AV Club

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating Title/Year Author
A- I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) A.A. Dowd Kaufman, sneakily altering visual details from frame to frame, revives the grim absurdism of his brilliantly morose directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. EDIT
Posted Sep 4, 2020
B+ Feels Good Man (2020) Katie Rife Things are likely to get (even) worse before they get better, but if you want to fight something, first you have to understand it. Feels Good Man does just that, and it's pretty darn entertaining, too. EDIT
Posted Sep 4, 2020
C+ Antebellum (2020) Anya Stanley What sounds at first like a fascinating adaptation of Octavia Butler's Kindred instead fumbles the narrative ball and goes ham-handed into a fully predictable ending that (without spoilers) we've all seen before. EDIT
Posted Sep 4, 2020
C+ The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020) Caroline Siede For a film about heartbreak, The Broken Hearts Gallery is a bit too glossy for its own good. EDIT
Posted Sep 4, 2020
C+ Tenet (2020) A.A. Dowd It's a shiny clockwork contraption with a hollow center: a convoluted Rubik's Cube blockbuster that, once solved, reveals little more than the complexity of its own design. EDIT
Posted Sep 3, 2020
C+ Mulan (2020) Beatrice Loayza The movie does frustratingly little with its noteworthy upgrades on the original, resulting in a version of the story that's only superficially more sophisticated. EDIT
Posted Sep 3, 2020
B+ Matthias & Maxime (2019) Jason Shawhan This is a film with big emotions and swoon-worthy wet hair moments, and it finds unexpected places in the subconscious to settle. EDIT
Posted Aug 31, 2020
C+ Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) Katie Rife The film simply takes too long to find its focus. It's not the most excellent of outcomes, but not a total bummer, either. EDIT
Posted Aug 27, 2020
C+ Class Action Park (2020) Charles Bramesco For all its attempts to build itself into something more substantive, it's still a day at the theme park. EDIT
Posted Aug 26, 2020
D The Binge (2020) Jesse Hassenger Even the occasional funny line grows wearying, because nothing in this movie happens for any real reason. EDIT
Posted Aug 26, 2020
B Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe (2020) Gwen Ihnat Best of all, Candace Against The Universe plays up the heart of the relationship among Candace, Phineas, and Ferb: For all her schemes, the show often revealed that Candace really does love her brothers. EDIT
Posted Aug 25, 2020
C+ Tesla (2020) Ignatiy Vishnevetsky Like its visionary hero, the quirky biopic Tesla is a noble failure. EDIT
Posted Aug 24, 2020
B Boys State (2020) Erik Adams Boys State has noble aims when it comes to teaching teenagers how their leaders are chosen and held accountable, but Boys State shows that those aims can only do so much to keep the uglier side of that process at bay. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2020
C- Unhinged (2020) A.A. Dowd It's a wait-for-Redbox programmer, promoted by default into the (only) multiplex event of the summer. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2020
B- Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story (2020) A.A. Dowd The film is actually perhaps most interesting-and most valuable to the initiated-as a piece of criticism-by-creator. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2020
C Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula (2020) Shannon Miller [W]hile the first Train To Busan was an affecting, character-driven tale of grief and redemption, Peninsula flounders in generic spectacle. EDIT
Posted Aug 23, 2020
C Project Power (2020) Katie Rife A mishmash of familiar tropes presented with a lot of panache but not a lot of imagination. EDIT
Posted Aug 14, 2020
B Howard (2018) Caroline Siede If Hahn's filmmaking struggles to replicate the whimsical creativity of his subject, Ashman's genius shines through anyway. EDIT
Posted Aug 11, 2020
You Don't Know Jack (2010) Leonard Pierce Losing himself entirely in the role, Pacino is outstanding as Jack Kevorkian, stoop-shouldered and self-confident but with an air of permanent sadness. EDIT
Posted Aug 10, 2020
B- La llorona (2019) Katie Rife What stands out about the film is the pain that lies underneath Bustamante's placid compositions-an anguished desire for justice that, like the Weeping Woman herself, still cries out to be heard. EDIT
Posted Aug 8, 2020
B I Used to Go Here (2020) Katie Rife The results of the experiment are uneven, but isn't experimentation what college is all about? EDIT
Posted Aug 8, 2020
B+ Sunless Shadows (2019) A.A. Dowd What [Oskouei] mostly captures is camaraderie and commiseration, the solace these girls have found in each other's company, even as they reckon with the events that landed them there. EDIT
Posted Aug 8, 2020
D+ The Tax Collector (2020) Ignatiy Vishnevetsky If one is going to make something this cliché, though, they should at least try to do a good job. EDIT
Posted Aug 8, 2020
C- On the Trail: Inside the 2020 Primaries (2020) Dan Jakes The whole project is frustratingly indicative of CNN's political coverage at large, which-despite having the resources and hired talent to do better-manages to point its camera in the correct direction and still miss the big story entirely. EDIT
Posted Aug 8, 2020
B A Thousand Cuts (2020) Noel Murray [I]t's hard to overstate the relevance of what A Thousand Cuts reveals about a democracy sliding into authoritarianism-and what Ressa has to say about the proper ways to push back. EDIT
Posted Aug 7, 2020
D Psychomagic, a Healing Art (2020) Charles Bramesco There's little to be learned from its two nudity-replete yet tedious hours. EDIT
Posted Aug 7, 2020
The Sunset Limited (2011) Emily VanDerWerff At first, The Sunset Limited purports to be a clash between belief (in God) and skepticism. But as it goes on, it becomes something much more cunning. EDIT
Posted Aug 6, 2020
B- The Secret Garden (2020) Anya Stanley The Secret Garden is a mid-tier adaptation, though one with heart and soul. EDIT
Posted Aug 5, 2020
The Girl (2012) Nathan Rabin The Girl fatally lacks a strong take on its story, though Hitchcock himself might have treasured the irony that a film about the ultimate auteur would be undone by the dearth of a strong authorial voice behind the camera. EDIT
Posted Aug 4, 2020
B The Swamp (2020) Alex McLevy The documentary's most useful tactic is how it demonstrates the ways that hyper-partisanship, and hateful rhetoric on both sides, is actually serving the corrupt status quo far more effectively than any outright bribery ever could. EDIT
Posted Aug 4, 2020
C+ An American Pickle (2020) Jesse Hassenger The film fails to build its laughs into substantial comic momentum, or even construct many substantial scenes. EDIT
Posted Aug 3, 2020
B+ She Dies Tomorrow (2020) Katie Rife It is an emotionally vulnerable piece of work, touching on everything from the pain of experiencing a mental illness that no one around you understands to what it means to waste your life. EDIT
Posted Jul 30, 2020
B- A Girl Missing (2020) Beatrice Loayza There's no denying the seductive powers of A Girl Missing, which gestures at the rot beneath the surface of politesse... Yet [director Kôji] Fukada loses sight of his own blind spots and his own intentions in the process. EDIT
Posted Jul 29, 2020
B- The Fight (2020) Roxana Hadadi Snappily edited, with a visual style reminiscent of Steven Soderbergh's modular design, The Fight tells viewers of a certain political perspective what they want to hear. EDIT
Posted Jul 29, 2020
C Summerland (2020) Ignatiy Vishnevetsky One of those sapfests that flatters our modern attitudes by introducing them to our primitive ancestors. EDIT
Posted Jul 29, 2020
B+ The Go-Go's (2020) Gwen Ihnat The indescribable chemistry between Carlisle, Wiedlin, Schock, Caffey, and Valentine is fully on display throughout the doc. EDIT
Posted Jul 29, 2020
A- Temple Grandin (2010) Noel Murray The conventional biopic beats all get hit here. But Danes' performance is far from conventional. EDIT
Posted Jul 24, 2020
C The Kissing Booth 2 (2020) Caroline Siede Perez is marginally more charismatic than Elordi... But neither are as compelling as the question of why Elle's high school is full of teenage boys who look like adult Marvel superheroes. EDIT
Posted Jul 24, 2020
C+ The Rental (2020) A.A. Dowd This setup is so credible, in fact, that it's doubly disappointing when the thriller elements do finally materialize and then promptly fail to thrill... EDIT
Posted Jul 22, 2020
B+ Amulet (2020) Toussaint Egan It's an evocative, confident debut, recalling the metaphorical horror of Jennifer Kent's The Babadook or Babak Anvari's Under The Shadow, even as it announces the arrival of a singular new voice. EDIT
Posted Jul 22, 2020
C- Radioactive (2019) Ignatiy Vishnevetsky The problem with films like Radioactive is that they neither fulfill the biography's basic duty of elucidating the life and times of the subject nor offer a compelling artistic vision or drama as a substitute for the hard facts. EDIT
Posted Jul 22, 2020
B- The Wizard of Lies (2017) Gwen Ihnat At the end of the film, we might have a better understanding of how this giant Ponzi scheme unfolded, but we still have no idea why it happened-a significant shortcoming for an HBO movie with this kind of pedigree. EDIT
Posted Jul 20, 2020
B- Princess Cyd (2017) Mike D'Angelo So many movies are all sizzle and no steak; it's kind of refreshing, in a way, to be frustrated by all steak and no sizzle. EDIT
Posted Jul 19, 2020
B Psych 2: Lassie Come Home (2020) Danette Chavez Lassie Come Home goes a step further, opening up a poignant new chapter for these characters and performers. EDIT
Posted Jul 16, 2020
C+ The Painted Bird (2019) A.A. Dowd The film's emotional spectrum, a flat line of unyielding despair, is as limited as its color palette. And it settles into a pattern so dispiritingly repetitive (and repetitively dispiriting) it begins to resemble self-parody... EDIT
Posted Jul 16, 2020
C The Sunlit Night (2019) Shannon Miller Unfortunately, everything engaging about the narrative is overshadowed by gratuitous quirkiness. EDIT
Posted Jul 15, 2020
A- Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020) Vikram Murthi It's a film comprised of snapshots, glimpses from a hazy evening. But the Ross Brothers understand that these are the moments that paint people in their best, most unguarded light. EDIT
Posted Jul 10, 2020
B The Old Guard (2020) Anya Stanley In a past life, this would be a standard B-movie shoot-'em-up. But, as Prince-Bythewood presents it, The Old Guard is an effective and tender bundle of contradictions, a franchise launchpad about (among other things) endings. EDIT
Posted Jul 10, 2020
B+ Relic (2020) Katie Rife Mortality and the fear of the unknown that comes with it is the foundation of all horror, but rarely is the nature of death explored in as terrifying and tender a fashion as it is in Natalie Erika James' Relic. EDIT
Posted Jul 10, 2020
C Guest of Honour (2019) Mike D'Angelo Guest Of Honour, [Egoyan's] latest effort, is decidedly that sort of low-wattage Egoyan classic, serving up familiar preoccupations and structural curlicues-minus any inspiration. EDIT
Posted Jul 9, 2020