“Brice and company get too tied up in the character comedy for ‘Corporate Animals’ to work as a satire, and the televisual filmmaking isn’t helped by a plotline that could have been a single episode of ‘The Office.'”
“‘The Nightingale’ is a rich and vivid work from a director whose bold vision accounts for its brutality.”
“Hazarika’s is a voice that comes from outside of the Bollywood canon and reverberates sharp and hard throughout the cinemascape of the country. May it grow only louder.”
“Maurel allows Arenas’ body language to speak for her, rather than relying upon cliché teenage dialogue found in many Hollywood films.”
“‘Alien’ is a gift that keeps on giving, and ‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’ unwraps so many colorfully wrapped boxes of various shapes and sizes.”
“Moin Hussain’s ‘Naptha’ is a classic, compact portrait of a strained father-son relationship that addresses the angst of aging and the pain that familial relationships can bring.”
“Eggers is persistent in never revealing his hand, but I’ve got a hunch he’s hiding a royal flush.”
“Widow of Silence’s characters communicate little because the core of human existence is on the verge of death. It’s the humanization of the unfamiliar that makes the characters feel so exceptionally real, and viewers will likely see parts of themselves on screen.”
“You don’t have to be a queer teenage activist to relate to Amy, but imagine what ‘Booksmart’ might mean to those who have not seen themselves regularly represented on the mainstream screen.”
“‘Fonotune: An Electric Fairytale’ can’t escape feeling like a zany music video concept, lacking the energy or plot to sustain a feature.”
“Despite entertaining directorial flourishes often accompanied by striking stock footage cutaways — from Carl Sagan to a history lesson on Black hair care products — Russo-Young can’t set her hooks into much beyond the postcard images of the Big Apple.”
“As a whole, ‘John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum’ is a fun romp and continues the Greek/pulp mythology set up in ‘John Wick: Chapter 2.’ In future installments, Stahelski might want to tone down the campiness, otherwise the series will lunge into self-parody.”
“One of the greatest pleasures of ‘See You Yesterday’ is that the challenges and complexities of the jumps get better as the story unfolds.”
“While Springsteen takes the American dream and helps everyone navigate through its dismantling, Chadha packs it all up with ‘Blinded by the Light” and makes it speak to an entirely different country and a whole new generation.”
“Those seeking some deep-dive exploration into Tolkien and his process will likely get more out of a standard biography or documentary. As it stands, ‘Tolkien’ is a merely adequate celebration of the author and the power of art.”
“Written and directed by Michael K. Feinstein, ‘The Browsing Effect’ highlights the beauty of lasting connections. Despite pressing too hard on social media tropes, the film includes numerous charming performances and genuine laugh-out-loud moments.”
“Attieh and Garcia have ironically made a movie that metatextually gives Sergio the respect he doesn’t deserve. If he were real, he’d be absolutely thrilled to be the star of a movie that’s so unique, and so genuinely cool.”
“‘Wild Rose’ has the makings of a movie deathly afraid of validating a ‘bad mother,’ even if it comes at the expense of the protagonist’s internal consistency.”
“If ‘Charlie Says’ marks the official kickoff of Manson-50-years-later discourse, we’re lucky that it prioritizes the insidiousness of his ideology.”
“‘After’ plays it too safe start to finish. And aside from whatever discussions might emerge concerning the representation of toxicity, masculinity and toxic masculinity, the lack of originality is the film’s Achilles heel.”