The Wanting Mare is a genuine CGI novelty, a delicate, low-key work of great sensitivity. More often than not, when one thinks of special effects extravaganzas,…
A Glitch in the Matrix is a shockingly tame study, likely only of interest to those yet to encounter even a Wikipedia summary of Simulation Theory.…
Falling is an unfussy, straightforward character piece, unable to reach any real highs but wise enough not to fall into the maudlin arc that is so…
Saint Maud is another A24 exercise in elevated, modulated horror but is fairly absent of anything beyond empty, artful pretense. It’s been a long journey to…
Zhu Shengze’s Present.Perfect. is preceded by information about the state of live-streaming in China, making clear its overwhelming popularity in the country — there were…
The Night hints at building nuance into its familiar template, but ultimately jumbles familiar genre tropes to no discernible end. It’s never a good look to…
Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream isn’t the exercise in solipsism or self-serving appropriative art its premise threatens, but its overall effect is one of cautious distance.…
You Will Die at Twenty contains plenty of allegorical power, but its ineffectual plotting ultimately teases out more stimulating questions than it does answers. As a…
Film About a Father Who is an intimate, innovative auto-doc about wounded people finding solace in the company of fellow stragglers. Film About A Father Who…
Preparations is a major discovery, its distinct character recalling nothing less than the works of Abbas Kiarostami, Christian Petzold, and Krzysztof Kieślowski. Preparations to Be Together…
Fernanda Valadez’s debut, while sometimes frustratingly broad, tells a well-known tale through unusual eyes, giving the classic immigration tale a welcome twist. Within a cinematic…
Our Friend upends some familiar conventions of the terminal illness narrative, but also boasts plenty of missed opportunities. One of the things that can only be…
Atlantis is an unsettling, poignant study of the casual violence that both informs the past and estimates the future. With Atlantis, director Valentyn Vasyanovych (also editor…
Some Kind of Heaven finds legitimate pathos within the oddball trappings of a would-be utopian retirement community. From the cold and gloomy vantage of New York’s…
The timely and harrowing MLK/FBI explores a particular American history that isn’t so safely in the past. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is…
The Reason I Jump stumbles a bit when it attempts to overexplain but is an otherwise illuminating and beautiful portrait of an underrepresented population. Based on…
King Car is more jester than royalty, a soft-bellied and derivative exercise in empty shock. New Brazilian feature Carro Rei (King Car) is aggressively weird, the…
On paper, Garrone’s moody temperament suggests a potentially fascinating Pinocchio adaptation, but all he really musters here is a dour, half-baked rehash and not much else. As…
Farewell Amor resembles, in shape, less accomplished recent indie efforts, but it eschews much of their patness in creating something altogether more complex and affecting. From…
Wild Mountain Thyme is a hurried, generic The Quiet Man-Hallmark fairy tale mashup, with all the mess and none of the fun that description suggests. From the…