At its best, Alfonso Pineda Ulloa’s film gleefully embodies the grungy spirit of classic exploitation cinema.
Despite this clever setup, Tom Gormican’s film isn’t the self-reflexive skewering of Hollywood that one might expect.
Robert Eggers’s The Northman doesn’t lack for blood and guts, but it doesn’t play enough in the well of the weird.
The film’s rote action-movie plotting is calibrated in a ponderously straight-faced way so as to give it some semblance of gravity.
The primacy that it places on its dopamine drip of dread undercuts whatever commitment it might have toward mental illness and trauma.
Once all hell breaks loose in X, the promise of a genre deconstruction all but evaporates.
Throughout Gold, Zac Efron seems almost determined to wipe away the last vestiges of his youthful looks.
Taurus is in the business of self-aggrandizement, but this is a film that understands that stardom is inherently aggrandizing.
Incredible But True endlessly draws out every stilted interaction for maximum deadpan effect.
The film is one of the more intrinsically frightening evocations of a traumatized mind since Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Riley Stearns’s film consistently tickles the funny bone, even when it comes at the expense of psychological nuance.
Fresh is pitched as a kind of genre corrective, except its tone-deaf cheekiness only results in a feeling of dreary regression.
While its plot is strictly by the numbers, Clean is elevated by its stylistic flair and propulsive pace.
At its best, Speak No Evil plays as queasy satire of conditioned interpersonal behavior.
Denis Villeneuve’s gets a 4K release that, with its crystal-clear images and boisterous soundtrack, makes the most of the UHD format.
Despite its overarching gloominess, That Cold Dead Look in Your Eyes still retains Onur Tukel’s flair for brazen comedy.
Lauren Hadaway’s The Novice takes the maxim “giving it 110%” to a practically literal extreme.
As a peek into the relationship between sports, media and capitalism, National Champions feels like a beginner’s playbook.
Though often abstract in its imagery, the film’s blistering commentary remains firmly rooted in our present reality.
Johannes Roberts’s prequel ultimately remains buried by its indifference to unchecked corporate power.