Excerpt: The road trip scenario really works here, that old Fiat Autotrail Cheyenne giving the film an intimate, character-defining space while the Lake District and the stars Tusker knows so well provide the film a larger-than-life grandeur.
Excerpt: A slow-roll, country drive of a film with brief pot holes of drama. Macqueen offers a flat structure, a sort of calm before the storm atmosphere, but it keeps his film from leaving a lasting impression.
Excerpt: It helps too when you have actors of Firth’s and Tucci’s caliber bringing these heartbroken and defiant men to life in ways that expose their circumstance’s vulnerability.
Excerpt: The problem is not that Snyder has brought this in at four hours, it is that he cannot pace his run time or resist indulging himself. Why have one hero shot per scene when five will do?
Excerpt: Zack Snyder’s Justice League is not a perfect film, but it’s the kind of ambitious, bold, weird, and indulgent piece of filmmaking we rarely get in modern blockbusters.
Excerpt: A breathless ode to the frighteningly almighty power of fandom, ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ has finally seen the light of day and, against all odds, it’s a fairly riveting four-hour super-packed, superhero affair. It’s en vogue to go with extremes on this one but the “best ever”/”worst garbage” dichotomy just doesn’t fit here: this is an undeniable labor of love that eclipses the theatrical cut in all sorts of ways while still suffering a litany of problems inherent with Snyder’s faulty architecting of the franchise.
Excerpt: With its meaty back story and Junkie XL’s fantastic original score, this movie appears more coherent than Joss Whedon’s messy theatrical cut that was released in 2017.
Excerpt: With its excessive length, better-developed heroes, and easier-to-follow story, it’s an epic, thrilling, bloated, and self-indulgent blockbuster.
Excerpt: If, like me, you found the assault of “Hardcore Henry” quickly became boringly repetitive despite a number of ingenious set-ups, but admire Odenkirk’s work as Jimmy McGill, it won’t be a surprise to learn that it is Odenkirk who carries this film
Excerpt: This middle-aged, tired, khaki-wearing nothing of a man looks at the young punks and says, “I’m gonna f*** you up.” This line is going to be 2021’s “Are you talking to me?” or “Do you feel lucky punk?”
Excerpt: Watching Odenkirk get in touch with his inner Charles Bronson is more fun than it should be. It’s still a shame that Kolstad can’t utilize Odenkirk’s formidable talents as well as Vince Gilligan has.
Excerpt: Casting [Odenkirk] allows us to wrestle with preconceptions and enjoy the idea that you don’t have to be as big as Daniel Bernhardt’s “Bus Goon” to wreak havoc.
Excerpt: ‘Nobody’ delivers exactly what it promises to with Bob Odenkirk proving himself a beefy blood-addicted badass when the time calls for it. Gratuitously violent, with clean action choreography and expertly blocked set pieces, the amusing actioner from Ilya Naishuller reinvigorates our love for addictive on-screen violence.
Excerpt: The situation [senior abuse] is so distressing, we wonder just how writer/director J Blakeson is going to turn this into comedy gold. The disappointing thing is that he hits that jackpot early, only to blow his fortune.
Excerpt: Cumberbatch, who lost an extraordinary amount of weight to reflect Wynne’s years in a Russian gulag, leaves his genius Super Heroes and inventors behind and convinces as an average man rising to an extraordinary challenge
Excerpt: The film’s strongest attribute is not its cat and mouse tradecraft games nor its Cold War intrigue, but two men wired to distrust each other, a Brit and a Soviet, sharing smokes and vodka – glimpsing a world beyond political rhetoric and recognizing their shared humanity.
Excerpt: Willingly eschews usual anti-communist political slant for a through-line firmly entrenched in the human cost of tradecraft [that amplifies] its success as one of the heart.
Excerpt: A stirring dramatic thriller with a career-best onscreen turn from Benedict Cumberbatch, ‘The Courier‘ explores the events of the Cold War through ground-level heroism, focusing on the human element and how the actions of a few dictate the course of history. Dominic Cooke expertly crescendos events into big tear-inducing moments…so be prepared for your emotions to get nuked.
Excerpt: Writer/director Keith Thomas takes a common horror scenario, that of the person left alone with a corpse, and gives it a specifically Jewish twist, incorporating the rite of the vigil, the role of the Shomer and the Talmudic lore of the Mazzik.
Excerpt: It doesn’t generally break the overall formula of a horror film about demonic infestations, and it features some jump scares that don’t totally work, but it has great atmosphere and a terrific lead in Dave Davis.
Excerpt: THE VIGIL is a horror film in a Jewish Hasidic setting. But the story is still basically a ghost story, and while it is atmospheric and effective, it does not go much further than other horror films.
Excerpt: Where I found the film most memorable was its ability to bring very specific lore into the mainstream by explaining and utilizing it in a universally resonant way.
Excerpt: …a rousing adventure featuring a most untypical dragon…The Southeast Asian inspired mythical land of Kumandra…is stunningly realized with such wonders as rolling dunes and a strikingly abstract red maple forest.
Excerpt: The Disney paradigm is hard at play again here, its familiarity offset by its inspiration in Southeast Asian culture and mythology. Sweepingly told, gorgeously animated, and audaciously optimistic.
Excerpt: Let it entertain while planting the seeds of acceptance and understanding so our children can be better than the insular generations that failed before them.
Excerpt: Disney Animation Studios one-ups their craftsmanship in the Asian-set adventure ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’, a beautiful-to-look-at effort that feels decidedly borrowed from establishment narratives. The jokey aspect works less than it usually does – and the musical sing-a-longs are sorely missed – but the voice cast is second to none.
Excerpt: Coming as it does in a time where careless fiction and lies are treated as gospel and bad actors are lauded for their divisiveness, is it really any wonder that this film comes off as more of a fantasy than originally intended?
Excerpt: Disney’s first animated feature with Southeast Asian heroine, ‘Raya and the Last Dragon,’ is a classic Disney adventure with big action and gorgeous animation.
Excerpt: An interesting concept is treated inconsistently in this moderately engaging dystopian sci-fi thriller that wears its YA roots on its sleeve… more “Divergent” than “Hunger Games.”
Excerpt: A same-old tale of apocalypse knows we’ve seen this all before, and so centers human drama over disaster porn. It has nothing new to say, but at least it says it well, with notes of horrific grace.
Excerpt: An incoming comet transforms your neighbors into desperate housewives and propels another Gerard Butler low-grade action flick. Disaster porn aficionados delight; everyone else, leave Greenland where it is – remote and inaccessible.
Excerpt: Knowing the carnage still to come, it was refreshing to meet the Garrity family as a group of regular people that will simply have to try and survive.
Excerpt: A disaster-thriller that champions humanity over calamity, ‘Greenland’ is a welcome reminder of the oft-out-of-nowhere thrills that await us at the cineplexes.
Excerpt: There are echoes of many great films and filmmakers in Glass’s work – Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘Repulsion,’ Stanley Kubrick, ‘The Exorcist’ and even Lars von Trier. And yet her film never feels derivative.
Excerpt: The whole therefore becomes like one of the tornadoes spinning in Maud’s view. It tightens and tightens before touching down to wreak its havoc.
Excerpt: Expertly building suspense and tension – and popping that bubble perfectly with some of the most effective jump scares of recent memory – ‘Saint Maud’ has all the markings of a horror great, with a killer ending to boot.
Excerpt: Rose Glass’ debut feature film, as both writer and director, dives into trauma, obsession, isolation, and a searing look at religious fanaticism.
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