It’s tempting to believe a great sci-fi yarn exists in Carter, somewhere in the no doubt thick sheaf of studio notes demanding more spoon-feeding of an audience they believe to be equally thick. But more likely, it’s possible that Stanton simply wasn’t ready to make the leap from animation to super-budgeted live action.

What could have been a cogent critique of the parasitic nature between the uber-wealthy and the labor they exploit is instead an overly muted (and eventually weakly meta) version of a tale that’s been told a thousand times before.

We're presented with a mixed bag that feels emblematic of the series itself: Peaks and valleys have always been the norm.

Perhaps the film works better as a run-of-the-mill horror comedy about a woman who regrets sacrificing her career to start a family, but as a so-called revolutionary take on motherhood, Nightbitch is stagnant and spends too much time chasing its own tail to an unsatisfying conclusion.

Rosaline gets some things absolutely right—the casting of Dever, the use of music to lampoon genre clichés, its creative point of view—but it misses the mark it establishes for itself. It’s a misguided work that highlights the insincerities that have emerged in Hollywood’s recent charge towards “inclusion” and “diversity.”

While the film’s premise is appealing enough in its coming-of-age charm, the central characters themselves are intensely grating.

At its best, The Perfection is an homage to 1970s horror movies and 1980s thrillers, a glorious, multi-hewed mind screw.

For a film with multiple power imbalances, I Used to Go Here never dares betray its light and breezy tone in order to properly explore these toxic relationships in any meaningful way.

A lot of dreamlike logic floats through a freakish onslaught of dependably scary imagery strung together by what fits a moment versus the fluid nature of a more captivating survival scenario.

For roughly the length of a TV episode, it floats above its ugly franchise architecture in a dreamlike state of divine ridiculousness.

Not every story needs to follow the hero’s journey, but it’s a bold choice to craft a main character who does nothing but reject the call to adventure. Poignant? Perhaps. Entertaining? Less so.

If the micro-drama over-proliferated cinema as a result of the pandemic, His Three Daughters, considering its subject matter, is much more appropriately situated within its small, stationary setting. I’m not sure it dodges the stuffy allegations, and its tedium can feel more contained and mechanical than it intimates. But then again, grief is defined by its tedium, if anything.

Last Flag Flying isn’t great—a concept like greatness is too highfalutin for a film so bone-dry modest—but its scruffy integrity digs at you, won’t let you quite dismiss it.

The film’s narrative structure is as aimless as its lead, and it hangs onto her every whim; few obstacles are placed in Anaïs’ way, leaving the stakes low and little room for doubt. For those who enjoy watching a protagonist effortlessly get what she wants, Anaïs in Love is a breezy ride.

While the youth are still game to rebel, the film’s calculated spontaneity leaves its travelers stranded in search of something real, an ironically contrived quest whose very undertaking undermines its goal

A simple, cute, unoriginal animated film that seldom impresses, but still warms your heart a little.

McKee’s darker genre touches in titles like The Woman and All Cheerleaders Die are sorely missed in Old Man, which is too reliant on performances that outshine a story seen coming like an asteroid the size of Mars.

It’s occasionally delightful, frequently funny, and good enough to make me look forward to what Greer will do next behind the camera.

Fans of female-led body horror such as Titane will dig She Is Conann for its delicious violence, gender-bending “badassery” and surreal aesthetic. I only wish Mandico’s dedication to story or character development were as strong as his barbaric heroine.

Tag is a bit of a mess, the well-paced runtime not allowing gag-based physical comedy and dramedy to exist equally on the same plain, just barely fun enough to keep an otherwise one-joke premise elevated.

The Friend asks, often with a good-natured smile, what can and must be salvaged from tragedy, and how we make room for this hazmat effort in a hectic life.

Insidious: The Last Key certainly doesn’t rewrite the rules of the genre, but it’s a solid entry in a franchise I thought would have run out of steam by now, and you can certainly do a lot worse when it comes to an early January release.

While the conceit is clever, these are not new storytelling techniques for documentary or fiction, and in Framing Agnes, they lack a certain follow-through.

The Cow goes in a number of unexpected directions that, on paper, look like fodder for a perfect missing-persons mystery à la Gone Girl or Prisoners. The problem is, Horowitz doesn’t quite seem sure how to tell the story in a way that keeps the viewer engaged.

It’s a pretty great blockbuster if you don’t think about it much.

Most of Best Sellers’ problems have to do with structure instead of performance, so there’s not much that Plaza and Caine can do. They’re stymied by the writing and constricted by the direction.

Even the movie’s best moments – and much of Blink Twice is entertaining through those moments – have the uncomfortable feeling of satire designed from a moneyed remove.

To the Erwins’ credit, they make an effort at taking their movie somewhere interesting and, at least for a Jesus-y football picture, new.