76 Days’ rhythms are occasionally uneven, but it remains a fascinating glimpse at one of the defining crises of our times. There’s a harrowing sense…
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,…
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…
Clearly indebted to the stylings of Guy Maddin, The Twentieth Century unfortunately feels merely mannered rather than touched by any genuine madness. In the Canada…
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…
Collective is a compelling portrait of bureaucratic inertia and stasis and a rich study in the difficulties of actual progress. On October 30, 2015, a fire…
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…
Divine Love is a frustrating, contemptuous affair that ultimately builds little depth into its religio-dystopic premise. Gabriel Mascaro’s Divine Love comes at a timely moment for…
Jungleland is a deeply familiar film that injects little energy or originality into its template narrative. Max Winkler’s Jungleland follows bare-knuckle boxer Lion (Jack O’Connell) and…
Proxima is a markedly incurious film, happy to diminish all complexity of its female protagonist. Alice Winocour’s Proxima is a film constructed around a single premise:…
Fire Will Come retains a kind of documentary-based fascination even as it becomes clear capturing the titular blaze was the only real objective here. Oliver Laxe‘s…
Shithouse marks a promising debut from writer-director Cooper Raiff, effectively capturing the awkwardness and insecurity of the collegiate experience. One’s reaction to the coming-of-age dramedy…
The Wolf of Snow Hollow is yet further, winning proof of Jim Cummings’ singular artistic voice. Much like his debut feature, 2018’s Thunder Road, director-writer-actor Jim…
Swanberg’s latest represents a savvy and mature return to his early-career mode of filmmaking. Fifteen years after his first feature, Joe Swanberg is back where…
Modern-day Cuba, as documented in Hubert Sauper’s latest foray into political ethnography, is a third-world island marked distinctly by the stamp of first-world capitalism. Co-existing…
Centigrade doesn’t do much as a character-driven chamber piece, but it’s served well by an attention to detail and the ability to build genuine tension. In…
Spree represents a futuristic cinema, engaging both new media modes and psychologies of the digital age in a vision both appealing and deeply frightening. Spree is…
Words on Bathroom Walls is emotionally manipulative and easy to mock but has moments that are genuinely affecting. Broadly speaking, film has not exactly been kind…
It’s a bad sign that the only person attempting anything in The Tax Collector is also delivering a racist caricature as performance. David Ayer isn’t…