Guadagnino’s film feels small and overwrought in comparison; satisfied to drag things out within the bubble of faux academia (and cinephilia, with a pointed nod in Woody Allen’s direction). But it does have its pleasures, specifically where the actors speak less and make us feel so much more in performance and action.

This is a small, sentimental and straightforward film that offers little in the way of surprises. Instead, it wins on heart and a simple message about the value in fighting to keep one’s dreams alive.

There is something magical in Sorrentino’s tender, flawed familial portrait that risks social taboos. I’d rather watch something beautiful and dumb vying for real emotional truth than the woke-est and most sanitized cinema, which only wants my approval. The Hand of God is a sprawling, gorgeous mess, but one you can’t look away from – and it might just break your heart.

It’s bloody, brutal, stupid fun – until it isn’t. Either running out of ideas or running into budgetary problems, Carnahan slows things down about halfway in, stopping the madness in its tracks to give Roy some humanity (not needed here, but thanks!) and to give audiences some yadda-yadda villainy from a bored-looking, here-for-the-paycheque Gibson (also, no thank you!).

The dragons are fine by today’s CGI standards. Toothless glistens, thankfully. Young audiences will be delighted.

The best way to approach it is not as a comedy but as a straight pirate movie with exceedingly odd twists. Certainly it makes better use of its sterling actors than The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), also co-written by and co-starring Cook, made of its sultans-of-comedy cast. [30 Jun 2006, p.R25]

it’s a cheeky post-Deadpool comedy – irreverent to a fault – with grindhouse aesthetics that tend to feel inspired by Quentin Tarantino rather than the movies that inspired Quentin Tarantino.

There’s a kind of procedural nostalgia at work here. It’s not as newborn ridiculous, and certainly not as innovative, but the film knows the game it’s playing – or, in Tap’s case, the music it has to keep hammering out. It doesn’t hit eleven, but it doesn’t have to.

Perhaps Bird is best understood as a film about self-consciousness or perhaps it is just a self-conscious film, ironing out the flaws of these well-meaning characters to create a fairy tale or apologue.

In lieu of sensationalizing the persecution of these young women, Small Things Like These compellingly casts its gaze onto the complicity of the community and the social architectures which uphold abuse.

Originally titled Eight for Silver, the film from British writer-director Sean Ellis is brooding, uneasy and fog-filled, with an apprehensive soundscape. Werewolf mythology mixes with biblical allusions and ideas on payments for the sins of elders.

Untamed Heart is a gentle fable, a contemporary re-working of myths that will always cut close to the bone - myths about love and magic, about the silence that speaks volumes and the peace that surpasses understanding. It's certainly not a perfect film, but there's a sweet integrity to the writing and a stern refusal to compromise itself, to bow to the dictates of formula. [12 Feb 1993]

While Macdonald manages to come up with one of the most impressively brutal cut-to-black endings in recent memory, the rest of this feature cannot hope to match the power of his cast.

Dillard takes every opportunity to interrogate Hudner’s narrative and what it means to be an ally. Whenever Hudner speaks up for Brown or throws a punch on his behalf, we get a revelatory moment observing how self-serving those actions can be.

For the most part, it's simply a pleasure to watch a smoothly made and underplayed film about attractive, nice people without a hint of violence on their minds. [25 Apr 1997, p.D8]

Though the stately pace can be frustrating, its anti-war stance ultimately feels modern and urgent.

Regrettably, Theater Camp doesn’t have a wide enough scope to zoom out from its extremely specific landscape to turn its inside jokes outward, nor an ironic enough detachment from the material that it’s riffing on.

Where the horror of 2022′s Speak No Evil feels deeply, almost inescapably cruel in its final moments, Watkins’s film takes a relatively conventional approach, relying more on slasher tropes than producing a deep-seated sense of unease.

Not a masterpiece, but it's not negligible either. [14 Aug 1992]

Condorman, the new Disney Studios film, has the odd exploding car or boat in it, but it is sheer amiability. [18 Aug 1981]

Whatever the experts say, any viewer can observe the large gap between the damaged original and the perfect restoration. Perhaps the only definitive thing one can say about the most expensive painting in the world is that, regardless of who painted it in the 16th century, it is a creature of the 21st.

The Wedding Banquet’s endearing qualities largely outweigh its deficiencies.

Much like its predecessors, Bloodlines joyfully relishes in its Rube Goldbergian kills and thrills, often trading on the absurd humour of its own fashioning.

It is a fun, serviceable, family-oriented exercise in reprise that counts on nostalgia as it brings history and present day together.

A superior sequel to an amusing original. A new batch of slapstick and satire. [16 Jun 1990]

As a filmmaker, Questlove utilizes his celebrity connections more than he does original directorial vision, trading instead in long-established, standard documentary structure and form. Summer of Soul is polished, but it pales in stark comparison to the raw footage and energy of the Harlem Cultural Festival.

While unable to fully deliver on the promise of its artistic potential, The First Omen remains, nonetheless, a fun, low stakes introduction for horror newbies to The Omen franchise and an enjoyable enough tribute to the original film (offering, also, a more contemporary take on visualizing the grotesque).

It’s saved, first by strong performances from Buckley, always effortlessly believable, and Colman, expert at laying bare the clammy soul of easily dismissible women. And second, by the letters themselves.