William Goss

Park allows this macabre coming-of-age tale to be defined by mood and style above all else.

Before Midnight manages to be an emotionally astute and tremendously enjoyable conclusion to this rather improbable trilogy.

As willfully oblique as his first film was densely foreboding, a rumination on the perils and pleasures of interpersonal connection that would seem to refuse any easy connection with even the most curious of audiences.

Faxon and Rush’s screenplay doesn’t deviate too far from formula, but their sturdy direction, bolstered by handsome production values, evokes a wistful sense of carefree summers and conjures up a potent amount of simmering teenage angst beneath the frequent chuckles.

That Nichols is able to orchestrate this entire journey with steady tension and lyrical imagery is a testament to his storytelling capabilities.

We’re given fairly straightforward talking-head accounts complemented with an increasing amount of archival material as the narrative progresses further towards the present, all coated in a VH1-suited slickness that belies the reported funk of the studio itself. Fortunately, that slickness is in service of tales from some substantial musicians.

A mostly mundane single-father drama.

To the film’s credit, it doesn’t waste much time in doling out shadowy figures and fake-outs for the gullible and easily goosed, and the cast as a whole dutifully delivers its panicked looks and cries in the night.

Every scene of Danny Mooney’s directorial debut is brightly lit, every car squeaky clean, every moral dilemma transparent, with evidently thorough period detail undone by production values that lend even the riots an idyllic glow, while foiling the potential for truly dramatic conflict with leaden dialogue and predictable changes of heart.

Despite its apparent compromises to noble finger-wagging (initially) and requisite fist-pumping (eventually), Waugh has fashioned a sturdy character-first entertainment out of Snitch at a time of year when those are all too rare to behold.

A glimpse into how three different definitions of love can find themselves quietly at odds, the interactions between our three leads are always convincing if not always compelling.

A noir-tinged, noose-tightening ordeal [that] confirms Antonio Campos, if not the entire Borderline Films outfit, as a filmmaker/team to be reckoned with.

Each scene is a brisk vignette of deadpan reversal, often involving a running theme of miscommunication.

V/H/S delivers the thrills and chills craftily and with a better batting average than usual.

It's easy to take most films' war-torn elsewheres for granted, and taken on its own merits, Red Dawn is a victory of small battles and heavy artillery, sentimental but rarely too hackneyed, energetic without becoming too silly.

Fans of Birbiglia should be easily entertained, and with a little luck, it will only earn this particular loveable neurotic a few more of those.

Forever doesn't deviate terribly from the can-we-be-friends-after-sex playbook, but it rarely opts for hysterics or contrivance to push our leads along, so long as you can swallow the amicability with which they initially divorce.