Director Sam Mendes does a diligent and heartfelt job with this love letter to the movies, but he also crams in a lot of other themes with it.

'Bruiser' is not the film of the season for me. But it is good, and it lays the foundation for a promising future with the director and the actors.

Because this film wants the audience to be absorbed in every word, and in every subtext of those words, "The Son" has no flashy cinematography or dynamic editing. It's a film about the words.

The ideas and themes of Infinity Pool have been shown before in other films, like The Ruling Class (1972), Vatel (2000), or Dirty Pretty Things (2002). But the way these ideas and themes are shown made this film disturbingly unique and alluring.

This week, host Casey Allen takes a look at the Oscar nominees.

"The Whale" is a tragic, intimate story of one man's grief and shame and how he fights against those emotions by making a grasp at redemption far out of his reach.

"M3GAN" presents as a mischievous satire on the growing ravenous world of consumerism, and the constant need for new toys, new advances and new ways to be entertained.

Director and writer Scott Cooper ("Hostiles", 2017) creates a sustained melancholy in this 19th century gothic mystery based on the 2006 novel of the same name.

It's PG-13 and visual fun for the whole family, but this sequel is far too much for any science-fiction lover, or movie lover, to take seriously.

In a year when so many American films have famously failed to reach box office glory, filmmakers (and film lovers) need only look to South Korea for new ideas and new methods of cinematic storytelling.