Scott Tobias

The romantic relationship in Girls Like Girls flounders the instant it gets going, however, because Sonya’s hot-and--cold (mostly cold) attitude toward Coley is so confusing and poorly articulated. It seems obvious enough that the invisible enemy here is a hetero disapproval that Sonya can’t quite get past, but Kiyoko doesn’t do enough to identify those pressure points, other than shots of Sonya trying to appease her temperamental boyfriend.

The borderless toggle between past and present can make the film difficult to parse, but the time conceit allows Jenkin to suggest the profound grief and loss experienced by a community on the decline. It’s a horror/sci-fi scenario that’s anchored firmly in the everyday.

The politics of Disclosure Day are allusive at best, but Spielberg and Koepp are strongly aware that they’re making a film at a polarizing time, when human qualities as basic as empathy and openness are not something we can expect everyone to possess. Spielberg isn’t the type to succumb to cynicism, even now, but Disclosure Day turns uncertainty into its own level of tension, right through the emotional final moments of the film.

Carolina Caroline posits itself as more of a tragic love story than a traditional crime picture, and it’s Weaving’s affecting performance that finally keeps the film ahead of the heat.

The drama leading up to the event is played at the highest of stakes, and Scott’s terrific performance, understated yet firm in its conviction, gives the film the same sturdy backbone that Stagg provided for the good guys.

The basic formula of a bounty hunter and his lovable, Force-wielding companion delivers the goods, even if the setpieces tend to bleed into each other after a while. What’s missing is variety and soul, replaced by the dusty returns of Favreau and Filoni still playing around in someone else’s sandbox

There are some good lessons here about how a country can slip past oligarchy into full-on Orwellian autocracy, but Assayas cannot find the right packaging for it.

Though Hit Me Hard and Soft doesn’t “reinvent” the concert film, as the promotional language promises, Cameron’s mastery with 3D photography does make for an immersive experience, and there are some playful touches, too, like a handheld 3D camera that Eilish often holds in her right hand while the microphone rests in her left.

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.