The Marvel Cinematic Universe has done a great job of earning a reputation for grinding down the personalities of interesting directors-for-hire with endless tinkering…
In case you couldn’t tell from the big goofy afro, pleasant demeanor, and paintbrush, the character of Carl Nargle in Brit Mcadams’ Paint, played…
Let’s say you wanted to define the dramatic stakes in Ben Affleck’s new, based-on-a-true-story movie Air. Start with the premise: it’s 1984, and Nike…
What started more than two decades ago as a completely unexpected shot in the arm for a mostly dead subgenre has steadily declined into…
Creed III continues to mirror the trajectory of its parent Rocky franchise. The first one was a dare-you-say transcendent recapitulation of the original film’s…
The 31st (!) film in the never-ending Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the kickoff to its Phase Five (whatever that means), Quantumania is also the…
In the course of that rich history of films about con artists, the appeal has almost always been to watch largely amoral professionals execute…
Based on Louis Bayard’s 2003 novel, Scott Cooper’s painfully dull The Pale Blue Eye imagines a fictional murder mystery featuring one Edgar Allan Poe…
Welcome to the new world of genre cinema, where decades of low-budget sleaze and slime have been overtaken by PG-13-rated, eminently meme-able stuff that’s…
Even by James Cameron standards, The Way of Water is an astonishing work of pure visual spectacle. Bow down before your Lord and Savior,…
The Menu is a poor attempt at satire that fails to develop anything more than the shallowest of ideas. Let’s quickly take stock: Triangle…
Leonor Will Never Die is a sweetly thoughtful drama disguised as loving genre throwback, with perhaps a pinch of cannier discourse creeping beneath its…
Even given its obvious vanity vehicle motivations, Poker Face is a dire affair. Russell Crowe returns to the director’s chair for Poker Face, an unwieldy,…
Wakanda Forever rises higher than your usual MCU product, but it’s a project that ultimately works better on paper than in execution. Everyone notes…
Something in the Dirt is a formidable DIY effort bearing Benson & Moorhead’s expected formal ingenuity, but it’s unfortunately all in service of a rather…
In “Graveyard Rats,” the second installment of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, Masson (David Hewlett), a professional grave robber, makes a last-ditch attempt…
Ticket to Paradise is an entirely charmless rom-com fronted by a poisonous couple and sleepwalking its way through bland genre tropes. How hard could it…
Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday delivers the violence, direct-to-video. Remember Accident Man? It’s OK if you don’t, but DTV actionheads tend to think of it…