Demigod is a small but effective seasonal treat; One of the few independent horror films that get tossed into the October horror real-estate that deserves a look.

A sad, poignant, dialogue-driven film destined for successful post-film life as a theatre production, writer/director Fran Kranz’s debut about two sets of parents on opposing sides of a tragedy locates the humanity in the seemingly endless, peculiarly American saga of school shootings. It also celebrates forgiveness.

It’s a lovely, intelligent movie that explores relationships, creativity, inspiration and the benefits of wrestling with the blank page.

Scott contrives a convincing resemblance to events leading up to the last court-sanctioned duel-to-the-death with a meticulous eye for specifics. He transfers a riveting piece of history into a riveting film—mostly.

I’m Your Man is certainly a metaphor for our increasingly intimate relationship with our own technology. Some have seen it as a direct reference to our intimacy with personae on social media, virtual relationships that exist at the expense of our connections with people in the real world. Whatever it is supposed to be, it is a smart and often witty take on a not exactly new sci-fi premise.

In the wonderfully weird and atmospheric Fever Dream, Peruvian director Claudia Llosa (The Milk of Sorrow) explores a mother’s guilt and fear in a fable of physical and supernatural contamination.

The Rescue will take your breath away. It’s an incredible chronicle of a true impossible mission, of how the world can come together to save life.

In drawing similes between the then and the now, Goulet juxtaposes history with prophecy. Using conventional science-fiction tropes—the collapse of society, a military state, dystopia, and unidentified flying orbs—she creates a sound case for entertainment to share the screen with stories that have meaning and social impact.

If you’re yearning for a Western with a vintage feel, and a touch of mythos, writer/director Potsy Ponciroli’s homage to the genre, Old Henry will nicely fill that bill.

Carlos López Estrada, who directed 2018’s Oakland-set Blindspotting, developed this original “spoken word musical” from the work of young Los Angelean poets into a sort of contemporary version of Fame.

Some might find that No Time to Die, clocking in at just under three hours, is a long journey. But there are enough action sequences— some of the best since the crane fight in the opening scene of Casino Royale—to make time move quickly.

Too conventional by half, the prequel betrays the boldness of the original show, though it stirs up good memories. Sopranos complete-ists, who have exhausted analyzing the 86 episodes, may want to pay it homage via this relic, like a bonus extra on the series’ box-set.

If brevity is indeed the soul of wit, at a tidy 90 minutes, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is on point for what it largely is - a violently slapstick domestic sitcom.

An audacious and demented film, tailor-made for its recent Midnight Madness slot at the Toronto International Film Festival, Julia Ducournau’s Titane also has intimations of profundity - quite a claim for a film about a woman who is impregnated by a car.

Writer/director Sébastien Pilote has turned this piece of Quebec history into a visually stunning, deeply satisfying piece of cinema, a gorgeous period piece. Canadian history has rarely, if ever, looked so sumptuous on the screen, or felt so rich.

Rarely do remakes capture the lightning in the bottle of the source material. But The Guilty does, no doubt in part because screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto, best known for the True Detective series, drafted Gustav Möller, who wrote the original screenplay for and directed the original. Whether a remake was needed remains debatable, but the vision remains intact.

The film version of the multiple Tony Award–winning hit Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen is a mixed bag and a wonky adaptation that doesn’t always quite scan. Yet I’d be lying if I didn’t say that despite its flaws, it’s also strangely affecting.

The film is full of lovely images, macro close-ups and time-lapse photography mixed in with some inspirational politics...But by the end, this gentle meandering film about a man who loves forests feels at least half-nonsensical.

There’s an entertaining commitment to the story and its references in Saint-Narcisse (a real place that may be impossible to photograph badly, such is the natural beauty that surrounds this demented tale). And La Bruce knows a striking leading man when he casts one.

There’s not even a useful exploration about the gap between ideologues’ shoddy personal ethics and big picture rationalizations. What’s left is pantomime, a Halloween costume movie about characters who are far too simple-minded to explain the Bakker’s extraordinary, dubious success.

What makes Cry Macho fascinating to watch, even in an uncomfortable high-wire act way, is Eastwood — stoop-shouldered, sometimes pausing in his dialogue, but determinedly taking on a character he probably should have taken on back in 1988 when he was first approached about doing the part.

The praise for the film — a one-man show by a Korean-American filmmaker at a time of heightened anti-Asian racism and a focus on unjust immigration policies — is understandable. But the film itself is a disappointment, a message film that relies far too much on artless, melodramatic contrivances for its emotional impact.

Its script is undercooked and veers in random directions from its simple premise. But it has a heart, and two likeable leads who work well together.

Fair warning: Tango Shalom is a broad comedy, with a thick coating of the sentimental lubricant known in Yiddish circles as “schmaltz.”

I was intrigued to find that Finding You was not produced by an AI romance plot generator, but an actual book — Jenny B. Jones’ 2011 YA novel, There You’ll Find Me.

A tale of trauma told, fittingly, with a poker face, Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter is a sure-handed rumination on redemption and finding peace of mind.

Yakuza Princess is a passable actioner with a few memorable scenes, the highlight of which is a fight in a karaoke bar (yes, MASUMI gets the chance to sing). But it’s unable to get beyond a level of mediocrity, and MASUMI’s performance fails to resonate with the sufficient conviction required of her role.

There is enough story, enough heart and action here for a fun time at the movies.

The movie jumps between reality and fantasy, and its device, Zed’s autoimmune disease, where the body is literally rejecting itself, is perhaps a bit of an obvious metaphor for Zed rejecting his cultural roots. But strong, heartfelt and sincere performances, especially by Ahmed and Kahn draw us in.

What the film lacks in traditional scares, it makes up for with an unsettling scenario that plays slowly throughout the film, indicating harsher realities even legends can't compete with. And DaCosta's vision is highly stylized, accented with performances that resonate with disquieting accuracy.

Anyone considering a movie called American Sausage Standoff (a.k.a. Gutterbee) should expect an odd comedy, though they might not expect one quite as eccentric as this Western by Danish actor-turned-director Ulrich Thomsen.

For the power of the performances and what they capture about guilt and family manipulation, Flag Day has a cathartic accuracy in many of its scenes.

Koefoed’s stylishly made film takes its time, gives everyone their due, and leaves us with some profoundly interesting questions.

Reminiscence doesn’t leave us much to remember it by, apart from those mournful CGI vistas of water-logged Miami.

Starry actioner The Protégé is a filmic version of empty calories: irresistible if short on sustenance and of an ilk that’s best rationed carefully.

Taken either as a metaphor for mourning or as a straight-up fictional narrative with a paranormal bent, The Night House’s ending is as disturbing — and intriguing — as it gets.

Animation director Jane Samborski’s richly eclectic miscellany of visual styles depict a bestiary of mythic creatures and outré scenes of sex and violence that are matched to director/writer Dash Shaw’s allegorical narrative.

Though the subject of immigrants from persecuted minorities fleeing their homelands is topical, what elevates I Carry You With Me above most social dramas is its finespun, artisanal quality.

An occasional brilliantly funny but exasperatingly chaotic, vignette-style examination of relationships, male rage, and female insecurities.

The movie attempts to strike a nerve and, in its efforts, occasionally demonstrates promise. A memorable death scene is accomplished with a blend of comedy, horror, and style. But it is a rare moment.

Respect, the new movie starring Jennifer Hudson as the late soul singer Aretha Franklin, proves once again that musical biopics have become the tribute mediocrity pays to talent.

Intermittently witty, technically impressive, Free Guy sheds points in its second half, with pandering (Star Wars and Captain American references) and a series of numbing narrative loops, celebrating originality while practicing the opposite. And all of this with the usual alibi that none of this is meant to be serious.

While Gutnik has assembled a talented cast, the constraints of a 105-minute runtime means the stories feel underdone in places, including anything about that furiously entitled man in the subway.

Krymalowski brings a vivacious energy to a movie that would otherwise be one long trudge to safe haven.

Welsh director Euros Lyn’s reality-based steeple-chasing feature Dream Horse never deviates far from the expected course. But its off-kilter humour and an ace cast, led by the ever-credible Toni Collette, brings some fresh colours to this unabashed crowd pleaser.

The film is a confusing, rather than complex, series of threats and reveals and confessions that never successfully gel into a suitable resolve.

If you want to see what it means to a film when an excellent actor fully commits to a role, look to Adam Driver’s performance in Leos Carax’s award winning musical Annette. He breathes life into what is an otherwise dry and emotionally disconnected film.

The Suicide Squad, Gunn’s sequel to David Ayer’s poorly reviewed first try at the tale of a group of super-villains forced to be good guys, is a nihilistic orgy of brightly coloured gore and violence apparently envisioned while on mushrooms. If you’re sitting near the front of an IMAX theatre, it plays like being in the “splash-zone” of a GWAR concert.

Sometimes researching the background of a movie proves more revealing than the film itself.

If the Miranda musical touches are getting familiar, they’re still a lot fresher than the script here, yet another story of a pet animal on a mission and its special bond with a lonely child.

Here Today is the movie Crystal directs, a genial, monotone of good-heartedness that isn’t as funny as it wants to be or needs to be, but hits some truths about the subject of age and dementia, while maintaining its mild smile.

For the first two acts at least, Jungle Cruise is reasonably good fodder for a family outing, very much a theme park ride of the cinematic kind.

Nemesis is a low-grade gangster saga with a home-invasion twist and a cast that sounds like bigger stars from other movies.

Are audiences, who are used to having their heroic stories delivered to them in fantastically exciting packages, ready for this reined-in version of the wounded hero? In spite of its flaws, Lowery’s The Green Knight makes a case for a different sort of hero whose time may have come.

The trouble is not that the movie is exploitative but that it’s out of its depth. This tone-jumping jigsaw of a narrative (written by McCarthy and Marchus Hinchey along French screenwriters Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré) amounts to several movies in one.

Lorelei is a lovely story told with heart and without judgment.

There’s no doubt that spotlighting Close’s reputation in our recent cultural history is worthwhile. But the documentary is unjust in ignoring such seminal figures as acting coach and academic Violin Spolin, who developed and wrote the bible on the subject (Improvisation for the Theatre).

I have not read the graphic novel Sandcastle upon which Old is based so I can’t vouch for its faithfulness to the source material. But it’s hard to believe anyone would call this a winner.

Romanticization and exploitation often converge. Stripped of its warm memories, this could be an MBA study on turning local youth trends into global lifestyle commodities, inevitably leaving casualties along the way.

The comedy in the film is spontaneous and engaging. The drama is subtle and patient, the effect of which makes it challenging to track Michael's progress with his friends, his relationship, and his sports career.

There’s a little more room for characters to breathe. This is not to last, however. The whole thing must ignite into a final act of fights, car chases and general destruction (and Snake Eyes’ discovery of honour). The battle scenes are often darkly lit and confusing (though it is a change of pace to see so much swordplay as opposed to gunplay), and the attempt to fuse the Joes and Cobra into the plot in the last act is not exactly smooth.

Beans is an ambitious film that, for the most part, works. It extends its efforts to reach a larger audience, but the story it tells is easy to admire.

A poetic drama about the lives of three Maori girls from the 1950s to the 1980s, Cousins is a heart-breaker, tempered with hope.

None of this is helped by Platt’s performance, with a petulant eye-roll to every impediment, as if he were the fussbudget Felix of The Odd Couple and Cindy his disaster-prone Oscar.

As utterly derivative action films go, Jolt has definite energy, and it’s not pretending to be original. As a time-killer, that may be enough for some.

Director Nick Moran gets the temperature of the era mostly right, and effectively weaves this extraordinary source material into a watchable if formulaic two hours.

Even those resistant to Gunda’s vegetarian message would be hard-pressed to describe these creatures cavalierly having witnessed these exquisitely framed, highly meditative moments. We see life within these beings, and we witness their undeniable will to live. And it’s beautiful. Gunda is truly one of a kind.

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is a carefully made film, a wonderful homage to a flawed hero. It will lift you up, it will potentially break your heart. But it will remind you that you’re not alone. We’re in this together.

The fast pace is attention-span theatre for the young’uns, and the adult-aimed quips are entertaining for a while.

If this seems like a bit of a deep dive when the subject is trendy restaurants in Portland, Pig is a serious movie with heady themes that just happens to come at you from oblique and unexpected angles.

The Loneliest Whale is gripping and highly persuasive, blending hard science with real-life action/adventure sequences, talking-head interviews, and — sorry, sorry — a whale of a true story that has been headline news for years.

In sum, we have a silly Hollywood-style action movie with a Robin Hood theme, serving the ideology of an elitist authoritarian regime. In other words, a real misfit.

When the creepy conflux of the title occurs, it’s terrifying because its conclusion is unforeseeable. Like life you might say: impossible to predict but nevertheless captivating.

It's an understandable impulse for a film of this sort to hold off on divulging secrets, content to fill the story with ambiguity rather than rush to reveal anyone's agenda. But directors Martín Blousson and Macarena García Lenzi's tight clench on the film's secrets feels more like an exercise in prying out a reveal than a steady unraveling of clues and discovery.

Meander, by director Mathieu Turi, uses the device of the escape room, or tunnel in this instance, as a way of negotiating the story of a woman’s perilous journey through a debilitating sadness. It’s allegorical, no doubt. But it’s an allegory that makes excellent use of an incredibly intricate and claustrophobic set piece.

Shortland has given us a fast-paced movie with action sequences, character depth, and very subtle social and political subtexts about the way women are seen, treated and exploited in the world.

Although Let Us In is billed as a science-fiction/horror for young adults, it’s hard to imagine anyone identifying as a teen or tween finding much interest beyond a rudimentary curiosity of an online urban myth getting the feature-length film treatment.

And though you can sense the influences of Mad Max, Escape from New York, and even a few influential forces from Walter Hill’s The Warriors, The Forever Purge remains an uncinematic thriller unworthy of breaking a lengthy stay away from the theatre.

Taken in micro-doses, Peter Rabbit 2 has clever moments and a relentless eagerness to please. But the movie trips over itself when it attempts to satirize what it practices.

With echoes of Starship Troopers (minus the pointed satire), The Tomorrow War, starring Chris Pratt, is the second noisy “temporal war” movie of the pandemic era, after Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. To differentiate between the two, this is the one Nolan would have written if he’d suffered a head injury.

There is a bristling, neon energy to Zola which, given its provenance as a series of real-life tweets from waitress and exotic dancer (and now executive producer) A’ziah “Zola” King, seems about right. This is a road trip movie straight outta weirdsville.

Impossible odds and a furious deadline have propelled many great and not-so-great action films. Those factors are very much at play in The Ice Road, which stars Liam Neeson, several big rigs, and the province of Manitoba in a thriller that, though by-the-numbers in execution, boasts a watchable enough premise.

Traditional horror fans are likely to find the effort tiresome despite a few intense scenes. But those who like their horror films laced in a philosophical debate will find plenty to enjoy.

Like so many recent documentaries that focus on cultural icons, Wolfgang isn’t a deep dive but more of a profile, and an appreciation.

The emotional tone here is sympathetic and elegiac, and since both men have a way with words, often absorbing. Though there is little here that won’t be known by fans of the writers, the format of the interviews is striking.

Censor is an off-brand horror treat that walks the distance between artistic freedom and the scrutiny of morbid excess to which the title refers.

When the movie abandons the memoir’s story of grief and joy it becomes less interesting.

For better and worse, the script has a clear depiction of contemporary good and evil and an efficient movie-of-the-week purposefulness, to the point where you half expect to see a helpline number before the closing credits.

Returning director Patrick Hughes and screenwriters Tom O’Connor, Phillip Murphy, and Brandon Murphy count too much on star charisma and action set-ups to carry the narrative. The result is that the smirks are mild and scattered while the bloodshed, gun fights, and explosions are relentless.

Given the accelerated pace of a 90-minute movie whose main narrative happens in one night, Williams gives a powerfully controlled performance, creating a character whose awareness level is high.

It is at times a terrifically uncomfortable movie to watch. But director Michel Franco's New Order, a searing and relentlessly grim indictment of class division and government corruption, scans not only as possible but entirely likely given our current world. Heavy doesn’t begin to describe it.

A dark movie, but also a funny one.

All this is big, busy fun and while one might wish for some a bit more grit in the charm offensive, the catchwords here are feel-good and broad appeal.

Equal Standard means well, doesn’t stereotype black or white characters unduly, and offers hope instead of rage. The trouble is the movie is just poorly executed.

One can see clear linkages between Undine to the nightmare weirdness of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, though it’s as if this similar story were drained of its passionate momentum and rendered abstract.

It’s a lesser episode to be sure. But Wilson and Farmiga are both so accomplished and comfortable in their roles at this point, that they distract us from the movie’s flaws.

Spiral is locked in a formula that has not budged in nearly two decades. That is likely to read as good news for fans of the franchise.

People will either love Moby Doc or hate it, but absolutely no one will exit with a shrug. I’d call that an achievement.