Even if Smiling Georgia could trim some minutes from its already short 62-minute runtime, the documentary is still fun and poignant enough to get us smiling in the end.

If We Have Never Been Modern had been produced in Hollywood, Křenková would be an early candidate for an Academy Award thanks to her passionate take on Helena. Chlupáček knows that character should be at the center of a movie that’s all about the human experience, which is why the director gives Křenková plenty of space to shine. And shine she does.

Ultimately, watching Scream of My Blood is not so different from watching Gogol Bordello live, thanks to the perfect balance of unhinged fun and political purpose.

Booger is a bold and refreshing journey into grief and the damaging effects of holding it in when it desperately wants to claw its way out.

It is the worst thing an action film can possibly be: forgettable.

The core concept of Bride versus Groomsmen could have led to an exciting action flick, yet when not even the action scenes work as they should, it’s hard to defend Til Death Do Us Part.

It is a film that sets out to sink its teeth into something a bit deeper and more inventive only to merely serve up an experience with little to actually chew on.

For a film about a supposedly historic and harrowing journey to the moon, it never manages to charter any new territory of its own.

For all the classic horror stories it gestures at, Killer Book Club never is able to tell a memorable one of its own. No matter how many empty escalations and confrontations with the killer it makes its way through, the real clown show is the film itself.

Even as Butterfield continues to try to bring something resembling gravitas towards the end of the film, it all just peters out. No matter how many quick cuts and bursts of sound it throws at you, everything it goes for falls flat on its back.

By the end of Hate to Love: Nickelback, it’ll be hard to hate these four guys, and in some ways, that’s sort of the point—putting a human face on a band that is often seen as little more than a meme.

The Movie Teller is a beautiful and moving look into how cinema can bring a community together and how art can help to heal broken hearts.

As a whole, Arquette's directorial effort is fun, but forgettable. Despite pulling out laughs from viewers here and there or Dafoe and Morrone's impeccable deliveries, the plot doesn't quite stay with you.

Elkann is a visionary with the ability to create specific, gorgeous worlds and unique characters, especially when it focuses on the relationship between Pupa and Gianna. The themes that arise during the film are riveting, but it stops short of fully diving into them and their implications.

From its simple but effective production design right down to Jinkings’ excellent performance, Toll provides a multi-layered picture of what Suellen’s life is like.

Lost Ladies manages the rare feat of being a joyride and a meaningful social commentary at the same time.

As far as feature debuts go, Purev-Ochir delivers a solid offering, one that showcases her strengths and leans into the soul of her original short, elaborating on an intriguing concept to impressive results.

For horror fans who prefer a more subtle and nuanced brand of horror that verges on the very outskirts of psychological horror, the lo-fi grunginess of Falling Stars will certainly appeal to them, though the outcome may leave them with more questions than answers.

While it is not going to be among the very best of 2023 when it comes to its story, the craft that went into its presentation is unlike anything you’ll see this year or any other. It manages to burst through the surface of its frequently stormy narrative waters and grab hold of your heart just as it does your eyes.

It is the vibrancy to the presentation that remains the standout though the performances are also good fun.

Brutal Heat delivers a curious experiment that never fully embraces the potential of its concept.

Much like the scene from which it gets its name, where a photo from an old album is flipped to reveal those four words, turning things over and holding them up to the light is the necessary starting point to finding the truth.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever is still a greatly enjoyable entry in the animated adaptation landscape that mostly captures the essence of the novels. Most importantly, it doesn’t forget that kids’ insecurities can make them reckless and even unlikable, and that’s okay because, eventually, they’ll learn from their mistakes.

It becomes apparent that the story is trying to do too much, with far too little time to do any of it well.

With vaguely established threats and storylines, Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate is the movie equivalent of meeting a friend you missed for many years only to realize that the encounter didn’t really need to happen.

Belktibia's feature debut comes with compelling sequences as a mother fights against what seems like the entire world, but murky motivations hold one back from getting fully emotionally invested.

Where the original remains a work of art that is as entertaining as it is well-made, this remake proves to be nothing more than an empty and thunderously stupid approximation of an action film. Neither thrilling nor tense, it's simply dead on arrival.

Breathe is empty bluster and nothing more. It’s like a vacuum of where a movie should be, sucking all the air out of the room until nothing is left.