2018
Birthmarked is a comedy struggling with an identity crisis. Maybe that’s the point, or was more nurturing required?
Assuming cinema etiquette is still alive, the loudest sound that can be heard among A Quiet Place’s audience will be their own semi-breathing.
With the help of Theron and Davis’ magnetic chemistry, Cody and Reitman’s synergy, and an intricate yet touching story about motherhood, Tully perfectly blends comedy and drama, creating a powerful, tender meditation on societal stigmas.
Tyler Perry’s latest directorial effort shows his tropes are continuing to wear thin, with no sign of improvement. To make things worse, he completely wastes the magnetic screen presence of Taraji P. Henson.
Gemini asks, in a city overflowing with people who want it all, when you’re famous, are you ever really safe?
Despite a tendency to overdo it when it comes to the scares themselves, Paco Plaza’s Veronica contains enough focus on character and symbolism to be an effective demonic possession horror.
A Gentle Creature is a divisive film, too exaggerated to be a realistic condemnation of the corrupt bureaucracy it seeks to lampoon.
Happy Anniversary blends comedy and drama well, creating a film which never feels like one genre is more prominent than the other.
Kay Cannon’s directorial debut Blockers is an unabashedly raunchy comedy with its heart in all the right places, giving the teen sex comedy a nice sprucing up through big laughs, a game cast and a lean script.
Based on a real-life and serious disease, Midnight Sun, though with initial potential, is ultimately too heavy-handed and clichéd to be an effective romantic drama.
Failing to bring anything new the second time around, Pacific Rim: Uprising suffers from an identity crisis with little chance to rise up from its cinematic shortfalls to save itself.
Though with timely themes of inappropriate romance and sexuality, Submission sadly lacks the insight and perspective to become a movie that represents “now.”
It was absolutely inspiring to see so much strong female content at SXSW Conference and Festivals, and Family, the debut feature by Laura Steinel, was no exception.
Despite An Ordinary Man’s ultra slow pace, it contains a superb score, Silberings’s minimalistic story and grand direction, and Kingsley and Hilmar’s respective tour-de-forces, sharpening in tuning slowly towards a gripping climax.