Angie Han

For those who prefer their gingerbread soaked in booze and their tinsel splattered with gore, Violent Night might be exactly what the season calls for.

If Porcupine doesn’t cut as deeply as it could, it’s still an intriguing window into the lives of two characters who, thanks to Cahill’s precision, feel almost not like characters at all.

For most of its 110-minute run time, Don’t Make Me Go is a solidly likable drama, anchored by lovely, lived-in chemistry between John Cho and Mia Isaac as a father-daughter duo. But a misguided third-act choice throws off its bittersweet vibe, leaving a distinctly sour aftertaste.

A tense, occasionally terrifying thriller that’s hard to look away from, though what it’s ultimately trying to accomplish with all that energy isn’t always so clear.

The sly pleasure of Sick of Myself is that Signe’s narcissism differs from the rest of ours more in degree than kind. Her impulses are as uproarious as they are repulsive not because they’re so hard to understand, but because on some level, we can understand them all too well.

While its ambition and immediacy occasionally lead to some uneven patches, its insight nevertheless makes it a worthy addition to the growing library of films grappling with what just happened.

Thoughtful performances and earnest (if especially subtle) writing keep the film compelling enough until its final minutes, which are even more startling in their heart-wrenching effectiveness than in their mind-bending twists.

While Taurus does eventually get around to making a point — something about how the toxic combination of fame, addiction, and the music biz can destroy a young talent — it feels for most of its 98-minute run time like a plotless meander through one dude’s very awful week

Those hoping the film might push the genre to its most extravagant limits may be surprised at how (relatively) low-key their love story ends up being. But sometimes that’s the most pleasurable kind of fairy tale — one so close to convincing, you can forget for a spell that it’s all just a dream.

Last Survivors doesn’t only aim to offer up the usual pleasures of postapocalyptic thrillers like A Quiet Place or It Comes at Night — it also tries to deconstruct their dark appeal, with intriguing but uneven results.

Its potential for magic is dulled by uneven performances, unconvincing chemistry and an uninspiring script. Summering ends up a movie that’s easier to appreciate for what it’s trying to do than love for what it’s actually doing.

If Am I OK?‘s tone occasionally tilts too far toward comedy (including in an oddly staged climactic confrontation) its laughs land far more often than not, and bring us closer to the characters by inviting us to laugh with them.

At the end of Living, I felt not like I’d seen an old favorite in a new light, but like I might want to go back and watch Ikiru again. There are worse outcomes for a remake than reviving affection for the original, or retelling an old story for a new audience that may not have heard it before. There are better ones, too.

Regarded as a whole, Fresh is a success — a taste of its creative talents’ abilities that leave the viewer hungry for more.

While approachable even to casual readers, thanks to patient explanations by scholars and biographers who’ve made Vonnegut their life’s work, the film isn’t really geared toward converting skeptics, revealing new information or even telling a really great yarn. It’s an opportunity to bask in Vonnegut’s wit and intelligence — to admire the crackerjack delivery of his jokes, savor the offbeat perfection of his prose, drink in the playfulness of his smile.

Competent enough to be dull and nowhere near bold enough to be interesting, the new crime thriller by John Swab (Body Brokers) evaporates from memory even faster than it can dole out plot twists.

It’s not reinventing the wheel or breaking new ground; it’s unlikely to wow audiences with its bold artistic vision or profound emotional depths. But there’s a place for sturdy and familiar entertainment that delivers exactly what it intends, and Clifford the Big Red Dog is just that.

The documentary goes out of its way to consider the situation from all angles, and what might look from the outside like a simple story spills over with complicated emotions once it’s been cracked open.

The premise is rich with potential for aching romance and meaningful contemplation of the ways that time and technology can shape how we see our relationships. So it’s too bad that this version of it falls apart under closer examination, with a script that seems enamored of love more as a theoretical concept than a lived experience.

The Wheel may not, well, reinvent the wheel. But in its expansive empathy, it delivers something that nevertheless feels new and surprising.

That McGowan admires the source material and wants to do it justice is clear, and that he’s resisted the temptation to sand down its sharpest edges speaks to a desire to meet his troubled characters where they are. But his movie ends up just another reminder that paying tribute to a novel isn’t the same as breathing it into life.

The buddy comedy does a better job of betraying its filmmakers’ lack of imagination than it does conjuring any real laughs.

The crime comedy ends not as a fat stack of jokes but a jumble of loose change — not entirely worthless, but not amounting to a whole lot, either.

The film’s mimicry might be deft enough to pass muster here and there. But it doesn’t take an eagle eye to notice that Kate‘s got few ideas of its own.

As adept as Together is at capturing the challenges of the pandemic — the uncertainty, the anger, the bone-deep exhaustion — it’s rather less convincing as a love story.

While its disparate elements don’t meld together as smoothly as they should, they do, in the end, add up to a superhero movie fresh and fun enough to feel worth a spin.