Pearl gets a little too close to letting you simply laugh at her. We know she wouldn’t like that.

Riotsville, U.S.A. is certainly not an objective documentary. It’s angry and it dares the viewer to argue back. The freeform nature of it may seem faulty, but I felt it served the purpose of forcing me to interrogate what I was being shown.

All the stylishness and enthusiasm cannot disguise the fact that the mystery itself never comes close to those concocted by Dame Agatha. Then again, no one else has topped her either.

The characters are constructs who are so aware of themselves as constructs (and the plot, too) that there's really no reason why we should feel for them, but we do, thanks to the lead performances, the direction, and the kidding/not kidding vibe of the entire production.

It’s fun to watch a character like Fletch escape hot water, but it’s never even lukewarm here, and so every time that the movie gets back to its plotting, it just sags like a bad episode of a cable TV mystery-of-the-week show.

While there's undeniable creativity in the film's visual and metaphorical aspects, there's a glaring neglect in the power needed for this film to find its own voice.

This "Goodnight Mommy" replicates the basic story beats of the original but leaves out all of the tension, ambiguity, and nasty invention that made that earlier effort so effective in the first place.

It's not a complicated narrative, possibly because the movie’s designed for younger viewers. But the conception of “Drifting Home” is so stunted that its only memorable thing is its untapped potential.

Blonde abuses and exploits Marilyn Monroe all over again, the way so many men did over the cultural icon’s tragic, too-short life.

With Clerks III, nostalgia is its own convenience for Smith. It’s cheap and fleeting, but it is comforting.

At 105 minutes, it’s a little overladen, as Selick and Peele over-complicate their storytelling with subplots and even commentary on the prison industrial complex. However, there’s no denying that this is a world that animation fans will just want to explore, to live in, to savor. It’s been too long since we got a window into Henry Selick’s brain and it’s still an amazing view.

I like these actors. I just wish they were in a better movie.

There is surely an audience for this kind of feel-good quote-un-quote feminism. But a book of such richness, with a heroine as complex as Birdy, deserves much more than this genial Renn Faire romp.

Sidney works more as an explainer for why Sidney Poitier remains such an important figure in American history—not just Hollywood history—than it does as a warts-and-all biography of Sidney the man.

Lathan’s film is only a pale imitation of what came before it. But while “On the Come Up” is a major miss, here’s hoping that Lathan returns with a bigger and better directorial effort next time out.

My Policeman is surface-level queer representation lacking in visual imagination and begging for better performances. It’s the kind of glacially paced movie that sticks around for two hours and tells its viewer nothing new; a series of moving images without any sense of emotion or wonder. “My Policeman” commits the gravest of crimes—it’s soulless.

When The Woman King works, it’s majestic.

Its perpetual commentary on the mainstreaming of queerness remains at odds with its very desire to tell its story within the Hollywood system.

To this viewer, it develops into a pretty nifty piece of genre work, a thriller that’s expertly made even if it doesn’t quite hum like the best Park films. The fact that a good, well-made thriller feels almost like a disappointment given this creator’s pedigree is just a testament to the work he’s produced before.

While the clues of impending horror emerge long before this episode of camaraderie—signaled by Sune Kølster’s unnerving orchestral score from the opening frames—nothing can fully prepare you for the appalling dark places “Speak No Evil” is headed to.

For those of you who miss films made by adults and for adults, films which treat things like sex and loneliness with respect and honesty, "True Things" isn't to be missed.

With his latest film, “House of Darkness,” LaBute tries something similar to "The Wicker Man." And while the results may not be nearly as outlandish this time around, they do make for an intriguing and occasionally quite witty battle of the sexes, in which not all of the bloodshed is strictly metaphorical.

Indeed, González has the keen eye of a documentarian that can perceive the very details that normally escape one’s gaze. His film demonstrates just how much we can glean by slowing down to savor the sights around us and those who inhabit them. To take the time to look at the world through the eyes of others rather than be limited by our own perspective.

Medieval is a bleak and visually oversaturated allegory about the 15th century revolutionary Czech soldier turned military leader Jan Žižka (Ben Foster). There's blood and chainmail, yes, but it's also a self-serious allegory about duty and faith during miserable times.

Moonage Daydream is a stunning achievement in editing, cutting across eras and settings not to the rhythm of the music as much the mood of it.

Writer/director Zach Cregger proves himself to be a bonafide jack-in-the-box horror filmmaker with "Barbarian," beginning with a nightmare that could happen to any of us—a double-booked Airbnb.

The result is a muddled mixture, offering some moments of exuberance and humor without ever being singular or exceptional.

It doesn’t deal in easy gags or low-hanging speeches. It understands both the thrill and the agony of desperately waiting for your dream to ripen on the vine.