Lisa Frankenstein can be fun, but there is a mean-spiritedness to Cody’s script that doesn’t fit with the film’s premise. It comes mainly at the hands of the creature whose victims are far from charming but don’t necessarily deserve the extreme comeuppance that’s dealt to them.

The title is titillating enough to grab young ears. Yet the story at its core — about three college-age British women looking for thrills on holiday in Crete but instead finding some hard truths — would surely prompt discussion about consent, optics, and forethought that should be happening everywhere all the time and not just among women.

If you enjoyed Paterson, Jim Jarmusch’s 2016 drama about… well, not much of anything to be honest, then you may similarly be moved by its spiritual cousin, Perfect Days by Wim Wenders.

Argylle is not as dreadfully unwatchable as the Kingsman movies, but it is dolefully derivative, as if The Manchurian Candidate and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty had a baby, then abandoned it to be raised on The Planet of the Apes.

Fitting In is kind of on-the-nose in the way it portrays the transference of attitudes.

The underdog formula doesn’t work in this film. Highlighted by Snoop Dogg’s ham-fisted acting, the script really doesn’t allow for any sort of forgiveness of his character’s oversights.

Four Daughters is a strange, moving, weirdly stagey film, heartbreaking in most aspects but infuriating in others.

The women's stories are devastating. And familiar.

The film, which is an economical 90 minutes, is a drama which, at times plays like a mystery, with incredible tension. Çatak gives us a satisfying film, but an unsettling one with unanswered questions.

Compellingly artful if dramatically blunt, The Settlers is Chile’s entry into the best International picture Oscar race, a kind of Western that critiques the reasons for the genre.

Thomas von Steinaecker’s documentary, Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer, offers an enjoyable, if fairly light portrait of the German filmmaker and survey of his 60-plus year career.

On the plus side, production design is superb, and the sets look like they were built from NASA blueprints. I’ve spent some virtual time in the I.S.S. (thank you IMAX and VR headsets) and it does look a treat. But that’s still not enough to tether this problematic product.

What is easy to watch are the superb performances from Chastain and Sarsgaard, both of whom are emotionally naked here. Their job is to convince you that despite the past, an odd and unexpected relationship may well flourish in future.

Led by a beautiful performance by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, writer-director Ava DuVernay’s fact-based Origin is a profoundly moving and humanistic movie that explores a range of complex issues about race and culture through the lens of a woman coping with loss and grief.

The Beekeeper is mindless, overblown nonsense timed perfectly to drag us from a haze of prestige films and an awards bait stupor.

It’s a well-made, witty movie that manages to send up some of the tropes of organized religion while simultaneously signaling that it is firmly on the side of the believers, and also managing not to annoy any atheists in the house. Jesus, it’s good.

Performances are, predictably, strong with the 85-year-old Hopkins, bouncing about like a bantam-weight fighter, and Good, in the more restrained role, calmly watching the phenomenon as much as responding to it, eventually wearing down his opponent with compassion.

If I was a teenage girl, I might love it. But as an adult reviewer, I can’t help but feel weary about this earnest but mostly needless retread of a smart and engaging teen comedy, a genuine stand-alone classic.

Night Swim is another title to add to the increasingly unreliable canon of films from Jason Blum and James Wan. Not every new project has to be greenlit, gentlemen.

The Color Purple is an intense and complicated story about race, gender and history and wrestling that tale into a two-hours-plus musical is a daunting task. This version, while plot-heavy and occasionally confusing, has its own epic sweep. It’s moving, but given current events, the final celebratory spirit rings false.

Back in the 1950s the cars were little more than cockpits on wheels, without so much as a seatbelt. There might be a few hay bales by the side of the track. And then as now, there was a morbid fascination in the notion of a crash taking a driver and car out of a race. But be careful what you wish for.

The Boys in the Boat is a by-the-numbers story that does little to distinguish itself from other underdog tales. The boys may be trying to take home gold, but this boat is taking on water.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is Warner Brothers/ DC Comics latest sacrificial offering to the altar of comic properties. And while the film isn’t bad in itself, it’s pretty clear that there’s a bit of a schism in deciding how to present this film and its hero.

It’s almost as if 3D was made for this.

The Zone of Interest is a careful movie, observant. It’s a movie that asks us to reckon with history, with human nature and, in today’s world with the drumbeat of fascism rising again. Call it a caution.

A major factor in making this work as well it does are the performances, which are pitch perfect.

Pointed, wryly funny, and well-cast, American Fiction is easy to recommend for its humour and timely commentary.

Despite its gloomy name, A Disturbance in the Force is in fact a celebration, one to rival an all-night Ewok rave.

However closely it does or doesn’t hew to reality (Durkin’s script is “inspired by” the Von Erichs, rather than “based on”), The Iron Claw is an emotionally resonant movie about a profoundly dysfunctional family with an unescapable gravity-well of connectedness, one that dates to when they all grew up in a house on wheels, going from bout to bout.

Rebel Moon isn’t a terrible movie, but it pales in every comparison to the Star Wars universe.

This newest concoction gets a lift from its cast but falls to Earth thanks to a leaden script. It’s more exploding chocolate than everlasting gobstopper and, I’m sorry to say, more bitter than sweet.

Poor Things is like nothing else you’ve seen this year: A darkly comic satire set in a dazzlingly designed steampunk world. It plays like it’s for fun, but is built around a deep philosophical core, that is ultimately about living authentically.

This is essentially an affectionate documentary about a group of killer musicians, who are still working and obviously loving what they do and each other. That spirit of respect and love is part of what makes the documentary enjoyable.

Into the Weeds: Dewayne “Lee” Johnson vs. Monsanto Company is a cautionary environmental story, that raises unsettling questions about what’s in the food we eat, and how our farming practices are affecting the biosphere.

Eileen is a slender drama distinguished by strong performances.

It’s a respectful film that pays due homage to the original tale.

The Boy and the Heron is a treat for the eyes, the ears and the mind. Or the soul, if you prefer.

If you are not a King Crimson fan, but love music or are interested in the process of making music, then, you should consider watching this documentary anyway.

It’s intimate, quiet, lovely, and in spite of the melancholy, there are moments of real connection and joy.

For this viewer, the movie felt stagey and entirely devoid of emotion, You never forget you’re watching a film — a beautifully made film, but still.

Silent Night is not the second coming of Die Hard that we might have hoped.

Ultimately, what keeps this film from becoming great in either the werewolf or romance department is the way it fails to fully commit to either strain, or to meld them into something new and unique. The ending might even be said to suffer from a case of lupus ex machina. On the plus side, the acting is supurb.

All in all, it’s something of a merry mess, barely held together by Eigenmann’s wary, steadfast performance as Joy, an illegal immigrant mother whose life is a nightmare even before the movie turns into one.

[Hirokazu Kore-eda's] magic power is building stories from the small moments that feel so familiar and yet add up to movies that are gently, but deeply resonant.

Leave the World Behind is not perfect — a little long at two hours and 18 minutes, and a little too talky in the final act — but it is emotional and affecting and very of-the-moment.

As always, it’s what’s under the surface that matters. And that begins to change as the movie moves along and begins to twist and turn. And here is where the movie starts to have problems, arguably, both with the story, and in terms of tone.

Kaurismäki does not shrink from present-day buzz-kills like updates on Russia’s attacks against Ukraine, or the afflictions of poverty on Helsinki’s working class. But here again, is the contrast; even amid conflict, things charming and funny can occur.

The film is Roth’s, and so expect a silly premise, comic-book violence, and gory set pieces. What you might not expect is the humour. Thanksgiving is funny.

It’s decent, adequate fun.

The Stones and Brian Jones is an intriguing and surprisingly moving documentary that offers new insight into the man, the band, and the era.

It’s a tall order to deliver a portrayal of such an auspicious historical character. Little effort is made to glorify him, and Scott makes sure that the audience renders their own judgement on his significance in history.

May December is a movie about moral gray zones, a look at contemporary culture through the unique Todd Haynes lens. What’s involved are great writing and great performances.

Despite some interesting action scenes, the movie is far too long at two hours and 40 minutes. Worse yet, you’re always aware that you’re watching a movie.

Dubious, predictable, and short on character development, this B-movie cheesefest is nonetheless watchable thanks to a spirited performance from Odeya Rush (Lady Bird).

The lighter moments are the best reason to catch The Marvels. Getting a reprieve on the running time is a close second.

The film’s view is simply too narrow to be comprehensive on such a startling and potentially life-altering/life-ending subject. That said, it’s a chilling surface look into yet another unanticipated side effect of our ostensibly great wired society.

Butcher’s Crossing is a decent western, with decent performances. It’s a film that delivers what’s expected. But for a story that could give Captain Ahab a run for his money, getting the expected is a bit disappointing.

There is an emotional core to Priscilla, and in Coppola’s gentle way, we’re shown a portrait of an unusual relationship, and come away with a less flattering picture of Elvis, more of the fallible human, as opposed to the music icon, frozen in time.

Rustin is not about the man who had a dream in front of the roaring throngs, but the man standing behind him who gave King the stage. It’s a pleasure to get to know him.

Such tales never get stale, and the ones in Beyond Utopia are almost beyond belief.

Add a bit of road movie misadventure, a la Payne’s Sideways, and you have a Christmas movie with spirit and wit, with a minimum of mawkish sentiment.

Zero “rom” and very little “com.” The action sequences are perhaps the best parts of the film. Director Pierre Morel sure knows how to crash a helicopter! But there’s only so many times you can watch Cena shoot, fight or drive his way out of danger.

If Five Nights at Freddy’s has anything to offer in the way of entertainment, scares, and authentic memorabilia, it was buried beneath the determined pandering to those addicted to being on the inside of the joke.

It’s an oddly funny journey, punctuated by some deliciously inventive camerawork (including the longest dissolve I’ve ever seen), a jazz-inflected score, and a treasured piece of vinyl that will have you searching out ’70s Argentine rock/blues band Pappo’s Blues.

This is an exhilarating action picture. The Killer involves brutal violence leavened with incisive social commentary, all of it put across with great Fincher style. And bloodletting.

The film is broad, campy, audacious and arrives with high expectations. But Dicks ultimately disappoints — and the inherent joke that goes with that line should not pass underappreciated. The title is the joke. But it’s a joke that doesn’t get as much play as it should.

Pain Hustlers waits until very late in the game to really drive home some of the horrors behind the opioid epidemic. For too long we’re complicit with its characters. And maybe that’s what it’s going for; but if so, it left me with a mildly unpleasant aftertaste. Not quite what the doctor ordered.

As an intelligent, adult examination of a marriage gone sour, wrapped up in the trappings of a legal thriller, Anatomy of a Fall is original and engaging, though perhaps not so profound an investigation into truth as some of its advocates have claimed.

There is a lovely kookiness to The Persian Version which elevates an essentially straight-up mother-daughter conflict story with myriad snappy visuals and storytelling devices before settling into its main narrative trajectory, advancing the idea that we are all just doing the best we can with whatever tools we have.

Scorsese is a master at his peak who has made deliberate choices about the story he wants to tell, and the way he wants to tell it, and he makes all of it count.

In Iain Reid’s source-material novel, there are literary tricks that spell it out more clearly. But the script and execution here fails to launch, with too much ”Why?” holding it down.

The film is, in a word, ostentatiously odd. Whether one finds it insightfully askew or laboriously quirky will be a matter of taste.

This visual memoir paints a picture of a woman who, while leading a rich professional life, was plagued by personal demons.

There are many reasons why The Exorcist worked and still does, and why The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t and never will. But to explore the difference between the films too profoundly would be to legitimize Green’s film as a worthy successor to William Friedkin’s masterpiece. It isn’t.

I’ve never been a fan of time travel as a premise for a science fiction story but Relax, I’m From the Future puts a more… well, relaxed spin on the well-worn sci-fi trope.

This is toxic masculinity seen from a feminist viewpoint; rest assured the women are not victims.

The intersection of Hollywood and Pandemic provided ample lessons in how NOT to respond to terrible real-world happening. To wit: Don’t make a quick, inexpensive, exploitative “inspired by true events” movie just to capitalize on tragedy.

If everything is fair in love and war, buckle your seatbelts. Aided by a superb cast, writer-director Chloe Domont makes a strong feature debut with Fair Play, a deft drama about gender dynamics in intimate relationships and in the workplace.

There are counter-intuitive plot-turns to be sure. But like the best science fiction, The Creator is more about us than about The Other. And it has an emotional core that you seldom find in other action films of its size and budget.

The film has a lot of promise, but in the end, it simply just doesn’t deliver.

It’s a good, fun film, the kind that likely scans differently with repeat viewings, and includes a savvy wink to the vegan word as per Silverstone’s noble and ongoing mission. But I had the killer — if not the labyrinthine impetus for the crime — pegged from the get-go.

Expend4bles is an endless pyro/bang-bang show, with actors not mainly known for their acting (also including 50 Cent and UFC champion Randy Couture), sticking to the story as well as they can.

If it’s not exactly a documentary, Dumb Money offers up enjoyably anarchic glee as the little guy wins for a minute.

Canadian writer-director Tim Brown captures a heady mix of action, bloodshed and comedy here, hitting all the high notes of a crime thriller even as he appears to be spoofing the genre — and who better to do that with than Cage, the meta master himself?

A chamber-sized display of cinematic razzle-dazzle, and convoluted political allegory filled with gallows humour and broad polemics, Pablo Larraín’s El Conde re-imagines the Chilean dictator as the 250-year-old vampire star of a 1930s horror movie.

Poirot’s latest adventure may engender some brief happiness in audiences, but I’m not sure it will leave them fully satisfied.

The Italian characters in The Equalizer 3 tend to speak more slowly than usual, almost as though waiting for the subtitles to catch up. If you can handle that pacing, interspersed with short bursts of intense violence, then The Equalizer may yet hold your attention. But at the tail end of a summer that delivered exciting new chapters in the Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible franchises, that may be asking a lot.

Bottoms is absurd, ridiculous, often wildly inappropriate in the way of teen comedies and occasionally as exaggerated as a Looney Tunes cartoon. But everyone in the movie is giving it their all, taking the craziness seriously and clearly having fun. There are a lot of terrific performances.

It’s a quiet, thoughtful movie that aims to be sensitive to the family, while plumbing some of the darker feelings that this late success wrought.

Ultimately, if Gran Turismo were a car, it would have shoddy brakes, little pickup and bad cornering. If you’re looking to get from narrative point A to point B by the most direct route possible, it’ll suffice. If you want something more engaging, you may want to choose a different ride, one with a little more under the hood.

Nattiv is aiming to redeem her legacy with this film. To that end he unfolds the story like a thriller, where we get a sense of the day-to-day tensions of a war that posed an existential threat to her country and the immense pressure she was under. He has cast it well. And yet, despite the tension, Golda is disappointingly flat.

Ukrainian director Roman Liubyi’s Iron Butterflies is an experimental film, a memorial scrapbook and a forensic documentary that revisits the 2014 downing of the Malaysian passenger plane, Flight 17.

If you’ve seen the red-band trailer for Strays, you know the dog-centric, live-action new comedy is profane and outrageous, slapstick and amusing in that distinctly stoner-friendly way.

A bawdy comedy about male strippers that lives up to mediocre expectations, Back On the Strip is directed and co-written by Chris Spencer who has previously worked with the Wayan Brothers comedy team.

The film Dark Windows, by Norwegian director Alex Heron, manages to work in both forms of teen-o-cide in a film that feels like a Mothers Against Drunk Driving public service announcement appended to a slasher film, though that makes it sound more exciting than it is.

While Reyes’ Blue Beetle isn’t as endearing as Ted Kord’s, the movie still finds its audience. The music and cheap jokes that are substituted for where meaningful dialogue could have been more successful still manage to carry the film. In short, the cheap laughs worked.

A lot of genuine heart and goodwill has been poured into Jules, a slight, gentle comedy with a sci-fi edge. Heartfelt as it might be and despite a strong cast led by Sir Ben Kingsley, an unfocused storyline undermines the film, making it a frustrating watch.

Sure, The Eternal Memory is tough and occasionally relentless, but it is also affirming in ways unexpected. Significant and intense indeed, but the excursion is far from weary.