With “The Batman,” Matt Reeves has gifted 2022 with a surprisingly great film. Surprisingly, because it is yet another Batman film that comes too soon on the heels of a Batman film that came too soon on the heels of Batman film.

As Hollywood is constantly oversaturated with comic book movies, it has come down to the sad truth that these are the only types of films that get major push from the studio system.

It’s film festival season once again, and after two years of darkness, theaters at cinema gatherings are filled with (still-masked) revelers and cinephiles. The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is back on the “American Riviera” in California, and SXSW is right now rocking down in Austin.

While things are back to happening in person, not all is back to “normal.” In addition to masks

Mimi Cave’s “Fresh” takes a long-understood truth, the dating world is difficult to navigate, and turns it into a affecting thriller that speaks to these times.

In the digital age, while it may seem easier, swipe left, swipe right, to find love, it's also tougher to be single and to be looking for someone to be with. Gone are the days of face-to-face chats.

The new Netflix thriller “The Weekend Away” opens with a clever contrast. The first shot is the corpse of a woman, face down in a dark ocean, then it cuts to the sunny and beautiful oceanside Croatian landscape. This sets the paradox of the impending darkness that will soon bear down on a reunion between two best friends.

Unfortunately, this is the most interesting thing on offer with this new film.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz built an entertainment empire. Against all expectations and rather stiff odds, the married pair not only had the top-rated TV series in “I Love Lucy” to their credit but also Desilu Productions, which produced many of the most popular series of the day, including “Mission Impossible” and Ball’s own “The Lucy Show.” The pair enjoyed great success in Hollywood and no small amount of wealth.

The accusation for more than a half-century is that rock’n’roll is the devil’s music and that such satanic influences will inevitably infect those hapless youths who cheerily gobble up all those records. But what if, “Studio 666” posits, evil forces really were channeling their malicious doings through the minds of famous musicians?

That’s the admittedly half-baked setup for this new horror comedy, which on its face

The dreamlike aura that surrounds the new film “The Other Me” is no surprise, considering the work is executive-produced by David Lynch and directed by a filmmaker whose previous short films have mostly been crafted with a sense of the unusual.

Director Giga Agladze does indeed have a working relationship with the surreal filmmaker, as the two co-founded the David

Steven Soderbergh is continually one of our most adventurous filmmakers, he’s an artist who takes chances and one who is consistent in taking on projects that are far removed from his last ones. “KIMI” is the director’s latest, he continues his streak of interesting work.

An extraordinary Zoe Kravitz stars as Angela Childs, she works for a tech company that makes KIMI, a version of our own Alexa. 

Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World” could very well be labeled a rom-com but do not expect the type of film that moniker suggests. This is one with relatable romantic situations, great characters and exuberance.

Julie (Norway’s Renate Reinsve) is somewhere in her twenties where love life and career are in constant flux.

Another year of fantastic films at the Sundance Film Festival is under our cinematic belts. On Friday, Sundance revealed their award winners for the 2022 festival. Once again (due to the rise in Omicron cases in the U.S.) the ceremony was handled virtually on Twitter.

Festival Director Tabitha Jackson said in her statement on Friday, “This year’s Festival expressed a powerful convergence