Moreno avoids putting too fine a point on just why he’s playing around with such matters of multiplicity. His film is both a provocation and a shrug – make of it what you will.

This is an imaginatively conceived, impressively scaled, and surprisingly funny ride. Just pay as little attention to the promotional scare tactics as possible.

It flails wildly from minute to minute, bursting with ideas and themes it barely has time to articulate, but the sheer unpredictability of its narrative and aesthetic gesticulations guarantee that your attention never threatens to drift, and that your nerves remain constantly on edge.

The Outfit is not, strictly speaking, a movie about magic. Yet the gangland thriller pulls off a number of nifty tricks, with first-time director Graham Moore playing his hand with equal parts sleight and might.

Anthropologists, former missionaries and Chau’s friends offer valuable perspectives – and prompt viewers to examine their own roles in perpetuating ages-old saviour complexes. The Mission’s message is as timely as it is timeless, tragically.

This film doesn’t flinch from violence, but it finds hope in a people’s patient refusal to surrender who they are.

Ridicule is, finally, a movie that shows it understands the mechanism of wit and hierarchy intimately, and rejects it unequivocally in favour of the more inclusive and gentle world of humour. [11 Dec 1996, p.C1]

There is a sincerity here that is unafraid of itself and – in what is most certainly a love letter to the beguiling and tumultuous affair that is girlhood – Catherine Called Birdy feels unique and special in a way that speaks directly to Birdy and other uncontainable girls like her.

Featuring standout performances from Landry Jones and Davis, Nitram is uncomfortable, demanding viewing. It is the kind of work that presses on a nerve, begging you to stand up or tune out, but compelling you forward nonetheless – with its haunting portrayal of our all too boring capacity for inflicting pain.

It’s perfect popcorn fare: the story of a creative genius against the playfulness of a Lego landscape mixed with a boppy tune.

In truth, as this film observes more and more of his compelling oeuvre, the viewer becomes more engrossed in the art than its cinematic presentation and the 3-D effect seems to fade into the background, necessary rather than impressive.

[Kendrick] delivers a taut thriller that’s also a sharp critique of the casual misogyny women face.

Deeply playful while never falling for the more hoary tendencies of the genre – remarkably, Soderbergh seems to have invented a new way of filming a “jump scare” here – Presence keeps its audience close and tight, building to a finale that forces you to reconsider the entire experiment.

Too distanced to be called compassionate - the term can imply condescension - Working Girls is provocative, honest and disturbing. [15 May 1987]

It can be slow going, certainly, but it’s always rewarding. Pull up a chair, stay a while.

In keeping with Lucas’s general life philosophy, Mills’s film doesn’t attempt to paint a portrait of one woman, but rather a capturing of the land that woman calls home.

Using Toba Tek Singh as a recurring narrative device is sublime, for those who understand the reference and the burden it carries.

Bravo’s style echoes King’s own: It is fun and whimsical, formally playful, sometimes bordering on the fantastic but always grounded in the real and the intimate.

Despite the heavy material, the film manages to imbue the story with heart and even breakthrough moments of joy.

Girls State is a powerful documentary that showcases just how invested and determined young women are in their desire to run for the highest office – despite the challenges they face.

Sapochnik (Game of Thrones) wisely puts Hanks at the centre of nearly every scene, letting the actor’s ceaseless charisma carry audiences through the End Times. We attach ourselves to Finch partly because of the character, but also because we’re rooting for Hanks to escape the island, oops, I mean the apocalypse.

I’ve come around to Glass’s singular, purpose-filled vision – one that is intent on pushing its audience so far outside their comfort zones that you’d need a map to find your way back to baseline existence. Clark is also a wonder as the title character, playing a deluded and dangerous antihero with an unnerving zeal.

Vengeance Most Fowl is a cozy return to form that plaits together its own laboured conception and our mechanized conditions in order to enliven its signature duo among the youth of today.

The labour the filmmaker undertakes here is similarly personal and intimate; it is clearly an act of healing as well as an offering for others who see their lives echoed.

Think of one of Wiig’s closer-to-1 a.m. Saturday Night Live sketches coloured with the purposefully unpalatable aesthetic sensibilities of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and you’ll start to form the right picture. If none of the above appeals or even makes sense in the slightest, then feel free to run far, far away.

What struck me most about Spoiler Alert was its nuanced look at a loving relationship.

There are immense, leisurely pleasures to be found in The Courier, which presents a familiar spy-versus-spy drama in a familiar way. Which is fine: So long as you’re not expecting subversion or surprise, you can gently sink yourself into director Dominic Cooke’s intentionally, pleasantly lukewarm waters and come out the other side refreshed and squeaky-clean.

It's a pinball arcade of a flick -- the Coens invent a bunch of wonderfully flaky characters, stick them into a Plexiglas narrative, and let them bounce off each other.

It is tempting to compare her to Princess Diana, a narcissistic media manipulator on the one hand and a sensitive woman deeper than the icon she has created on the other. But Corsage is a work of fiction, and its main character is, thankfully, far more complicated and interesting than the real thing.

Wright has created a truly rich and vibrant world, full of dramatic sets. Most importantly, the film is genuinely fun, with enough of an emotional pull to justify some of its bigger swings.

Shang-Chi is a first, but it’s firstly fun to watch.

Living just doesn’t quite vault over its self-imposed challenges. Except, that is, when it comes to Nighy.

Of course, sexism in any realm is hardly shocking. But Lee presents her argument in such a clear and empathetic way that you’re not only enraged by the state of the genre, but how the women we meet are still fighting a fight that’s hurting us all.

As you get immersed in the story, you’re also entranced by a lovely escape to a nostalgic Italian summer that’s inspired by visits to real-life places and rendered in a style akin to that distinctive Miyazaki aesthetic. I also want to get my hands on the original score – the music soars gorgeously.

The movie is so across-the-board charming that even the most hardcore of socialists will find themselves rooting for Nike – that bastion of global corporate responsibility – to make gobs and gobs of money off the hard work of a young Black athlete.

Drawn, taut and nearly silent, Bullock convincingly creates a shell of wariness and self-protection, and then gradually lets it crack.

Clint Eastwood is still making movies at 94. That’s amazing. What’s more shocking is that Juror #2 is not just pretty good but arguably the Unforgiven director’s most satisfying work in well over a decade.

It’s not entirely fair to call I Swear a PSA for inclusion. Above all, it is the story of a man who overcame an extraordinary set of odds to build a simple but meaningful life for himself and foster understanding in others. Yet, you cannot help but hope that the film – and the events surrounding it – inspires us all to think about the messiness of life. And how making space for everyone might involve a degree of discomfort for us all. But we can all, ultimately, live with it.

Through deft editing and a keen sense of detail, Baichwal manages to compress the case of Johnson vs. Monsanto Company into a superbly paced, tightly wound thriller.

There is much to appreciate about Definition, Please, including its indie aesthetic. It’s a welcome addition in redefining the diasporic experience.

The Burning Season offers a fresh and heart-wrenching take on the collisions of love, betrayal and personal tragedy.

Chastain and Sarsgaard find all the pieces of Franco’s Memory worth saving, and proceed to connect with one another to build something that is new, remarkable, affecting. Hard to forget, even.

Paris, 13th District is not a revelation of a film, but it is a charismatic collection of moments worth spending time with.

The film is not a masterpiece, but a memory box. Comforting, inviting, and one you won’t mind keeping close.

The first Marvel film in ages to look, feel, and move like an actual feature film and not a slop bucket of CGI.

If you can divorce Lightyear’s shareholder-appeasing origins from its actual cinematic accomplishments, then we’re left with a rather beautiful, often thrilling, sometimes devastating adventure.

Roth (who reunites here with his Chronic director) manages to find a peculiar amount of pain in a man sleepwalking through life. It might be the best work of the actor’s long career – or at least the most carefully controlled.

It is a small story told with slightly greater ambition than the small-screen affords. The animation is slicker, the original-songs budget more generous (the movie is, like the series, half-comedy and half-musical), and the guest stars are plentiful. It is ideal lazy summer Saturday matinee viewing.

As a conversation-starter, though, Pleasure hits all the spots – and sometimes soars far beyond thanks to the work of Kappel, whose performance is absolutely committed, fearless and entrancing.

More than likely, Flanagan’s film will leave you a sobbing mess. But there is a sense of betrayal, too – it’s almost too easy to wring those tears. Take this dance, sure, but bring the Kleenex, too.

This new version of an old tale has the capacity to horrify you into shell-shocked pacifism, while delivering a few minor-key surprises along the way.

Director Andrew Haigh (45 Years, Lean on Pete) knows how to build towering moments of human drama from the tiniest foundations. And he mostly pulls off such a feat again in this tale of grief and generational pain.

The sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes frustrating film proves that Stone, ever the professional provocateur, still has what it takes to rile an audience. Or at least make your head spin round so many times that you’ll be backward thankful for the migraine.

Blonde is a precisely engineered nightmare. From Monroe’s childhood to superstardom, Dominik presents her as a passive victim of never-ending tragedy: neglect, abuse, heartbreak, addiction. And in doing so, Dominik creates a cinematic experience so repellent that it is destined to be loathed and misunderstood, written off as crass and opportunistic just like those who profited off Monroe’s body during her own life.

Godzilla vs. Kong is a ridiculous movie made even more ridiculous by a distinct lack of care in its conception and execution. But it is also the kind of cinematic assault that delivers just the right jolt to the most base sensibilities hiding within our lizard brains. You walk away dazed but bemused.

Momoa and Bautista are having an unhinged blast in The Wrecking Crew, as eager to rip each other a new one as they are to compare themselves (unfavourably and intentionally) to such contemporaries as John Cena and Dwayne Johnson.

By focusing on the old men and their dogs who spend their time in the woods of Northern Italy searching for the prized fungus, Dweck and Kershaw operate on a level of gentle, removed observation.

There is something entertaining, or maybe just enjoyably puzzling, about what Gordon Green and McBride think a Michael Myers movie could or ought to be. If it ain’t dead, don’t kill it.

Dangerous Animals is like a bowl of shark-fin soup laced with a dollop of vegemite: not exactly good for either you, your taste buds or the environment, but strangely compelling nonetheless.

Once Cruise and McQuarrie expunge all the Ozymandias from their systems, The Final Reckoning manages to deliver the goods. Or at least make a decent case that Cruise has earned the right to become his own biggest champion.

Jackman is such a finessed force of nature that he’s as good as you might expect, but Hudson – who never quite landed as juicy a part as in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, which is now more than a quarter-century old – matches her co-star beat for beat, bar for bar. Good times, they never seemed so good.

An eat-the-rich satire that would go rotten without its supremely overqualified cast, The Menu is as much fun as it is ephemeral.

Ma’s film isn’t solely set on establishing The Peg’s winter bona fides, but rather exposing the city’s throbbing romantic heart, which might be able to melt the coldest of days.

While there are the requisite number of jump scares and red-herring narrative fake-outs, Berman and Pulcini – who are odd fits in the first place, given their decidedly non-genre filmography – zig where you expect them to zag.

While the film’s ending expects audiences to untie some impossible fan-theory knots, the climax is also packed to the rafters with murder and mayhem and even a little on-the-nose movie-theatre nostalgia, resulting in moments that demand fits of laughter, gasps and, of course, screams.

A corrupt-cop drama that is mostly aware about its B-minus-movie aspirations, Carnahan’s film is a thoroughly enjoyable if not particularly original mashup of Training Day, Cop Land, Triple 9 and a dozen-plus other films in which it is up to One Good Cop™ to solve a mystery involving a dead police captain, dirty officials and millions of dollars in drug-cartel money.

While Lawrence keeps the momentum steady – just like his contest’s most able-bodied walkers – and ensures that every few minutes delivers some kind of violent jolt, there’s just not enough meat to this particular roadkill story to keep one cinematic foot in front of the other.

This is a remake built on equal parts care and admiration, a love letter to all the sickos out there. It’s nothing to simply wash your hands of. Or flush away.

The filmmakers have leapt over franchise concerns to somehow deliver a movie that engages kids and entertainingly puzzles adults.

Only a master director could make such a beautifully flawed film.

Bujalski (a member of the indie cabal known as mumblecore) sticks to the truth of Lisa’s life – there’s no air-punching triumph at the end. Nevertheless, she persists, and that feels like victory enough.

The narrative meanders on occasion, the conceit can seem repetitious, the editing is loose. Nevertheless, buoyed by the naturalism of its exclusively young cast, the picture effectively gets into your head and under your skin.

Around about the third act, the picture does what no self-respecting virus ever would -- relents, turns confused, and lets our immune system fight back with thoughts of its own, with distracting cavils about the logic of the plot and the slightness of the themes.

Danny Glover delivers the most subtle and controlled performance of his life, and Freeman proves himself a sensitive and talented filmmaker. [24 Sept 1993]

The result is an intriguing hybrid, mixing a Japanese reverence for nature (a raindrop shimmering on a leaf is a visual haiku) with quaint Victorian architecture and a story featuring contemporary, Caucasian-looking Japanese characters speaking in American accents. Somehow, it all works.

A taut, gorgeously filmed and enjoyably wicked cinematic treat.

At the end of Courage Under Fire, you feel torn between admiration and annoyance with the filmmakers.

The documentary is a gas, with all the conspiracy-theory weirdness of Oliver Stone’s "JFK," but with the added attraction of Brugger’s gonzo-journalism shenanigans.

An anthropological marvel and an animal-drive movie that belongs beside the classics of the genre - Red River and Lonesome Dove.

A laugh and a half, a genial crowd-pleaser.

The love that blooms is essentially between the boys. They both have some considerable growing up to do, but theirs is a true romance and it's awfully sweet. Funny, too.

An impressive film accomplishment, a combination of technique and extremely specific detail that reminds viewers how potent a rhetorical force the medium can be.

Mixing bravura filmmaking with flat clichés in about equal amounts, The Dark Knight is all about dualism. Appropriately, the movie's half-inspired, half-frustrating.

Though the conclusion is foregone, Canadian screenwriter David F. Shamoon's script manages to extract suspense out of Poldek's ruthless, calculating nature.

This spoof's heart is genuinely warm.

Well, I didn't exactly leave the theatre barefoot, but there's a lot to like here -- the result is pretty darn cute and hardly ever cloying.

For audiences tired of summer sequels that grind through the familiar motions, Stardust provides a dizzying antidote.

For fans of violent but clever action films, RoboCop 2 may be the sultry season's best bet: you get the gore of Total Recall and the satiric smarts of Gremlins 2 The New Batch in one high-tech package held together by modest B-movie strings. [22 June 1990]

The climax also comes with a nifty little kicker.

The film commands our attention again as more connections emerge -- not enough to fully solve the mystery, but sufficient to convince us that Café de Flore amounts to more than the triumph of style over substance.

The result is a good movie that falls short of greatness by aping too well the behaviour of its subject – occasionally brilliant, sometimes mundane.

The acting throughout is exceptional, rooted in observed realism, but suggestive of more mythical agents at work through the lives of human beings.

A thinly plotted, amateurishly acted, cartoonishly violent and hugely entertaining array of jaw-dropping stunts and corny slapstick.

In truth, you just can’t wait until the wicked Jolie returns to the screen. Whether a malevolent twinkle illuminates her beady eye or a heartbreaking tear rolls down her alabaster cheek, she is the film’s power.

What's shocking about The Exorcist III is that it's a civilized albeit undemanding entertainment, more Hitchcock than Hellraiser. [20 Aug 1990]

Somewhat incredibly, the buildings come to life: Kaspar Astrup Schröder puts Ingels's remarkable communication skills to work through a series of sketches and chats, and then shows us the finished products.

The film is made watchable by a strong cast that renders the men’s vulnerability particularly sympathetic.

With young audiences definitely in mind, the film puts a fresh spin on the issues and struggles of the civil-rights movement.