You think “Sam Raimi western” and your mind immediately goes to something special. Kinetic energy, style over substance, something gleefully over the top. Starting with a painfully miscast Sharon Stone, it ends up falling so far short of Raimi’s best work that you have to wonder: what happened? The ing cast is mostly great. The framing device of the contest is fun. But the script is so bloated, taking what should have been a simple piece of kitsch and pushing…

Engaging in fits and starts until it isn’t anymore. Clearly feeling boxed in by the standard spy material, Russell injects this with every ounce of oomph that he can muster, often at the expense of the story itself. It’s best when it’s in service of its convoluted story, with Russell whipping it from one locale to the next. As soon as we go full Russell, with a grotesque Ed Begley doing his best Charles Laughton in the barbecued flames of…

My biggest fear is one day making something like Welcome to L.A -- a film that was most likely started with the best of intentions (Robert Altman produced), but plays like an unintentional parody of "serious adult dramas." Writer/director Alan Rudolph does something incredible here: he takes a group of great actors (Spacek, Chaplin, Carradine, Keitel) and he straight-up embarrasses them. A film like this has to be every actor's worst nightmare.

The only reason this wasn't shut off and…

Working diligently to keep us disengaged from his characters, Anderson creates multiple framing devices in which to tell his story, all of which are an attempt to mask the obvious: there’s nothing actually here. Less insufferable than French Dispatch, it’s frustrating because the aw-shucks Route 66 vibe works so well, but it’s nothing more than window dressing. When moments of real emotion threaten to creep in (a scene with Tom Hanks at the end of the film), he cuts away…