Rodrigo Perez

There’s certainly necessarily nothing off with Diane Von Furstenberg: Woman In Charge in terms of its craft, its breezy structure, its slick pace, etc. It’s a handsomely made documentary, but it always borders on fawning puff pieces, letting us into the life of the fashion mogul but still making you feel like it’s a surface portrait meant to resell something vintage, like a classic dress everyone already knows and admires.

Elusively told to the point of irritation, joyless and shot in chilly incarcerating rooms, War Story has the look and feel of an exhausted ashtray and borders on the pretentiously unclear.

For all its rage about moral decline and the psychic poison of content culture, Faces Of Death never rises above the same cheap sensationalism it pretends to condemn. Instead of confronting the sickness, it feeds on it and spits out something just as rancid as the faux snuff films it claims to abhor.

Its patchy tone, plot, characters and sympathies make for a film that’s difficult to wholeheartedly endorse.

Carnahan may be the real MVP here. “The Rip” isn’t a masterpiece, and it can be blunt and workmanlike by design, but it’s brawny, confident, and it moves.

Ultimately, Aster just unleashes his inner freak and vomits it all on the screen, with anxious flop sweat, jittery bodily fluids, squishy terror, paranoia, and some gut-busting laughs that prove this writer is deeply troubled in the best and most complicated odd way possible.

Mangold has crafted the definitive portrait of this era and the poetic, aspiring, rebellious kid who refused to be pigeonholed, held down and defined.

If you’re seeking an escapist popcorn-like thriller, Caught Stealing should do the trick. But if you’re yearning for something more substantive, you may end up feeling slightly swindled. Still, credit Aronofsky for picking your pocket with a deft touch, and stealing a base with style.

Ron Howard arguably captures it in his enjoyable, escapist ‘Solo’ movie, but the burden of keeping fans happy means if you’re looking for surprises, you may have come to the wrong place.

Both Stearns and Gillan commit to the detached tenor. Still, it’s often more distant and isolating than it is funny, therefore leading to a movie that feels misjudged and far too remote, even for those well-versed and conversant in this weirdly lopsided style.

Godzilla asks you to care about its characters, achieves that aspiration, earns your trust, and then not only pivots towards a far less interesting character, but abandons most of its absorbing emotional legwork for a fairly rote and straightforward rock ‘em, sock ‘em monster movie.

Campy and cartoonish, Burton’s Big Eyes is not the return to form many were hoping for. It is another phony and hollow piece of sugary kitschploitation masquerading under the guise of an “important true story” that places a nearly grotesque premium on style over any traces over substance.

Eventually, the comedy coalesces enough to chalk up a small win. Mind you, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F isn’t reinventing the wheel, and low expectations might help. But it does make a remarkable transition from something that initially feels dire to something that eventually lights up, pleases, and produces some foul-mouthed ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ energy to feel familiar in the best sense.

Goodbye To All That is not going to impress the visual, form or style cinephiles of the world, but it really shouldn’t matter. The content is tops. And as an astute and empathetic portrait of human crisis, resolve and survival, it’s a wonderfully authentic and perfectly touching one.

Sleight is imaginative and refreshing as it shape-shifts effortlessly through familiar narrative tropes and invents something unexpected and unique.

Good Fortune is a refreshing comedy that audiences haven’t seen in a while, a movie with a message that both advocates for a cause and entertains.

While it’s hard to indict the movie for wanting to admire and honor this extraordinary girl, the movie loses its own inherent potency with a haphazard structure that jumps around far too much in time and a monotonous narrative about Malala overcoming oppressors to bravely speak out and inspire the world.

Enemy is a transfixing grand slam that certifies Villeneuve as the real deal and one of the most exciting new voices in cinema today.

Chandor crafts a film in that contemplated vein of consequences, with a moral consideration for everything at stake, including the very souls of these soldiers, No one comes out clean.

As an sensory experience, 'WOWS' is mostly a terrifically visceral one, a full throttle fast and furious bacchanalia of drug-fueled madness. But as a scathing indictment of American rapacity, it isn't particularly deep or resonant beyond the exterior.

The Yes Men Are Revolting is an entertaining and interesting examination of the anxieties that make us question who we are and if we’re making a difference. But on the whole, this minor film is not nearly as imperative as the vital activism these guys have dedicated their lives to.

If Suncoast ultimately lacks major insights, it is hard to argue that it at least combats its slenderness with a poignant sense of empathy and compassion for draining emotional hardships.

McKay’s movie is bold and impertinent and perhaps won’t be for audiences that want a film to play by the rules, but his chutzpah and ambition is something to behold.

Unflinchingly honest and grim, Sunlight Jr. is a valuable piece of work from a filmmaker who has a distinctive voice and concerns.

“You Have to See It to Believe It” is a well-worn movie cliché, but trust that it applies to this utterly bananas corporeal bath of cinema in all its glorious sound and vision. As the film ratchets up to its batshit, gnarly, and beautifully mutilated conclusion, man, prepare yourself for how transgressive and hypnagogic it gets.

The Wolverine wants to have it both ways: a dark character story and an action-packed superhero film. But it never reconciles the two notes, and thus becomes more and more atonal as it wobbles towards its symphonically jarring ending.

It’s an inferior, often frustrating film, it’s hard to root for, and its consideration of its people of color is dubious, even as it features them as protagonists. But nonetheless, there’s some value, especially in is visceral qualities and the chilling nihilism of its violence.

Decker is good at articulating sinister moods and unstable psyches, but anything resembling a cogent narrative is challenged.