An hour and 20 minutes into this two-hour-and-11-minute endurance test, a hungry Kaiju attacks the city of Hong Kong and eats the neon signs of every Cantonese restaurant in Victoria Harbor. It’s sort of worth waiting around for.

Incurable romantics seeking a fresh look at love contemporary-style could do a lot worse than Plus One. This charming little independent film, by the first-time writing-directing team of Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer, also introduces two vibrant new stars in Jack Quaid and Maya Erskine as Ben and Alice.

A bleak and pointless exercise in pretentious existentialism.

The physical abuse and emotional anguish sometimes borders on overkill, but the final outcome is overwhelming.

Set in the upper-class echelons of Paris and written, acted and filmed entirely in French, the title Coup de Chance translates as “stroke of luck,” and that’s exactly what it is, restoring the masterful filmmaker to his deserved position as one of the screen’s most profound storytellers.

Not a great film in the same vein as "Badlands" and "Pretty Poison," but a very good one that is well worth seeing.

It’s a shallower product than either of its inspirations, but it also has its own, distinct energy. It doesn’t totally jettison the franchise’s 45 years of baggage, but when it does, what’s left is a damn good monster movie.

Both the songs (once again written by two-time Oscar-winners Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez) and the relationships between the characters — strong points of the original film — register with less energy and originality this time around.

A flawless film of heartrending realism about the eternal chord that binds parents and children and the emptiness when they are separated.

Despite occasional flaws, Disconnect is filled with fine performances, informed by an often sophisticated script and directed with passion.

A singularly unpleasant and ugly topic film about a profoundly unpleasant and ugly topic, Goat possesses all the directness of a fraternity paddle whack across the keister, but with only a fraction of the subtlety. As to which experience is more enjoyable to live through, it’s pretty much a tie.

Though it’s a neat throwback that features a few memorable performances, MaXXXine imitates its period setting a little too well, prioritizing style and adding little substance to the series.

A dismal hack job pretending to be a take on modern relationships.

The truth is, this flawed but still entertaining film’s chief asset is its representation of a young woman who has spent her life following orders but is now finally crafting an identity of her own in a shifting moral landscape.

The movie often seems too good to be true, but by the end I wanted a dolphin just like Winter for my own swimming pool.

The power in this movie is the way Chris Weitz trusts us to discover the facts for ourselves.

The Innkeepers, a desultory indie-prod poorly written and lamely directed by Ti West, and filmed on the cheap at the actual location, is a poor-man's rip-off of Stanley Kubrick's hotel spookfest, "The Shining," promising paranormal horrors to all who dare to enter. Where is Jack Nicholson when we need him?

The result is a movie of enormous intelligence.

One hour and forty minutes of gibberish about three generations of empowered female superheroes wreaking havoc on a postapocalyptic twilight zone, written and directed by a terrible filmmaker named Julia Hart. She’s no Rod Serling.

Unpredictable, with a twisted surprise around each corner, Big Bad Wolves is a clever and arresting shocker from a country where blood and gore on the screen are least expected.

In my own very humble opinion, In Praise of Love lacks even the most fragmented charms I have found in almost all of his previous works. [9 Sep 2002, p.25]

The result seems to tiptoe around the even juicier chance to tell the dirty behind the scenes stories that could have made this story a real bombshell indeed.

Elegant and understated, Belle is a true story about the effects of slavery on 18th-century England, told in the style of a sweeping romantic saga by Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters.

Some of the visual horror will no doubt be of interest to genre fans, but even there the appeal is limited. In an age when we are awash in efficient and involving horror movies — from "Halloween" to "A Quiet Place" to even "The Nun" (which is not that great but is at least short) — Suspiria comes off as bloated and disconnected.

This movie is not without its moments of visual interest, but for a more comprehensive study of Baker’s life and career, read James Gavin’s book Deep in a Dream, or better yet, curl up with the real deal and a glass of wine and listen to what used to be.

Elvis Presley never dies, but an unequivocally gripping, emotionally effective and quintessential movie about him still begs to be made. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is not the one.

The result is a colossal bore that is never passionate, exciting, sexy or entertaining, with an ill-fated titled performance by Joaquin Phoenix that borders on catatonic.

A filthy, pretentious, brutally violent and utterly pointless load of rubbish called Killing Them Softly.