Ross McIndoe

Ed Harris and Jessica Lange electrifyingly bring so many of their characters’ emotions to the surface, even as they convey that James and Mary are burying so much more beneath it.

When The Surfer does break out of the sun-addled fugue state that marks its midsection, it delivers a gonzo finale that lets Nicolas Cage rev himself up into his most manic, meme-able self.

The film is full of little moments that speak clearly to the particularities of father-son bonds.

Geeta Gandbhir’s trenchant documentary takes incendiary material and aims it at a larger target.

Grafted’s biggest problem is that it loses all momentum once the face-swapping kicks into motion, meandering along with no real sense of rising danger or ensuing consequence as the baton is passed from one victim to the next.

While it’s never didactic or heavy-handed about its messaging, Paddington in Peru also offers an idea of Britishness that’s multifaceted and modern.

The film is most interesting when observing the subtler power dynamics at play within frats.

In many ways, the film feels like a micro-budget rendition of Tenet, as our heroes discover that they’ve been caught in a “vice-grip” between past and future that functions much like that film’s famous “temporal pincer.”

The camera, the cuts, the needle drops, and story twists all contribute to the feeling of a machine that’s spinning faster and faster until finally it careens right out of control.

The film retreads ideas familiar from time-loop stories without offering anything especially new.

Blink Twice clearly has thoughts about the danger that men can pose and the way women are forced to perform happiness while in the company of such predators, but it never provides more than a surface-level understanding of such dynamics.

With The Outrun’s neat but poignant metaphor work in mind, mental illness and addiction are understood as natural responses to the conditions of a ravaged life.

Strange Darling is a cunningly devised thriller that wields our assumptions against us like a sharp implement, delighting in making us squirm.

Blue Sun Palace’s tale is filled with quiet spaces, and the way the texture of this quiet changes over the course of the film is a testament to its power.

Rather than grappling with the mind and soul of the man who birthed bizarre, fatalistically funny and existentially unsettling works like Waiting for Godot, James Marsh’s film seems content to merely adapt the “Personal Life” section of Samuel Beckett’s Wikipedia page.

Like a well-executed heist, the film knows how to get in and get out with minimal fuss.

It’s a film of familiar pleasures, but like Harold Faltermeyer’s still infectiously enjoyable synth-pop theme, they do remain highly pleasurable.

Kill continually finds clever ways to defy our expectations through the particular placement of dramatic beats, surprising shifts in tone, and even just the way it keeps flipping the geography of the action.

Ultimately, Richard LaGravenese’s rom-com is a little too packed with soul-searching speeches.

While it never quite reaches the hilarious heights or existential depths of the Coens’ finest work, it does offer similarly enjoyable mixture of the macabre and the absurd.

The Grab makes a clear choice to conclude not just with doomsaying, but with a call to action and a look at the things that can still be done to avert a global crisis.

The nimble way that Rachel Sennott hops between the two versions of her character easily makes up for the odd narrative misstep that I Used to Be Funny makes along the way.

Atlas seems like a story that should have been experienced with a gamepad in hand.

There are little moments of blackhearted comedy among the bloodshed, but through it all, The Last Stop in Yuma County makes sure that those gunshots resonate.

Lost Soulz is a road-trip movie driven by good vibrations and the joy of making music.

Benoît Delhomme’s 1960s-set directorial debut can’t decide whether it wants to be considered camp or not, awkwardly pitching itself between a somber drama and antic melodrama.

The film presents Amy Winehouse’s demise with a sad shrug, as one of those tragic things that just sort of happens.

Even as the shotgun shells start flying, it makes time for the quiet dramatic moments that carry its family drama forward amid the carnage.