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Event Horizon (1997)
If
Alien
was a slasher movie on a spaceship, this is a haunted house movie on a spaceship. Much more likely to please gorehounds than science-fiction fans.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)
Cinematic dessert for kids.
The Batman (2022)
While retaining requisite elements of blockbuster action cinema...decidedly shifts the focus to pulp fiction...
The Batman
feels more like a Batman
story
than a Batman
movie
, and that's an achievement in itself.
The Dropout (TV) (2022)
Addictive...traces that fine line between having hustle and being a hustler, a line we watch Holmes cross after being fed the exceptional stories of Silicon Valley disruptor culture.
Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal (2021)
What sets
Operation Varsity Blues
apart are its reenactments of wiretapped conversations. Using the wiretaps as scripts, actors like Modine...play out scenes that feel lifted, in their content and their staccato rhythms, right out of David Mamet.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2020)
[SPOILER-FREE:] Laugh-out-loud funny...transcends offensiveness by holding a mirror up to the very worst of human impulses, making us laugh at crimes against humanity not because the satirists don't care but precisely because they do.
Onward (2020)
A very sweet, very entertaining blend of whimsy and peril.
The Assistant (2020)
Has the benefit of relevance to the current news cycle, but it’s about something much larger even than the famous convicted felon who threw his weight around Hollywood.
Downhill (2020)
As long as Faxon and Rash...stay in this pitch-black pocket of uncomfortable truth-telling,
Downhill
retains its power. But since this is an American comedy...
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)
Practically dares its audience to make the mistake of taking it seriously, and yet it’s a bizarrely uplifting story of credibly tough women...survivors all, supporting each other to vanquish a sneering, preening abuser whose time’s up.
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
Contemplating any of this action-comedy camp in real-world terms...would be a maddening mistake. Accept Lowrey’s assessment that 'Violence is what we do,' or pick another movie.
1917 (2019)
Attempts to thread the needle of a moving anti-war film in that narrow space between...[war as] thrill ride and the filmic wizardry that, when examined too closely, rings as hollow as a war machine rapped with a wrench.
Little Women (2019)
Aside from Gerwig's own comic and dramatic sensibilities (which never intrude on Alcott) and a stellar cast, her Little Women adopts a bold narrative approach to retelling Alcott’s two-volume story.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
[SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:] If Abrams has topped himself, it's by making a Star Wars film that's even more of a multiplex-filling Hollywood widget than his first.
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
If
The Next Level
plays fast and loose, it also makes an effort to prompt viewers to reflect not only on the freedom of fantasy, but on the fraught but essential relationship of mind and body.
Waves (2019)
If the film’s psychology and dialogue remain frustratingly basic...the viscerally effective audio-visual approach amplif[ies] the story’s emotional intimacy in ways the situations and mostly platitudinous dialogue sometimes fail to do.
Knives Out (2019)
Knives Out
cannot help but be fanciful fun, particularly for murder-mystery fans...Johnson adds ballast to what would otherwise be a lightweight tale by suggesting sociopolitical allegory.
Frozen II (2019)
Pointedly setting up its own Turkey Day-teasing Truth & Reconciliation Commission about a proud nation’s not-so-proud past...
Frozen II
arrives just in time for Thanksgiving as an entertainment parents and kids can be thankful for.
The Good Liar (2019)
The Nicholas Searle novel Hatcher adapts features a shopworn story with easily anticipated plot twists, resulting in a soggy and largely pointless exercise that gets by on its consummate cast and some witty dialogue.
Doctor Sleep (2019)
In some ways,
Doctor Sleep
has to feel like a pop cultural footnote, but that's not fair to what's a ripping yarn in its own right.
Parasite (2019)
Wild-ride entertainment that’s by turns funny, squirmy, horrifying, and poignant, all in service of a zeitgeist-y story of working-class frustration...boiling over in ways the blithely wealthy can no longer ignore.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Audiences can’t be blamed for turning off their brains and focusing on the aesthetic trappings...in this film featuring a flying protagonist, nothing really lands.
Pain and Glory (2019)
The filmmaker contemplating his own creation as a man and an artist...plays as a poetic remembrance of things past, a reconciliation of self, powerfully capturing the emotional essence of keenly formative experiences and deep loves.
Joker (2019)
Joker
isn’t the film to seriously tackle the issue[s]--it's more concerned with flair than genuine inquiry--but Phoenix’s pained, raw-nerve performance is one for the ages.
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (2019)
A primer...proves most valuable by gathering a number of Miles’ friends, lovers, musical collaborators, admirers, and musicologists...to share their recollections and perspectives on Davis, his musicality, and his personality.
Downton Abbey (2019)
Forgive me for suggesting that Conservative peer Fellowes—or, as he’s sometimes known, Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford DL—might consider
Downton
the cake he’s letting us eat.
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019)
A deeply moving story of a remarkable woman, its only real fault an arguable virtue: adhering to the old showbiz adage of leaving the audience wanting more.
Official Secrets (2019)
It’s a story worth shining a light on, Gun a hero deserving of a movie-star moment. And yet this docudrama struggles to give feature-length narrative shape to the story in a way that brings it to vibrant dramatic life.
Ready or Not (2019)
Thin characters...thinner satire...maybe best to think of
Ready or Not
not as trolling us but as gifting us a mosh pit for primal-scream therapy.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)
The film’s darkest-before-the-dawn middle passage honors the complexity of mental-health struggles for the sufferer and those who, unsure at every step, try to steer their troubled loved one down a path to healing.
Luce (2019)
Luce
primarily concerns itself with African-American identity, plagued by withering lowdown stereotypes and polar-opposite pressures...In some ways, the film’s subtle political satire proves even more distressing.
The Kitchen (2019)
Because of its hurried pacing, the film doesn’t quite make us feel the potentially Shakespearean sweep of this arc, and the leading performances feel similarly hemmed in by the script’s limitations.
The Farewell (2019)
The setup makes for genuinely amusing light farce, but in their patient observation, Wang and cinematographer Anna Franquesa Solano conjure a heartfelt intimacy with the family...[and] the actors always offer up finely etched emotional truths...
Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019)
Content finally joined by the movie gods to form—for at last, the moving-picture magpie has lighted on Hollywood as his setting and, in no small part, his subject.
Stuber (2019)
Unexciting action and unfunny comedy...Bautista and Nanjiani have star power, and could’ve made a buddy comedy work, but not with this script and this little help behind the camera.
Maiden (2019)
This
Maiden
voyage’s degrees of heroism and ugly behavior, of victory and defeat, illuminate a gripping and inspiring story that demands to be remembered.
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Marvel deserves credit for the ways it has so far managed to freshen up formula, harness genres to its purposes, and hold a mirror up to contemporary society.
Yesterday (2019)
Make the mistake of considering this feature-length stunt’s many logical fumbles and obvious but ignored questions, and you’re likely to get angry... All you need is love...and a better script.
Toy Story 4 (2019)
At a moment when studios and pundits have begun again to question the efficacy of sequels, Pixar’s graceful follow-up justifies the practice, when executed with smarts and heart.
Men in Black: International (2019)
Outside of the win for representation represented by the likeable Tessa Thompson’s leading role, there’s no creatively compelling reason to tell this story, which...drags on seventeen minutes longer than the 1997 original.
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