MY SUMMER OF SUMMER MOVIES

Across the Spider-Verse is a masterpiece: nearly overwhelming in its creative stimulation of the senses, but with a real emotional and narrative method to the madness.

My Summer of Summer Movies gets underway with a derivative (but reasonably effective) monster-under-the-bed movie from director Rob Savage.

Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis' infuriating and empowering new documentary about Ferguson is essential viewing for every American.

Steven Soderbergh is back—but have we really missed him?

No. Just no.

Like the rest of its dishonorable and disposable ilk, Annabelle: Creation is just a fairly efficient machine for generating meaningless jump-scares.

Luis Prieto's KIDNAP, starring Halle Berry, is a cheap and ugly grindhouse film for the soccer-mom set.

Amanda Lipitz's documentary is a rare and inspiring celebration of the love, beauty, and optimism of disadvantaged black communities.

Nikolaj Arcel's quick and pointless adaptation of Stephen King's sprawling epic is a tepid, paint-by-numbers picture.

Simplistic, reductive, and perversely exculpatory, Kathryn Bigelow's DETROIT is well-executed torture-porn that irresponsibly exploits the destruction of black bodies.

Holly Hunter is always good, but Katherine Dieckmann's road-trip movie drives her down some frustratingly contrived roads.

I do not seem to have the appropriate catalog of symbols on my app to adequately express my feelings about The Emoji Movie.

Charlize Theron can do no wrong, but Atomic Blonde needed to either be a whole lot smarter, or a whole lot stupider, to be any fun at all.

Funny, fearless, and full of genuine feeling, Girls Trip is the best American comedy of the summer.

Simultaneously awful and glorious—but always beautiful—Luc Besson's buddy-cop space opera is a goofy, gonzo, candy-colored cornucopia of silliness.

Elsa Dorfman is likable and interesting, but Errol Morris's documentary both overstays its welcome and under-explores its subject.

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk masterfully captures a key moment of human triumph, but it is not a film that's remotely interested in human beings.

Someone should have wished for a better movie.

Oliver Hirschbiegel's latest film is an imperfect but intriguing exploration of a forgotten resistance hero.

The motion-capture in the latest Apes film is a stunning work of art. Now if only the screenplay could match it…

Nick Hamm's painfully contrived, preposterous film reduces the complexities of the Irish Troubles down to an unconvincing marital spat.

Like its subject—embodied in a fantastic performance by Sally Hawkins—Aisling Walsh's film finds joy and color in unexpected places.

The latest entry in the animated franchise is crowded, uneven, and deeply silly. But it has enough cleverness, humor, and heart to make it worthwhile.

Great comedies pose important questions. So, coincidentally, does this one.

The iconic hero's introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is light to the point of flimsiness, sacrificing both narrative power and emotional depth.

João Pedro Rodrigues' beautiful but increasingly frustrating film is a slow descent into surreality and obscure religious metaphor.

An unconvincing love story married to a silly spy thriller, David Leveaux's The Exception is a forgettable costume drama.

Sophia Coppola's beautiful but shallow remake leaches all life out of a tale that once teemed with repressed emotion and kinky Southern Gothic melodrama.

Based on the real experiences of Kumail Nanjiani and his wife, Michael Showalter's film is a smart, grounded comedy about funny people dealing with serious situations.

Edgar Wright has channeled his pop-music, pop-culture obsessions into the perfect summer movie.

Zoe Lister-Jones' feature debut is a harmless enough ditty, but it's a little too shallow and slight to be a truly great love song.

A good director and an excellent cast can't quite rise above a script that lacks the sophistication, subtlety, and insight needed to do its premise justice.

I'm sorry. It's my fault. I just didn't understand how far the bar had been lowered.

It's only taken Sam Elliott 50 years to become an exciting new movie star.

Reducing Tupac Shakur's legend to a series of sensationalistic incidents, All Eyez on Me is a denigrating takedown clothed as a tribute.

Colin Trevorrow's new movie is horrible in unique, unfathomable, nearly unprecedented ways.

Tired, tedious, and tame, Lucia Aniello's Rough Night (2017) lacks the courage of its pretended coarseness.

Johannes Roberts' murky, oxygen-deprived shark movie is dead in the water.

Once, Pixar made a movie about talking cars, and it made a lot of money. So, they made another one. Now, they've made a third one.

Heart-warming and soul-crushing in almost equal measures, Ken Loach's new film is a furious, funny, unfailingly humane masterpiece.

Existing at a curious nexus of buddy-comedy and crime-thriller, writer-director Ned Crowley's dark debut feature is uneven but promising.

Trey Edward Shults both explores and exploits our fears of the unknown, in a stark, harrowing, disturbingly intimate horror film.

Roger Michell's adaptation of du Maurier's novel is a stately exercise in indecision, and something of a cinematic Rorschach test.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and star Kate Mara bring remarkable restraint, sensitivity, and authenticity to a feel-good story about a soldier and her dog.

I don't expect The Mummy to be the worst movie I see all year, but it's a banal mediocrity that bodes ill for Universal's interconnected "monster" franchise.

Comedian Demitri Martin's feature debut is not a completely insufferable movie, but it is a completely insubstantial one.

Sarah Adina Smith's ambitious second feature is a provocative, harrowing, and haunting film, if a slightly too-perfect vehicle for star Rami Malek.

Not since the Blitz has Winston Churchill been forced to suffer through this kind of bombing.

Every generation needs to learn potty humor, slapstick, and a total disregard for authority. Thankfully, Captain Underpants is here to lead the way.

Rest easy, well-wishers—and suck it, haters—Wonder Woman is a major triumph.