Scott Tobias

The more Frankel and McKenna acknowledge that their fresh-out-of-college heroine is now a seasoned editor in her 40s, the better The Devil Wears Prada 2 gets, not least because it doesn’t have to jettison the upscale fantasies and juicy machinations of Miranda's world entirely. Like Miranda herself at one point in the movie, it’s healthy to spend a little time flying in coach.

The words these characters say to each other are mostly boring and obscure, and it’s a mad scramble to figure out what’s making them so agitated. Keeping up with the film becomes as hard as it is to care.

While Blue Heron has an experimental quality that might encourage you to intellectualize the way film processes memory, its payoff is as personal and emotional as movies get. It’s one from the head and the heart.

The Mummy takes its silliness far too seriously.

It’s a piece of escapism that can’t escape from itself.

The Christophers is a slippery customer, an ingenious and twisty two-hander that shifts in tone as Lori and Julian get their hooks into each other. Coel and McKellen prove to be a combustible pair, two actors of contrasting generations, genders, and race who parry in darkly funny sessions that morph in complexity as their characters continue to try to outflank each other.

Though it always feels like Emma and Charlie (and the movie) are one productive conversation away from putting the entire matter to bed, The Drama doesn’t let anyone off the line until the last possible moment. It’s a productively excruciating experience.

It’s a testament to the beauty of Chomet’s visual style that the picture book images of Paris and Marseille in the mid-20th century are transporting enough to make A Magnificent Life a comfortable sit. But Pagnol deserves better than this limp eulogy.

The secondhand guilt that comes from watching a conscientious woman reckon with her role in an institutional sin is immense and it’s a credit to Jude that he’s so willing to make his audience uncomfortable.

The satirical promise of Ready or Not 2 leads to few comic payoffs—or even much resembling a joke, despite the film’s irreverent tone—and the snippiness between Grace and Faith seems forced after they’ve been taking fire together for so much of the film. Here’s hoping that Ready or Not 3: Olly Olly Oxen Free better meets the moment.

The true puzzle here is grief, that nebulous process where there’s no clear answer or road map, just behaviors and rituals that feel distinctly removed from the flow of everyday life. Petzold and his cast spend time in that stream, and it’s an alluring feeling to drift along with them.

Reminders of Him is a disciplined mediocrity, sticking to picture postcard images and a happy ending that’s so much easier to achieve than the story allows. Next time, please have the courtesy to be crazier.

Chong seems to intend for an escalating series of comic events that get more giddily absurd as it approaches the climax, but the film loses its soul in the process. Hoppers longs for the quiet beatitude of nature, but it’s just another noisemaker.

Aside from a lively stretch toward the end of the film where Jennifer and Fernando wrestle on equal footing, literally as well as figuratively, Dreams is blunt in its intentions and programmatic in its plotting.

While there are surely gags and references that are for-fans-only in the film, which exists in part to pay off longstanding support, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is shambling and sweet, loaded with hilarious standalone bits that are held together by the duo’s warm camaraderie and intimate connection to the city of Toronto.

Layton is a confident storyteller and the various subplots in Winslow’s pulpy scenario converge elegantly, even if they’re a bit secondhand.

It’s odd to see a romance that commences with rough trade in an alleyway end up feeling like a spiritual descendent of Bend It Like Beckham.

Besson seems more at home making pop art than gothic tragedy, but the neither-here-nor-there quality of Dracula makes it chintzy and unsatisfying on both fronts. In a word, it sucks.

To want Statham to appear like he cares about any of it is to ask too much.

Only a scene where Helen defends her hunting trips with Mabel as “an honest encounter with death” suggests the tougher, more provocative movie that might have been. This one is mostly a genteel therapy arc.

Dead Man’s Wire is a curious shrug of a movie, especially from a director like Gus Van Sant, who has picked up some ho-hum work-for-hire assignments in the past, such as Finding Forrester or Promised Land, but usually puts some more spin on the ball.

It can be a bit of a slog, frankly, but Schilinski’s command over the look and feel of the film, from the evocative Academy-format images to the unnerving rumble of the soundtrack, sinks into your bones. The more it shimmers with uncanny horror, the better.

Polinger tracks the escalation of danger and violence with startling intensity—the first third of Full Metal Jacket also appears to be an influence—but there’s nuance to the way Ben chooses to handle this situation.

The Testament of Ann Lee suggests a bigger story than Fastvold has the time or resources to tell, but it stays close to Seyfried’s hip and allows the purity of Ann’s vision to carry the day.

The performances, particularly Seyfried’s, keep the film popping, along with some energetic rug-pulling from Feig, who treats the material like a deadly telenovela. But at an exhausting 131 minutes, it’s an indulgent feast on empty calories.

Safdie stirs the pot expertly. With a soundtrack that bursts with anachronistic ‘80s New Wave songs—Tears For Fears’ “Change” is a jarring yet energizing curtain-raiser for ’50s New York—Marty Supreme has the burning-ulcer intensity of Uncut Gems, along with a sense of spontaneity that comes from Marty having to feverishly negotiate every moment of his life.

Though he still doles out kills in a thin broth, Nelson puts enough craft and spin on the material to make it better than it has any right to be. Making the best Silent Night, Deadly Night is the very definition of a modest achievement.

A little of this stuff goes a long way with Cattet and Forzani, who have always seemed more immersed in image-making than in the tedious business of telling a story with a mind toward pace and characterization. To experience their films is to toggle between exhilaration and enervation, and hope the balance tips the right way in the end, which it ultimately does with Reflection in a Dead Diamond.