Rodrigo Perez

The Deepest Breath isn’t hiding the fact that there are daring hazards involved with athletes risking their lives for world records, but it isn't exactly forthcoming either, and the failure to effectively thread that needle is its biggest problem.

Crafted with stillness, empathy, and clever drollness, “Fremont” is so striking it will simply and calmly demand your attention. So seemingly introverted, humble, and unassuming, it’ll force you to lean in, listen and heed all the humorous words of wisdom in its many little moments of providence.

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.

It’s a striking and intimate piece of cinema, a heartrending tale of living with and battling neurological disorders, the love necessary to endure it, and the anguished dolor of remembrance.

The filmmakers should take pride in what they’ve achieved, how they’ve earned it, the story they’ve told, and the impeccable, thrilling animation craft that’s collaged, fragmented, and leaps off the screen into your eyeballs. For that alone, they should take a bow.

The minor problem of it all is while what Anderson is trying to say can be read across the sky like a beautifully glistening moonbeam; it does often lack the craterous depth of feeling we know he’s capable of when doing his best creative and emotional astrography.

Hypnotic features a well-crafted suspense sequence or two, a couple of clever twists – but also some wildly stupid ones, and a bone-headed over-explainer ending that treats the entire audience like dopes. [Work in Progress SXSW 2023]

Sentimentality, earnestness, and the ability to tap into naked vulnerability—normally [Gunn's] great qualities—get the best of him, turning ‘Vol 3’ into a largely maudlin, overwrought, overstuffed, and melodramatic mess that only works in fits and starts.

It’s incredibly soulless, disposable, and as generic as they come.

The Covenant is so self-assured in its noble filmmaking values and beliefs. It makes a knowing nod between two men— and the heroically punishing sacrifices they risked for one another— one of the most moving moments on screen this year.

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.

Throughout its trials and tribulations, Wild Life softly asks the question: what kind of life do you want to live? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? And these kinds of inspired actions certainly move the heart and soul and prove that the best of humanity has their heart in the right place at the very least.

Quantumania is not all dud, per se. Even if it’s not as comical or entertaining as usual, there is a good cast involved here, Kathryn Newton is a welcome edition, and Paul Rudd can’t help but elevate sub-par material. But otherwise, Quantumania is shockingly unremarkable.

Murphy and Hill do lift the film often, the former being wryly sarcastic and meanspirited but cool, the latter finding much comedy in being overly vulnerable, earnest, and painfully sincere. But otherwise, this comedy has no safe spaces for anything resembling authentic human behavior, the kind that anchors comedy to feature truths that make laughs all the more lacerating.

Stutz in the end isn’t revelatory per se, but it is deeply heartfelt, intimate, nakedly honest, and engaging.

Potent with ideas and feelings, ‘Wakanda Forever’ ultimately triumphs nonetheless through heart, soul, grit, and a great sense of visceral urgency.

Despite the A-list team all returning for the sequel, the frisson is gone, and Enola Holmes 2 feels much more elementary, primary, and uninspired.

It’s an audacious odyssey that buckles under the weight of all its ornate and flights of quirky fancy. But if you’re a cynical optimist that’s disgusted with the rise of despotism, absolutism, rancid lies, revolting white supremacist beliefs but still wants to believe in humanity, hope, and the goodness of people, it might just strike a major chord.

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

Unpretentious and unassuming, but effective, Corbijn creates his own cozy, sleeve for these trailblazers to get their due and creates a must-watch for rockologists everywhere in the process.

Boldness and ambition may get the best of the film, but just like Booksmart, which announced the promising beginning of an intriguing directorial voice, Wilde proves she’s not a one-hit-wonder, at least technically and artistically. Don’t Worry Darling may be a misstep, but Wilde’s still got a flair for cinema that feels worth keeping an eye on.

Rich, layered, and full of beautiful shapeshifting emotional depth—at times laugh-out-loud funny, and then stopping on a dime to turn melancholy, heartrending, and or horrifying—The Banshee of Insherin will surely unsettle audiences trying to pinpoint blame or ascribe a hero or villain to the piece. Its morality and personal sympathies are purposefully opaque.

It’s a classic “Predator” film in many ways, subverting the paradigm slightly by featuring a new context: a Native American female warrior at its center, Naru (a persuasive Amber Midthunder, full of conviction). But as fresh as Prey does feel in this new warpaint on the surface, the film does feature a lot of inherent, built-in limitations.

While it has its moments, a few good laughs, a few impressive thriller sequences, and Evans with his delectably douchey little trash stash, “The Gray Man” is generally an unremarkable swing and miss that wants the best of both worlds, but can’t really thread that needle.

Thor: Love & Thunder can be enjoyable in spots, but disposably and inconsequentially so.

Like the discreet, uncluttered canvass of her works— minimalist, spare, and with just enough inviting details to inspire your curiosity—Reichardt leaves generous space and room for the viewer to contemplate. And I would argue the captivating and delicately considered Showing Up leaves much to consider about why we make art and what we’re trying to say while making it.

Wistfully looking back on the past with a mix of affection for those we have lost, a melancholy yearning for the more tender age of innocence, and anxiety and regret for our trespasses, Gray’s stripped-down drama is a clear-eyed and emotionally intelligent work of great empathy.

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.