Captain Marvel (2019)
[6] It's another Marvel movie! And it's on the high-end of average, like most of their releases. This one is all about a new character, a pilot named Carol Danvers, who becomes the title hero. She doesn't know who she…
Dark Shadows (2012)
[5] Tim Burton's big-screen adaptation of Dan Curtis' cult TV show Dark Shadows wants to be a comedy about a vampire transplanted from centuries past into the 1970s. That movie - one that focused on the vampire's relationships with his…
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)
[6] Writer/director Dean DeBlois wraps up the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy with a mostly satisfying finale. In this third film, young Viking Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his comrades discover a second, rare Night Fury dragon -- and it's…
Out of the Furnace (2013)
[7] In this revenge drama from writer/director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass), Christian Bale seeks vigilante justice after Woody Harrelson murders his brother over gambling debt. Casey Affleck plays the brother, a young man suffering from post-traumatic stress after…
Greta (2019)
[7] Isabelle Huppert (Elle) and Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick Ass) co-star in this satisfying horror-thriller about a naive young woman (Moretz) who returns a lost purse to a lonely widow (Huppert). The two strike up a friendship, but Huppert becomes…
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
[6] Melissa McCarthy shifts gears with a dramatic turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, the true story of celebrity biographer Lee Israel, who after decades of success writing best-selling books about the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Estee Lauder, and…
The Favourite (2018)
[7] Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer) brings his off-kilter humor to this dark period-piece comedy about a poor but clever scullery maid (Emma Stone) who ingratiates herself to England's ailing Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) with intentions…
The Devil’s Candy (2015)
[7] Ethan Embry stars as a husband and father who moves his family to a new home where a mentally ill man (Pruitt Taylor Vince) committed murder. Embry's character is a painter, and through supernatural means, develops a connection to…
Vice (2018)
[8] Christian Bale once again transforms himself completely to become former vice-president Dick Cheney in Adam McKay's (The Big Short) new film, Vice. The film is a pastiche of Cheney's political career, driven in large part by his relationship with…
Elle (2016)
[8] Isabelle Huppert stars as a woman trying to learn the identity of the man who raped her. Based on that description, I pegged Elle for a revenge story, but it's much more complicated and interesting than that. As the…