Vince Mancini

For the most part, Operation Finale is a good story, well told. Yet something about it isn’t entirely satisfying either. It deftly eschews the most simplistic takes, but what it offers in return — the banality of evil, essentially — isn’t quite groundbreaking either. Still, it’s more than worth it to watch Ben Kingsley and Oscar Isaac spar for a bit.

Crazy Rich Asians is just really easy to watch. It’s formulaic, but doesn’t cheat; has insanely low stakes, but transparently so. It’s a kitschy pop song done very well.

Mile 22 is such a freakish chimera of disparate genre influences that it’s kind of fascinating.

As relatively weak as the CGI is, The Meg is brilliant at giving its dopey characters consistently entertaining dialogue and striking the perfect balance of clever/stupid without being overly self-aware.

Long on set up and leaden dialogue, short on resolution, The Darkest Minds is set in an apocalyptic future where teen movies no longer have endings. Oh, wait that’s the present.

In BlacKkKlansman you sense Lee’s passion more than his technique. In a welcome surprise, it’s also funny. It’s easily Lee’s most crowd-pleasing movie in years, almost to a fault.

Mission Impossible: Fallout is not a triumph of literal realism, orderly plotting, or restraint, but it’s proof that thoughtful execution, comedic timing, and a true moral center count for much more.

Blindspotting excels at capturing a feeling and expressing it with style and kitsch, but there are times when you wonder what new insight they’re offering beyond the rhymes.

Generation Wealth is, as Greenfield surely intended, a valuable and necessary work of cultural anthropology, that entertains even as it horrifies. It’s an important watch that never feels like homework.

Puzzle is one of those rare movies whose acting is so good it elevates a mediocre story.

The Spy Who Dumped Me‘s action is just so big and loud that it obliterates any quiet character moments or clever wordplay.

A movie with this strong of a message can easily come off preachy, self-righteous, and didactic, but Riley’s sense of humor and flair for absurdity save it from any of that. Boots Riley feels compelled to say but doesn’t presume to know. He has a way of dreaming rather than grandstanding, of pondering rather than prescribing.

Eighth Grade is both a stunning achievement in cinematic veracity and maybe not the best watch for anyone who’s spent their adult life trying to forget middle school. It’s so traumatic and awkward and embarrassing that there were times I wanted to retreat back inside my own body.

In the past, this kind of character, who abhors swear words but kills with obvious relish, would’ve been positioned as an interesting contrast. In The Equalizer 2 it just feels like unexamined orthodoxy. It feels like the symptom of a very American kind of brain sickness.

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot is a straightforward biopic about an interesting guy, starring one of our best actors. It’s a story of adversity, self-discovery, and redemption. It’s not the kind of story we’ve never seen, but it’s a perfect showcase for Gus Van Sant’s skill.

It still has the scary masks and jump-scares, but whether through its creators’ cleverness or current events, it is now disturbing on a much deeper level. The social commentary no longer feels like fake sloganeering.

Gotti is technically inept, where every scene feels like a disconnected sizzle reel for a different movie than the previous one, but the fascinating thing it about is less what it fails to do than what it’s trying to do.

Tag never transcends the basic fact of being the kind of movie with a slow-motion rap walk scene, and even when it’s decently funny and reasonably entertaining (which it usually is!), it remains ever constrained by the basic shticky irreality of the format.

The central flaw of Ocean’s 8 is that “people looking cool” isn’t much of a story. It’s a poster, maybe even a trailer, but not a story, and not a movie.

First Reformed is bleak and bone dry, a little self-indulgent, and it screams neither “fun” nor “production values.” It is the opposite of a “romp.” But damned if it doesn’t stay with you.

Is Deadpool 2 obnoxious? Is it needlessly self-aware? Is it drunk on its own fairly tame naughtiness? Is it so stuffed full of unrelated pop culture references that it sort of feels like a meme shirt come to life? The answer to all those questions is a resounding yes, but it’s also, weirdly, refreshing.

Even on a technical level Breaking In is shockingly inept.

In hitting so many bullet points from the boardroom presentation justifying its existence, it’s a wonder that Life of the Party manages to work in anything personal or natural at all. And it does, which is a testament to the talent of the people involved (McCarthy, Gillian Jacobs, and Maya Rudolph especially). I just wish I could see them in a movie that wasn’t trying to be everything to everyone.

The Tully character is a perfect outlet for Cody’s writing. One of Cody’s most charming attributes is her flair for small wisdoms. There’s some sneaky trenchant life analysis happening throughout Tully, which is what keeps the every day family stuff from feeling mundane or self-indulgent.

The remake has the right tone, an interesting angle, a delightful supporting cast, and Anna Faris acts her butt off, but there are times it feels like she’s doing it opposite an upturned broom.

I Free Pretty is surprisingly resonant for a high concept light comedy, offering all the catharsis of watching someone truly discover herself and own it, as well as the awkwardness and pain of watching someone needlessly tear herself down and self-sabotage.

Super Troopers 2 is broad and hammy, like a lot of comedy, but unlike a lot, it makes little pretense to realism. It’s proud dad humor. It pokes you in the ribs enough times that the obnoxiousness eventually takes on a weird charm.

It’s still saccharine, overwrought, blandly acted, painfully earnest, and uber-dramatic, and constantly staring longingly at the night sky and bodies of water for some reason, but… teen romance is all of those things. It fits. Maybe the Sparks formula isn’t so bad as long as Sparks himself isn’t involved.