2020’s

[6] Writer/director James Cameron (Titanic, Aliens) returns to the world of Pandora thirteen years after the first Avatar film broke all box office records. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) now lives completely among the planet’s tall, blue natives – the Na’vi. He and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) are raising four children, including Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), who has a mysterious, powerful connection to all life on Pandora. They’ve …

[5] In Croatia, a teenage girl (Gracija Filipovic) suffers her rigid, controlling father (Leon Lucev) until one of his old friends (Once Were Warriors‘ Cliff Curtis) visits and inspires her to seek a better life. At first, she tries to negotiate leaving Croatia with her father’s friend. But the girl’s plans soon unravel, with her father taking more desperate measures to keep her with the …

[6] Adam Driver stars as an astronaut from another world who crash-lands on Earth 65 million years ago. Along with a young girl (Ariana Greenblatt) who speaks another language, he must pass through a prehistoric valley full of dangers big and small to reach his escape pod before a massive asteroid collides with the planet — the very one that caused mass extinction of the …

[5] A teenaged underground cartoonist (Daniel Zolghadri) seeks the company of bizarre, questionable characters in the hopes it might inspire his work. He shuns his parents and moves in with a couple of middle-aged men who watch old cartoons in a sweltering basement together. He argues with a doting coworker (Miles Emanuel) at the comic book store, and tries to make a paranoid schizophrenic who …

[3] This review contains spoilers. The only thing worse than disliking a movie from the start is loving a movie, and then having the movie betray you in the end. Such a film is EO, a Polish film from veteran filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski (Deep End) that we experience through the eyes of its title character, an adorable grey donkey who is tossed into a serendipitous …

[7] Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) stars in this posh, claustrophobic horror flick that pits bourgeoise guests at an elite dining establishment against the head chef (Ralph Fiennes), whose multi-course menu is designed for a sinister purpose. The plates begin somewhat confusing but interesting, but soon escalate with exposed secrets, exhibitionist suicide, and a promise from Fiennes that everyone will, in fact, be dead by the …

[4] M. Night Shyamalan, the once celebrated big-budget thriller maker of films like The Sixth Sense and Signs, has been relegated to low-budget horror movies for several years. I keep hoping that his budgetary confines will result in a burst of innovation, but that hasn’t happened yet. Knock at the Cabin is a small ensemble, one-location, claustrophobic thriller with a promising premise based on a …

[6] Florence Pugh (Midsommar, Little Women) stars as a 1950s happy housewife living in an experimental desert paradise where the women cook and clean by day, host parties by night, and have sex with their husbands in-between. But she has a hard time shaking certain dreams and memories, especially after witnessing one of her fellow happy housewives commit violent suicide. Much to the consternation of …

[4] Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges play a rich mother and son who are forced to leave their fancy New York home for a friend’s apartment in Paris when they discover their bank account is nearly empty. Once there, Pfeiffer’s character plans to kill herself when their last dollar is spent, while Hedges’ character pines for the gal he left behind in the Big Apple. …

[6] Steven Spielberg tackles his autobiography with this story of his youth and adolescence, discovering his love of film while coping with his parents’ untenable marriage. As Spielberg’s stand-in, Sam Fabelman, Gabrielle LaBelle is a disappointingly empty vessel, lacking the charisma or screen presence to carry us through this tale. Michelle Williams leaves a much bigger impression with her performance as Sam/Spielberg’s mother, a carefree …

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