A short, patchy, straight-to-streaming piece of semi-amusing content that tries to fit several different romantic-comedies into a single movie that doesn’t have the bandwidth (or the interest) to mine any of them for major sources of romance or comedy, Claire Scanlon’s The People We Hate at the Wedding basically feels like watching a bunch of talented actors chug cheap red wine for 90 minutes.

It’s the kind of muted slice-of-life film that only works because a delightfully complex character anchors it.

In Her Hands is happy to tout Ghafari’s status, the easy headlines about her gender and her age, even tougher stories about the price she’s paid for her work. As to what Ghafari has really done, what she really means beyond those quick hits, there’s nothing.

It’s not a sequel; it’s a replica. And while that might bring some comfort and joy during the holiday season, wouldn’t you rather savor the real thing?

The frame moves slowly, if at all, but it always brims with physical and emotional energy; in “Joyland,” there’s always something in the ether, whether embodied by dazzling displays of light as characters move across stages and club floors, or by breathtaking silences as they begin to figure each other out, and figure out themselves.

The film deserves credit for its nuanced exploration of sexual trauma, showing us characters who are both burdened by it yet seem to adjust their coping mechanisms by the minute.

Taking an observational approach, the film rarely explains the customs and culture it so intimately captures, only addressing an outsider perspective when Sherenté is seen leading educational tours. Instead, viewers are let in on sacred rituals and community gatherings, following Sherenté’s lived experience closely.

However you slice it, Hill’s artifice proves intriguing even as it insists upon itself in ways that distract from Stutz’s lessons (which sound great but speed by in a blur of terminology that means almost nothing without him there to help us apply it to our own lives).

Slumberland is nothing if not an exhausting roller-coaster of missed opportunities, virtually all of which stem from the film’s lack of a solid emotional foundation.

If nothing else, Capturing the Killer Nurse should inspire its viewers, eager for both more information and more nuance, to seek out Lindholm’s film. Fortunately, even in the seemingly endless maw of Netflix content, that better version is just a single click away.

By turns engaging and flashy, the film probes the narratives propping up the multi-billion dollar diamond industry and posits that it’s all a house of cards. With a peppy original score, a flurry of colorful characters, and a disruptive subject matter, Nothing Lasts Forever is an invigorating study of how myths are made.

To watch terror become desperation become despair is wrenching, more so because this puts names and faces to events the rest of us are fortunate enough to read about while sitting on our couches.

Lohan is just fine with self-deprecating quips at her expense and looking silly while getting messy by way of physical comedy involving toilets, raccoons, and the aforementioned ski accident. Lohan shines in these moments, and the blooper reel in the credits shows that shine even extended to the set.

It’s refreshing to see two stars who could have easily phoned it in for the rest of their careers push themselves to try new things. Even more thrilling, they really can sing!

For all of the film’s janky pacing, thoroughly mediocre action setpieces, and the clumsiness with which it’s forced to double as backdoor pilot for Disney Plus’ “Ironheart” series, Coogler’s subthread of the MCU continues to operate at a significantly higher strata of thought, artistry, and feeling than the rest of Marvel’s assembly line.

The story of Eternal Spring deserves to be told — but Loftus’ film falls victim to the kind of insidious propaganda members of Falun Gong once tried to fight.

Southern and Lovelace’s documentary appears to be held together by the same proverbial glue and paper clips that cohered the early sonic boom of this particular indie subset. And that’s largely part of its charm. But the results are often navel-gazey.

It takes truly terrible script to make such charming and accomplished comedic actors seems so wooden and lifeless.

One Piece Film: Red sails a fine line, its story beats familiar enough for the newcomers, with details as bizarre and garish as a “One Piece” story could possibly get.

Amer’s fraught but noble intent has resulted in a fraught but noble film; a volatile, urgent debut that’s semi-effective kaleidoscopic approach is meant to reflect Hasna Aït Boulahcen’s fractured identity.

Parker and Kohli both give excellent performances, but the majority of Next Exit is hard to distinguish from the standard road trip dramas that pop up at Sundance every year.

It’s not a movie about healing so much as a movie about learning to hurt in the healthiest way possible. And if its diaristic, inside-out approach has the strange effect of keeping us at a distance . . . it also invites its most vulnerable young viewers to appreciate that even their favorite superstar is still fighting to be closer to herself.

While a straightforward documentary in the classic sense, it’s polished, affecting, professionally edited, and bursting with big personalities.

Despite appearances, The Independent isn’t much interested in the implications of a three-horse race for the Oval Office, or the viability of a down-to-earth superman uniting the country with promises that appeal to both sides of the aisle. No, that stuff is just a pretext for a tense but ultimately toothless polemic about the value of truth and the need for an independent press

With its bisexual lighting and hyper-designed oddball aesthetic, Please Baby Please looks a lot more polished than its messier camp influences. Aesthetically, the film cobbles together its many cinematic influences with admirable swagger. But film isn’t solely a visual medium — it’s a storytelling one as well.

If this weren’t a Cartoon Saloon movie, it would probably fall apart long before Meg LeFauve’s screenplay arrives at its touching finale, which trusts kids to confront some of the more difficult truths that childhood forces you to intuit. But good news: My Father’s Dragon is a Cartoon Saloon movie, and the open-hearted sincerity of the studio’s work breathes singular life into even the least engaging scenes of its most anonymous feature.

"Black & Blues” is a doc that will make you appreciate Armstrong, the man. Someone far too complex to reduce to any one thing.

The film reunites most of the principal cast and crew of director Harry Bradbeer’s 2020 Netflix feature, “Enola Holmes,” and while that franchise-starter was frisky and fun, its followup rehashes the original’s charms (with wishy-washy results), while expanding elements that required no additional attention.