Richard Whittaker

Director Dan Trachtenberg proved deft at re-envisioning franchise when he dumped the kaiju found footage gimmick of Cloverfield in favor of character-driven survivalist paranoia for 10 Cloverfield Lane and Prey is no less of a worthy twist of the garrote.

If you weren't afraid of heights before, then Fall will give you the fear. Welcome to vertigo hell, mainly due to the work of cinematographer MacGregor.

Luck feels overthought and overwritten. There's a lithe, fun, bright, and much shorter movie in here somewhere.

All too often, in life and in cinema, systems are shown as working simply to oppress: Thirteen Lives reminds us that communal acts can be what literally save us.

As the falsehoods stack up and fall away, My Old School will increasingly leave you slack-jawed.

It takes a special kind of smart to be really, really dumb. And make no mistake, Bullet Train is a really, really dumb movie. Like, every gunshot echoes around its gloriously vacant skull. Because there's also a particular kind of smart-dumb film that is endlessly, idiotically fun, and that's what Bullet Train is.

League of Super-Pets is a lighthearted, generically animated, fun time out for the kids.

Nope is spectacular and intriguing, but also frustratingly incomplete.

Visually stunning (as can now be expected from esteemed studio Production I.G.), what truly distinguishes The Deer King is in the narrative, and how it is laid out by the co-directors, Miyaji (Fusé: Memoirs of a Huntress) and directorial first timer Ando.

Poser, the debut feature from local filmmakers Ori Segev and Noah Dixon, is so in love with the scene from which it draws, with the bands given momentary cameos, with the cool hipness and store brand subversion of it all, that they never seem quite capable of giving it the critique for which they seem to aim.

What's fundamentally uninteresting about Love and Thunder is Waititi's inability to recognize any character development over the last decade, or to move Thor forward.

There's a narrative of sorts in Mad God, but it's episodic and disconnected. It's less a story than an anthology built around exploration of an ecosystem.

Down With the King the album was a response to a rap scene that was leaving the originators behind: Down With the King the film is about a musician abdicating his throne, an existential crisis laid out with delicacy and insight.

It's the period details that really make The Black Phone ring. It's not the set dressing, or the costumes, or the hairstyles (although Jeremy Davies does sport a fantastic muttonchops-mullet merger as Gwen and Finney's alcoholic, abusive father). It's that grimy sense of the era, that way that kids felt left to their own devices. This is an Amblin adventure drenched in R-rated fear.

There's never a singular direction for the film and its sub-plots, but instead it's as if Daneskov strikes for a central mood, then lets each element wander a little away from it: not far enough to be disruptive, but never quite cohesive. Like the misguided men it follows, its charm is in its disorder.

Mid-Century may fit well into the zip code of architectural horror like 13 Ghosts and The Night House, but its unique design makes it well worth the visit.

In its funny, implausible, and heartwarming depiction of a ramshackle platonic friendship between two oddballs, Brian and Charles creates a complete and immersive world – rainier than, but not that far removed from, Kyle Mooney's equally idiosyncratic and endearing fantasy Brigsby Bear.

If Raiff's first film was about two neurotic characters learning to get out of their own heads, then Cha Cha Real Smooth is a tenderly bittersweet story about a couple learning to use theirs.

Somehow, there’s more than a little bit of fun to be had in this oddball little throwback, filled with mischievous glee and a sullied heart of gold.

Deep in the Heart is a reminder to everyone, whether they're raising cattle, walking through a state park, or just turning on a tap, that their actions have consequences for the state's beautiful biodiversity. It's an extraordinary document of the Lone Star State’s wildlife, and a remarkable call to action.

It's a film that inspires, that will make you want to try the silly, impossible, wonderful thing.

Coldly gorgeous and never less than enthralling, Watcher is undoubtedly worth watching.

Annie is a lot to handle, even for the truncated 77-minute run time, and maybe it would work better as a V/H/S 20-minute slot – but then you wouldn't get quite so amazingly infuriated by her. Dashcam, like few films, relies on your annoyance.

Crimes may lack the incisive wittiness of eXistenZ or the suppurating nightmares of The Fly, but even lesser Cronenbergian body horror is something to behold.

Just because you can shove a bunch of IPs together, should you? Especially when the motivation is a 90-minute joke about beloved TV series, with a lot of cheese-as-cocaine gags. Who is it for? People who still laugh at uncanny valley jokes. For those that don't, no reason to worry, because most of the references will be explained to you.

Lux Æterna is barely a film – even Noé has called it an essay – but then it's not meant to be complete. Created in five days on Yves Saint Laurent's franc (one has to wonder what they thought they were getting), it's a discussion, not a conclusion.

Nothing here really works. Even a surprisingly flat score from horror master John Carpenter (who was originally slated to direct the '84 version) can't save Firestarter from being a colossal misfire.

Scott subtly weaves those stories together by having every talking head be simply a voice, unified in their belief that this weekend was vital, an affirmation that it was OK to be young and broke.