Red Dot’s survivalist vision isn’t consistently executed, but there’s enough here to suggest Darborg is worth watching. There’s something appealingly primal about stranding movie characters…
Dear Comrades! is a nuanced reckoning with Stalinist legacy and the lingering brutality left in his wake. Offering a solemn look at Soviet society in the…
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is yet another time loop flick that fails to do anything to energize its exhausted conceit. Note to Hollywood: No…
Space Sweepers boasts of welcome vein of social commentary but is hampered by endless plot convolutions and a pivot into cheap platitudes. Man first walked on…
Life in a Day 2020 is a treacly, tone-deaf effort that mostly ignores 2020’s extraordinary troubles in favor of reductive thinking and organizational logic. Documentaries like…
Bliss has its moments, but is ultimately far too satisfied with the faux-profundity of its deeply obvious ideas. Writer-director Mike Cahill is no stranger to spinning…
Earwig and the Witch is one of the ugliest major studio animated works in years and an incredible stumble for Studio Ghibli. Name recognition has little…
Queen of Black Magic is a brutal, go-for-break bit of exciting horror filmmaking. Kimo Stamboel doesn’t have the same profile as Timo Tjahjanto, his filmmaking partner…
Beginning emerges from the influence of obvious formal antecedents to become a stirring, singular work from a new cinematic worth following. On its surface, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s…
Penguin Bloom tries to expand itself a bit from template filmmaking, but mostly still trades in familiar disability narrative tropes and obvious metaphors. Regrettably, there…
Malcolm and Marie is an affecting meditation on the private life of relationships and the closed-door conflicts that arise in the absence of an audience.…
Liborio’s initial enigmas ultimately give way to something tidier and less pleasantly challenging. Olivorio Mateo, a farmer-turned-prophet whose providential oversight and teachings later influenced the…
Palmer has noble intentions and a winning performance from Timberlake, but it’s thematically undercooked and tonally jarring. Apple TV+’s Palmer, the latest film from actor/director Fisher…
In and Of Itself isn’t without its small hypocrisies, but ultimately surprises by delivering spectacle through its big heart and humanism. From 2016 to 2018, the…
Rather than recalling Bahrani’s past strengths, The White Tiger only serves to draw out the director’s worst instincts. Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani has long focused on…
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…
The Ultimate Playlist of Noise abandons an interesting conceit for a far more staid one but still manages to be charming enough in spurts. Sound of…
The Dig is a gorgeous effort but entirely sidelines the fascinating psychological and emotional terrain implicit to its narrative. Every niche interest deserves its own movie.…
Outside the Wire boasts enough requisite action fodder to keep things moving, but in failing to meaningfully develop any of its ideas, become little more than…
Locked Down wants to be the film of this pandemic moment but is instead tiresomely repetitive, tonally chaotic, and already outdated. A January 6th puff piece…
Hunted isn’t a bad film, but the genre aficionados who are likely to seek it out won’t find much genre styling to sustain them. Vincent Paronnaud’s…