“Alien: Romulus” remembers that this franchise does not need a dissertation. It needs people trapped in a place where the lights do not reach all the corners.

The anxiety about synthetic actors replacing human ones was not theoretical when Andrew Niccol wrote “S1m0ne.” It was recent, expensive, and documented in the trades. It would appear he did not know it.

“Alien: Covenant” spends 122 minutes apologizing for “Prometheus,” and the apology makes everything worse.

“House of Games” is not badly acted. It is acting from a universe where showing a feeling is how the money leaves the room.

“Psycho Killer” feels like someone had a good mask and then tried to grow a movie around it in a tray.

Most robot uprising stories end at the moment of maximum catastrophe. The servers go dark, the missiles fly, the last human falls. _I Am Mother_ opens in the aftermath and asks the question no one else in the genre seems interested in: so now what?

The men in this movie treat the women like furniture that occasionally talks back. I know that comes with the territory when you’re watching a film from 1929, and I try to meet old movies on their own terms, but The Broadway Melody kept pulling me out of itself.

With “Her,” Jonze writes romance as one-sided as his own failed marriage and it’s wonderful.

Why does everybody like this movie more than I do? I mean, I gave it 4 stars. It’s beautiful. But it’s a boring beautiful. I don’t know anything anymore.