The unusual narrative device described as a “docufiction hybrid” at the heart of Starring Jerry as Himself is at once clever and heartbreaking.

What the film communicates, along with the platonic love story, is how exhausting - morally, mentally and physically - the experience of being in a rock band can be.

A shamelessly feel-good movie buoyed by dynamic, lived-in performances, Suze offers emotional rewards far grander than its simple story might suggest. And it’s an honest pleasure to watch.

Fighting giant robots - even though they are so freakin’ cool - aren’t enough to make a great film, and I know after forty years, this won’t change.

This is as close to a grilled cheese on white made with Kraft Singles as a movie can get. Comforting in its way but so blandly familiar.

The Silent Planet is, at first glance, an ungainly pile of science-fiction tropes and platitudes that has no right to gel into anything cohesive or interesting. But do give it a second glance, because it does just that.

It’s one helluva conversation starter, from one very thought-provoking story.

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.

Despite the presence and performances of the likes of Mira Sorvino and John Cusack, Fog of War fails to deliver what it promises: a war-time mystery filled with suspense and intrigue.

We Were Dangerous is a cracking good story and an auspicious directorial debut from filmmaker Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu.

Geriatric killers are nothing new at the movies — think of John Wick, Red or Taken — but The Old Woman with The Knife has a lot more than exhilarating action scenes going on. The way the elderly are regarded and treated underlies much of the storytelling, and there’s an emotional element that’s unexpected for the genre.

It’s all very sobering stuff and the film does a good job of capturing the kaleidoscopic awesomeness-slash-weirdness of being inside a tiny, agile vessel dipped to heretofore unimaginable depths.

Push feels like a long joke waiting for a punchline that never lands. Or worse, one that makes you feel stupid for not getting it, even though the setup was never quite clear to begin with.

Bang operates in its own category: so bad, it’s almost watchable. And in the crowded deluge of disposable entertainment, that’s almost a compliment.

Hot Spring Shark Attack is a broad spoof of Jaws, related monster movies, police procedurals, contemporary culture (think influencers) superhero sagas and other things. And it is initially quite a lark.

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.

Wala doesn’t go deep enough, and the film stays on the surface. At the same time, the characters stick with you, enough to make us want to know what happens next for Ash and Claire.

If it earns a D for tone-deaf dialogue, The Glassworker earns an A for ambition and bonus points for the useful reminder that war destroys things and art isn’t shatterproof.

Cohen’s script doesn’t get backed up with messy gags that would rather have you gagging than amused. Instead, it’s flushed with charm, warmth, and just enough horror to put you on the edge of your seat—or rather, put your seat on the edge.

By the time the narrative decides where it’s going, the audience has already decided not to care.

There’s a lot to accept in this film that quite frankly, is a bit hard to swallow.

Every so often, though, a film like Bau: Artist at War comes along which is so off-balance it feels, not just flawed, but embarrassing, an unintentional parody of the ethically entangled genre.

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.

Is Killing Faith a great western? Hard to say. Is it worth seeing? Absolutely. Because sometimes it’s the films that bewilder us that leave the deepest marks: hoofprints on wet grass, difficult to follow but impossible to forget.

This Too Shall Pass is a delightfully unexpected story of growing up, in the same vein as pretty much every John Hughes film. It’s laced with nostalgic hits of the 80’s and the type of humour you remember laughing at as a teenager.

Though Who Killed The Expos? isn’t much of a mystery, it’s a good baseball story in the cry-in-your-beer tradition, of what has often been described as a “game of failure.”

One More Shot is a film that’s quirky, but needs to be hilarious. It has flawed characters who could have made more mistakes, but in the end, you know you want them to fix everything. It has funny moments, and there is a welcome twist at the end. But all in all, this film, while cute, needed to be funnier.

Despite the sterling performances of co-stars Aimee Carrero, Lil Rel Howery and Rob Riggle (who plays a thoroughly horrible and vicious ER Attending Physician), there isn’t a lot of glamour to get the first glance that this well-crafted and poignant film deserves.