Jason Bailey

Some of Novak’s camera sense, particularly early on, betrays his sitcom roots, and he commits the classic rookie mistake of going on three or so scenes too long, tying up inconsequential loose ends. But he crafts a good mystery, consistently engaging and entertaining, and the thoughtful turns of the last confrontation are sly, smart, and knowing.

'Trouble in Mind' barely feels like a movie at all. ... Absent any contemporary reflections by either the subject or outside observers, we’re left with no real idea how anyone feels about Jerry Lee Lewis and his exploits on either side of the camera.

Ambulance is absolutely ridiculous, and undeniably entertaining.

The nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s short.

Ryan Binaco’s screenplay is full of tiny, keenly observed touches, but its greatest virtue is its attitude towards her addictions, the way it occupies her space with her, looking on passively but not judgmentally. It’s a movie that understands the desperation of alcoholism.

Colin West’s Linoleum is the kind of movie that’s all but impossible to review with any specificity, because so much of its achievement lies in its surprises – how it seems to be doing one thing while slyly doing another, without deception, and then revealing its ultimate intentions with grace and style.

I Love My Dad cannot overcome its off-putting premise. Nothing is out of bounds, of course (especially in comedy), but if there’s an approach to make the material palatable, either played straight or broad, it is left undiscovered here.

With its shout-outs to horror classics and juicy pay-offs of its own, X feels like the movie West was born to make.

The jankiness of this structure is a bit much, at least on first viewing, drifting into memoir material for so long that it the picture feeling shapeless for a good long while. But then again, that’s our Linklater, and complaining about narrative aimlessness is kind of like coming out of a Scorsese movie bitching about all the voice-over. It’s a new Linklater, is the point, and that’s good news indeed.

Tatum and Carolin might have been capable of the light, personality-driven fluff the trailer promises, but not, ultimately, whatever the hell Dog is trying to deliver.

Soderbergh’s direction is, per usual, tight and efficient (as is his editing – it runs a lean, mean 89 minutes).

A bloodless, musty museum piece stuffed with stars but dull as toast.

All in all, Summering is a very nice movie – sweet, affectionate, nostalgic, harmless – so it’s tempting to give it a pass. But “nice” and “compelling,” sadly, are not the same thing.

"Nanny" feels less like a misfire than a missed opportunity. Those early scenes are so tightly wound and so beautifully played that by the time Jusu trots out the blood and knives and bathtubs, I wasn’t even sure what movie I was watching anymore.

You get a sense of Poehler’s energy in the fast pace and comic timing of film, which moves at a good, precise clip. There’s a lot of material to cover here, some of it overly familiar, but Poehler does it with pizzaz.

Their latest fusion of science fiction, character drama, dark comedy, and overwhelming paranoia, Something in the Dirt, feels like their most personal film – and not just because they wear so many hats, directing and writing and producing and editing and starring.

It’s cheap, and crass, and by the conclusion, downright infuriating.

The whole thing moves like a freight train, its 156 minutes passing in barely a breath, and that breakneck pace, combined with the expressionist aesthetic and candy-colored imagery, reminds us that blockbusters don’t have to be these lumbering processions of greyscaled dreck. It’s a rarity, a big-budget holiday movie with style and pizzazz.

There’s not much here for anyone over 10 to focus on, aside from how strange it is that the puppy Clifford looks so much more fake than the giant one.

Tom Hanks is such an avatar for optimism and goodness that the qualities of this character – his heartbreak and vulnerability and resignation to a certain kind of hopelessness – land with greater impact, and he’s so good that when the filmmakers go for the big emotional wallop at the end, they almost pull it off.

The new Slumber Party Massacre feels like the last thing a movie with this title should be: safe.

Even its weakest pieces are still entertaining, and the good stuff is exceptionally so.

Derrickson can build a mood and craft creepy imagery, and he moves his camera with precision. But this feels like a notebook of compelling visual and narrative ideas that never quite fit together, that can’t quite manage to coalesce into coherence.

There are a handful of genuinely chilling compositions, copious buckets of blood, and while I know we’re all tired of throwback synth-heavy scores in horror, this is a pretty good throwback synth-heavy score. Unfortunately, There’s Someone Inside Your House otherwise rarely feels like this is more than a job for hire.

One can’t help coming away with the feeling that if the intelligence and originality of All My Puny Sorrows matched its earnestness, they could’ve really had something here.

Movies like “Earwig” defy criticism or even explanation. ... Lucile Hadžihalilović took a risk by making a movie this peculiar; it feels like the least we can do is take a risk by watching it.

The Survivor is occasionally infected by the aridness of the handsome, well-made historical film — it feels old-fashioned, in both the complimentary and pejorative senses. But some of that is purposeful and even a little subversive.

Gellar and Goldfine manage the tone expertly, inserting little jolts of humor to keep things from getting too reverent.