Ellis ratches up the intensity to an almost stomach-turning level. It’s partially the filmmaking. It’s also the recognition of how dangerous this mortality game has become.

While the musical elements often take the movie to impressive artistic heights, it’s not just the storyline that ends up hindering Better Man.

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.

The result is a melodrama where any sense of tension fades the longer Nina and Tito speak.

Malcolm Washington, Denzel’s youngest son, has his own secret weapons to assist him in his feature directorial debut. The first is a scintillatingly stellar performance from Danielle Deadwyler. The second is Washington’s impressive artistic vision which proves that a love of cinema truly does run in the family.

Unless you have truly transcendent performances or unforgettable cinematic moments, it’s difficult for this genre of sports story to really throw a unique punch.

There is definitely some extraneous storytelling muddle in The Life Of Chuck, but once you get past the opening act, there are glories to be had – in the form of a terrific childhood coming-of-age tale anchored by a star-making turn by Pajak and exceptional dancing by Pajak and Hiddleston.

With a minimalist production, an enormous burden is placed on the actors to engage audiences, and all three performers come through.

Coppola packs a lot into the film’s 85-minute runtime, but in many ways, the complete experience feels like a slight tease. There is more to explore. There are other portions of Shelly’s life or Coppola’s increasingly poetic perspective of Vegas itself that are calling. But some moments overcome the film’s thin narrative facade and not just Anderson’s triumphant climax, either.

The empathetic instincts of Sanders and his talented artists result in a tearjerker of an ending that may have you bawling.

You believe this woman exists. And Leigh and Jean-Baptiste ensure she will haunt you.

Nightbitch operates in too many modes at once, making a muddle of most of them.

Ultimately, Casa Bonita Mi Amor is a worthy watch, just for the Parker and Stone of it all. These two are hugely entertaining and surprisingly sweet in the film. And if you’re someone who loves watching shows about fixer-uppers and renovations, then you’ll absolutely adore this film.

Any novelty in the film is provided by watching spirited kids being themselves, something Green does manage to capture.

Crowley and Payne owe a considerable debt to Pugh and Garfield. But for their presence, the film might not have been able to rise above its borderline twee mundanity.

The resulting film is truly as real as it gets. For a movie about the apparent world beyond our own, that’s saying more than any psychic could ever predict

At one point, she connects the beliefs of these conservative evangelicals with the post-colonial idealism of Brasilia’s builders, whose faith was “not in God but in the equally abstract ideas of progress and democracy.” That sense of inquiry and curiosity stops Apocalypse in the Tropics from veering into hyperbole without ever losing its harrowing urgency.

There are meta-movies, and then there’s Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements.

Of all the things Phillips does better in Joker: Folie à Deux than he did in Joker, the best is by far his course correction in catering to radical misogynists. The director isn’t subtle in his nods to the controversy stirred by the original.

Saulnier’s overall mise en scene is impressive. Everything from precision camera work, rigorous composition, framing and blocking, nimble, tight editing, and stress-inducing music, Rebel Ridge kicks ass in the best possible sense, entertaining, thrilling, and always captivating.

All that being said, the songs are impressive enough that it’s not hard to envision “The End” becoming something of a cult musical. Five years from now, maybe less, some excited college freshman is going to convince the head of their college drama department to let them put on a stage version of this musical. And chances are, it will be a smash. This is material that, with some editing of its book (er, script), a spotlight on the songs, and natural physical intimacy, could flourish on the stage.

It’s somewhat remarkable a new work exists that sparks such conversation in the first place. Even if it doesn’t completely succeed, that’s art. That’s dynamic. That deserves your attention.

Queer feels unsettled and inconsistent—but never anything less than fascinating to watch unfold.

Given the unhurried pacing and general underplaying of the situation’s gravity, the film feels like visiting a museum exhibit rather than living through a flashpoint of history. Here, the past’s horrors are but pictures nestled safely behind glass.

There is something not quite right about this one Almodóvar film, a dramedy that emulates all that makes a story Almodovarian but bypasses its essence entirely.

While the poor, urban setting of The Deliverance is a little bit unique for the supernatural genre, the way the suffering and dreariness within the backdrop collides with the ghastly misery of the unrelenting horror of it all is just several steps out of bounds.

At a time when more and more filmmakers seem to be looking back at the basics of classic genres like cop procedurals, romantic comedies and crime thrillers, Watts brings to the table a tightly written and directed action comedy that is reminiscent of the era that crowned the genre without alienating itself from the time in which it was made.

Regrettably, any sympathy the film has mustered is diminished by at least three, maybe four, additional endings that are frustratingly superfluous. These never-ending epilogues add nothing to what has come before it and, in many ways, curtail any emotional heights the film has garnered to this point.