delicate balance it bypasses the logical parts of the brain and speaks purely in quiet emotional truths.

Like code that works but inefficiently, the length is both a feature and a bug. Mercifully, Ascher's most visually original movie to date keeps those TED lecture seat-shuffling blues at bay.

Combined with the glacially slow and uneventful narrative, the end result feels like a feature by a small, cheap animation studio in 2010 trying to make a Miyazaki-esque cartoon.

If there are two signatures to Indonesian horror, they would be an overwhelming sense of relentless dread, and poisonous centipedes. The Queen of Black Magic has plenty of both, and an enthralling supernatural siege story binding everything together so tight you'll barely be able to breathe.

It's a slow build to collapse, escaping the traditional trap of such supernatural suspense films in that both of them have secrets, and it's not the acts themselves but the deceits that have led them to this place.

It's a hodgepodge of wildly divergent narrative styles, from the mystical to the grisly and into the ridiculous.

Knapp's script is ultimately about how we are trapped in our own pasts, and even when they can seem like a pillow they can become an anchor. It's a soft, sad, yet insistent message that, even as the grass overtakes the baseball pitch where Adam practices, and even as the last windmills slow their spin, becomes a quiet voice of hope.