AVTCLOUD

A disenchanted 12-year-old girl rediscovers her sense of joy and youthful exuberance in an overly sentimental but endearing fantasy adventure. IF, short for imaginary friends, tugs mightily on your heartstrings. John Krasinksi, who pulls quadruple duty as writer, director, producer, and co-star, wants to squeeze your eyeballs for buckets of tears. He accomplishes that goal but, thankfully, gets an equal number of big laughs in a wonderful second act. There…

A young Nigerian woman seeking asylum in Ireland faces a looming deportation to certain death in the new film Aisha, which wounds your soul as a heartfelt, distressing, and dehumanizing journey through the bureaucratic maze of refugee resettlement. A captivating Letitia Wright gives light to the knife’s edge panic and fear that an uncertain future brings. The film tackles difficult themes with a viewpoint that sometimes paints those against immigration…

After debuting at Cannes and Annecy, the French sci-fi feature Mars Express finally launched in North America on May 3, 2024. Directed by Jrmie Prin and distributed by GKids (who has released other hand-drawn animation films from around the world, such as Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron), the film takes on an aesthetic somewhere between anime and graphic novel, and a plot evocative of Ghost in the Shell.…

There’s a rare type of film that breaks halfway through or so, where the story we’ve been following suddenly shifts into something totally unexpected, or outright cuts to new characters completely. Of course, Alfred Hitchock’s Psycho is famous for this, and it seems to be most prominent in horror films like that Audition, One Cut of the Dead, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Empty Man, and Zach Cregger’s recent film,…

Sometimes, a movie is accidentally overkill. In other instances, it’s safe to say the movie and its makers are well aware of its over-the-topness. From director Jeff Fisher, The Image of You, which is out this week, offers Pretty Litle Liars star Sasha Pieterse the perfect follow-up role to her small-screen star-making character assuming she’s still game for juicy, soapy, gossipy fun. Oh, and add “dark” to the list of…

Wildcat explores the formative early life of celebrated Southern Gothic novelist Mary Flannery O’Connor through vivid depictions of her imaginative writing process. The deeply devout O’Connor struggled to reconcile her Catholic faith with artistic ambitions while suffering from debilitating lupus. Director/co-writer Ethan Hawke, scion Maya Hawke, and a venerated supporting cast revel in an overindulgent portrayal that confuses creative expression for substantive depth. A ping-pong structure, where the ensemble plays…

A fierce woman protects her nieces on a remote homestead in the aftermath of an apocalyptic virus. Lazareth takes an intimate and nuanced view of the worst-case scenario with moderate success. The characters’ seclusion forces a reckoning when outsiders interrupt a carefully crafted isolation. How do you react to strangers when curiosity and lust overcomes fear? The pieces don’t quite fit together from a common sense and believability standpoint, but…

Dangerous attractions, confrontations with wealthy power players, and achy teenage longing are part of the lesson plan in Maxton Hall: The World Between Us, Prime Videos stellar new private school series based on Mona Kastens bestselling novel, Save Me. Toss in a hip Euro music soundtrack, songs by the likes of Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish, and a scorching teenage love story, and youve got the makings of an A+…

The concept of a multiverse and alternate realities has been around for quite some time, but it’s certainly become more culturally popular than ever before. That’s largely because of the Marvel, DC, and other franchises that have incorporated the idea into their narratives, embracing the notion but largely discarding the quantum mechanics of it all. Dark Matter is the latest sci-fi series on Apple TV+ (and from Wayward Pines‘ Blake…

Planet of the Apes was one of the first major sci-fi franchises. The original was a groundbreaking film, and it soon launched a five-film series and a television spin-off, and was one of the first merchandised films. It would be 28 years between the release of 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes and Tim Burton’s disappointing 2001 reimagining. After over three decades on ice and a big-budget remake…