Despite the bright spots of humor provided by the film’s game actors, Greed chintzes on unexpected barbs. Its satire hits every target but the film never aims at anything that doesn’t already have a giant target on its back.

It’s a scrummy omelette of a movie, a dish that’s off the menu. The ingredients are unorthodox, but they come together in an uproarious way. As a Dubliner would say, it’s absolute gas.

One wants to reach through the screen at the end of this narcissistic exercise, grasp his shoulders and give him a good shake: “Get a grip, man. You’re Clarence Thomas.”

In most ways, the film is a conventional rock doc, a nostalgic and valorizing chronicle of a group’s rise and fall. The Band is one group that deserves the deep dive.

Solet may not have explicitly made a horror movie, but it’s truly terrifying nonetheless because it stares point-blank at the lunacy that allows a seemingly normal farmer to blame every outsider for his ills. If you've ever wondered where a Cliven Bundy comes from, or an Andrew Joseph Stack III (the maniac that flew his plane into an Austin office building in 2010 because he was mad about his tax bill), this is a trip down every twisted nerve and malevolent neuron.

Stewart (per usual) is the best thing about the film.

Neeson, taking a welcome break from his late-career reinvention as a man of action, and Manville (Another Year, Phantom Thread) are such gifted performers, and they play this couple – their tenderness and stress – at a likably subtle frequency.

Witty, wry, spry, and deliciously and effortlessly romantic, this is Austen as she is supposed to be.

There may be two genres at work in The Invisible Man, but there’s only one Elisabeth Moss, and her performance makes Whannell’s film worth discussing far beyond the realm of the title character.

It doesn’t work, however, and the end result is one long yawn of mediocrity, devoid of any genuine suspense, hobbled by incoherent plotting, and ending on a note of goofy what-the-fuckery.

What the film excels at, however, is the anticipatory desire. It builds slowly, concluding with a stunning sequence that is all breathless remembrance and self-satisfaction that is both wordless and impalpable. The film will seem the height of romantic desire to some, but will be a slow burn for others.

As always, the tale is in the telling, and Standing Up tells it well.

At least the heroic Buck remains the focal point here, unlike in other less faithful screen incarnations that mainly trade on the familiar title.

At the same time, there's something a little tired and rote about a coming-out drama set against the world of dance. In the wake of Francis Lee's "God's Own Country," which found fresh fields for this subgenre in the sheep farms of England, this latest trip to the dance studio never feels like it's truly forging its own path.

An unrelenting throwback to a gleefully caustic view of America's capacity for untrammeled nastiness.

Almost everything about Sonic the Hedgehog comes together as a surprising success. Marsden may not be a household name, but he gives the kind of performance that would make Brendan Fraser proud.

Everything that made the original series so memorable and succesful - its heart, its weird wit, its adherence to the morality play model - is completely lacking.

Meghie’s film is a paean to the push and pull between enchanting possibilities and chimerical probabilities. You don’t need to bring a handkerchief into the theater for fear of ocular leakage, but The Photograph’s modestly hopeful denouement is, truly, picture perfect.

A Simple Wedding is never quite as complex as the title suggests. Yet its easy charms and efforts to revise, rather than rewrite, the book of rom-com love make it worth the RSVP.

Yuasa entrances the eye, but he also know how to make your heart soar with this deft, delicate, and highly entertaining story of loss, of coming to terms with grief, of moving on without ever forgetting.

To its credit, Downhill strives to remain character-driven rather than devolve into a jokey take on a delicate premise.

Complicity is the offense under investigation in The Assistant, the first fiction film of the #MeToo era that indicts the system along with its colluders, willing and unwilling.

Even if Birds of Prey doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it sure as hells gets it spinning. Those who wish their superhero movies had a little bit more Lisa Frank and a whole bunch more female gaze may find themselves falling in love with Harley Quinn all over again.

Given the minimal – albeit excellent – cast and the film’s maximal rollercoaster of shifty mood swings and its increasingly paranoiac atmosphere of disorienting dread, it’s no wonder Come to Daddy lingers in the mind long after the final, emotionally revelatory denouement.

This is Young Adult horror at its finest.

This film is a mess. It’s so grim and inept. There are a million plot holes at any given moment, that you must constantly pick up your eyes from rolling on the floor.

Perhaps the most charming element, beyond the constant presence of Swift’s cat, are the moments capturing Swift’s songwriting process.

It is truly rare to watch a film implode in the final 20 minutes as completely and gallingly as this retelling by director Floria Sigismondi and screenwriting siblings Chad and Carey Hayes. However, they made an astounding number of errors along the way.

What could have been a worthy tribute becomes a by-the-numbers melodrama.

Movies shouldn’t have to meet a PC checklist so they won’t offend – who wants that kind of cinema? – but when they poke you in the eye one too many times, it’s fair game to poke back.

For audiences who don't know the books, this is a bracing, blasphemous horror that pulls you in and twists your nerves.

This is Woodard’s show, and her Bernadine is mesmerizing as she navigates her life of meting out justice while grappling with the price of it.

Television is reality, and reality is less than television. And that is, by the end of the 72-minute-long VHYes’ gleefully immersive, intermittently profound “found footage,” a lesson Ralph osmotically absorbs through the VHS viewfinder of his life.

The Song of Names evokes a certain kind of quality film that we associate with Holocaust dramas. Laudably, the movie fully escapes lugubrious wallowing, yet, perhaps as a partial result of this, The Song of Names lacks dramatic intensity and depth.

The way Ly and cinematographer Julien Poupard choreograph the film is amazing, especially the third act, which can be breathless at times.

For all its lumpen, awkward narrative and sometimes less-than-dazzling CGI, there's a peculiarly endearing and vibrant heart to Dolittle, and his name is Robert Downey Jr. It may be the closest he's ever come to channeling the surrealist instincts of his father, embracing Downey Sr.'s willingness to swim in the absurd.

Bad Boys for Life – while not as combustibly fun as the second installment – is fine, cheesy, Saturday afternoon mayhem, smoothly served with a heaping helping of “We’re all getting older.”

The joy and grace of Weathering With You is in how Hina and Hodaka don't reject a world that rejects them.

While Reality Queen! seeks to parody contemporary culture, the irony here is that it is the very vapid thing it mocks. Ouroboros, eat your heart out (well, I guess it will anyway, endlessly).

William Eubank’s Underwater is as incomprehensible an action movie as I’ve ever seen in theaters.

Did I imagine a gloaming quality to this film, or was that just the influence of my own trudge toward middle age? That, of course, has been the steady brilliance of this series: No matter your own pace on life’s arc, you can always catch your reflection in the fishbowl glass.

Basing the story on family history, Mendes’ terrifying view of war is poetic and tragic, dreamlike without the forced stoner surrealism that too often afflicts war dramas. It is instead impressionistic, most especially in its highly structured cinematography.

By telling a Mexican story, Lorentzen arguably speaks more directly to an American audience.

This solid if predictable courtroom drama is elevated by a terrific cast and impassioned subject matter.

The film is so alive, so joyous and raucous at times, that the empathy you feel for these characters is all the more poignant and the catharsis is well earned. This is a film you fall into, like an embrace you wish two sisters would hold, but one that the world denies them.

Aside from the committee-written script with no coherent perspective, the trouble with Like a Boss is that it never crudely outrages. It’s a bust in so many ways. The halfhearted gender and cultural political incorrectness of Hayek’s ridiculous character makes for halfhearted laughs, and that’s being generous.

An upper-tier addition to a long running horror franchise that arguably deserves better than a January release.

Cunningham adheres to a distinctly romantic approach to the artist: irascible and railing against the hypocrisy of humanity through these wonderful and complicated movements that soar above and beyond.

The only term is relentless, and for a lot of viewers Uncut Gems’ third act has been stressful, even traumatic. My response was more one of sheer awe – of the Safdies’ brilliant balancing act, of Sandler’s swirling dance of a performance, and of Howard’s sprint through a minefield.

There’s nothing to fault animation-wise – Blue Sky’s penchant for migraine and/or dopamine-inducing color palettes and headlong pacing are consistently above par – but, for adults at least, the film’s mushy mediocrity can be a real drag.

Out of a terrific ensemble cast, Pugh (Midsommar, TV’s The Little Drummer Girl) emerges as the star.

Diehl’s performance is a model of restraint; he more often imparts information by a look, a glance, the slump of his shoulders, than he does with a spoken word.

Bombshell’s ultimate punch lands more like a spectacular bottle rocket than a scorching Molotov cocktail.

Here’s the thing, though: Cats still makes no f.cking sense.

The script never knows whether it wants to be reverential or referential, and ends up being a hodgepodge of cameos and flashbacks.

For all its political positioning and explorations of institutional violence, the thing that makes Black Christmas most endearing is the strength of its sisterhood.

Jumanji: The Next Level feels like a "BioShock 2" when we were hoping for "BioShock Infinite."

It’s one of the more interesting aspects of Fernando Meirelles’ new film The Two Popes, these peeks into overly regimented and often extravagant ceremonies of the Vatican City being a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain.

Perhaps if 6 Underground had ended instead of opened with its most imaginative action sequence, much of what came before could have been regarded as a slow escalation of style and substance. As the film is currently constructed, however, 6 Underground feels twice as disappointing for its early success.

It’s Hauser who keeps the movie from tilting over, even though Eastwood and Ray initially seem to patronize the character. The knuckleheaded scene-stealer from "I, Tonya" and "BlacKkKlansman" has the chance here to play a fuller, more rounded character for a change, and he’s unexpectedly up to the task. The performance is an eye-opener. With a little refinement and polish, we may have found our long-awaited Ignatius J. Reilly.

This is a vastly inferior toy-to-film IP expansion, with duller songs, dumber jokes, and forgettable voice work.

A bizarre and imaginative thriller with a sexual and sociological twist.

It’s heady stuff, and Brie Larson’s gentle narration helps you navigate this quite complex topic.

Unfortunately, almost none of that astonishing true story makes it into The Aeronauts, a mangled retelling that cuts out Coxwell and replaces him with Amelia Wren (Jones), a gestalt character based on several women aerial explorers of the time.

Morrone is superb in the part, exuding a sort of saintly solitude while caught up in the midst of turmoil from within and without. Even at its most dire, Mickey and the Bear is tinged with an almost holy hope for all involved, a rare and remarkable feat to pull off so well for a first-time director indeed.

Queen & Slim artfully weaves together a lovers-on-the-lam crime story with very trenchant Black Lives Matter thematic content. It is a perfect movie for our times. It grabs you by the scruff during its flawless opening sequences and never lets go, despite some episodic contrivances that occasionally cause it to feel overplotted.

The movie’s wit and energy hold your interest, but they don’t spark the pleasure of the unexpected, the thrill you felt in "Laura," "The Last of Sheila," "Chinatown," "The Sixth Sense," or the 1974 adaptation of Christie’s "Murder on the Orient Express" (not Kenneth Branagh’s inept remake), movies whose big reveals surprise you in their elegant simplicity.

Divorce severs this marriage like the dull blade of a knife cutting through the tiers of a wedding cake.

If you can describe something as a B-action movie and not mean it as a derogatory phrase, then this is probably the thriller for you.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood brings that essential essence of Fred Rogers to life. That sense of wonder, of kindness, and most importantly of letting kids – and adults – know that it's OK to have been hurt. Heller and Hanks remember that Rogers was not about being perfect, or pretending that bad things don't happen. It's about liking people just the way they are.

As if the dazzling performances and audaciously intertwined storylines weren’t enough, Waves is a visual stunner, too, thanks to director of photography Drew Daniels, whose restless, reckless camerawork paints a family tragedy in dizzying, near-psychedelic hues, mirroring the increasingly frenetic storyline.

If Honey Boy was just the actor doing primal scream therapy at the camera for 93 minutes, we'd arguably be obligated to watch it. But that he delivers a captivating, haunting, and brutally honest exploration of a life we think we know.

What is notable is how the film gives children a framework, and the language, to process this act of violence, same as it does the pain of grief, the bitter rub of mortality. I don’t know if that sensitivity will translate to a gajillion more princess dresses sold, but as a teaching aid for kids – a tool for taking on more adult concerns – I found it surprisingly impactful.

Moreover, dark as Better Days gets – and it is often an uneasy watch because of its delicately-handled themes – there's still a hopeful story about how honesty and courage and fix even the most broken systems.

The Good Liar is a pleasantly playful thriller hiding a seriously shady history close to its benighted heart.

Anyone expecting truth from Bannon is on a fool's errand, and the floating criticism that there's no confessional here is missing the entire point.

What's disappointing, especially considering Swati's background in dance, is how static the film feels, and how lumpen the story becomes.

While Scandalous ultimately touches upon the tabloid’s plausible impact on the present-day state of affairs, it’s a killjoy way to begin a movie that’s so engagingly lively.

Although it’s no doubt intentional that Driver plays Jones as tireless and single-minded, the overall narrative of The Report might have been helped by more character-building.

The ensemble cast is uniformly first-rate, but Sachs' moribund movie is a slog – all those scenes of Frankie’s friends and family wandering through the woods made my feet hurt.

It’s the rare movie that doesn’t trivialize a platonic male relationship with buddy film tropes.

Charlie’s Angels isn’t revolutionary by any means, but for today’s Gen Z, it’s a jumping-off point.

He's (Flanagan) never trying to one-up Kubrick or King. Instead, he's trying to push past his own best work, and he may well have achieved that in one supernatural scene that is as shocking and captivating as the fall of the bent-neck lady. In honoring both Kubrick and King, Flanagan's greatest achievement is not being swallowed by the Overlook's shadow.

This mirthless comedy about a manly crew of smokejumpers helplessly babysitting a trio of rescued brats has more dead air in it than a radio broadcast hosted by a narcoleptic disc jockey.

Midway does a decent job of cramming in not only the eponymous three-day naval battle between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy but also treats the audience to a wealth of other, related Greatest Generation’s greatest hits.

But you know what? It works. Director Paul Feig is not unfamiliar with traversing these waters of a slap and a tickle. He’ll give you the Christmas cheer and also the realities of life, and it’s helpful that Thompson and Kimmings have razor-sharp instincts when it comes to that short, sharp, shocked brand of British humor that we all love so well.

It's absolutely at its best as a predictable if pleasurable story of unlikely success. In those slight and joyous moments, this Cyrano is definitely something to touch the heart.

Bar a brief boost from his performance as Konstantin Kovar in "Arrow," nothing can save Dolph Lundgren from C-grade hell, digital squibs, and schlocky crime flicks like Acceleration.

Denying Scorsese's raw talent and experience as a filmmaker would be insanity – although the decision to digitally de-age his actors proves the technology is still spotty, and works best in long shots. But that the only major film made in America this year about unions dredges up Hoffa again, and the Italian American community is yet again made synonymous with organized crime, seems tone deaf and self-indulgent.

If the screenplay pulls at threads that don’t always pay off, the actors and the thoughtful cinematography of veteran Dick Pope always ensure that there’s something engaging to watch onscreen. A sequence set in the jazz club, during which the jumpy music and Lionel’s mental and physical state merge into an intuitive singularity, is a real standout.

Terminator: Dark Fate is personified in the Rev-9. The new terminator is a nanite skin over a combat endoskeleton. It should be two for the price of one: Instead, it's the chassis of the original draped with the flesh of Robert Patrick's "Judgment Day" liquid metal shapeshifter. It's everything you loved before, just awkwardly kludged together.

Like a classroom history lesson, the script by director Lemmons and Gregory Allen Howard dutifully recounts the life of this extraordinary person. The movie feels prosaic, although Tubman’s occasional intonation of a timeless spiritual in lieu of dialogue is an unexpected lyrical touch enhanced by the purity of Erivo’s voice.

Surprisingly, Countdown works best when it operates less as a Nineties horror homage and more as a modern horror-comedy.

Portals feels like a first pass at a bigger idea, and a framing mechanism that takes a wild series of closing turns sets up a much bigger – and darkly interesting – universe. In that way, Portals promises more in future than it delivers here.

An abundance of color is present in Pain and Glory but the shades are more muted than Almodóvar’s early color-saturated work. Thematically and visually, this film has more in common with such Almodóvar dramas as "All About My Mother" and "Talk to Her." Pain and Glory is ultimately the story of an artist on the verge of a creative breakthrough.

When looking at the one-two punch of The Lighthouse and "The Witch," Eggers seems to find inspiration in how superstition and folklore blurred the boundaries of human knowledge throughout history. His characters live in the space between mankind and mysticism, where things like witches and mermaids can (and maybe even do) gain access to our homes.

Absurdist humor abounds throughout a story whose underlying themes echo Elvis Costello’s eternal question, “What’s so funny ’bout peace, love, and understanding?” even as corpses dangle from a foregrounded gallows.

It can be an incredibly entertaining romp through the picket fence yards of an America that only exists in our collective unconscious.