Rodrigo Perez

Largely exhilarating across the board, ‘Dead Reckoning’ is easily the best installment thus far (at least for this writer who has desperately wanted that aforementioned pulse), and perhaps precisely because the movie is actually about something this time.

“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.

An engaging and initially very promising drama about alcoholism, redemption and forgiveness that grows uneven and long-winded as it progresses.

The Bone Temple does have plenty on its mind about illness and outbreaks—perhaps the sickness that is mankind and the freakshow we doomscroll witness every day— it simply buries those thoughts under layers of bloody viscera and wreckage. That’s the movie’s defining tension: beauty against barbarism, hush against havoc, and the fleeting possibility of grace pressed up against the certainty of carnage.

Transmitting such a deep and moving paean of a band, the music they’ve created, the complex humans behind it, and bow-down respect for the long-haul resilience they’ve demonstrated over years of ups and downs, Wright presents a movie like a superdeluxe mixtape gift, adorned with loving attention to detail, gorgeous artwork, footnotes, and other bells and whistles, that is extremely easy to fall head over heels for regardless of your conversant knowledge of the band or its odd, but catchy music.

The Internship might be the best worst comedy of the year thus far.

Its craft can be impressive: Zobel’s film possesses a searing, slow burn tone that’s beautifully controlled. The movie is admirably patient and gives breathing room and space for these relationships to bloom believably and organically. But the build to a climax is far too slow and with little emotional payoff.

Melding the anxiety of the unknown and the fear of who we truly are in our core, all that we try and compartmentalize emotionally as human beings, Gray crafts a movie that is deeply personal, thought-provoking, and thrilling.

An uninspired narrative and disengaged performances ultimately keep persuasive deep feeling and captivation at a far distance.

Finders Keepers tries to find the humanity in the absurd, and while it surely has its share of moving moments, the conciliation of the sensational and profound is hard to reconcile.

Comedy enthusiasts will love the look back on the groundbreaking magazine, its talented players, and the way the doc captures its irreverent spirit.

Annihilation is mesmerizing and its awe-inspiring conclusion will leave your mind blown and splattered against the wall. In its final, surreal biopsychological moments the movie goes to an astonishing interstellar gear.

Immense, remarkably captivating, imposing, and right on the edge of overblown, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” is a spectacular blockbuster epic in the grandest sense of the tradition.

The Plague is a movie-movie, rather than a genuinely searching or affecting film about that most awkward age when fitting in with a group can seem like the most important thing in the world.

Clinical in nature and matter-of-fact (but still affecting), The Assistant is essentially a procedural about being a personal assistant to a powerful Hollywood man and all that entails.

In truth, the deeply absorbing and thematically rich ‘Apes’ sequel is more akin to a drama than an action film, but it's one that still satisfies the desires and demands of big, blockbuster filmmaking.

Deeply resonant and soulful, Life Of Pi, is a harrowing journey of survival, self-discovery and connection that both inspires and awes in equal measure.

There’s nothing lost in the translation of Fences, but its high fidelity means there’s little, if any, inspiration to be found within.

It’s a beautiful tribute and a wonderful farewell to a legend, father, and artist.

As much as “Top Gun: Maverick” whips from a technical, visceral, thrill-making, supersonic-level, the entire endeavor and every little moment of introspection, suffering and determination is all the more accentuated, strengthened and fist-pumpingly good because you care so damn much about the story, the people and their very human concerns.

Poignant and poetic, After Yang is a soulful and heartbreaking meditation on impermanence full of poignant wonder and riches of human grace.

It’s part raw and ugly character study, part ensemble comedy, but it’s that first element that is so striking, bold and unnerving, while the latter element is sometimes amusing, but familiar.

Junun is Paul Thomas Anderson at his most laid back. Not bothering with instructive context, the picture finds him absorbing the energy of the musicians through their instruments and personas. A scrappy film that never feels precious about itself or its subject matter.

It’s truly a wild, blazing ride if you get on the movie’s bruising, mesmeric wavelength, a tragic but deeply moral film about a righteous, transactional man who has truly weighed and considered the cost of the wicked transgressions committed against his country, his fellow man, and his own soul.

Results isn’t always a successful film, but its philosophies about the myths of perfection as they apply to love are at least credible, funny and well observed.

The Lost City Of Z won’t be for all viewers, but its delicate devotion to itself is something sure to inspire admiration and obsessives.

The heroine of the film may not be in distress, but oh boy, is this movie in desperate need of saving.

A movie about manhood, brotherhood and the unexpected bonds of fraternity, explored in all their brutality and twisted humor, The Sisters Brothers presents the cruel hostilities of the world, the innocence lost in the madness and the possibilities of a humanity still to be found scattered through the debris of American carnage.