The auteur seems to be squeezing everything he can into a personal manifesto in which cinema, history and real life become interchangeable, and in which he tries to situate his output within film’s larger trajectory.

The movie is like a glittering jewel in a glass showcase, inviting you to look but not touch.

The Outrun — the title refers to tracts of outlying grazing land on arable farms — is slightly overlong and at times feels cluttered. But it depicts the protagonist’s brutal struggle with enough distinctive elements — in every sense of the word — to make it more than just another draining addiction story.

Kravitz, who co-wrote the screenplay with E.T. Feigenbaum, quickly establishes Blink Twice as both social satire satire and horror, yet balancing the two proves to be more challenging as the narrative revs up.

The most compelling parts of The Substance deal with how social conventions turn women against themselves. A stronger version of the film might have dug into the complexities of that truth, instead of simply arranging itself around it.

Breathlessly paced and filled with the sort of black humor that makes it as much a comedy as a horror film, Abigail is wildly entertaining for most of its running time, although it becomes overly burdened with baroque narrative flourishes.

Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s Daughters targets viewers squarely and simultaneously in the head and the heart, succeeding much more effectively at the latter, presumably with the hope that the former will follow.

Ponyboi seamlessly integrates its character’s challenges with identity into a propulsive story about a sex worker on the run. It also introduces Gallo, whose strong performance offers audiences a new hero worth rooting for. The result is a sleek film, only occasionally hampered by predictability and contrivance.

That Skywalkers: A Love Story maintains its grip on your attention despite some of director Jeff Zimbalist’s florid aesthetic choices testifies to the strength of the documentary’s central narrative.

Will & Harper charms as a portrayal of deep, sustaining and supportive friendship.

However stilted War Game may feel cinematically, it registers with full force as a realistic depiction of a nightmarish scenario that could easily occur just a few months from now.

The film reflects on issues of aging and autonomy with a mostly light touch, its protagonist making a strong case for the enduring spirit of elderly folks too often infantilized by both society and their loved ones.

While largely predictable in its approach, Ejiofor’s film still evokes a genuine emotional response thanks to strong performances from its cast, especially lead Jay Will.

O’Sullivan and Thompson’s touch isn’t subtle, but it’s generous and, at times, gently inventive; they don’t sidestep clichés so much as configure and reconfigure them in satisfying, sometimes stirring fashion.

Valadez and Rondero again mix grit and lyricism, this time to trace the coming of age of a boy growing up in a climate of lurking cartel violence. The new feature doesn’t match its predecessor’s distinctive spell or cumulative power, but its undertow of menace is expertly sustained, and its dread buffered by hope.

Talati’s film offers a sensitive and distinctive take on the fraught dynamics between mothers and daughters.

What it doesn’t provide, unfortunately, is a persuasive prescription for how we’re going to prevent our country from descending from democracy to theocracy.

With Monkey Man, Patel offers an allegorical story that combines the technical and heroic sensibilities of his favorite action figures (Bruce Lee, John Wick) with the mythologies rooted in his ethnic identity.

It may be conventional but it’s never uninteresting, thanks to King and a strong ensemble in the key roles. And no one could argue with its value in bringing Chisholm’s achievements to the attention of younger generations perhaps unfamiliar with her legacy.

Amusing, uplifting and about as sugary and teeth-sabotaging as caramelized popcorn, The Beautiful Game celebrates the healing power of team sports for those who might feel more pushed to society’s margins by misfortune or choice.

For those willing to put aside reality for 90 minutes, as Unfrosted does with gusto, the Netflix movie whips up a frothy sendup of storytelling tropes and clichés.

For most of its running time, it’s a small-scale delight that balances quirky humor and heartfelt emotion to excellent effect.

The Union proves as entertaining as its Netflix algorithms would have predicted, balancing its impressive star wattage with lavish production values to remind viewers of the value of their monthly subscriptions.

Swinton and Moore imbue the movie with heart that at first seems elusive, along with the dignity, humanity and empathy that are as much Almodóvar’s subjects here as mortality.

Although Babes nails its comedic swings, the film strains to build the narrative tension and stakes needed to land its more serious moments.

The movie won’t carve a spot in the classic action-comedy canon, but it’s easily digested fun, which is no bad thing.

Egerton and Bateman’s performances elevate Carry-On and contribute significantly to the film’s overall success. Even when the repeated showdowns between the TSA agent and traveler lose potency, these actors maintain the narrative’s tension and viewer investment.

The director has assembled a strong cast, whose committed performances do the playwright’s famed drama justice. But the duty can also be limiting, and there are times when The Piano Lesson is too faithful, struggling to shake the specter of the stage.

The film leaves itself open to accusations of making Michael a saint, which will not sit well with the cancel crowd. If you are unwilling to separate the art from the artist, this will not be a movie for you. But for lifelong fans who cherish the music, the movie delivers. Simply as a celebration of Jackson’s songs and stagecraft, it’s phenomenal, shot by Dion Beebe with visual electricity in the performance sequences. The music has never sounded louder or better.

The story of a young singer-songwriter who’s stuck in a nowhere loop until she takes an impulsive leap, the feature is sometimes clunky but often quietly transporting.

Baloji has constructed four fascinating characters, played persuasively by these performers, but trying to figure out where their arcs overlap, even faintly, too often distracts from the beauty before us.

I Don’t Understand You is a lot fresher and more enjoyable than its generic title might suggest. That’s largely because Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells make such an effortlessly funny and convincing couple that they smooth over the rough transitional patches.

A final-act development lurches into overblown and slightly daffy extreme sicko horror, but there’s enough that works, especially in terms of sustained tension and big juicy frights, to give the xenomorph-hungry what they want.

The film wears its sincerity proudly and, despite its imperfections, has a sense of its purpose. Dorfman’s direction relies on intimate close-ups and only really differentiates itself from the traditional mechanics of a smaller-screen endeavor when it chronicles Ben’s emotional life.

The Gutter’s humor rarely misses. The Lester brothers deploy jokes with precision, taking aim at everything and everyone.

While filming Transition, Bryon was on assignment, working on a feature film in the final stages of post-production. Even when the documentary doesn’t fulfill its ambitions or potential, it does preview the exciting work coming from its director.

That the film proves as affecting as it does is largely due to Knoxville’s understated, terrific performance that makes his character fully sympathetic despite his many flaws.

Merced’s fine performance anchors the uneasy mood in a deeply empathetic character.

By the time the mainstream world came to embrace MoviePass, we all already knew it was doomed, and I wish the documentary had illustrated what the alternative might have been.

It’s an entertaining, fast-spaced space adventure that benefits immeasurably from the charisma (mostly vocal, but still) of Pedro Pascal as the bounty hunting Mandalorian Din Djarin and the adorable cuteness of the animatronic Baby Yoda, excuse me, Grogu.

It’s no sci-fi insta-classic, but there are worse things to be than a surprisingly entertaining post-summer popcorn bucket.

As loving a portrait as this film is, it’s not entirely hagiographic either and I don’t think Ray and Saliers would ever let it be anyway. Throughout the one-on-one interviews, you get the sense that these people are their own biggest critics.

What really distinguishes Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, however, is the depth of feeling it brings to the protagonist’s grief and her gradual emergence from it. That goes double for Zellweger’s performance.

The movie occasionally veers toward cliché, but its delicacy and restraint keep it dramatically compelling and its emotions are never unearned, right through to its lovely open-ended conclusion.

Its topic is unquestionably a crucial issue for our age and its approach to that topic both has journalistic rigor and represents a thoroughly admirable depiction of journalistic rigor at a moment at which we put too little value on such things.

This is one film that’s definitely worth catching on the big screen.

Even when it chooses to put the rosiest gloss on things, though, the film is bracing and inspiring, giving some talented conductors much-deserved visibility.

Some will argue that Stan’s performance in the central role is a touch too likeable, but the actor does an excellent job, going beyond impersonation to capture the essence of the man. In a character study of a public figure both widely parodied and unwittingly self-parodying, Stan gives us a more nuanced take on what makes him tick.

In the end, the film feels too rollicking and self-parodying to be taken seriously, but it strikes just the right tone to make it a fun Midnight movie.

Some genre fans will be disappointed by the film’s slow-burn style and the cryptic nature of Sam Stefanak’s screenplay, including its twist ending that’s open to interpretation. But for anyone more interested in cerebral horror and less in watching arteries gushing and entrails popping out, The Woman in the Yard offers considerable rewards.

Landon’s command of suspense, coupled with a compelling romantic thread and delightful performances from Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) and Brandon Sklenar, make Drop a solid popcorn movie.

Despite its flaws, Motel Destino has mood, rawness and atmosphere to burn, fueled by Amine Bouhafa’s score, which becomes steadily more disquieting as it ratchets up the urgency.

The two movies don’t always crystallize into one, and if you’re looking for a credible crime thriller in which everyone behaves logically, Misericordia may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for an exploration of repressed sexual desire and religious hypocrisy in backwoods France, Guiraudie’s strange and sober new film does the trick.

Norwegian writer-director Halfdan Ullmann Tondel takes some big swings with his first feature Armand, not all of which connect, but the ambition and risk-taking are largely impressive.

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point can feel like a party that refuses to end, one that could have used some judicious streamlining. But it’s a memorably adventurous party, fueled by intense hopefulness, and Taormina’s fondness for the characters is the movie’s beating heart.

Eephus isn’t exactly a baseball movie — it’s something closer to movie-baseball, where characters endlessly jostle back and forth under no real time constraints, watching the day slowly pass them by, simply out of love for the sport.

Like the best comic fantasies, Rumours has more than a grain of tragic truth to it.

The most powerful thread in Everybody Loves Touda is how the singer’s attempts to become a sheikha, a traditional performer whose songs are lamentations for the soul, are thwarted by the people around her.

Both fun and thin at the same time, it’s not about much in the end except the idea of reuniting Pitt and Clooney to see if they still have their magic, which they mostly do.

Jacobs‘ magnetic performance alerts us to every tiny miscalculation or epiphany along the way.

The film captures with enormous sweetness feelings probably familiar to many queer adolescents still figuring out who they are — of insecurity, questioning and giddy crushes on frequently unattainable objects of desire.

For those of us who have loved Faye Dunaway in movies, Bouzereau’s doc will be bittersweet viewing. It re-examines her run of brilliant, blazing performances in a handful of New Hollywood classics but also leaves us to ponder how brutally she was sidelined, uncommonly so for a movie star of her stature

The standout moments in Sacramento highlight behavioral and conversational quirks of old friendships, in scenes that recall the drollness of Joanna Arnow’s recent The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed.

The plot can sometimes feel like a chaotic melange stretched too thin, but White, who wrote the Illumination avian charmer Migration, elevates the overall narrative by injecting doses of his perennial interest in the social codes of the rich. The Minions get a zany B plot that becomes one of the film’s strongest threads, and a strong voice cast keeps the film engaging and nimble.

The Fabulous Four aims past the formula trappings and, though its misses might be evident, it also hits the bull’s-eye.

Smile 2 confirms Finn as a gifted visual stylist who has an assured hand with his actors. He perhaps just needs to back off a little from the misconception that more is more and maintain a greater focus on his story skills.

The Front Room perhaps leans more toward the repulsive than the highbrow, potentially carving out its own distinct genre niche.

Agreeably upbeat and filled with expected sequences of gung-ho Aussie living, Paperback is light on its feet and pleasantly diverting. [09 Aug 2000]

The relationship between Paxton, Barnes and Mr. Reed remains the most absorbing thread throughout Heretic. Even when the screenplay heads into deflating territory — trading potential acerbity for more neutral conclusions — their cat-and-mouse game keeps us curious and faithful.

Like the investigation itself, the meaning of Only the River Flows gradually finds its focus as the story progresses, leaving the viewer staring into the same abyss the detective does — an abyss that, as in any respectable film noir, stares back at him.

The Taliban wanted a 90-minute commercial and Nash’at wanted 90 minutes of truth, and what they both got was a portrait of the complicated cost of access — more vital in its universal applicability to documentary filmmaking than its immediacy as a documentary.

When the performers are on stage, Swan Song becomes electric.

It’s witty, stylishly crafted and boasts a stellar ensemble, led by especially toothsome work from Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. It keeps you glued, even if the movie ultimately feels evanescent, a slick diversion you forget soon after the end credits have rolled.

Whatever script flaws there are in terms of structure, plot momentum and an opaque central character, A Complete Unknown offers rewards in its lived-in performances and in the exhilarating music sequences that propel it forward. For many audiences with an affection for Dylan’s music and the era in general, that will be enough.

Falco, involving as ever, might not be engaged in a wild gamble here, but there’s a certain risk in the ways that she and the movie circle a neat conclusion. And there’s wisdom in the way they wind up somewhere far messier, sweeter and more satisfying.

The movie star Taylor is the one who most often comes through in the film, but that is engaging enough.

The special sauce here, however, is the bond of love and support through tough times between Anthony and his mother Judy, stirringly portrayed by Jharrel Jerome and Jennifer Lopez.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 gets the job done, and should provide entertaining diversion for families during the holiday season.

[Perry's] approach is one of a consummate enthusiast and completist, and he does manage to convey that dedicated fan energy on screen. But he doesn’t necessarily make it feel contagious enough.

Even if The Last Showgirl feels slender overall, more consistently attentive to aesthetics and atmosphere than psychological profundity, there’s moving empathy in its portrait of Shelly and women like her, their sense of self crumbling as they become cruelly devalued.

Whatever the new movie lacks in originality, it makes up for in propulsive narrative drive, big scares and appealing new characters played by a terrific cast — even if they are mostly cut from an existing mold.

Is any of this believable? Not really. Is some of it plain silly? Definitely. But it’s mostly enjoyable to watch, even if the film flies so far off the rails that there’s less suspense here than in the director’s stronger works.

Those who might be able to put aside despair and absorb this strictly as a work of persuasive rhetoric will be impressed with its intellectual scope, the economy of the storytelling in its fictional narrative, the bravura editing and visual panache as it builds a world full of dust, detritus and debased morals.

There’s no shortage of intensity or gore, not to mention brisk efficiency in the way the script isolates a fragile family unit before plunging them into lycanthropic mayhem.

The portrait of a nearly vanished rural way of life remains compelling, and the melodrama engaging enough to suggest this might have been improved by being spread thinner as a TV series.

Given the craziness of the concept, it is surprising that several of the scenes work as well as they do.

The long, unbroken rhythm of Wang’s filmmaking somehow casts a spell, and he certainly has a good eye for characters. That’s a blessing considering how slow and considered the takes are here, watching with equally intense absorption whether the subjects are sleeping on a train or constructing seams or making food. But overall, the lack of differentiation can be wearisome.

Sure, all but one of the show’s most memorable songs are in the first act, but the investment in character, story and sumptuous design more than compensates in Wicked: For Good, which again shows that casting stellar vocal talents Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande was a masterstroke.

The Bibi Files paints a damning portrait of its subject’s machinations to stay in power.

Capturing that transitional moment when seemingly permanent adolescent ties suddenly appear uncertain, this is a melancholy drama laced with notes of anger and disquiet, but also resilience.

Especially in the first hour, it’s a richly satisfying tribute to an unimpeachable cinematic legend who, one could easily argue, has become even more beloved than the iconic directors he collaborated with or the movie stars whose legends his themes and cues helped burnish.

This recap of a unique and deeply sincere bid to demystify utopian ideals for the conservative masses using the platform of popular television offers a fascinating glimpse into a very different period in this country’s past.

It provides some great background on Carville and certainly convinces us that he is one of the most colorful figures on the scene today — and still making noise.

The cumulative experience is affecting in its own minor-key way, an appealing throwback to old-fashioned family dramas of a more innocent era.

Navigating a complex narrative line, Nabulsi doesn’t always achieve the nuance or the propulsive tension the material requires, but she has a sure grasp of emotional give-and-take and day-to-day realities.

Moland delivers a sharp-looking, well-paced movie with a moody score.

It smacks of overkill, but fortunately the film, smartly directed by Pierre Perifel, also features the same wit and charm that proved so appealing to youngsters and adults alike in the first movie.

This film has sweat, ambition, audacity. And yet, we have to ask: How much Pushpa is too much Pushpa? Because three hours and 20 minutes is definitely an overdose.