Various characters populate Person to Person, but they rarely register as actual people. And while some of their storylines intersect throughout the course of a day in New York, they rarely connect in ways that have actual meaning.

It’s the circle of life. Someone should write a song about it. And wouldn’t you know? Jonathan does just that in one of the many endings Lullaby has to offer.

The depictions of degradation and sadism are arguably accurate, yes. But they’re executed in a context that’s almost entirely free of meaningfully specific historical detail, to the extent that one comes to suspect this movie of commodifying human suffering.

It’s a lazy, vulgar celebration of White Male American Dumbness—one that only put an African American in the cast to camouflage just how much of a celebration of White Male American Dumbness it is.

What makes it a crummy picture is that it really doesn’t turn into something harder.

For an hour, Lucky McKee’s Blood Money is aggressively annoying, the kind of film with no likable or believable characters, and one of those cheap VOD flicks in which it feels like everyone was there purely for the paycheck.

Alexander Payne's Downsizing starts with an intriguing "What if?...", the launch-pad of all good sci-fi stories, and very quickly devolves into a bland story about a nondescript khaki-wearing guy who learns to care about the less-fortunate.

For better and for worse, Bliss truly makes you feel as if you, too, are suffering from a narcotic-induced, hallucinatory freak-out—one that leaves you physically exhausted, mentally spent and ultimately wondering what the hell just happened to you.

Blood Glacier is too sleepy to do anything with its guano-stirring premise. Yes, there are crazy-go-nutty monsters in the film, but you seldom get to see them as they sadly are not the focus of Blood Glacier.

Of the many things that make A Brilliant Young Mind unsatisfying, arguably the most salient is that the assertion of its title defies dramatization. Nathan is brilliant? Well, if he were a footballer or a spelling-bee champ, we could see his skill as it evolved and played out.

While the intentions behind Priceless might be honorable, the results are much less so.

Psycho Goreman isn’t clever or lively enough to be more than fitfully fun, especially given how much time is spent mocking generic, but painstakingly recreated plot contrivances.

Everyone in almost every scene either looks lost or annoyed, never genuine. Except for Crowe, who grumbles his way through another film with deceptive ease, finding occasions to ground even a miserable film like this one.

Hallow Road is an earnest attempt to make a movie no one has seen before, only to end up with one few will want to watch again.

As a Neil Young fan who has cheerfully followed him throughout all the highways and byways of his singular career, I have always found him to be one of the most vital and fascinating voices in contemporary music, even at his weirdest. Sadly, the only thing that “Coastal” manages to accomplish is something that I would have usually thought impossible—it makes him come across as a bore.

To be fair, the slow burn does eventually catch fire and there’s lots of screaming and heavy breathing and dark tunnels and running and what-not. The relatively tense final half-hour is clearly the reason that very smart producer Jason Blum thought this would be a solid follow-up to “Paranormal Activity.” It’s that first hour that is the reason it took six years to (barely) get released.

Shirley views itself as a punchy, exciting political dossier, but lacks the attention to detail to make it anything other than a historical summary.

Trigger Warning is a self-serious, brooding film without the wherewithal to know how righteously dumb it could be if it committed to the bit. Or, at least, the expertise to elevate it to the suspenseful level it so desperately aims to reach.

With unbelievable dialogue and a truncated timeline of events, Song Sung Blue ends up dabbling in “Walk Hard” territory, making the film seem silly even when the couple at the heart of this story only ever wanted to play the hits.

Benjamin never quite replicates that creepy feeling of being alone in a dangerous place, resulting in a film that needs some dirt under its nails and to get under our skin to be effective. It simply never is.

Appearances from aliens are sparse in co-writer/director Rupert Wyatt's movie. Thrills of almost any kind, on the other hand, are completely absent.

Although he’s playing a man of letters, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers swans around the film’s settings with a pout that suggests that he’s waiting for his cue to sing “Please allow me to introduce myself.”

The characters could have embodied traits of typical office drones and managers, turning the film into a savage black comedy. But those elements aren't developed beyond a point, making the movie's only selling point its excessive gore and violence.

Cooties is a midnight movie for those fine with dozing off about twenty minutes in, once the charm of its single sentence log-line has worn off.

A B-movie that turns its violent rage on corrupt Los Angeles cops should be better than Body Cam. Unlike so many cheap horror films that show their flaws most explicitly during the scare scenes that are overly reliant on loud music, quick cuts, and attempts to make you jump, it’s really everything but the big moments in Body Cam that falls apart.

The narrative outline of Self/less is a philosophical theme park, readymade for daring, complex filmmaking. And Singh and his writers never go on any of the rides.

It’s a story about how people hide their true selves behind costumes like the perfect wife or even the forced whimsy of Tulip Season. Its tragic misstep is how much it refuses to actually look under those surfaces.

Jason Blum is a powerful, underrated force in the industry, but I wish he would empower his chefs to cook more interesting horror movie meals.