“American Pachuo” is just a nice movie about a visionary guy. Entertaining and educational, to be sure, but so frictionless it barely sticks.

The overall point or purpose, beyond showing how a polar bear deals with a nearby human presence and vice versa, is conveyed relatively quickly, leaving the rest of the film to rinse and repeat until that final shot of a drowsy bear, resting atop a snow pile before a setting sun. It’s undeniably gorgeous, but what’s the greater message?

Hanging By a Wire is a nail-biting watch, one that never allows itself to become bogged down in excessive setup or backstory.

The downside is that Lagos is a more interesting character in this film than Lady herself, who Nwosu outlines with far less finesse. Such a glaring imbalance is symptomatic of the script’s overall flimsiness, which stands in contrast to this debut’s heartfelt performances and staggering visuals.

While the kids are pretty fantastic overall, it’s the collaboration between Brill and Bonilla that takes Heller’s screenplay to another level.

Like many Vietnam stories, the film openly contends with the futility of the war, questioning the larger purpose behind it and how it affected these specific men. The film’s greatest strength, then, is in that specificity and its historical corrective.

There’s a good movie about therapy and PTSD inside Jay Duplass’ See You When I See You. The trouble is, it’s buried in a so-so family ensemble film about shared grief and recovery.

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York might not be anything revolutionary, but it sure is revelatory. Segan laments a bygone bustling past, speaks to an uncertain present, and points to New York’s eternal beacon of hope to tease the promise of future renewal.

At its heart, the film is a love story. A love story about two souls who need to trust each other if they want to survive.

Haru’s journey is more soulful and heartbreaking than you may want it to be. And that somehow makes the magical moments even more endearing.

Chasing Summer earns a lot of goodwill with a rowdy climax that plays into Shlesinger’s strengths as a humorist.

Beyond some obvious pot shots and on-the-nose metaphors, it begins to feel more and more like a missed opportunity than smart satire.

Even the most hair-brained of Wain’s films have some quality elements, and Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is certainly no exception to that rule. But it’s nevertheless a slight disappointment to see a luminary operating at the lower end of his power and promise.

Overall, Manners’ feature debut is perfectly polished. Duggan and Clear are distinct talents who scream future stars (or, at worst, working talents for years to come). But as insightful as it all is as a portrait of those bumpy teenage years for young women, it does all feel a bit too familiar. Maybe even a little too safe and predictable.

Send Help is pure Raimi: a survival thriller that disguises itself as corporate satire before mutating into something far nastier and more fun. It’s ridiculous by design, walking a razor’s edge between menace and mockery, and it thrives in that instability.

Comfort with loveable loserdom is the glue – or maybe the scotch tape – that holds together a rickety contraption careening constantly toward calamity.

Union County offers something better than the Hollywood ending. It’s honest. It’s helpful. Perhaps, it’s even hopeful for those willing to sit with the uncomfortable reality of the condition, as Meeks and Poulter have. A transient victory is a triumph all the same.

For all its entrancing imagery, Zi is ultimately contrived in how the few concrete details of the narrative come together. The result is more experiential than thematically substantial.

Wilde toils feverishly to create the illusion of momentum and communicates to the audience that they must be feeling such a sensation. But for all the belabored artistry of this choppily cut enterprise, little in “The Invite” actually moves. It’s potential energy, unconvincingly trying to pass itself off as kinetic.

Facile explanations are absent from Josephine, as they should be, but what lingers is a sense that every gesture of empathy and bravery, no matter how small or imperfect, tips the scales towards good, even if trying feels like a losing fight.

What’s fresh and compelling are Wilde and Hoffman. They are so stellar together that the film’s multiple endings work because they are front and center in them. In the end, almost despite Araki’s efforts, they make having “Sex” worth it

By the end of The Incomer, Paxton makes explicit that this is a story about making decisions from an outlook that favors hope over fear. And, at least for the duration of the film, he creates an imaginary universe where such a choice feels both logical and lovable.

Carousel is another entry in a run of magnificent Jenny Slate performances.

While it’s not a complete home run – it is a wee bit too long and certainly not as funny overall as it should be – in the end, it delivers. Because, love it or hate it, this film will linger with you. You certainly won’t forget Aitchison’s stirring performance.

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

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.

Pay a thought to kids growing up during wartime. Gornostai captures a snapshot of their everyday heroism on film, embalming it for future generations.

The Bone Temple does have plenty on its mind about illness and outbreaks—perhaps the sickness that is mankind and the freakshow we doomscroll witness every day— it simply buries those thoughts under layers of bloody viscera and wreckage. That’s the movie’s defining tension: beauty against barbarism, hush against havoc, and the fleeting possibility of grace pressed up against the certainty of carnage.