Most frustrating is that these clearly talented comedians and writers are stuck with lame gags.

As it stands, there’s a healthy amount to admire and for some it may be enough to scratch a certain itch. But much of Old Henry feels a lot like its protagonist: worn-out, weathered, and old.

It's Gillies' performance that raises Coming Home in the Dark from fascinating to utterly chilling, complimenting Matt Henley's cold, angular cinematography and John Gibson's score, all reed instruments and long, clean draws over strings, like an icy wind blowing slow through dead grass and bones.

Regardless of whether Cry Macho merits a rating of good, bad, or ugly, Eastwood’s mere presence, despite any perceived physical frailties, can’t help but dwarf this slenderest of movies.

The story Surgal tells is ultimately fascinating but dry, deep but limited, and a lesson more than an experience.

Dear Evan Hansen is a rare musical that must be seen to be believed. Few shows are less equipped to grapple with their subject matter; watching someone Wikipedia the plot synopsis of the musical in real time remains one of the last true pleasures available to us as a society.

It’s a titillating story of social suicide worthy of Capote’s imagination, had he only dared to inscribe it with his own words.

The phrase “searing indictment” is an overused idiom in the critic’s toolbox, but in this instance, it couldn’t be more appropriate.

Ultimately, Prisoners of the Ghostland is an OK film by a great filmmaker who has made truly great films, most memorable for its cast and the fact Sono finally made an English-language movie. Yet, when what's noteworthy about a film is just that it exists, it's more a vapor than an actual phantom.

While St. Vincent’s The Nowhere Inn is not the standard performative music documentary, it opens a window to her soul that many are never able to give away so freely in front of the camera.

Showalter’s film never finds the right tone, leaving its audience with pleasantness in favor of sharp wit.

Carnahan and co-conspirators Kurt McLeod and Mark Williams are clearly having a blast orchestrating this symphony of Grand Guignol.

Chon’s ambitions are astonishing, but his bloated script needed an edit or two. It’s a film written with big moments for big performances in mind, which is too painfully obvious as the film treads on.

Save glancing asides (guns sure are easy to buy, the courts sure treat Black and white people differently), Gaudet and Pullapilly skip the social satire to focus on a more personality-driven story. Alas, the personality at the center is so very flat.

The camp in Malignant is fun, but if only the camp was all the film needed to be as monumental as Wan’s previous horror entries.

It’s almost like a “what I did on my vacation” essay assignment, only with an A-list of arthouse directors, and so it inevitably feels disjointed, switching from drama to tone poem to documentary to video diary.

The audience is thrown into Zed’s world (or rather, worlds), and it’s Ahmed’s astounding performance that provides the through line. It’s OK to be lost, because Zed is.

The film gets heavy-handed about its premise sometimes, exaggerating the online-ness of it all with artificial glitches and voice modulations, but beyond that, Language Lessons is gorgeously, uncomfortably real.

Even in the budget-laden slickness of this Amazon production, I can’t lose myself in a fantasy that these issues can be solved by a mere costume change, a pep talk, or a snappy comeback.

Honestly, both Sex and the City and Seinfeld tackled the romantic pitfalls of youngish single life in NYC more adeptly in their relatively truncated formats than this 91-minute movie, and with a helluva lot more verve and wit.

Schrader remains committed to his late-style cold moodiness, with scenes shot in a sterile plainness and lines delivered in a frank matter-of-fact tone that to some may appear stilted but effectively accompanies his main character’s harsh view of his surroundings.

Small Engine Repair is a real American horror story, skillfully shot, perfectly cast and acted, and carrying a sorrowful message that resonates with brutal truth.

The further director Vicente Amorim pulls out, the more exciting the film becomes; but he never really takes advantage of the supernatural overtones that swim around the edges, or the unique cultural background of Brazil's massive Japanese diaspora.

Wild Indian is a horrifying and thought-provoking thrill ride that packs quite a punch when it hits right.

The cramped environs and the paranoiac thrum that runs throughout the film like a main circuit cable straight to hell are almost outmatched by a third-act explosion of horrifyingly excellent practical gore effects.

While some of the re-creations of clandestine meetings and shots of faceless men transporting the painting can be a bit cloak-and-dagger cheesy, that’s the only stumble in a film that tells a strange tale populated by a cast of eccentric and dangerous characters.

The Alpinist works as a moving testament to Leclerc’s incredible life and the art of alpinism itself, while even finding time to tactfully wrestle with the difficult reconciliation of the reckless danger versus the peerless beauty of such an undertaking.

Beyond surprising thematic depth, The Old Ways is an exercise in putting every cent on the screen, and hiding what you don't need.

The film shines when we get to see Barkan as a fully formed figure.

Is there such a thing as too much pathos? Trick question, because there is not. So, should you find yourself a bit emotionally imbalanced these days, and the aggressively optimistic charms of Ted Lasso have proven to be a placebo, come see how the other half lives and seek out The Macaluso Sisters, a beautiful bummer that is the perfect elixir of Aristotelian purgation, and a restorative for your soul.

Director Amber Sealey gives the last word to Hagmaier, not Bundy. It's subtle, and may not be enough for the growing group of critics and viewers that worry that the cinematic obsession with serial killers ends up lionizing them, but it makes Bundy what he always was: pathetic.

Certainly lead adult actor Arnezeder has panache to spare, as does Bousinna, but the muddled storyline defeats them time and time again, no matter how perfectly angry/hopeful their lines are.

The golden era of slashers was defined by vicarious, often overblown pleasures, while the mood of Candyman is overwhelmingly dour and gloom-cloaked. No surprise, considering the weightiness of the issues at hand. Yet there are pointed discussions between Anthony and others in the art scene about the relative power of overt depictions of brutality and metaphor, something that somehow eludes this Candyman.

For his part, director Stephen Daldry synthesizes the predominant beats of his film work, which has vacillated between feel-good awards bait (Billy Elliot) and feel-bad awards bait (The Hours, The Reader). Feel-good/feel-bad is Together to a T. It feels wonderful.

Shang-Chi doesn't just pull off a fun western xuanhuan, but makes it feel like a door being opened for future Marvel films. Where Shang-Chi stumbles is in the script.

The Protégé suffers from its predictability and lack of nuance. Despite a somewhat promising if well-worn plot, the characters and performances can’t seem to catch up.

PAW Patrol: The Movie is bigger and prettier than the TV show, but it's still PAW Patrol. What makes it worth the time investment for kids is that it's really about introducing the street-smart long-haired Dachshund Liberty (Martin) into the team, while giving a little drama to Chase's life as he processes some old trauma about being a stray in the big city.

Habit is so desperate to be edgy that it loops all the way back around to derivative, and wastes any potential Thorne might have brought to play.

Flag Day desperately wants to be an impassioned testament to the lives of both Jennifer and Dylan, but is hardly ever able to escape the myopic lens of its craftsman.

That energy placed into making the audience look and listen out to the edges of the film makes Beth's central placement even more vital and enthralling; and by moving to The Night House, Hall is finally given the space that every previous performance has shown she deserves.

Ema is a vibrantly loud movie, propelled by dance and lust, and a celebration of sexuality like no other film before it. It is a fountain of energy, both bewitching and terrifying all at once.

Sometimes the heartstrings need tugging to an old, established rhythm, played here with simple charm by Zhu, and given high notes by Hu's dedication to highlighting what being profoundly dyslexic can mean.

Even if it becomes a little more familiar in the third act, especially to fans of that weird era of Nineties supernatural action thrillers like End of Days and Fallen, it's undeniable that Demonic rips open new technical possibilities for horror.

Don’t Breathe 2 is a horrific and delusional sequel to its predecessor, a tight thriller that had grounded, down on their luck characters, and a film that knew when to pull out the big guns so the audience would root for its unlikeable lead.

Stephens’ film is a sweet gesture, a personal ode to a hometown hero of his, and while the filmmaking itself is rusty, there’s enough love from Stephens and Kier alike to keep this little film afloat.

The East is an unrelenting condemnation of the Netherlands’ misguided attempt to return its colonial outreach to a time long gone while hitting most (if not all) of the “doomed war” niche genre movie tropes without ever actually teetering into cliche. That’s an ever-tricky move that Taihuttu aces.

If you can sit through the occasional sermon about the role of police in modern society, you’ll find yourself in the lap of true action greatness.

Grounded and sweet, delicately bawdy, and decidedly hilarious, CODA puts an effervescent and original spin on the coming-of-age comedy-drama.

6:45 is a deliberately uncomfortable watch, a loveless romance that’s left to bleed out again and again.

The casting is the only part of the movie that feels genuine, with Hudson channeling the Dreamgirls emotive performance that earned her an early career Oscar.

Rising Wolf gets so caught up in the idea of a supposed potential franchise that it forgets to make you care about the film you’re currently watching.

Free Guy takes the time to create something unique and grounded and make us care about the future of these NPCs. With every reason in the world to fail, Free Guy succeeds. It’s a welcome reminder that sincerity can still play as the basis for a Hollywood blockbuster.

In fact, I liked wrestling with Nine Days, liked feeling the act of moviewatching as an active, not passive, one, and the way Antonio Pinto’s strings-forward score nudged my brain to stop churning long enough for pure emotion to kick in

In its mix of angsty formalism and sing-along fun, Annette may be the closest that musical cinema has come to when Brecht and Weill put a knife in Macheath's hand for The Threepenny Opera.

Suicide Squad just never quite has the heart of Guardians.

Sisto's direction is a victory of glacial tone over actual content, and John and the Hole's frustrations outweigh its insight into the forces that can spawn a monster.

The impressionistic documentary Ailey communicates this visionary auteur’s comprehension of the art form: through his own words; through the words of others, most notably, his muse Judith Jamison and fellow choreographer Bill T. Jones; and, with great potency, film clips of archived performances (some of them original performances!) of his work.

What makes Fully Realized Humans all the funnier is the couple's conviction that they're always doing the right thing: and, again, if it wasn't for the wide-eyed smart-naïve performances from Wexler and Leonard the whole thing would be insufferable.

It may be about little more than a guy getting his head a little more straight than he thought it was and burying a few resentments that he didn’t even know were sticking up, but Ride the Eagle knows that a small, sad, personal story doesn’t have to be a tragedy. I

Over the course of its bloated run time, this strange hodgepodge of a film clumsily shifts gears between a family/legal drama, a fish-out-of-water tale, a midlife romantic escapade, and something of a subdued vigilante thriller.

Dwayne Johnson may not be the world’s most nuanced actor, but he’s a marvelous showman. His and co-star Emily Blunt’s combined “it” factor transcends the sillier stretches of this somewhat forgettable but still chuckling good-times ride.

Enemies of the State fumbles along like a bad thriller, with shocking turns that land with a dull thud.

Compared to other Hollywood blockbusters, Snake Eyes is better than fine — but there are hundreds of Asian and Southeast Asian action movies that run circles around the final product here.

Lowery’s version works because, like Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson’s rewriting of L.A. Confidential, it captures the nature and meaning of the story rather than getting caught up in individual events or plot beats.

Val, while often tragic, is also a deeply spiritual film: a benediction of forgiveness for those that wronged him, and a mea culpa to those he has harmed (most especially, it seems, ex-wife Joanne Walley).

Ultimately, the slow boil bleakness of the script, with its subtle ruminations of what it is to go on in a time of hopelessness, is what marks Settlers apart, even as it looks and feels like so many of the post-apocalyptic drought-plagued SF dramas of the last few years.

For all its hot button, au courant moral messaging, Joe Bell is preaching to the converted and unlikely to draw in the type of audience that actually needs to hear its pleas for kindness in a mean and wild world.

For all the wincing indie-film humor, for all the celebs packed in for socially distanced scenes, the film succeeds most in the simplicity of Liza and her younger self as they navigate the tension of finding balance and acceptance of the entire self.

To be fair, at least Old captures the sense of time passing past too fast: Rarely have I felt more like my life was slipping away in the cinema.

Ultimately, Tournament of Champions remains a welcome balance of YA and horror, featuring inventive puzzle sequences with enough talent on both sides of the camera to consistently entertain.

By halftime of this two hour piece of dreck, you’ll wonder why you weren’t more appreciative that the first one only wasted 80 minutes of your life.

Undine’s hauntingly aching romance is enchanting, as thick as the feeling of inhaling water into your lungs. There’s a drowning sensation to Petzold’s myth-building in Undine that’s totally engrossing, once again proving he is one of the world’s most exquisite love story composers.

Summertime’s boisterous enthusiasm sometimes finds an endearing spark, but it never erupts like the fireworks that scatter across the L.A. skyline at the film’s end. It’s a mess and it’s exhausting, with its heart always on the brink of exploding from its exhilarating optimistic nature.

As he did with his previous doc, 2018’s John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, Faraut finds and obsesses over the rhythm of bodies in motion, using repetition and cross-cuts of the team’s training footage and gameplay with anime sequences and textile manufacturing. These collisions, set to music from Portishead and Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, are the heart of Witches, hypnotic patterns of serene velocity.

With Roadrunner, Neville is able to give the icon a send-off that’s tear-inducing and loving, a gift to those who will always be inspired by him.

As much as Gillan, Headey, and the three Librarians (Bassett, Gugino, and Yeoh) of the gunplay apocalypse embrace the visual stylization and harshly annunciated dialogue, Gunpower Milkshake is immemorable. Like a decent milkshake, it's fine while you're consuming it, but chances are you won't remember it after the last slurp.

At a time when so many people are struggling to find something of value in their lives, when people are fleeing jobs, cities, futures they thought they wanted, Cage has crafted a quiet soliloquy about grasping on to something that has meaning. In some ways, this is one of his most emotionally brutal films.

Admirable efforts aside, I Carry You With Me is still an enchanting mix of drama and romance, but also a timely, poetic love letter to Iván’s home country, Mexico.

Throughout the film, Questlove deconstructs the sterility of a typical talking heads documentary. The inclusion of interviews isn’t to incorporate some sense of detached expertise. When faces do remain in focus, it’s to highlight the width of their grins, the tears in their eyes, their open mouths while watching the footage, their shock that someone else finally remembers.

Maijidi’s latest was Iran’s submission for the most recent Oscars, a film that’s gentle, packed with all the familiar beats you find in these City of God-like child POV gritty fairy tales.

Presumably the first ever feature film adapted from a Twitter thread, Zola makes use of the graphics and sound effects of the internet, as has been common in film for the past several years. But there’s more depth to it here given the context.

The Forever Purge does have its finger on the pulse of America at a particularly violent moment in time, but for a series defined by glorious chaos, this one paints pretty much by the numbers.

It may all be a flashback, but Black Widow is truly a bridge with a true direction as the MCU moves into its post-Avengers era.

It’s overwhelming, but there are a few nice touches that aren’t completely lost in the bedlam.

Cuartas tenderly catches the scenario at the end of the road, leaving only the question of who, if any, will be able to walk away. Not that their existence is tenable for anyone that crosses their paths, and Cuartas' script gives plenty of space for the core trio to explore their tragic roles in this disaster.

Keeping the camera on Fournet and Garland may reduce the screentime of the actual humpbacks, but Xanthopoulos is more interested in the research process, the passion and devotion the two have for their work, and capturing not just the thrills and the agony, but also more contemplative moments of of reflection and motivation.

A new comedy classic whodunnit in the honored tradition of Clue, Werewolves Within finds the laughs in the jump scare, and brings back the uproarious joy of the "it's behind you!" creeping fright.

It's overstuffed with all the actors wasting both the viewers’ and the movie’s running time by actually speaking dialogue when we all know that what audiences really want to see is outrageous vehicular slamslaughter.

The film struggles to carve out a distinct aesthetic for its violence, alternating between crass comedy and cartoonish violence with no sense of how to combine these two into something sustainable.

Though good-natured, by the end it feels indistinguishable from an extended after-school special.

Endless errors aside, The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2 might bring forth a laugh or two and that’s about it. The moment the material sits long enough to settle, it becomes a horror-comedy casualty with little-to-nothing making it worth the 90 minute mayhem.

Ultimately, Truman & Tennessee is a fascinating but melancholy mash note to the enduring friendship of two genius misfits who, despite constant self doubt barely masked by a raconteur’s seeming insouciance, rocked the literary (and cinematic, despite their mutual distaste for filmic adaptations) world at, in hindsight, just the right time.

After Tommaso, which was Ferrara at his least apologetic, it's so fitting that his most epic film is also his most introspective.

The film, anchored by interviews with Moreno and her co-stars and contemporaries, positions Moreno as a trailblazer, a barrier-breaker, and a role model, but more interestingly, it ultimately tracks a journey of self discovery.

Like the jelly-bean sugar high in one of the more manic running gags, it’s all terribly exhausting in the way most movies tailored to the under-10 crowd can be.

It’s a lot, but also very little: The action amounts to multiple variations on “try not to get wet, or caught out” to push along a plot that dispenses the usual life lessons about being brave and valuing friendship.

Everything about Gaia works in tandem to create a steadily escalating mood of Blastomycotic body-horror distress (including Pierre-Henri Wicomb’s anxiety-inducing score). Fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy and its Annihilation adaptation, and lovers of the defiantly feminine and vengeful natural world will find plenty to chew on in Gaia.

All Light, Everywhere’s roaming tangents always return to the heart (or the eye) of the matter, and that skill of orchestration is no mean feat.