Mark Keizer

A drama that aches to connect with the George Floyd era is more like amped-up misery porn, a Will Smith vanity project that pales next to more accomplished films about Black suffering that better remind us of our nation’s ongoing shame.

The execution is where it’s lacking: the wit, the timing, the headlong comic drive, and the ability to make us laugh at actions and dialogue that, in any other context, would be rude or distasteful.

Call Jane is a feminist work told with straight-arrow purpose. It assumes that the slightest melodrama would devalue the sacrifices these women made and the community they created. If that’s a miscalculation, the movie is still effective and enlightening—and a worthy companion to 2022’s The Janes, an excellent nonfiction documentary on this remarkable cooperative.

Selick and Peele operate a bit at cross purposes in Wendell & Wild. The genius visualist wants to haunt our dreams. The socially engaged provocateur wants to haunt our troubled collective realities. Whatever doesn’t quite mesh in their collaboration is easier to forgive when feasting upon such extraordinary sights.

The South Korean director, working at the top of his game, drops tantalizing clues that are best analyzed in multiple viewings which, it can be reported from first-hand experience, will be very helpful.

Ultimately, Hill performs his duties like a man for hire in Dead For A Dollar, much like Max Borland is a man for hire down in Mexico.

Weaver is so forceful and present she can plow through the movie’s flaws until we fail to notice them. For a film about denial, that sounds about right.

Dunham has taken her oft-articulated concerns about women’s empowerment and self-determination and transported them to 13th-century England in Catherine Called Birdy, a charming, clever, and altogether delicious comeback film that redefines Dunham in a way that just recently seemed unlikely.

Jaglom doesn’t ratchet up enough tension for Jane to work as a nail-biter and once the catfight in the pool begins, the film forfeits all claims of being any sort of exploration of trauma. So we’re left with a slow burn thriller where complicated YA issues and vengeful social media posts make for a less than potent mix.

The film teases us with hat-tips and in-jokes and then pushes them aside to become an ungainly horror mashup that works in pieces, most notably during its climatic free-for-all, but not as a whole. In The Retaliators, the storylines fly in as many directions as the blood.

Spin Me Round is a nice-try attempt at a shapeshifting, fish-out-of-water rom-com that was probably funny in the room—but in the end, it doesn’t quite come together as a movie.

Reijn, whose last directing effort was Instinct, the Netherland’s 2019 Best International Feature Film Oscar submission, directs with a loose, improvisational energy. If she keeps too loose a grip on the reigns, occasionally letting scenes meander, there’s another surprise or biting line of dialogue to get things back on track. While there’s plenty of blood and nasty kills, Reijn is not here to provide a true horror film experience.

Morosini, though, is smart enough to know that just grossing us out for 95 minutes is not a movie. So he tries to make his film dramatically credible. This proves more difficult, as he has nothing new or insightful to say about father-son relationships or the pernicious possibilities of social media. But managing to push the squirm-inducing envelope while still getting us to root for a reprehensible dad becomes its own sort of twisted achievement.

It is a movie of tropes and clichés that argues, with generic earnestness and a near-total lack of surprise, that the city is a corrupting influence compared to the nurturing, sun-drenched simplicity of the country.

The issues the movie attempts to tackle—parental expectations, heartbreak, anxiety over choosing the right path—have all been addressed better in other films.

It can be overwhelming at times, and it’s true that Huntt’s deeply rooted powers of introspection can sometimes curdle into self-absorption. But her lacerating honesty and restless, searching spirit make Beba a virtuoso bomb-drop of a documentary.

It’s a sexually frank and intimate story told in a pleasingly mainstream manner that avoids greeting card clichés and empty “girl power” posturing.

Consistently amusing, if about a reel too long, it’s a tightly controlled, low-boil send-up of the acting process.

Cha Cha Real Smooth has an unforced charm and lack of guile that’s refreshing and stops just short of being precious and ingratiating.

It’s steeped in a grave sense of portentousness that burrows under your skin. The issue is the weighty script, bleak and heavy with apocalyptic consequence, which contains undeniably intriguing notions that are often not satisfactorily explored or don’t quite cohere.

It’s easy to imagine Williams taking this story and crafting either a boisterously funny, obstacle-filled mad dash to the hospital or an indignant, op-ed baiting thesis on post-George Floyd America. Instead, he turns down the heat and blends the two, creating a buddy comedy of errors shot through with an ever-darkening undercurrent of racial commentary.

This is a deeply felt work anchored by two earthy performances that stay small-scaled no matter how melodramatic the slowly revealed secrets become.

Prior and Zagorodnii have a fair amount of chemistry, although both are so Fashion Week gorgeous that it edges Firebird near soft-core territory.

Unfolding at a relaxed pace and richly enhanced by DP Paul Guilhaume’s silky black and white images, Paris, 13th District is a candid, intimate, and authentic examination of the obstacles that keep young urbanites from connecting.

It pays off in a work of gorgeous stylistic precision where cautious glances and wistful anecdotes melt together to form a melancholy arthouse jewel about the tearing down of one woman’s identity.

Its observational shooting style is simple yet rich in quotidian detail. Its storytelling is morally neutral, yet charged with moments that obligate the viewer to question our treatment of farm animals.

Filled with twists and reversals that, for the most part, are motivated by character not plot, The Outfit is a nifty little period thriller that provides a showcase role for the always-amazing Mark Rylance.

Ultimately, Moll’s film is a cautionary tale for the lonely among us, a reminder that one step away from idealizing romance lies the risk of becoming a fool for love, which just might get you killed.