8/10. If someone had told me five years ago that I’d go to the cinema to see a film about the election of a new Pope rather than a comic-book movie, I would have laughed at them, but, world wonder, it's true. Conclave is an unexpectedly gripping, atmospheric and compelling film set in the Vatican where isolated…

7/10. A decent and realistic teacher psycho drama from Germany. The protagonist is a new teacher who has just started at a new school, but soon starts stealing and becomes a target. She had a hidden camera, she knows who the culprit is! A prime example of a man wanting to get justice and solve a fairly straightforward…

A charming Egyptologist on the trail of ancient secrets and dangerous mysteries. A synopsis where you can only trust the conjunction, and Franklin J. Schaffner didn’t direct the film; he embalmed it, and not even the romantic subplot with Ahmed Dracula can save it (as one critic aptly noted, Langella had the charm of…

The psychological horror soon turns surreal, with the imprisoned psychopath murdering through others. He uses dreams and hypnosis to do this. Danny may be a good guy, but he's a moron, so when he spots Laura, the Sleeping Beauty, in the hospital and hears that she's about to become an experimental subject, he decides…

There's a monster killing in the city, and the first massacres convinced me that a xenomorph had jumped in. Too bad they showed its form afterwards. It had a leaky tongue instead of a second set of jaws, but otherwise the inspiration, including the slime, was clear, and I quite like it. Also, there's one nice…

Stories hurt, stories heal. This one hurts. André Øvredal, under the watchful eye of profit-hungry producers, carved out his Jack-o'-lantern. A seasonal, hollow thing that might scare first-graders. A traditional attraction that briefly ignites before permanently extinguishing and irretrievably heading toward decay.…

I don't know why alcohol is called the scourge of humanity when it stirs up its filth rather than sweeping it away. Fritz Honka. A nasty creep soaked in schnapps, who in a disgusting dive bar picks up even more disgusting toothless tumbleweeds with a rolled-back odometer, only to strangle, dismember, and store them at…

Pragmatism placed above emotions. An act of self-denial yielding to strategy. A classically presented courtroom drama with an attractive subject of dispute and two key ideas for me. That freedom of speech inherently comes with the responsibility for what you say, and that the flames of distorters and con artists,…

There is one more shit, and it must be destroyed also. Dark Fate? Where? As an average action film, maybe, but within the iconic Terminator brand, not even close. In an action sequence that can only admirably look up to Salvation by McG, Tim Miller has little to offer beyond close-up shots and glaring CGI, and when…

In an environment full of ignorance and indifference from people permanently choked by the Rust Belt, the garbage collector Columbo embarks on the trail of crime. At times humorous, at times touching, at times harsh, but never straying from the designated path. The mark of underappreciated quality is enhanced by…