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.