United States
Dark Night is based on the events of the Aurora theater shooting; with a detached aesthetic perspective, it is a compelling yet tragic film.
Sleepless is a thriller that occasionally seems passable and avoids some clichés, but still doesn’t quite achieve the level it could have.
After Fire focuses on a female veteran named Valerie Sullivan, discussing how women in the military deal with trauma after coming home from war.
20th Century Women is a remarkable character study of women in the 1970s, but it falls just shy of greatness due to its lack of plot.
What happened to the art of film criticism, the kind of visceral, honest prose delivered from titans like Pauline Kael? We are witnessing its noisy death rattle and few seem to care. Moonlight, the newest film from director and co-writer Barry Jenkins, is a literal coming-of-age story, chronicling the journey of a young, gay black man, Chiron, into adulthood amidst the rougher parts of Miami.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a flawed yet misunderstood film, imbuing some of the best that the franchise has ever had to offer.
Patriots Day is a memoir to the tragic events of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, brought to screen both tactfully and honorably.
Films focusing on a very niche subject walk an incredibly fine line. Most of the time if a film is geared on something specifically niche, it’s a fair bet that the writer or director has experience in the subject. This can either work brilliantly in favour of the film, or it can alienate audiences and feel quite awkward to experience.
A Monster Calls is an entertaining and beautifully presented fantasy, which also imbues deeper universal themes of grief and loss.
Monster Trucks is a live action/computer animated film that is made by a regular animation director; unfortunately, it does not go over well.
Collateral Beauty is a messy film that is almost saved by its heartwarming theme and performance by Will Smith – though still not quite.
The Love Witch is an aesthetically sophisticated and deeply-layered dramatization of the gender obstacles that we continue to embed in our society.
La La Land is a tribute to classic musicals, yet also attempts something different by subverting the romanticized outlook that they have.
Passengers is a dull sci-fi that is neither saved by its star power nor by the potential of the story which it initially seems to convey.
With little of the humor and spark that made the original a Christmas classic, Bad Santa 2 is a misconstrued disaster for all involved.