The premise of a woman using foster children as vessels for her own dead child’s spirit is absolutely haunting, but the storytelling doesn’t do that justice. The ritual is confusing and overly complicated (though I do love that she’s using VHS tape footage as a tutorial), and too much time is wasted in between steps of her plan. Details like the bed wetting and the shower-trauma in particular are completely extraneous by the time we get to the conclusion, which…

Withnail & I is a comedy for its audience and a nightmare for its characters. These guys are losing it, perpetually binge drinking and chasing away the impending hangover. They're already out of touch with reality at the film's start, obsessed with the meaningless and minute details while neglecting the real issues at hand. Richard E. Grant's flamboyant performance and absurd dialogue fosters most of the humor, but Paul McGann's paranoid performance disturbs in contrast. Every new situation feels paradoxically catastrophic…

"I think he was better than me."

Elio is so young. It's in the way he dances, how he slides into a room, and how his father calls him "Elly-Belly" while his mother holds his head. Oliver may not even be that many years older, but he's in such a different place. He's experienced, wiser -- still emotional, but not naive. The relationship between these two, a boy and a man, is a sad reflection of something I see too often.…