The feeling arises more than once that De los Santos Arias is cluttering up a captivating story with obscure distractions, random shifts between color and B&W and constant shuffling of the film’s style. And yet, the slow accumulation of pathos exerts a grip.

Most of Arcadian’s potential lies in its performances (including compelling turns from Martell and Soverall) and the design of the monsters.

Silence is both the film’s main asset and its principal limitation, creating moments of suspense but also leaving us in the dark, to the point that it feels more like a gimmick than anything substantial.

The vigilance of the character building doesn’t translate to the narrative. The story at the center of My Dead Friend Zoe — a young woman suffering from PTSD and tasked with caring for her aging grandfather — is oddly unyielding, never relaxing enough to fully engage or move us.

The film’s slow-burn pace is an asset, not a flaw. Speak No Evil works best when it focuses on the Americans’ escalating fears, and collapses near the end when the psychological horror story turns into a predictable potboiler. But for a good three-quarters of the way, this Blumhouse production is an entertainingly elevated genre piece.

There’s just a lot of media landscape stuff that Rather either can’t or doesn’t want to do justice — which returns me to my initial point that if you come from a perspective of youth this will be illuminating, but if you lived through it you’ll hardly get anything fresh at all.

Jim Henson Idea Man is a very conventional movie that dedicates its time to proving how unconventional Jim Henson was.

The overworked screenplay doesn’t strip the film of all its merits — there’s plenty here in terms of uplift and inspiration for most audiences — but it does make one wonder about a version of this project that embodied the fluidity Ederle felt in the water.

If the film’s strength lies in its affection for its title heroine, its greatest flaw is a comparative lack of attention toward the characters surrounding her — yielding a film that, for all its likable beats, feels flimsier than it should.

It’s surely not without emotionally satisfying moments and it does a persuasive job of emphasizing the importance of Reading Rainbow and of star LeVar Burton, but the documentary is slight in its artistic and thematic ambition.

Wild Diamond features gorgeous and frank observations about influencer culture, but it struggles to assert itself narratively.

Fans of Gomes’ breakthrough 2012 feature, Tabu, will find much to love here as well, and in terms of craft his latest offers some truly beguiling moments. But anyone looking for a good story, or characters to get hooked on, may find themselves admiring the scenery without ever relishing it.

The Count of Monte Cristo is the kind of movie where, after 180 minutes and many, many more plot points, you walk out of the theater without having felt the time pass. That’s a good thing if you’re looking for a fairly entertaining, swords-and-puffy-shirts revenge tale — and Dumas’ novel is probably the mother of all revenge tales.

Let the Canary Sing is slight but competent, a “Cyndi by Cyndi” opportunity for the singer and a choice group of her family, friends and collaborators to nostalgically recount her biography.

As painstakingly crafted as this mystery-thriller is, it remains something to be admired from a distance rather than felt viscerally.

While inventive, Neville’s doc can’t quite avoid the trappings of the celebrity-produced biopic, and is expectedly marked by typical hagiographic evasiveness.

The results aren’t always convincing, with the film’s mannered acting and heightened aesthetics keeping the viewer at arm’s length from any real emotion. But the director also displays a fine sense of craft and a deep understanding of the skewed European attitudes of the period.

Overall, Ordinary Magic is not a bad film. Those looking for family entertainment with a tinge of radical revisionism could do a lot worse. [01 Nov 1993]

It would all feel a little suffocating if it weren’t for the performances from the actresses who play both the younger and older Supremes. Their grounded portrayals make the stakes of The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat feel real, and the inevitable outcome seem earned; they anchor a film that might otherwise feel too wispy.

There are moments when the film uneasily skirts the line between genre conventions and documentary realism, but the portrait it paints of Casablanca’s underbelly remains credible and bleak.

Nutcrackers is not exactly robust as uplifting family comedies go, but for audiences willing to get in sync with Green’s free-flowing groove, the emotional payoff will be affecting.

The romance at the movie’s core doesn’t deliver the intended emotional impact, but there’s a tender, potent resonance to other aspects of the story.

The first rule of a good werewolf flick, or any horror flick for that matter, is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, whereas Farrell mostly keeps us guessing.

The result feels more like a B-grade thriller that’s been elevated by a good cast and a script with some clever moves.

We all know a feel-good ending is coming eventually. But more patience, and fewer clichés, might have made its emotions feel more earned.

If anything, Diaz succeeds in conveying how fatal the conflict in his homeland truly was, making its way into foreign lands and tearing loving families apart.

It’s not so much a prequel as it is a parallel story that continues underscoring the limited autonomy of women. Restrictive social mores trap both Rosemary and Terry, albeit in different ways.

In the end, it all feels a bit like a fashion film or some other branded exercise in style — except that the brand is Ortega’s peculiar and unique vision.