Middleton plays Abby with a pleasing note of vulnerability that is often supplanted by a nagging anticipation she’ll tip off the edge. She and Gross have smooth chemistry as estranged sisters.

So, when all is said and done, this is definitely not Larry Charles’ Borat. It put me to mind more of the later seasons of All in the Family, when Archie Bunker’s bigotry inevitably softened.

Sadness is the dominant emotion in this film, not fear. While there are those moments that will accelerate the audience’s hearts, there are also those moments that will open them. After all, zombies were once people, too.

Thematic issues aside, Eastwood is noted for a high level of economic craft and The Mule is no exception.

It’s a rare thing to see a movie about failure that a) is plays like a gentle rom com, and b) is not about utter neurosis. But Standing Up, Falling Down is a small sweet, slightly flawed movie that is both of those things.

Rodgers has created familiar and relatable characters despite dialogue that occasionally slips into melodrama.

The result is a surprisingly entertaining, gory delight. Even hard-lined horror abstainers can comfortably enjoy the film’s grim humour and excessively over-the-top carnage.

For the old fans, there are a few splashes of Moore’s caustic levity.

It’s a decent, eye-catching, stay-the-course addition for Cameron, who has pretty much turned his entire career to this franchise, a la George Lucas with Star Wars.

While the gangster genre over the past 50 years has been the specialty of Italian-American auteurs (Coppola, Scorsese, DePalma and The Sopranos’ David Chase), Mafia Inc., directed by Quebec director Daniel Grou (a.k.a. Podz), stands up surprisingly well.

Saoirse Ronan as Mary and Margot Robbie as Elizabeth offer rich, committed performances and highly passable accents. There’s also a certain thrill in being transported to another very real-feeling world: inside elaborate stone mansions lit only by candles and furnished with stiff but fancy furniture. The costumes, jewelry and makeup, too, are fabulous. But a hard-to-pinpoint pall hangs over Mary Queen of Scots.

But what lands with Land is underwhelming; not quite a disappointment but considerably less than what was hoped for given Wright’s professional toolkit and the endless possibilities a subject as complex as profound grief offers.

There are remarkable and rewarding moments in the film despite its lack of bite.

Something of an intriguing curio (the first feature film about a subject treated in song, poem, television and theatre), Lizzie has some memorable pluses and significant minuses.

The subtle trick of Paris, 13th District, is that it plays like a romantic dramedy, but it really is more like a series of character studies of these young people whose lives just so happen to intersect.

The film loses momentum as it settles into movie-of-the-week familiarity, detailing the activities of the Jane collective, some of which seem hardly credible, though historically accurate.

Roth, in restricting himself to the polite requirements of a kid-friendly movie, keeps his darker instincts in check, making this more a movie about set design than emotions.

Within the frame of an old-fashioned stab-and-splatter exploitation flick, The Hunt is consistently smartish.

In the Earth is engrossing even in moments that might challenge both patience and logic. And despite the slight nudge towards something more commercial, Ben Wheatley’s art-house reputation remains solid.

The narrative arc of Islands, so minimalist it’s really more of a slow bump, is about the gradual breaking down of Joshua’s small shell of comfort, his family and cultural conventions.

It hits a lot of the right notes, but, overall the film suffers from a predictable plot. But Pugh and Garfield’s nuanced performances give the film empathy and depth that pulls us through.

While you can admire the “House of Mirrors” structure of The Whistlers and its ironic mix of glum and glamorous, there is little emotional purchase here. This is a flatter, more arch experience than Porumboiu’s devastatingly absurd earlier films, and the entire exercise feels more about ingenuity than art.

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 lack of clear identification of interview subjects and amorphous shape of the film can be frustrating. A segment on the history of book-burning, for example, feels gratuitous but, for the record, everyone in the film is against it.

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.

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.

Havoc is a frenetic action movie with tons of in-your-face violence and it’s kind of fun to watch — the carnage is so exaggerated that it becomes cartoonish.

As standard a documentary as it is in presentation, Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes is cleverly assembled and edited, making the most of available archival material to flesh out the stories of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Art Blakey, Horace Silver et al, and of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, the two German-Jewish immigrants who escaped the war and redefined America’s music culture.

To some extent, the performances elevate the script.

Nope is an eccentric vehicle for some of Peele’s favourite themes – the movie business, Black social history, and character-over-plot.

Fast, funny and entirely forgettable, The Instigators is an entertaining if shopworn heist story.

Complications of history aside, The Woman King is Black Panther minus the vibranium and with more women warriors, an empowerment tale fueled by kickassery, with battle scenes, ear-splitting ululated war cries and sword fights.

Looking past its nostalgia and unhappy ending, More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story is kind of a time capsule of an era of North American showbiz, and the compromises and struggles that faced people because of their faces.

She Paradise, which runs a brief 71 minutes, is raw in more than one sense. The characters are thinly developed, and the dance sequences, as robust as they are, could be more dynamically shot. On the plus side, Nestor — with her watchful quiet manner — is persuasive as a young woman awkwardly finding her way, and the other women are forceful presence.

After proceeding through the childhood epiphanies and observed details, Branagh’s memory journey stumbles in the last act as he attempts to elevate the material into scenes of climactic magical realism.

Over the Moon is a delightful tale sure to appeal to a younger audience without too much fear of chasing away the rest of the family.

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.

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

It’s a tough slog, this film, partly because it delivers its arguments with a sledgehammer, and partly because we know what it’s saying is true.

As effective as Enforcement is on a visceral level, it comes up short in any deeper reflection on the social crisis of its premise.

The performances are uniformly good — Dunst is particularly appealing — but there’s something unsatisfactory about the storytelling.

It’s messy. It’s excessive. It overstays its welcome. But like any good dysfunctional family gathering, you don’t leave early.

The Things You Kill is a challenging movie about the world men inhabit, about patriarchy, about intergenerational trauma and about all the exigencies of “masculinity.” Iranian-Canadian writer/director Alireza Khatami presents a family drama that has rich social and political underpinnings.

Alpha aims to be not just a story but a transporting visual experience, which is one area where it over-reaches.

Victoria and Abdul is a beautiful looking costume drama with a dream cast. It may not be much of a surprise that Dame Judi Dench turns in another absolutely beautiful performance. But it is always joy to watch her in action.

As long as you don’t mistake Opus for a thriller, it’s a fun ride at the movies.

As fresh as the female perspective is, as Skate Kitchen circles and swoops through the Manhattan twilight toward its conclusion, there is a sense of missed potential, that the film could have been much richer than it is.

In short, Ballerina is as close to a John Wick 5 as you are going to get without calling it that.

The violence in Medieval is fast, frequent and fierce and could possibly be the film's biggest draw. History might be the film's initial hook, but it's the movie's grisly depictions of military violence that the film will likely be remembered.

Odagiri doesn’t give us many answers. They Say Nothing Stays the Same is enigmatic and, in some ways, frustratingly elusive, yet also affecting.

The nut of the movie, the thing I return to again and again when thinking about it, is the issue of how much the odds were stacked against Kusama. Kusama-Infinity is a perfect movie for the #metoo era: A glimpse into the life of a woman with a vision who had the misfortune of being born at a time when even what was arguably the most progressive culture felt that it was just fine to ignore a woman’s voice.

With DNA largely spliced from the movie Speed, it’s a carnage-filled action film that is essentially a single extended car chase. Ambulance is a movie that is nothing if not focused.

A solid follow-up from the director/star team of Allan Ungar and Josh Duhamel (2022’s Bandit), London Calling takes road/buddy movie tropes and turns them, if not quite on their heads, then at least disarmingly and sometimes even hilariously askew.

A decent, fast-moving nod to the spirit that originally made the Terminator movies a permanent part of pop culture.

The dubbing is a distraction that undermines Laurent’s efforts and robs the movie of much of its intensity and some of its integrity. Still, the movie engages as a mystery with a countdown element that effectively raises the stakes to nail-biting anxiety.

It’s a film that has some obvious parallels to Howard’s Apollo 13, a docudrama about a small group of endangered people in a claustrophobic space, with worldwide media attention on a rescue effort and a happy ending, thanks to technological ingenuity, courage, and collective effort.

Sweetheart, a coming-of-age first feature from Marley Morrison, has a cozy familiarity to it.

Batman as a straight-ahead film noir anti-hero – just psychos and murder, no end of the world scenarios - is an idea that’s overdue. It was the tone the original comic book set way back when. And for long stretches, The Batman gets it.

Vengeance is a movie whose dry humour carries its message well and even has its sweet moments. The desolate desert location hangs over everything, sometimes suggesting another planet peopled by humans. But given the movie’s suggestion of the emptiness of city life, it may also suggest just another kind of desert.

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).

This is Spinal Tap is now a movie classic. I wish I could say the follow up Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is as good. But, alas, it doesn’t really touch the beloved original.

Written and directed by first-time Danish director, Gabriel Bier Gislason (the son of Susanne Bier), it’s a moody low-key psychological affair, free of schlock and gore, and ultimately, more of a romance than a scare fest.

A stately 20th Century period piece in the style of the best British dramas, The Dig is just what the anglophiles ordered.

Lots of it doesn’t make sense, but a fever-dream doesn’t have to. There’s a disparity in the talent-level of the two leads that weakens the (ultimately-predictable) “surprise.” But what plays out is a fair allegory for a sport where men trade their well-being (bones, brain, etc.) for glory. Tipping even (over)uses an x-ray effect during scenes of violence, as if to underscore the injuries beneath.

This will disappoint those who prefer their werewolves with teeth. Still, The Cursed rises above most standards set by the genre. I only wish I could say it was a Howling success.

Something about its proportions felt a little off. There was a touch too much flashback, an excess of cutaway, and a slight oversupply of innuendo in the early going that made the big emotional climax feel like it hadn’t quite earned its emotional beats.

The urge to find hope in tragedy is as inevitable as the one to recognize shapes in clouds. But Funny Boy leaves an unsettling chasm between this one slender story and the grim history it represents.

If Lorne really is “the most boring” doc of the Oscar-winning Neville’s career, it’s only because his career bar is high. As it is, Lorne is a terrific backgrounder for devout fans of Saturday Night Live. Fairweather fans, on the other hand, might find it like an overlong sketch.

With no risk of over-subtlety, Uproar mixes gentle quirky comedy with a few digs at clumsy white allies and the myth of the innocent bystander.

The film is amusing, occasionally clever, and perfectly serviceable as a distraction, but it never quite becomes the reinvention of the action film it seems to think it is.

As an ersatz arthouse pastiche, Tigertail is crafted with care. Nigel Buck’s cinematography effectively registers the different time periods and locations, and Michael Brooks’ plaintive score balances Pin-Jui’s taciturnity. On the negative side, the film’s hopscotching flashbacks can be confusing and there’s a lot of stylistic spin for what amounts to a prosaic family drama.

The film looks at so many things at once, that in some ways it lacks depth or resolution.

It will be catnip for fans of the music star; others will find various aspects — such as the psychedelic flashing title cards — hugely annoying. Charlie XCX however, comes off well, feisty and self-deprecating. She never plays the victim. As the film concerns getting the fame one seeks and then disparaging the high cost of that fame, it’s a fine line to tread. She does it well.

It’s a clever hook, and the film milks it for some genuinely inventive, well-executed set pieces. As a delivery system for imaginative deaths, Whistle does its job with a certain professional pride.

To quote Bill Murray’s song again, “Star Wars/ those near and far wars” checks the boxes of a lot of the audience’s base, while seeming unburdened by real gravity.

Directed by Alli Haapasalo and written by Ilona Ahti and Daniel Hakulinen, it is an empathetic, almost sociological portrait that could be shown in health class in a progressive high school.

A bittersweet dramedy about an exceedingly fraught mother/daughter relationship and the ties that nevertheless bind, Tammy’s Always Dying is buoyed by a superb cast and a palpably stark setting (mostly Hamilton, Ontario with forays into Toronto) that combine to elevate the film above its more predictable aspects.

The Burnt Orange Heresy is more mysterious than mystery. Still, there are reveals best kept secret until the moment when they are intended to be dropped. Capotondi’s film requires patience, which may be problematic for those who don’t find discussions about art, truth, and the symbolic use of flies scintillating.

At a little more than two hours (about the length of the line to get into the actual ride), The Haunted Mansion sometimes strains to keep up its frenetic pace. But the fun tone is on point, and younger family members in the audience are in little actual danger of being traumatized by fear.

At its best moments, it provides a warm contemporary take on intergender friendships and almost lives up to its philosophical pretensions.

The level of sophistication in the storytelling is impressive, and Isaac’s attempts at Vulcan logic notwithstanding, it’s a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve.

If you know Stalter from HBO's Hacks then you know the general territory. In this case, the whole movie is Stalter and while her bizarre charm is formidable, it’s not quite enough to carry everything — a stronger script might have helped.

All You Need is Death is a film to experience. It requires some work from the audience. An impassive viewer is unlikely to piece together the fragments that make a cohesive whole. This is a film to be discovered, made by a director worth discovering.

There's a predictable mix of fan, fun, and family vibes in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but it's a mix that's stirred a bit too long.

From a story point of view, Omaha is a slight film but one that punches way above its weight.

Only by stepping back is it possible to see how peculiar and relatively original the movie is: A politically radical black youth drama for mainstream consumption; dissonant entertainment for fractious times.

As an impressionistic portrait of the man, it works, mainly because of the intense vulnerability Dafoe brings to the role.

Given its century-plus life span, the life and times of Horn and Hardart’s Automat restaurants, is a lot of story. And Hurowitz does it thoroughly in 78 minutes, in a wonderfully evocative way.

Its pace, at least in the early going, is breathless.

It’s an easygoing, entertaining movie, boosted by its name cast. And sure, it doesn’t ask much of its audience. But sometimes a well done movie-length TV mystery is enough.

What distinguishes Knuckleball from other thrillers involving children is the seeming reality of the peril portrayed.

Sacramento is a well-made, well-acted comedy drama that does just about everything right and almost nothing unexpected.

An Honest Life is an interesting if undemanding made-for-Netflix thriller that weaves together themes of classism, anarchy, and ultimately a young character coming to terms with who he is, and how far off the path of an ordinary life he’s prepared to go.

A more focused storyline might have served her better. Then again, Field wholly embraces the quirky. By that metric, with Happy Clothes, she got something very much in line with her own aesthetic.

If you don’t know much about Michael Jackson and are content to keep it that way, Michael is the film for you.

Despite evoking a lot of previous pop-cultural touchstones (including Harry Potter, Shrek and even Weekend at Bernie’s), the nerd-minded, fast-moving Onward has wit, eye-catching anachronisms and imaginative actio

If you are someone inclined to head to the theatre specifically to see the new Jennifer Lopez rom-com, you will get exactly the movie you hope for. And you will be happy.

Sugar Daddy impresses as an idiosyncratic film with a forceful visual style and sound design, attached to a familiar story about the ways of bad men and a young woman getting lost in the fast life.