Richard Whittaker

Sarnoski’s script doesn’t needlessly insert darkness into Robin Hood. It’s always been there, and his version of the outlaw is in communion with all those other retellings.

It’s a depiction of young love, of universally recognizable awkward fumbling and fragile hopes. It might even lead a few viewers to a moment of understanding and empathy alongside their jump scares, and that seems to be Chiarella’s real intention.

If anything, the collaboration between González-Sola, Mumenthaler, and Sandru is a case study of how the elements of cinema fuse together to become what Roger Ebert so aptly dubbed an empathy machine.

Tanagaki enters the upper ranks of action directors with The Furious. Yet just as he’s adept at melding wildly different martial arts disciplines into one breathtaking whole, he manages to meld those mawkish aspects into the action to create a story that’s oddly wholesome.

[Spielberg] is, after all, the master of wow, and Disclosure Day is a perfect example of his ability to bypass the logic centers of the brain and go straight for the sense of wonder.

As with Carney’s other music movies, the songs aren’t special because of their catchiness but because of their meaning. While Rick hectors Danny into doing the right thing, the question becomes about what the right thing even is. Plus, as always, Carney’s ear for a genuinely good tune is peerless. Rock on.

Tuner may not be innovative, nor does it distract the audience with too many twiddly bits. Yet there’s a definite delight in hearing the right notes played in the right order.

The inner tension of Backrooms is between mystery and explanation. The series is often more about Async than it is about the actual rooms, allowing it to remain somewhat open-ended. But a film has to give at least some clarity, and Backrooms is torn between its own enthralling enigma and that narrative necessity.

It’s like Jillian Michaels directing an adaptation of Stephen King’s Thinner, and even some good scares can’t disguise the bitter taste it might leave in your mouth.

Even among all the fictions, audiences will find more truths about modern Russia than they’ll get from most news broadcasts.