I always find myself wanting to love a Guillermo del Toro film, but ultimately only liking it. There's something about them – at least his English language productions; Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone, both set in Spain, are pretty flawless – that never quite wins me over. They all look fantastic, and del Toro certainly has a distinctive style...… read more!

Pitch-dark fable that takes place in 1944 Spain, shortly after Franco's Fascists won the civil war. A young girl is taken to a castle-like structure in the forest where she is to live with her pregnant mother and her stepfather, a particularly brutal captain in the Fascist regime who is overseeing the obliteration of the last few Republican partisans in… read more!

The Shape of Water begins with a montage, set to accordion-heavy French music straight out of Amélie, of a mute cleaning lady named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) getting ready for work. It's the early 1960s. Elisa lives above a Baltimore movie theater. Her neighbor is a charming, closeted gay illustrator (Richard Jenkins). She dances her way down the hall. A fire… read more!