“Limbo,” which was stamped with Cannes 2020 label last Spring, is a wry observational dramedy about the refugee experience. Set on a fictional remote Scottish island, where a group of new arrivals await the results of their asylum claims, writer-director Ben Sharrock’s oddity of a film is the epitome of purposeful tedium.

An interesting idea gone haywire, “Mainstream” is director Gia Coppola’s social media satire, but instead of giving us an original perspective on the state of viral culture in 2020, we’re left with blanks.

The big lure when it comes to Netflix’s upcoming animated movie “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” (04.30.21) is that it was produced by animation wizards Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were behind “The Lego Movie” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.”

The most influential children's series in TV history gets the front and center treatment in the very likable documentary “Sesame Street: How We Got to Sesame Street.”

On its surface, “Together Together” is a fairly straightforward, albeit very sweetly rendered, comedy. As I was watching this cinematic game-changer, I was admiring the way its central characters (played by Ed Helms and Patti Harrison) kept growing on me but little did I know that one of them was a transgender comedian.

The pig docu-fiction “Gunda,” directed by Viktor Kosakovskiy, is an experimental and beautifully photographed black and white statement about the life of farm animals.

Ben Wheatley returns to genre cinema, after his questionable “Rebecca” remake, with “In the Earth.” What this latest film actually constitutes is the writer-director’s attempt to go back to his cinematic roots (“KIll List” and “A Field in England”), a time when he was a younger filmmaker, excited by the notion of creating art and enamored by his power to cast a horrific and unpredictable spell on audience. Sadly, it feels like the spark is missing here.

Review originally posted on 10.11.20 as part of my coverage of The 58th New York Film Festival. “French Exit” will be released on VOD this coming Friday, April 2nd, 2021.

Here’s and over-stylized, gory and narratively predictable debut from rookie Canadian directors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli.

Ever since Liam Neeson triumphed in 2009’s “Taken” — he was a simple man with “a particular set of skills” — the amount of retreads that resulted from it have become numbingly repetitive. You can make a good case that “Taken” has been the most influential, not to mention most copied, movie of the last 15 years. The proof is in the pudding, middle-aged actors who have attempted to be one-man killing machines since then include Bruce Willis (“Death Wish”), Ben Affleck (“The Accountant”) Denzel Washington (“The Equalizer”) Sean Penn (“The Gunman”), Kevin Costner (“3 Days to Kill”) and, most successfully, Keanu Reeves (“John Wick”).

T.J.Martin and Daniel Lindsay (“LA 92”) haven’t just over-stylized this documentary on Tina Turner’s life, they have, misguidingly, decided to let her tell the story.

The infamous murder of The Notorious B.I.G, shortly after the also-unsolved-killing of Tupac Shakur, is given the whodunnit treatment in “City of Lies.” Here’s a movie that bungles up the intrigue and labyrinthine mysteries of the Biggie Smalls murder conspiracy.

Joe Carnahan’s 2002 debut feature “Narc,” which starred Ray Liotta and Jason Patric, is still his best movie, followed closely by the Liam Neeson wolf adventure “The Grey.” I wouldn’t put anything else he’s done in a category with those, but there are minor merits to be had in other Carnahan-directed movies such as “Smokin’ Aces,” “The A-Team” and, particularly, “Stretch.”

Formerly titled “Ironbark” when it premiered at Sundance more than a year ago, the cold-war spy drama, “The Courier” is finally being released next Friday on VOD and in theatres.

What started off as the portrait of a teenage sensation on SoundCloud, turned, for director RJ Cutler and all involved, into a monstrous opportunity for a time-capsule-worthy documentary.

Sony Pictures Classics recently bought “The Human Voice,” a flashy and uninvolving short film directed by the usually great Pedro Almodóvar and starring Tilda Swinton.

Disney is at it again, with their 58th animated feature, titled “Raya and the Last Dragon.”

The demand for white truffles increases year after year, even as the supply decreases.