Warren Cantrell

Solid performances, a clever conceit, and technical over-competence behind the camera bolster what is ultimately a predictable and sometimes unpleasant viewing experience.

Tense, relatable, and cut from a familiar narrative cloth, Rust Creek manages to overcome a few character and pacing issues to emerge as a quality thriller.

Clean narrative lines, top-notch production design, great acting, and Hollywood-grade cinematography and lighting elevate Burial above what might have been a forgettable schlock-fest.

A halfway interesting story with a few too many ideas and a lack of tonal cohesion.

Pleasant enough to look at but impossible to care about, this movie isn’t bad because it fails at what it sets out to do, but because of the most evil of all reasons: it never figures out its reason to be at all.

Hyper-violent and narratively undercooked, the film represents a creative nadir for pretty much everyone involved and manages something even Ritchie usually avoids: boredom.

Uneven pacing and an anemic plot hamstring the film, which has a couple of interesting ideas yet precious few about how to convey them to its audience.

Mirren is magnificent as the fading mother losing her fight against the inevitable, and Winslet wisely leans on this, as well as the other reliable performances from her overqualified cast.

An interesting, original concept combined with solid acting and creative directing propel “Stray” and keep its audience invested throughout its tidy 81-minute run-time.

Lacking any thematic direction or narrative momentum, the film wanders around like so many Muscovite strays on the streets of Russia: aimless yet not exactly lost. A tough sit on top of all this, and lacking anything resembling a coherent point, this one should be shot into space without a return trajectory.

Hampered by a character growth problem, tonal inconsistencies, shoddy mime work, and a collective French accent trainwreck, the film fumbles the few opportunities it does have at something better.

Without more from the characters, it just doesn’t come together. Merlant does shoot it all well, though, and keeps things moving so that the audience has little time to ponder the moral implications of what’s going on. This is a dubious plaudit, perhaps, yet one of the few available to Mi Iubita, Mon Amour.

The Man in My Basement is a slow burn, to be sure, and though things come out fully cooked, there’s little flavor and more flash than sizzle.

The gore is top-notch, and things take a turn for the better in the last 25 minutes, yet it’s not enough to save the movie, which is decidedly not good, no matter what the octopus drummer-lovers in your life might tell you.

Interesting, funny, yet thin where it matters most, Tunnard’s film is nevertheless a good indication of promising work ahead.

This film is like some kind of corrupted, infectious, cinematic black hole that obscures and swallows all other sins in and around it. Artistically irredeemable and impossible to recommend on any basis whatsoever, about the only thing Ebony & Ivory succeeds at is matching the artistic value of the eponymous song: a dubious distinction if ever there was one.

While a few fun martial arts scenes pepper the effort, they are subsumed by an overall product that is riddled with plot holes, choppy cuts, laughable acting, and villains so evil that they’d make Skeletor blush.

This newest “Space Jam” installment is a good time and boasts real heart. LeBron’s steady work as the lead and a narrative undercurrent built on a believable father-son relationship makes for a breezy 115 minutes and improves on the harmless, yet admittedly stiff original. And while LeBron might not be in the Finals right now, he has definitely scored a win here.

Gripping, intriguing, and well-paced, Mary overcomes most of the issues with its overwritten script to emerge as a serviceable entry in the genre’s canon. Sure, the film lists from time to time, but it always manages to right itself when it matters.

Maybe one day folks will come around to “Mother Schmuckers” as something so sincerely and unintentionally terrible that’s it’s worth watching if only as a joke, yet even that is a longshot.

A magnificent, tight exploration of romance and what it means to walk that path wearing blinders. Most people have done this at one point or another, and Silver’s triumph is that he’s crafted a film that puts his audience both inside of this, but also at a distance where it can be appreciated.

Bolstered by revelatory performances from its leads, and a timely thematic foundation appropriate to its place and moment, Twin Flower (Italian: “Fiore Gemello”) tells a story that’s as nuanced as it is profound.