Mehnificent

Is there any modern screen fantasy more seductive than the con artist—our era’s answer to the movie gangster, only happier to work out of a hotel bar than a speakeasy, and more at home lifting watches or hearts than gunning anyone down? In Focus, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa try to fine-tune that old grift-and-romance two-step for the millennial crowd, trotting out Will Smith as a slick virtuoso of deception, whose real legerdemain ends up being the ability to keep Margot Robbie (who, here, has the sparkle and bounce of a new convertible) on her toes, and, at least for a while, the audience on theirs.

Lady Gaga’s latest album, Harlequin, released on September 27, 2024, has sparked quite a conversation among fans and critics alike.

Where does one even begin with a movie like this—a cinematic bag of potato chips that’s all salt, no flavor, and leaves you wondering why you even opened it? “Chief of Station” (2024)—let’s just pause and savor those quotation marks, because any film so adamant about being a “gem” should take a long, honest look in the mirror—stars the usually capable Aaron Eckhart as Ben Malloy, a man who, judging by his performance, seems to have signed on before reading anything past “Action/Thriller” at the top of the script.

Should not have resurrected The Crow. That, in a sentence, is the wisest epitaph for an undead franchise whose new lease on life feels, if not actively damned, then at least embalmed in every frame. Hollywood loves to exhume its corpses; here, though, the necromancy is not just joyless—it’s grotesque. Watching Bill Skarsgård lurching through all that smeared makeup like a moping IT clown forced into Hot Topic drag—and that’s the last cloudburst this city needed. Lionsgate, when you next crawl back to the mausoleum, maybe try releasing a film that resonates with audiences for good reasons, not just out of contractual obligation. Just a suggestion!

Criminal is the kind of mongrel thriller that seems almost tailor-made to attract critical enmity: jigsaw plotting, characters that come apart if you prod them, and a magpie casting philosophy that shuffles through A-listers as if Hollywood were a novelty gumball machine. The reviews online drip with the sourness of dashed hopes—critics, wringing their hands about “wasted potential,” all but begging the film to be thrown back into the genre stockpot for more seasoning. And yet, perversely, that’s the exact pitch that drew me in. Give me talent forced to dance on rickety scaffolding over mediocrity any day; how else would we ever be surprised?

There are movies that tug you under, not with suspense or terror, but with the blithe, inexorable weight of their own conventions. "You're Killing Me," directed by Beth Hanna and Jerren Lauder, tries to strut through the haunted funhouse of privilege and amorality, but somewhere along the way, it gets lost in its own fog machine. I wanted shock, I wanted stakes—hell, I wanted something that didn’t leave me counting ceiling tiles during the third act.