Jim Slotek

If Renfield were a serious movie, all the gory fight and slaughter scenes would seem overindulgent. But judging from the audience laugh-meter at the screening I attended, the right decisions were made for the material.

Air is enjoyable, engaging, sprinkled with some of the ‘80s sprightlier hits (including Sister Christian and Money for Nothing), and good for some laughs.

Amanda Kim’s admiring documentary Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV, makes a case that Paik may not have merely been one of the most influential of the avant garde, he may have been one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century - period, one who invented a new visual canvas.

Two hours witnessing the agony of a guilt-ridden pill addict doesn’t exactly have “good times” written all over it. To make it an experience worth enduring requires something more.

A circus of violence, it’s a noisy, non-stop combination of dance and Loony Tunes-worthy manic cartoonishness.

An unusual blend of a travel show and those MTV staple Unplugged specials, Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman on Disney+ isn’t exactly a deep dive as far as travelogue goes. But it does offer a glimpse into U2’s soul.

Technically, Supercell is not a bad movie. But it’s dragged down by the economics that insist a low-budget movie needs some minor celebrity voltage. It’s at its best when people aren’t talking.

Creed III has the fights, it has a story, and it has a heart. For Jordan, it’s a feature directing debut with punch.

You could think of it as a 98-minute ad for the Super Bowl, opening as it is a week before this year’s edition. These words do not sound like the description of the GOAT of movies. And 80 for Brady is not that.

Far from being mysterious and confounding, it rings utterly true as it captures both the beauty and fragility of young boys’ friendships, amid the storm of growth and social pressure.

Ultimately, Shotgun Wedding seems like something from a different time, a time-waster full of tropes that exists to only to fill time with the odd boom and an occasional chuckle – and falls short of even that.

Nighy performs a considerable character arc with only the smallest of emotional reveals, as if tentatively exercising unused muscles of humanity and even joy.

The parade of post-punk artists and artistic legends is entertaining for anybody who’s ever followed that era’s art scene.

Door Mouse isn’t exactly noir for the ages, and it has story problems. But it moves, and as played by Law, Mouse is a dead-pan heroine I’d like to see again, backed by a bigger-budget.

Despite what redemption there ultimately is, The Whale is a feel-bad movie. But in a movie marketplace saturated with homogeneity, at least it inspires you to feel something.

While The Way of Water could have easily lost an hour from its three-hour-plus running time, it would have been a shame to lose its most magic moments, the stuff that makes it different.

A slave-on-the-run movie that uses every bit of its star’s modest acting ability and ticks all the award boxes, Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation would be a shoo-in in a world where Smith was not banned from the Oscars for 10 years.

Ultimately, Spoiler Alert is earnest, emotional, good-hearted and edgeless.

She Said is about cracking the code of silence, and the flood that follows when it breaks.

Deeper, darker, mordant, with a definite horror movie vibe, it is what you might expect from del Toro, a filmmaker who gave us Pan’s Labyrinth – essentially a dark fairy-tale wrapped in real-world fascism, as this is as well.

In its rambling pace, Causeway at times is reminiscent of Winter’s Bone, the 2010 movie that introduced Lawrence to film fans, and may still be her finest performance. In Causeway, the doctors aren’t the only ones wondering what’s going on inside her head. The audience does too, and she reveals it as slowly as she needs to.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a platform for comedy as a burlesque of drama, with enough winks, pop references and silliness to keep the premise going. Funny stuff.

If Decision to Leave is indeed intended as an homage to a genre, mission accomplished.

For a movie that’s supposed to take D.C. in a new direction, Black Adam sure seems like something we’ve seen plenty of times before.

All Quiet on the Western Front exists to make the viewer uncomfortable – infinitely preferable to what the characters endure.

A rom-com it is. A typical rom-com it isn’t.

If it’s not original ground, Don’t Worry Darling is a visually arresting mash-up of The Stepford Wives and Pleasantville, with its plot about an idyllic artificial ‘50s with pampered suburban housewives religiously dedicated to their husbands and their cocktails, and hints of the decade’s dark side.

Complications of history aside, The Woman King is Black Panther minus the vibranium and with more women warriors, an empowerment tale fueled by kickassery, with battle scenes, ear-splitting ululated war cries and sword fights.