To watch it is both painful and vital, like taking a great deep breath with a set of broken ribs. It will hurt. The pain is worth the reward.

It's a very insightful insider-baseball look at the creative process.

When writer/director Raiff steps out of the Linklater zone and tries to give Sam his own story — he is an aspiring stand-up comedian, except not particularly funny — you can feel Shithouse lose its firm footing a little bit.

Lily James brings a refreshing straightforwardness to the role in the second half, as the character takes the reins of the situation, but has a difficult time convincing us in the first half that she is susceptible, cowed, in thrall.

Perfectly serviceable and utterly forgettable, Honest Thief nonetheless offers a few pleasing details to keep it from being a total slog.

Someday, there will be a take on the life and work of John Belushi that is as fascinating, complex, and entertaining as he was. Belushi, however, is not quite that film.

Toxic behavior is eternal, and Evil Eye sincerely depicts both those who do not recognize it, and those who are all too familiar with it.

Nocturne isn’t just the best entry in the “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series, it’s one of the best Blumhouse movies in years.

Totally Under Control will become a useful document for the study of this pandemic in its eventual aftermath. It’s a bit too surface-level to be completely satisfying, but it was enough to overwhelm and upset me so much that I had to turn it off several times to decompress.

In the end, the neatly wrapped resolution amounts to a sense of incompleteness, like a concert that leaves you waiting for an encore.

The bad guy likes opera in the mostly forgettable heist/hostage thriller The Doorman, a movie that’s well-versed in clichés and basically watchable, but never really good.

This is Allen’s 48th movie (a 49th, “Rifkin’s Festival,” premiered last month) and while he has certainly made worse films than this one during that time, rarely has he come up with something as utterly inconsequential as this collection of rehashed themes, characters, and punchlines.

More than just your standard horror/comedy, The Wolf of Snow Hollow is a tonal balancing act, a movie that doesn’t go for laughs or horror as much as weave various tones and styles through its excellent script. I thought Cummings was a talent to watch after “Thunder Road,” and now I’m sure of it.

The Forty-Year-Old Version is brimming with sharp but often understated humor and a deep experience of making art.

No one needs a paycheck this badly. This goes far beyond the one-for-me, one-for-them theory of role choices.

With these scenes highlighting growth and resilience, Time refuses to be some kind of tragedy porn. Sibil and her brood demand justice, not pity. Her strength carries the film and elevates her sons toward success.

Its abundance of plot contrivances in the final act and overly scripted dialogue hold it back from greatness, but two excellent performers overcome all of this familiarity. I can't want to see them again.

In trying to say a little bit of everything about both men, James’ documentary unfortunately falls short of balancing its narrative priorities.

While it may seem unfair to compare an adaptation to its excellent source, the creators here lay down that gauntlet right from the beginning, and then fail to meet their own standard.

Hubie Halloween is just generally entertaining enough to be harmless, while also being the kind of movie that people will have trouble remembering exists by the time he makes “Tommy Thanksgiving”.

Black Box is a little wobbly in balancing its science-fiction logic and some wholesale horror thrills, but to the credit of debut director Osei-Kuffour Jr., both genre elements have their place.

Very little about this movie works, in spite of a certain ambition in telling a story based solely on unfathomable decisions.

Red, White and Blue got under my skin in ways I was not expecting. McQueen uses the police procedural format to interrogate what it’s like to be the only Black person in a hostile and racist job environment.

Whenever Spontaneous starts to run out of imaginative juice, it turns a tonal corner and either puts a smile on your face or wipes it off.

Originality is missing from the movie, but it has plenty of great jokes and a whole lot of people you enjoy hanging out with. When a horror-comedy is as agile, charming, and funny as this, everybody wins.

Of course, this film wouldn’t work without such engaging storytellers, and Scare Me has that with Cash and Ruben.

Hence, the movie lumbers its way from intriguing to frustrating. But Berham does manage to keep your attention, even as his vision tends to irritate in the wrong way.

That’s all you’ll get in Death of Me, a movie that takes a fresh idea and decides that the best way to present it is through tropes and clichés from better films.