5.5
The Golden Circle still has its set pieces and its jaw-dropping moments of high-octane action and choreography, but I was stuck on whether or not we needed this much more of it in the grand scheme of things.
4.5
I was too distracted by Anthony's treatment of his subjects (both rats and otherwise) to really engage with this high-concept approach to this dreary movie about animal cruelty.
4.5
Le Confessioni might be a victim of the low expectations it inadvertently sets for itself.
6.5
THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM is a weirdly compelling treatment of the performative aspect to a serial killer.
4
THE SPACE BETWEEN never finds an identity of its own.
3
BIRTH OF THE DRAGON does a disservice to the cinematic legacy of Bruce Lee.
7.5
Logan Lucky strips away the complexities of the genre and frames it around the common man’s hopes for a big score.
5.5
Lea Pool’s film is a pleasing affair of little risk and even less payoff.
8
Far from revolutionizing, Creation (much as Wan's The Conjuring did initially to set off this series) refines the approach itself to the point where even the most telegraphed of scares never lose their jolting impact.
9.5
A rare film that you're glad will be percolating in your head for days after you've watched.
5
While the action in much of the film can be impressive and exhilarating, if you've seen one melee scored to New German wave music you've really expended the depths of the film’s creativity.
2.5
A film permanently stuck its own Kickstarter promotional video.
6
Kuso is a mess of visually interesting but conceptually bankrupt nonsense.
7.5
Methodical in its formal approach and more twisted than the salacious details of the crimes it combs over, Kei Ishikawa's Traces of Sin probes ingenuously into the various connecting threads of a murder case, not for the sake of pointing fingers, but more for a want of a full picture.
5.5
The concern over the utter aimlessness and disaffection of Japan's youth has proven to be a topic of abundance for the country's transgressive cinema. Whether we are talking the carefree Sun Tribe films of 1950s, the politically charged student activist films of ’60s and ’70s, or the nihilistic films that followed the burst of the economic bubble in the late ’80s, the nation's cinema was always worried about its future working force maturing in the wrong ways.
