3.5
The Female Brain seems like the CliffsNotes of Dr. Brizedine's greater work and condensed into a romantic comedy schema, which desperately attempts to reject it.
5.5
Bilal fails at establishing its central hero for any of the teaching points you graft onto him.
7
It should be emphasized that the elements corralled together are strong in their own rights, and if Kurosawa could have shored up the dragging run time necessary to cover his juxtapositions, Before We Vanish could have been a much more promising endeavor.
2
Psychotic! is the perfect middle ground that manages to be equally unfunny and not scary in almost respectable equilibrium of incompetent filmmaking.
4.5
Too serious to be lighthearted but too nonchalant to hold any weight, American Folk is an anomaly that doesn't work either way.
7
Either from the often strikingly intimate handheld shots or his script, which bleeds unfiltered affection for his characters and the night-soaked streets of Berkeley, Quest is uncomplicated humanism that plays equally to the people at the front row as well as those at the back of theater.
6
With his camera at hand and a burning human to point it on, the most the film gets out of its subjects is an ill-advised, one-sided conversation where black residents and “woke” allies point to clear-cut racism and the folksy residents shrug their shoulders and deflect.
3.5
Enter Johnny Martin's Delirium, which, through its own incompetence invents a subgenre no one asked for (that I will be dubbing “Lazy Found Footage”).
5.5
There is the potential for a moving tragicomic exercise in the Jan Lewan story, but sadly the latest Netflix feature settles for a middling goofball romp that has a few smiles but little staying power.
3.5
There is no detectable personality in either the robotic performances or the garrulous script.
Continuing our year-end list extravaganza is Chris Luciantonio‘s top 20 films of 2017.
20. Okja – Finding himself on a tonal balancing act yet again in his career, Bong Joon-ho surprised me and anyone else who has followed the Korean master’s
2
140 incoherent minutes of dawdling about in underground corridors littered with feral mutants.
6
There is fun to be had in the wilderness of Jumanji once you take a machete to the excess foliage of its script and cut to the endearing characters at its core.
9.5
There was not a moment I experienced in the theatres this year that was remotely comparable to the sensation of knowing that 2017 gave us something as pure as Lady Bird.
3
Apocalypse Road wrongly believes some vague question dodging is an acceptable substitute for dedicated world building.
5
When a killer is revealed and your response is somewhere in the realm of “yeah I guess,” you've clearly made some stylistic missteps along the way.
