Neither didactic nor restrained, Ascension is a mesmerizing film that uncovers the face of a nation’s stoic realism. Civilization’s pursuit of unfettered growth has often clashed…
Bad Luck Banging borders on the didactic, but smartly allows its archetypes to conflate and contradict, turning its sketchbook designs into a platform for…
Zeros and Ones’ study of violence and digitality is the latest proof that Ferrara thrives in the spaces between knuckleheaded obviousness and total abstraction.…
The Feast is a fine feature debut for Jones, building an effectively eerie tone and supporting it with lovely compositions and gnarly inserts. Lee Haven…
Red Notice is as close to an algorithm-written film as the world has yet had the displeasure of viewing. A few years back, there was…
Night Raiders teases a unique dystopian setup, and then fails to meaningfully develop any of its promising parts. In a millennium overstuffed with dystopian presentations,…
Mother is both brutal and poetic, a contention with self and homeland, and an introduction to one of contemporary cinema’s most exciting voices. When Lemohang…
If you want your holidays ruined, you should definitely watch Home Sweet Home Alone. When the Walt Disney Company bought out 20th Century Fox…
What Do We See, in its rejection of atomized systems of characterization and narrative, offers a kinder, more free-spirited form of cinema. Alexandre Koberidz’s…
On the festival circuit, documentaries — at least those not directed by Frederick Wiseman or Errol Morris — too easily are overlooked when programmed…
There’s very little to distinguish Belfast as a work of art, a film that uses its dramatic and formal elements only in service of feel-good…
Uppercase Print mishmashes modes and can become a bit of a slog, but there’s enough formal playfulness to recommend it as a valuable addition to…
Odagiri’s somber observations about transition within tradition make for a meditative, rewarding viewing experience. Ten years after his debut feature, Looking for Cherry Blossoms…
Clifford the Big Red Dog is vapid, conceptually nihilistic, and utterly soulless “entertainment.” When moviegoers go to the movies, they typically do so with certain…
A Man Named Scott is a vanity project doc that pushes a hip hop-savior narrative at the expense of any meaningful substance or study. If…
Jimmy O. Yang makes for an unconventional, likeable lead, but Love Hard is an otherwise frothy and disposable holiday trifle. The bafflingly titled Love Hard would…
Larrain is given massive assists courtesy of Stewart and Spencer’s A/V artists, but everyone is let down time and again by the film’s wildly unsubtle script.…
Hell Hath No Fury is something of a departure for Jesse V. Johnson, but the director once again delivers a tough, kinetic actioner, here aided…