Brianna Zigler

There’s a reason that Satter knew Winner’s transcript would succeed as a play, but she brings very little that’s new and exciting as a film director of that same narrative.

Beyond the tepid cultural commentary, the film has few other redeeming qualities.

Victim/Suspect manages to be at once fascinating, improperly focused and somewhat redundant.

Ultimately, Sanctuary’s psychology—which I found a bit muddled at times—is less persuasive than the artistry of shifting, gendered dynamics between Hal and Rebecca, and less enthralling than watching Abbott and Qualley play off of one another.

Fool’s Paradise doesn’t come close to clearing the self-imposed hurdle of matching a Chaplin classic or an Ashby satire. But it does sometimes work as a breezy comedy and a satire-lite of vacuous Hollywood, articulated tenfold by the modern Superhero Franchise Industrial Complex.

I can’t imagine any child actually enjoying this film, let alone a child who is familiar with and fond of the original animated adaptation.

It’s not willing to be goofy and gonzo enough for the inanity of its concept, not cool enough for the slick fight scenes it wants to impress you with, and not worthy enough of Cage as Dracula (the real star of this show).

Beau Is Afraid is very much a black comedy that utilizes well-placed horror techniques–Aster has a solid command of tension and loves to swing his camera to and fro to create a sense of vulnerability. Aster’s direction and sense of humor, the latter of which emerged more prominently in Midsommar, just seem more at home in a comedy.

Paint is interested in the meme of the man. As the old proverb goes: A funny meme does not a feature film make.

Inside‘s concept holds creative possibility, yes, but without much, if any, applied, it’s just a guy stuck in an apartment for 105 minutes, going through various stages of disbelief, acceptance, mania, determination and setback as days, weeks and months go by, and desperation becomes more of a necessity than a last resort.

Beck and Woods seem to have an entirely misguided conception of what people love about B-movies in the first place and, like A Quiet Place, 65 flounders in this middle ground because it won’t commit to being a genre film.

Released a little under two years since Shyamalan’s previous film, Knock at the Cabin plays like an old dog who learned new tricks. It’s a sharper, more propulsive and formally exciting dramatic thriller that has far fewer disappointments in storytelling and visuals than 2021’s Old while revisiting and expanding upon familiar themes of family that Shyamalan has explored his entire career.

Since the quality of documentaries tends to hinge on how compelling its subject matter is, A House Made of Splinters is further complicated by the fact that Wilmont’s filmmaking is largely perfunctory. Thus its draw leans almost entirely on the children and their tattered lives. In this way it does feel a touch exploitative, even if the goal is to shine light on an overlooked, ongoing tragedy.

Armageddon Time is a thoughtful examination of one’s own limited perspective of whiteness, expounding upon how a young child’s naivete can be as dangerous as a direct act of prejudice.

While not Park’s best work, nor a masterpiece, Decision to Leave is an extravagant and hopelessly romantic thriller that weaves past and present into something entirely its own.

Bones and All is a heart-tugging portrait of wayward spirits searching for belonging that deadens the genre of cannibal horror into digestible, prestige-glossy arthouse.

As a story about a mother and daughter trying to move on from old wounds and contextualize their relationship, the film is perfectly adequate. But as a film watched on a chilly, damp fall day—not unlike the day I write this review—with a mug of hot cider, the coziest pajamas and Halloween just a few weeks away, I could not ask for anything better.

In reality, Triangle of Sadness is neither as smart nor as interesting as it clearly thinks it is.

In her fourth collaboration with Reichardt, Williams is better than ever. Possibly overdone in beleaguered, regular-woman makeup this time around, Williams still best showcases just how lived-in of an actress she can be in Reichardt’s work.

Girl Picture is sweet, tender, and frequently amusing: a love letter to that time we ache to leave in the rearview mirror but which shapes who we are and how we love more than anything else.

While countered by a throughline which is a bit on-the-nose—that loss comes for us all, and that what matters is how we choose to live with it—Mothering Sunday still succeeds as a moving, beautifully crafted and sensual period picture.

While Mother Schmuckers may hit a sweet spot for fans of the delightfully vulgar and distasteful, it reads mostly as a film aiming only to provoke.

A far cry from Bates’ elegant 2012 bloodbath Excision, King Knight is a mostly insipid, overlong sitcom episode not worth tuning in for.

Sundown is not a sunny film, it’s true. It’s deeply nihilistic and unpleasant, and even a bit silly. But Franco’s film is nonetheless a warped and fascinating take on class as it ties to egotism.

Clean is irrefutably, deliciously bad. But there is something unironically beautiful about movies that are just plain awful, movies that dare to provoke your senses at all instead of simply sating them with something pleasant and “competent enough.”

The King’s Man is an off-putting installment in a series that should have already ended.

As is, Don’t Look Up is an exhausting and meandering “What if? But also, what now?” If the world really is going to end in my lifetime, these were 145 minutes that I’m never getting back.

Still, House of Gucci would not be what it is without the sheer weight of Lady Gaga’s portrayal of Patrizia, a woman who wants to “have it all” and then some.