Warren Cantrell

Visuals and lighting aside, the production fails to impress in any meaningful way, and for a story rooted in art, con jobs, and detective work, Forge doesn’t seem to have much fun exploring any of them, allowing a person room to wonder who this movie is for and why.

The brisk pacing of Fantasy Life is a credit to this editorial restraint, yet it also leads to one of the production’s few stumbles: its refusal to offer a satisfying, narratively cohesive ending. Even so, the film stands well on its own.

Mirren is magnificent as the fading mother losing her fight against the inevitable, and Winslet wisely leans on this, as well as the other reliable performances from her overqualified cast.

The Man in My Basement is a slow burn, to be sure, and though things come out fully cooked, there’s little flavor and more flash than sizzle.

McElwee probes the very idea of memory itself, and in perhaps his crowning achievement as a documentarian, fails to come up with any definitive answers, yet somehow still moves closer to the truth than he ever had before.

Solid performances, a clever conceit, and technical over-competence behind the camera bolster what is ultimately a predictable and sometimes unpleasant viewing experience.

Low rent, CGI splatter effects by the bucket-full honor the Troma roots of this property, while practical costume, make-up, and production design speak to the reverence of the same. It ain’t pretty, sure: but that was never the Toxic Avenger’s style. Blair and company understand this, and the movie (world?) is better for it.

This film is like some kind of corrupted, infectious, cinematic black hole that obscures and swallows all other sins in and around it. Artistically irredeemable and impossible to recommend on any basis whatsoever, about the only thing Ebony & Ivory succeeds at is matching the artistic value of the eponymous song: a dubious distinction if ever there was one.

Pleasant enough to look at but impossible to care about, this movie isn’t bad because it fails at what it sets out to do, but because of the most evil of all reasons: it never figures out its reason to be at all.

A marriage of dramaturgy and remembrance, Seven Veils dances through its themes and character history with thoughtful intention that would impress Salome herself. Emotionally bracing and infused with a meta-text that leapfrogs the story and the characters themselves, it is almost good enough to lose one’s head over.