Knock at the Cabin does not disappoint. It’s a movie that reminds us why Shyamalan is one of contemporary cinema’s greatest alchemists and a prime example of a filmmaker at his best and boldest.

The result, while featuring some superbly non-sequitur moments and gags, feels forced into a road trip package caught between self-awareness and naivety.

Condon’s conducting of the whole affair is technically competent … dazzling, even, in sections. But all that flashiness is not blinding enough to conceal the gap between the tune it sings and the routine it dances. That is to say: Kiss of the Spider Woman may be about movie magic, but the film itself isn’t always magic.

Carefully balancing stereotypes with tasteful comedy, De Felitta has his three leads and a generally refreshing screenplay to thank for making Rob The Mob a joy to watch.

Like an epic sonnet, with beautiful accompanying music and songs, “Eleanor Rigby” deals with memory, perception and the emotional toll a relationship can have on an individual as much as it deals with the more grandiose themes of love and loss.

It’s a twee and tweedy period “Footloose,” into which Loach’s trademark left wing sympathies are not so much woven as photocopied and stapled onto alternate pages of the script.

Overloaded with too many ideas, it does scant justice to the more interesting ones that crop up, while regularly diverting from any sort of central narrative to follow tenuous and ill-explained threads that end up in a foggy limbo. But just when it threatens to wholly frustrate, someone cracks an enjoyable inside-baseball meta movie-making joke and we're back on side for a bit.

Heder's direction shines, shaping the film around the cast as each woman plays out their own specific nuances of loss and insecurity, and, occasionally, optimism. Tallulah is an impressive feature debut, and a welcome showcase for the talents of Page, Janney, and Blanchard.

Peabody creates a briskly paced doc that cleverly uses interviews and archive footage in order to distill this complex subject into an easily digestible viewing experience.

Even its weakest pieces are still entertaining, and the good stuff is exceptionally so.

The film’s inherent problems, however, are two fold. First, the third of the picture is an absolute slog. The Zellner’s may have though this was a creative choice to make the comedic scenes funnier when they finally hit, but it simply doesn’t work. Second, the funny bits simply aren’t as funny as they should be.

This is the director at his tenderest.

Eden may be unpleasant, but it's not as grim as you'd imagine, and always compulsively watchable. If only all issue movies were this entertaining.

While The Ones Below doesn’t make it over the finish line, Farr shows good instincts, and has an ease for creating tension without overt manipulation, while keeping everything engaging enough that you’re willing to overlook questions that nag after the credits roll.

Just as many sports movies before have done, and many more will after, Borg/McEnroe shines a light on the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. It’s just a shame that the movie itself doesn’t have the same ambition

Finding ways to cope with any significant tragedy is hardly new, but in the hands of Foy and Lowthrope, it is.

It ultimately crashes into a heap due to a host of rambling non-connective ideas and tonally grating dialogue.

Topicality is not mandatory, and it’s clear the agenda here is for salacious genre thrills rather than anything deeper or more profound, but when the film’s form is such an embrace of modernity, it feels like cognitive dissonance to have the story skew so old-fashioned.

Midnight movie programmers of the future will undoubtedly give it a long life years after it’s gone from first-run theaters.

The actors are game, but their connection is more cutesy than romantic.

Villains is wacky off the walls fun and it constructs a solid sandbox for its actors to play in and deliver four colorfully captivating performances about the shades and degrees of human wickedness.

Save for an overdependence on neon lighting, a general misunderstanding of how entertainment journalism works, and perhaps more alcohol consumption than is responsible for a film sure to be watched by teen girls and young women, Someone Great is a heartfelt and hilarious first feature with ample female talent.

Stowaway is surprisingly decent despite the drag near the finale.

In the past, Östlund has shown a deft facility in sending up meaty topics, applying granular attention to male ego in “Force Majeure” and art-world pretensions with “The Square.” Here, however, he stoops to the broadness ascribed to his work by its harshest critics, now more parody of himself than parodist.

Algorithms is a completely unique film, unlike any other documentary you might see this year, both for its content and its form.

One of the film’s successes is its ability to subvert expectations.

The film can be engaging, well-made, and even a touch more interesting than it has much right to be. But it's also far from a satisfying work as a whole.

By creating — and persisting — on this on-the-nose parallel between the tragedy of opera and the one of Callas’s life, the duo sees this woman solely through the tragic value of her woes, denying her talent and her craft from the light that is true human connection, built not only through shared griefs but the deep understanding of one another that only great art can promote.

Bring Them Down is Chris Andrews’ debut feature as a writer and director after working in the camera department of several productions. He has a nice feel for the story’s setting and shows some facility filming action. A tighter handle on dramatic construction and character development would enhance his feature filmmaking ventures.

[Shyamalan] still knows how to manipulate an audience with an original story, and with “Split,” we don’t mind him pulling the strings again.

If you can imagine a firearm kill, an explosion, or a knife-fight, chances are that Wheathely has packed into Normal— so bountiful are the action confrontations with various configurations of characters.

The film gives the audience the feeling of being trapped in a tight and confined space. And that feeling is as thrillingly unpleasant as it is a sweaty-palmed nightmare.

This Land often feels like a simplified (but not unwelcome) plea for sentimentality— its observational approach essentially diffuses any political reading. It’s odd to watch a film so invested in the rhythms of politics that is also strangely apolitical.

Even as an homage The Hole in the Ground feels like business as usual rather imbuing the genre with a much-needed modern edge or new context.

Beyond its subject matter one of the reasons Scoop is genuinely compelling is Philip Martin’s direction. The pacing is brisk, but not rushed. And time and again, “The Crown” veteran smartly lets his actors play to their strengths.

While the overwrought dialogue does test attention spans, its prevailing message — humanity is malignant and inherently wicked— and the hint of something more cryptic makes Passon’s film beautifully disturbing.

For all its rage about moral decline and the psychic poison of content culture, Faces Of Death never rises above the same cheap sensationalism it pretends to condemn. Instead of confronting the sickness, it feeds on it and spits out something just as rancid as the faux snuff films it claims to abhor.

Its patchy tone, plot, characters and sympathies make for a film that’s difficult to wholeheartedly endorse.

Carnahan may be the real MVP here. “The Rip” isn’t a masterpiece, and it can be blunt and workmanlike by design, but it’s brawny, confident, and it moves.

We’re not sure there will ever be another “Devil Wears Prada” installment, but be glad this one came along. At worst, to reinforce that shining memory of the original, at best to simply delight you for two hours. Hey, it might even be an improvement on that first flick.

With “Free Fire,” Wheatley wants to push his own limits of onscreen mayhem, taking things right to the line where most directors would pull back, and pushing everything right over. And what the director winds up doing is making a big, magnificent noise, one that will certainly see more than his core fanbase sitting up and paying attention.

After five incredible seasons of “Key & Peele” skewering black masculinity in its various forms, the duo here settle for an uninspired riff on Los Angeles gang culture, stringing together fish-out-of-water vignettes by using a stray kitten as thread.

It’s an ugly, unpleasant viewing experience, one that sees geek culture as a hateful cesspool of exclusion and juvenility, miserable to experience first-hand.

In the Earth isn’t a complete washout; there are moments of bleak humor, genre fans will enjoy the striking imagery and gross-out shivers, and the director has an undeniable gift for setting and maintaining a mood (he gets a big assist on the latter from Clint Mansell’s synth score). But ultimately, it’s kind of a slog.

Ultimately, Aster just unleashes his inner freak and vomits it all on the screen, with anxious flop sweat, jittery bodily fluids, squishy terror, paranoia, and some gut-busting laughs that prove this writer is deeply troubled in the best and most complicated odd way possible.

Wachowski’s The Matrix Resurrections, a fun, albeit messy metatextual sequel that struggles to find its narrative footing, soars whenever Wachowski focuses on sci-fi’s best power couple.

While it's not close to the level of "Stories We Tell" in terms of commenting on the reliability of narrators and the cozy comfort of dishonesty to smooth over thornier life issues, the finale of "Elliot" is murky enough to leave folks guessing as to the true motivations of the entire film.

For its majority, the film is all comedic and political fire, but as its winds down, Timoner rounds it off with a tone of melancholic, tragic inevitability to Brand’s life.

Central to the success of Butterfly Vision, however, is Burkovska: she embodies Lilia with silent rage, her poise broken in fleeting moments, the steely facade dropped for mere seconds at a time.

Ultimately, Love & Monsters is a film about picking yourself up, taking your destiny into your own hands, and not being afraid of living, even though you’re likely to make some mistakes along the way. And it’s a damn fun adventure to boot.

There’s a line for an audience between conveying the true horror of what occurred and being excessive and Maras barely avoids the latter.

While this send-up might not pass the scrutiny for a rewatch or cult classic, it’s at least good for one fun and unexpected go-round.

Lee knows exactly how it wants to look, yet it has little that’s new or interesting to say.

Ron Howard arguably captures it in his enjoyable, escapist ‘Solo’ movie, but the burden of keeping fans happy means if you’re looking for surprises, you may have come to the wrong place.

For all the film's flaws, Black brings enough to the table that it's far from a chore, and if this level of ingenuity and surprise can be maintained, there'll be no need for Tony to hang up his Iron Man helmet any time soon.

Shot in a way reminiscent of classic ’70s cinema while commenting on the woes of the contemporary, Williams builds a timely film that still feels timeless, an expansive chronicling of a slice of America ripe for many a rewatch.

Purposefully joyless and bereft of any kind of aesthetic gratification other than the one found in Mendoza’s use of cinema verite and non-sentimental approach, Ma’ Rosa is tough-as-nails, and leaves you with a heaviness and a pulsating sympathy that’s impossible to ignore.

When the film works, it’s often because Banks confidently carries so much of it on her own shoulders.

42 is excessively retro, neglecting the urge to pepper scenes with comic relief or oppressing, flashy conflict.

On both technical and thematic levels, the filmmakers have succeeded in using the tools of cinema to carve out an authentic look at troubled youth, and the choices we have to make in order to steer away from the wrong path.

Both Stearns and Gillan commit to the detached tenor. Still, it’s often more distant and isolating than it is funny, therefore leading to a movie that feels misjudged and far too remote, even for those well-versed and conversant in this weirdly lopsided style.

Godzilla asks you to care about its characters, achieves that aspiration, earns your trust, and then not only pivots towards a far less interesting character, but abandons most of its absorbing emotional legwork for a fairly rote and straightforward rock ‘em, sock ‘em monster movie.

It's a canny horror film and a derivative one.

It won't change the face of cinema history, and it won't win any awards (it's too downright dirty for that), but it's furiously entertaining, and a very strong piece of drama from a director who hasn't much luck in the last thirty-odd years.

Sure, Vikander and Olsen are superb as Mia has to constantly stop herself from wringing Virginia’s neck, but the whole endeavor increasingly feels flat.

There are occasional laugh-out-loud moments, for sure, and the winningness of the leads makes the inevitable climactic clinch actually rather affecting, but Grabbers could have been so much more than the derivative me-too it turns out to be.

There is little more to Kon-Tiki than a fun, handsomely-mounted, old-style adventure story. And as impressive a feat as that is to achieve, especially outside of Hollywood, which kind of specialises in this sort of thing, those looking for something with more depth from this category may come away a little disappointed.

Without all of the performers being completely at the top of their game, none of this would work, and it could grow tiresome rather quickly. Luckily, all of them give such refreshingly vulnerable, funny, and lived-in performances that make you more than happy to spend time with all of them.

A Jazzman’s Blues is a passion project that climbs close to the edge of becoming self-indulgent fodder. The film is never as deep as it thinks it is. Nor is it terribly original either. But for Perry, this is a massive change. And while you shouldn’t praise a director for merely trying. Perry does more than try with “A Jazzman’s Blues.” He finally shows that he’s not a one-trick pony.

Does this film say anything liberals and conservatives didn’t already know? Probably not. It does offer a candid, civil, and up-close look at a man championing hard-right (some might say racist) ideals, which is more than viewers get from watching CNN-panel screaming matches and Fox News hagiographies.

Since the music doesn't connect like it should, everything else that is underpinned in the story by these songs also doesn't come together with the weight or power Carney surely intended.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is a mild lark. It's odd, off-the-wall, and has enough jokes and gags that if you're forced to take your little one to the theater, you won't spend the entire time looking at your watch or planning your escape.

Amulet is a horror movie which baits-and-switches cleverly—and angrily—about who is the horror’s innocent victim, and who’s its guilty cause. And as a haunted house film, its ornate mythology pulls the dingy rotting rug out several times from under our initial idea of who is the haunter and who the hauntee.

A highly polished film that belies the soap opera melodrama of its plotline by having the twists and turns spring directly from well-observed human behavior, Stone's The Daughter is a quiet, immensely affecting triumph.

Director Shaka King has made a film of big laughs and big heart that makes one long for one long green detour without pandering to the pot-hawks who, unrelatedly, also like the lowest-common-denominator appeal of most pot films without realizing they’re being patronized.

Hammel has talent and something to say that’s worth paying attention to. There’s a spark of something there, eventually. It’s a little messy, but it’s definitely there. It also just might take a while before you want to hear it.

The Source Family is a comprehensive and fair-minded look at the life and times of an inspired, mystified and possible deranged man.

A brilliantly unflinching look at a society built on extreme disparities that reads more like an omen than a far-fetched fantasy, New Order repeatedly subverts any hope of redemption. It guts you with the worst of human nature, like Franco often does, but within a larger sociopolitical scale, and for that, it’s utterly unshakable.

Unfortunately, while Set It Up sets up instances of subversion, it ultimately topples into a predictable mess of romantic noxiousness.

It’s so fresh and so funny in its first hour or so, in fact, that it’s a real bummer to watch it all fall to pieces in the home stretch, with a pivot into drama that’s too much, too fast — and, more importantly, too much of things we’ve seen before.

Alas, boilerplate could best describe the events of Control Freak, despite the genuine commitment of Tran and Robbins, particularly with both oozing chemistry and dedication to whatever routine setup the movie provides next.

By working in such a deliberately muted key, the emotional payoffs we’re conditioned to require from a story like this never quite arrive, and Van Groeningen never finds a workable substitute for them.

It’s unmistakably a return to joy for a legendary director, and that goes a long way in making this film stand out in a sea of ill-conceived sequels.

Campy and cartoonish, Burton’s Big Eyes is not the return to form many were hoping for. It is another phony and hollow piece of sugary kitschploitation masquerading under the guise of an “important true story” that places a nearly grotesque premium on style over any traces over substance.

'Trouble in Mind' barely feels like a movie at all. ... Absent any contemporary reflections by either the subject or outside observers, we’re left with no real idea how anyone feels about Jerry Lee Lewis and his exploits on either side of the camera.

It'll pass a couple of hours on a rainy afternoon without too much trouble. But whether as an adventure tale, a thriller, or a morality play, Black Sea never quite makes a compelling enough case for its existence when better examples of the submarine genre are already out there.

Of course, it's because of the film's casually profane tone and commitment to pushing the boundaries of taste and acceptability that makes Klown a step above "The Hangover," a lack of fear towards the lawlessness with which those films only flirt.

Maya is full of the kind of tiny, keenly observed moments that make Løve such a special filmmaker.

It also cannot be overstated what an asset [John C.] Reilly is. The moment he shows up, the movie feels enlivened and energized; his mere presence adds a tremendous amount of oddball charm and humor.

As pithy and sharp-witted as the screenplay is ... the direction by series creator Rob Thomas ... is oftentimes flat and visually dull. ... And so the movie, is more than anything, a bold and breathless work of fan service, configured by the creators of the original series for the maximum enjoyment of the fans of the original series.

A low-budget, slow-burning film, Thelin and cinematographer Luca Del Puppo develop a relatable universe that never really gets too frightening, but it certainly digs into your conscience, and will make you think twice before letting a stranger into your house.

Harwood’s portrayal of Jamie is not as an already birthed star crashing down to earth, but a sweet, excited, restless 16 year old, testing the limits of his aspirations in a space that can’t possibly accommodate them.

Terrifier 3 is the Gwar of films. The story isn’t very good. The antics are pushing the limits of silliness. But if you can look past that, then holy sh*t, you better brace yourself for some of the bloodiest, most gruesome things you’ll ever see in a film. This is not for the faint of heart.

Containing not one single jump scare, but building a disquieting atmosphere of dread that leads us to make some brilliantly gruesome inferences, it’s a classy take on the often trashy pregnancy horror category, with a subtle social critique underlying its neo-gothic texture.

Paz’s story is obviously a feel-good one, which somewhat hamstrings a writer-director who you can feel chafing against the constraints of fidelity to sheer uplift.

Destined to make audiences weep, The Swimmers is no doubt a crowd-pleaser with an important message about the growing refugee crisis worldwide, and Yusra’s story is one worth telling. It’s a pity the filmmakers couldn’t take the time to see her life as more than just a vessel for this message.

Ultimately, Ms. 45 is far more interesting and genuinely enjoyable (versus ironically enjoyable, as many of this vintage grindhouse flicks wind up being) than it has any right to be.

Despite a slightly silly premise and a script that plays it fast and loose with increasingly ridiculous scenarios, director Brian Crano‘s sincere and funny Permission manages to charm and impress thanks to the largely committed and above-average cast of Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens.