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Basements
(1987)
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Pat Padua
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Does not do any justice to its source material, careening from simply misguided to bloody awful.
Posted Oct 18, 2024
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Anora
(2024)
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Tanner Gordon
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Make no mistake, Anora is still an independent film, but it shows that the barrier between creating a likable Hollywood love story and crafting one of grit, drama and integrity, isn’t as wide as one might think.
Posted Oct 18, 2024
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Girls Will Be Girls
(2024)
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Ria Dhull
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Girls Will Be Girls eschews convention to bring forth a rocky but unique picture of female life in male-dominated India.
Posted Oct 17, 2024
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Things Will Be Different
(2024)
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Ria Dhull
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Things Will Be Different begins with a compelling science fiction premise, but quickly falters and sinks under its own bloat, drowning in a sea of bad pacing and inane dialogue.
Posted Oct 17, 2024
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Dusty & Stones
(2022)
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Ria Dhull
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Dusty & Stones succeeds as a documentary, even as director Jesse Rudoy gets too big for his britches and veers into the hypocritical.
Posted Oct 17, 2024
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Chosen Family
(2024)
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Joel Copling
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Graham’s only impressive feat is having made a movie in which not a single character resembles a functional human being.
Posted Oct 16, 2024
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Bad Genius
(2024)
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Charles Johnston
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While not quite as raw as its rich source material, this restrained remake of a high school drama inside of a heist movie smooths out the original story and fixes its ending.
Posted Oct 15, 2024
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70/100
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Daaaaaali!
(2023)
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Pat Padua
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Thankfully, Daaaaaali! isn’t another Dali biopic — it’s another Quentin Dupieux, and even when his influences are on his cinematic sleeve, nobody else really makes movies like him.
Posted Oct 14, 2024
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The Apprentice
(2024)
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Charles Johnston
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Electric performances jump off the screen, and the retro look is immersive, but the movie still rings hollow due to soulless characters and sprinkles of unwelcome humor.
Posted Oct 14, 2024
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We Live in Time
(2024)
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Holly Hazelwood
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Make no mistake: if you’re open-hearted enough, We Live in Time will gently devastate you, but it’ll also make you genuinely laugh out loud more often than it makes you reach for a pack of tissues.
Posted Oct 14, 2024
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Saturday Night
(2024)
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A.C. Koch
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Saturday Night is as goofy of a shaggy-dog variety show as its inspiration, equal parts fizzle and sizzle, but good enough for a great time.
Posted Oct 11, 2024
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Daytime Revolution
(2024)
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Devon Webb
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Yoko Ono is the star of the show in this documentary revisiting the Lennons’ radical takeover of daytime television.
Posted Oct 10, 2024
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3/5
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Little Bites
(2024)
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Josh Goller
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By the third act, the film may falter under the weight of its metaphors, but despite flaws in the script, its compelling performances and effective creature design are enough for a tasty little horror trifle.
Posted Oct 09, 2024
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The Problem with People
(2024)
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Holly Hazelwood
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The Problem With People is one of those movies that makes you feel bad for not liking it more than you do.
Posted Oct 08, 2024
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Frankie Freako
(2024)
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Joel Copling
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The joke is delivered by way of some genuinely inspired puppetry and some cheaply produced but cleverly devised digital effects.
Posted Oct 08, 2024
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The Outrun
(2024)
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Tanner Gordon
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Well-meaning and honest, The Outrun is far from a failure. But like its protagonist, it’s too focused on creating an intoxicating effect, coming at the expense of sobering clarity.
Posted Oct 04, 2024
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Joker: Folie à Deux
(2024)
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Daniel Pemberton
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Grating musical numbers, lackluster performances, and an incoherent plot make this baffling and bizarre entry into the Batman cinematic canon a tedious outing unable to embrace the weirdness of its own premise.
Posted Oct 04, 2024
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Food and Country
(2023)
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Joel Copling
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Food and Country is a surprisingly comprehensive documentary that offers a spread of compelling perspectives and stories.
Posted Oct 03, 2024
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Abruptio
(2023)
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Miyako Pleines
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Evan Marlowe’s life-size puppet drama Abruptio offers up some interesting visuals and a handful of clever concepts, it just never manages to cut itself free from some of the genre’s biggest cliché strings.
Posted Oct 02, 2024
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Empire Waist
(2024)
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Joel Copling
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In Empire Waist, writer/director Claire Ayoub coasts on a good message and feel-good vibe.
Posted Oct 02, 2024
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1/5
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Azrael
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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This film is utterly underdeveloped, an interesting conceit that should have been abandoned when the production team realized the screenplay is shorter than the list of unresolved questions that are left unanswered.
Posted Oct 01, 2024
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Amber Alert
(2024)
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Charles Johnston
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Budget limitations, second-rate acting and an abundance of implausible plot points quickly dampen the spark of this film’s promising premise.
Posted Oct 01, 2024
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Anora
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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There is no strain for affect, and every situation grows with a unique mix of realism and manic comic energy. The sustained pace and pitch-perfect performances are downright thrilling.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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Cloud
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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A puzzle-box thriller crossed with an action extravaganza, this is the sort of stuff that may repel many viewers, while drawing in others willing to accept its disinterest in explaining itself.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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Ebony and Ivory
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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It is a showcase for an entirely different, compelling style of movie acting. The two leads make zero attempt to soften their characters, and while they sometimes lean into shtick, they courageously operate without any care for subtext or good taste.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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Gazer
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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Dead spouses, lapses in memory, mysterious strangers? Even the director would have to concede there is some Memento to Gazer, except the script – one he co-wrote with his star – opts for a detective plot on its own distinctive wavelength.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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Queens of Drama
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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Style is way, way more important in this kind of film, and director Alexis Langlois imagines a glittery fantasia that makes Moulin Rouge seem subtle.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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Bring Them Down
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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By the time Keoghan and Abbott have their final showdown, a strange mix of confrontation and reconciliation, the film is a potent metaphor for what happens when we deny the humanity in our adversary.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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The Apprentice
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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It is more than a cynical political film during an election year. Director Ali Abbasi created an intriguing crime drama with parallel stories: Donald Trump’s rise, and how that mirrors the moment New York City met ’80s sleazeball culture.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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Body Odyssey
(2023)
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Alan Zilberman
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It will face comparisons to Love Lies Bleeding. Director Grazia Tricarico focuses on the world of bodybuilding, with a muscle-bound woman at its center. Whereas Rose Glass’ film is a romantic thriller, Body Odyssey morphs into a singular character study.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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Sleep
(2023)
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Charles Johnston
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A psychological horror so straightforward and relatable it makes the simple act of catching a little shuteye look like the most dangerous thing in the world to do.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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Lee
(2023)
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Jesse Doppelt
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Clichés and missteps make this historical drama come out blurry.
Posted Sep 30, 2024
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All Happy Families
(2023)
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Charles Johnston
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An indie dramedy that relies heavily on theater conventions, sitcom sensibilities and obvious genre tropes, All Happy Families becomes as stuck in middling limbo as its main character.
Posted Sep 27, 2024
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His Three Daughters
(2023)
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Tanner Gordon
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The most significant criticism that could be lobbied at His Three Daughters is that it should’ve been a play.
Posted Sep 27, 2024
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The Wild Robot
(2024)
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David Harris
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The Wild Robot is stunning to watch, but the script prevents the film from achieving instant-classic status.
Posted Sep 27, 2024
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Megalopolis
(2024)
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Charles Lyons-Burt
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The world Coppola conjures, messily ridden with more ideas that he and his collaborators can quite keep a lid on, is rich and inspired nonetheless.
Posted Sep 27, 2024
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All Shall Be Well
(2024)
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Daniel Pemberton
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A remarkable and dark family drama about a woman fighting against her in-laws for her apartment after the sudden death of her wife. All Shall Be Well is emotional and deftly rendered by Hong Kong director Ray Yeung.
Posted Sep 25, 2024
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A Mistake
(2024)
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Joel Copling
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Medical drama A Mistake has an emotionally compelling story but is full of glaringly manipulative plot contrivances.
Posted Sep 24, 2024
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Last Straw
(2023)
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Joel Copling
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While the initial reveal of the twist does involve a minor shock to the system, that feeling is swiftly silenced by a sense of flattened disappointment.
Posted Sep 23, 2024
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Omni Loop
(2024)
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Holly Hazelwood
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This movie may work incredibly well for some, but its flaws drag it down to the point where even the fact that it spends so much energy trying to tell us how to feel in many scenes might make it harder to truly love it.
Posted Sep 23, 2024
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A Different Man
(2024)
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Tanner Gordon
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Whether the film uses its character’s genetic disorder as a means to frame a broader discussion, and whether that becomes exploitative in its abstraction, is a question that A Different Man raises, but ultimately leaves in the audience’s hands to answer.
Posted Sep 23, 2024
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The Substance
(2024)
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Alex Nguyen
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Despite the obvious passion behind The Substance’s visual palette, the film’s screenplay holds it back from saying anything meaningful.
Posted Sep 20, 2024
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Dead Money
(2024)
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Joel Copling
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Dead Money relies far too much on the idea that some of these characters are smarter than others, only to do any intelligence a disservice by playing this silly game with its audience.
Posted Sep 18, 2024
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80/100
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How to Make Millions before Grandma Dies
(2024)
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Pat Padua
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a thoroughly sobering journey, filled with bitterness and heartbreak.
Posted Sep 17, 2024
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65/100
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Red Rooms
(2023)
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Pat Padua
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What seems to be a straightforward serial killer drama shifts slowly into a meta-commentary on the spectacle of crime and, broadly, the perils of the very online. But despite strong performances, the film doesn’t bring its fascinating themes home.
Posted Sep 17, 2024
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4.5/5
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Merchant Ivory
(2023)
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Alan Zilberman
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Director Stephen Soucy has made a great film about making movies, a detailed account of the film production process that also finds room for biography and dishy gossip.
Posted Sep 16, 2024
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2.5/5
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The Thicket
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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Elliott Lester has a familiar plot and familiar archetypes, and yet The Thicket has virtually nothing new to say. It is an exercise for its own sake, and now that Westerns have existed as long as the movies themselves, that simply is not enough.
Posted Sep 16, 2024
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3.5/5
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Speak No Evil
(2024)
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Alan Zilberman
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If an American studio is more inclined to make a more palpable horror film remake, at least Watkins and his team shoot their protracted climax with more skill than their contemporaries.
Posted Sep 16, 2024
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Dance First
(2023)
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Devon Webb
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Dance First lets down its subject with a disrespectfully shallow approach to the life and work of playwright Samuel Beckett, which leaves us waiting, waiting, waiting, on a narrative that never seems to arrive.
Posted Sep 16, 2024
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Across the River and Into the Trees
(2023)
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Devon Webb
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Italian actress Matilda De Angelis steals the show from her Hollywood co-stars in this melancholic portrait of post-war Venice.
Posted Sep 16, 2024
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