Low Tide did just enough to keep me wanting to know what was going to happen next and to find out whether or not brothers Alan and Peter would be able to keep from drowning in the tumultuous sea of bad decisions they were swimming in.

Joker wasn’t for me, and even if I were to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight and have a sudden desire to watch the world burn that still doesn’t mean I see my opinion changing anytime soon.

The Death of Dick Long gallops to the finish line with authoritative tenacity, its final moments hitting me like a swift kick to the head from a startled horse I’d made the unfortunate mistake to frighten.

There’s nothing peaceful or calm about Donnybrook, the darkness Tim Sutton’s film so intimately explores overflowing in a profound sadness that only grows in resonance as events build to their lethally tragic conclusion.

Outside of its Academy Award-nominated theme song (beautifully sung by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross), I will never understand the enduring appeal of 1981’s Endless Love. It is an anemic adaptation of Scott Spencer’s novel, and in my opinion is arguably the worst motion picture the great Franco Zeffirelli ever directed.

Ad Astra is a daring bit of storytelling subterfuge that will only grow in resonance as time goes by, the final pieces of its complicated puzzle an emotional moonshot of catharsis and fury unlike anything I could have imagined trying to fit together beforehand.

While Downton Abbey will undoubtedly please fans of the series more than it will newcomers to the material, this movie is nevertheless a great deal of breezy fun.

Hustlers is a movie that goes for broke right from the jump, it’s feminine gaze directed oftentimes within as it celebrates these friendships, cherishing the familial bonds the women end up creating even as society turns a blind eye towards their collective travails.

There’s a lot to unpack in regards to The Goldfinch, some of it good, some of it bad and most of it residing in a nebulous sea of grey I found fascinating and which others will undoubtedly deem as nothing less than a melodramatic slog impossible to comfortably tolerate.