As excellent as the performances might be and as competent as the filmmaking undeniably is, this story never rang true to me, and I can’t help but believe that even under the best of viewing conditions Blackbird would have left me frustratingly cold.

Mulan becomes a story of embracing one’s true identity and the innate power that comes along with doing that, this simple conceit the crucial through-line around which the entire plot emphatically revolves.

I’m having a polarized love-hate reaction to director Thor Freudenthal and screenwriter Nick Naveda’s ambitious, if at times oddly schmaltzy and saccharine, adaptation of author Julia Walton’s best-selling young adult romance Words on Bathroom Walls.

This new The Secret Garden, while full of life and overflowing in imagination, isn’t still without a few thorns. Had those been trimmed back even a little bit, I’d likely be frolicking through this film’s cinematic fields in bare feet and a large smile plastered on my face.

La Llorona comments on current international events as well as recent Guatemalan history with confident authority, making the film a universally accessible ghost story that will haunt all who watch it for quite some time to come.

Summerland is the type of motion picture that gives me hope things are going to turn out all right, not just for the characters living inside this tale, but in the here and now for all of us as well.

Relic is a singularly magnetic motion picture that burrows under the skin leaving a lasting scar, the hushed uncertainty of the devastation left behind in its wake impossible to forget.

Homewrecker is one heck of an entertaining foray into psychologic discombobulation, everything building to a shockingly gruesome climax I honestly didn’t see coming.

The Outpost wrecked me, and when it was over I was so exhausted and had gone through so many tissues I needed to slap a little water in my face to regain my composure.