Downfalls High barely qualifies as a film and attempts little but manages to ride MGK’s guiding charisma to some playful places. If you were one of…
Pieces of a Woman showcases a bravura if ostentatious initial quarter, but it’s all downhill from there as the film devolves into mere misery porn tropes. …
The first 30 minutes of CoroNation, Ai Weiwei’s comprehensive snapshot of Wuhan, China in the earliest days of COVID-19’s global devastation, are among the most compelling…
The relationship between hip hop and punk rock is a long and complex one, evident since the early ‘80s and built upon a shared willingness…
One Night in Miami finds power in its discourse and suggests King’s legitimate directorial chops in moments, but it fails to fully translate its stage origins…
Nasir is a delicate, disquieting film that opens up into something far grander than its brevity and slice-of-life template would at first suggest. What’s immediately striking…
Black Bear is a challenging diptych study of life and art, and the blurred, impenetrable intersection of the two. In the debate between mimesis and anti-mimesis,…
With Lovers Rock, McQueen mostly turns down his directorial affectations and let’s the film’s beauty and joy act as guide. Steve McQueen has always been a…
Between the World in Me capitalizes on the power and poetry of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ words but contributes considerably less as a visual document. Published in 2015,…
Sound of Metal is not the sonic game-changer that its marketing once suggested, but it works marginally better as a restrained, if formulaic drama. Sound of Metal…
The Giant is a textbook YMMV film: an audacious, elliptical fever dream that boasts a deeply affected style executed with a surprisingly sure hand. A dread…
The Climb is perhaps overly familiar but boasts a chemistry-rich lead duo and a winning commitment to its comedy-by-repetition mode. The Climb opens on the image of…
Jingle Jangle is a deeply nonsensical and absolute blast of a Hallmark movie riff that quite simply needs to be watched. In its quest to conquer…
Wolfwalkers doesn’t do much to upset its fable template but thrives on the strength of its complex and gorgeous animation. The final film in Tomm Moore…
Once Upon a River is frequently pretty to look at, but Rose fails to build much depth into the film’s fable-like narrative. Once Upon a River…
The Forty-Year-Old Version deploys a charming lead but never manages to coalesce its many and varied influences. Within the relative glut of 21st-century hip hop cinema,…
Kajillionaire is both July’s most restrained and most maudlin work to date There’s no denying that Miranda July’s particular idiosyncrasy shares DNA with a number of…
Enola Holmes is a cartoon. Or perhaps the problem is that it should have been. The film follows the title character (played by Stranger Things’…
Inconvenient Indian succeeds where so many other documentaries fail — namely, in justifying its existence as a visual text. At first, Michelle Latimer’s documentary exhibits…
Residue is a singular, important achievement, a work of shattering beauty and necessary discourse. Director Merawi Gerima was born into an impressive cinematic lineage. His father…
Iannucci’s latest isn’t quite a natural fit for the director, but he still mostly succeeds by injecting his trademark levity into the spirited core of…