Jacquot’s latest sticks to the directors strengths, mining poignancy from the inexplicable and beauteous. As erratic and eccentric as any new film by Benoît Jacquot…
The dull and ethically dubious Mama Weed fails to live up to the gonzo promise of its title. With a premise and (English language) title sure…
Roadrunner doesn’t revolutionize the portrait documentary, but it does execute its essential elements with pathos and formal precision. The late culinary connoisseur Anthony Bourdain once…
Like Blindspotting before it, Summertime is glib in its politics and hollow in its messaging. In one of the more telling recent Hollywood career leaps, L.A.-based music video director…
The Witches of the Orient once again testifies to Faraut’s facility with crafting surprising, poignant sports docs with plenty of formal character. It’s exciting to see…
Scales is an undeniably distinctive film, but one that doesn’t quite feel fully conceived or executed. Saudi Arabian director Shahad Ameen’s Scales was notable in the…
Being a Human Person ends up a bit formless, but it presents a complex portrait both of an artist and of the disconnect between action…
First Date endows its stock premise with a zany amateurism that is simultaneously cool and cringeworthy. First Date, the debut feature of directorial duo Manuel Crosby…
Unlike recent duds Mainstream and PVT Chat, Zola is a film that cuttingly, brutally understands what it is to be Extremely Online. No film better encapsulates the callous…
Kid Candidate doesn’t have as inclusive an eye as you’d like, but it still manages a cutting depiction of the institutional rot deep in the…
I Carry You With Me is an unpleasant mix of manipulative pap and trivialized stakes, and it’s done no favors by its docu-fiction structure. I Carry…
Sweet Thing is one of the most gorgeous films in recent memory, but it fails to develop beyond its pretty packaging. Titled in homage to…
The Sparks Brothers is an energetic, cinematic homage to one of the most cinematic musical groups of all-time. For most of their fans and listeners, a…
Holler stumbles a bit on the way to its ending, but its strength of direction, character, and milieu make for an often thrilling bit of industrial…
In 1951, the Minamata-based Chisso corporation was one of Japan’s leading producers of acetaldehyde, a then in-demand chemical compound that the company had begun to…
Near its end, Gully gives a glimpse of what a less maximalist, more successful version of itself would look like, but it comes too late.…
Tove disrupts standard biopic conventions and mines meaning from its language-heavy approach. In a 1946 letter to her love Vivica Bandler, Swedish writer and artist Tove…
Bad Tales certainly tries hard but comes off mostly like an artfully-directed after-school special. The stink of desperation wafts heavily from Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo’s…
Slow Machine introduces a directing duo happy to noodle and experiment with various modes, but who aren’t yet refined or cogent enough in purpose. Jacques…
Port Authority boasts a thoughtful, intimate texture, but somewhat betrays its material in its character perspective. Going into Port Authority, two outcomes feel equally likely:…