Alex Saveliev

Whether you’ll have a blast with this beat has nothing to do with your affinity for metal music and everything to do with your tolerance for “heart-on-the-sleeve” independent filmmaking.

Few seasoned filmmakers can boast the lightness of touch, the comedic timing, and proficiency with an ensemble cast that the 21-year-old Lindon so nonchalantly possesses. The film would’ve been a treat if it were made by an established auteur; the fact that a complete newcomer concocted the entire thing makes it even more impressive.

Here’s something you haven’t seen before, masquerading as something you have 1,000 times. It may be a one-trick pony, but it’s well worth the ride when the pony is this unhinged.

Dermer maintains a bittersweet tone, a gentle mix of levity and pathos. He studies the complexities of friendships, dealing with loss, looking at life as if for the first time, living each day as if it were your last, letting go, and trusting people more. He poses some intriguing questions.

It may not be perfectly executed, or original in its approach, or particularly memorable, but McGuire’s poignant film possesses an arguably more important trait: it’s totally honest, wearing its heart on its thick parka sleeve.

Spare and laconic almost to a fault, the film nevertheless haunts with its indelible imagery and enigmatic vibes.

"To elevate, to celebrate, to inspire,” another character states about the function of art. Rana and Warin’s film may not be perfect, but it does all three of those things rather effectively.

Does it lose focus from time to time? Sure, and its cumulative effect suffers because of it, but Drljača nails the little moments that matter.

There’s nothing spectacular about any of this, but it’s heartfelt and well done.

Clearly a deeply personal project for the director, it radiates utmost sincerity, rendering the more baroque parts palatable, if not as affecting as they were clearly intended to be. Within 90 despondent minutes, Dante encapsulates a plethora of themes and ideas, and that by itself merits plaudits.

Mehta skillfully navigates both the tender sequences and the more devastating ones. Aided by Howard Shore's rousing musical score, she portrays a beautiful country ripped apart by social violence. Her film serves as an ode to those who either died or were forced into exile for having the courage to express their true identities.

Really Love subtly explores and juxtaposes the numerous obstacles Black people face when it comes to discovering their identity, transcending stereotypes, overcoming familial influence, being in charge – and it studies those issues through the colorful and forlorn and often lovely prism of Art.

Stewart commands the screen in a fierce performance, effortlessly elevating the material with a few poignant glances and teeth-clenched determination.

It may not quite reach the heights of Fargo, but if you enjoyed Cold Pursuit or the inferior-but-similar Daughter of the Wolf, then Blood and Money will be right up your dirt road.

What keeps you rapt is that permeating, subtle feeling of sadness, of bitterness and regret. Whether it was an intentional choice in a “comeback” documentary remains debatable – but that’s what truly works about it, is its driving momentum.

Into the Darkness serves as a keen portrait of a deeply divided country, unsure of where its allegiance lies. Heavy-handed and slow-moving at times, further bogged down by extended speeches about the future of Denmark’s economy/industry, this behemoth nevertheless impresses, simply due to the sophistication of it all.

Kudos to Max for conjuring genuinely unsettling, Boschian images with a limited budget.

Boasting a formidable cast and a keen eye for detail, Killing Eleanor makes it easy to forgive its flaws. Marks deserves major props for making an old story seem fresh again. Here's hoping her next tale won't be so old.

While his previous drama, The Road to Mandalay, showcased his keen eye for social realism, Nina Wu is suffused with visual poetry – all stark-reds and grainy yellows – and a dream-like (or nightmarish, depending on how you view it) atmosphere. It’s a portrait of a country experiencing significant sociopolitical changes. By focusing on its filmmaking industry, Z takes advantage of the opportunity to experiment visually, thematically, and narratively – at times, to the film’s detriment.

Visceral, visually assured, and thematically sound, Tainted functions as a great calling card for its skilled filmmaker. If you’re in the mood for yet another treatise on our penchant for savagery, delve right in.

Higashide effortlessly switches between the two polar-opposite men, both utterly convincing.

While it may raise more questions than answers and not quite cohere as a whole, the film nevertheless is poetic and at times breathtakingly beautiful, anchored by a superb cast.

Paradise Hills has pacing issues, and a made-for-TV feel it can’t quite escape. A firmer grasp of tone would’ve benefited the narrative. Yet its creators’ boundless imagination carries it through the rougher patches.

It’s an easy target that’s been cinematically dissected many times, with the recent Nocturnal Animals and Velvet Buzzsaw coming to mind... Yet Grant manages to explore the subject from some enticing angles. The resulting painting may be a bit too busy to qualify as genius but contains brushstrokes so vivid it’s certainly worth scrutinizing.

A mostly-smooth, sometimes-uneasy blend of pitch-black drama and absurdist comedy, Sunlight may follow the age-old “road-trip movie” structure, but it fully commits to an offbeat, non-sequitur style/logic that will either compel or repel audiences.

The dialogue is biting, crisp, smart, and frequently heartbreaking. It’s disappointing, then, that the narrative drags in places, particularly in the middle stretch. Brevity is key here; it all just becomes too much.

Like its Russian hero, it aims for the stars and at times reaches exhilarating moments of weightlessness.

In his inevitable next feature, Cronenberg could use more, dare I say, logic and warmth, to counterbalance all the madness and viscera. Otherwise, gorehounds and cineastes: dive right into this viscous pool.

Perhaps most compellingly, it’s a reminder to open our eyes, to notice the bigger world around us for what it is, to see who we really are. Toussi never preaches, gently luring you into an utterly tranquil state, wherein you may just find yourself booking a ticket to Colombia.

The White Crow demonstrates that, if perhaps not having yet mastered all of the nuances of directing an artful biopic, Fiennes possesses a keen eye for detail – and the man just can’t help but exude sophistication.

The film teeters on a fine line between soulful triumph and B-movie cheese.

I’ll take a bold if misshapen curiosity such as this over safe Hollywood fare any day.

While the sequences involving Robert attempting to confront his dying wife are certainly heart-rending (perhaps a tad too forcefully), the movie’s most sublime moments happen in the present, when Putnam focuses on the man’s recovery. The bits where Robert encounters the insects he’s after are as magical and ephemeral as said butterflies.

Manifesting and examining every parent’s worst fear, and bound to spark debate, this M.O.M. packs some acid with your lunch.

Them That Follow is a dark and richly atmospheric experience. Despite its missteps, this is one snake-infested cinematic pit worth investigating.

A bit too somber and detached for its own good, Human Factors nevertheless marks another strong entry from a filmmaker who – after several shorts, a documentary, and one other feature – is just getting started.

Were it not for a few missteps, coupled with an abrupt resolution that doesn’t do justice to the preceding depth, Doyle would have had a little gem on his hands. As it stands, I almost love Almost Love.

The young romance sub-plot may be a tad unnecessary, and the film ends up rather slight and anticlimactic despite the hefty subject matter. There’s no denying Huston’s mastery though, both behind and in front of the camera. Here’s to the filmmaker adding more vivid gems to his already-impressive portfolio.

We may not learn about Casanova the gambler or the spy, but we get to see a vulnerable side previously unexposed.

The entirety of Give Me Pity! is more of an artistic treatise, a museum piece, a series of single-woman monologues, than a coherent, you know, film, and that’s clearly the intention. One can do a lot worse than take a look inside Kramer’s head, and this one makes her other explorations of humanity, Please Baby Please and Ladyworld, seem positively conventional. Quite the feat.

It comes as no surprise that Rasmussen worked on productions like Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, a clear visual and stylistic inspiration for Ghabe. Coupled with Ehsan Kalantarpour and Ida Sundqvist’s otherworldly score, Castro and his team intermittently achieve a transcendent effect.

Fans of Roth will gobble, gobble this up.

It feels timely and urgent, and its phenomenal young heroine ensures it doesn’t become overly mawkish, preachy, or prosaic.

Among Wolves is a subliminally powerful – if perhaps a tad too minimalist – statement on achieving redemption in a seemingly doomed place.

Morris utilizes psychedelic neon colors, bold titles, and a hallucinatory score to emphasize the craziness of her life. He has devilish fun piecing together Joanna’s fractured past. It just feels like, in his search for Truth, he’s lost his way a little this time.

It’s well-structured, handsomely shot, and features some impressive acting. The thing is there’s just not that much to make it stand out from the crowd either.

While not as insightful as his previous work, Halston doesn’t blemish Tcheng’s resume either, providing a perfectly enjoyable – if inconsequential – portrait of a larger-than-life public figure. Fashionistas will surely gulp this up, while the rest of us may ultimately dismiss it as yet another glamorized, facile look into a glamorized, facile industry.

Kitarô Kôsaka’s light-hearted and contagiously joyful film contains just enough beautiful imagery, positive messages of acceptance and touching moments to warrant a look.

Salvable fully embraces its bleakness, its title almost mocking; there’s no salvation here. If it had a bit more originality or verve, it could potentially have pulled it off.

In its attempts to mirror the abbreviated sentiments of the current social media culture, the doc becomes an abridged version of a statement.

I’ve Got Issues brings to mind the zaniness of Quentin Dupieux, with a dash of Todd Solondz’s existentialism and the off-kilter freestyle nature of David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s stuff. If you find one of the bits redundant, its brevity ensures another one is coming right up.

Mrs. Lowry and Son has an appealing old-school charm and two performances that make it worth seeing.

The ambiguity in this glacially-paced but atmospheric and at times striking little film doesn’t so much tantalize as frustrate – only because the filmmaker duo approaches something so much deeper, wiser, and subtler.

As it stands, it should keep survival fans satiated, mystery fans somewhat aggravated, and those expecting dry stuff, well, utterly baffled.

The film’s messages are spelled out in big, bold letters. The tone and pace are, at times inconsistent, making for a somewhat-meandering flow. Nineteen Summers could have easily been 30 minutes shorter to avoid those dips in momentum. However, newcomer Emonjay Brown shines as DeAndre, by turns affectionate, resolute, angry at the system and himself.

The Sylvester Stallone-produced film categorically lacks any surprises and frequently devolves into mushy melodrama. Still, as a family-friendly story of survival in the wilderness, it gets the job done… just.

It strives as hard for authenticity as its protagonist does to remain relevant; the strain shows.

For all its claims to be rebellious, Good Boys is surprisingly tame by today’s standards.

Those individual, deeply felt, beautiful moments sadly fail to add up to a deeply felt, beautiful whole. As such, Revoir Paris gets a B- for effort.

Welcome to Acapulco – at least partially – warrants your investment. It may not reach levels of great trash, but it sure aspires to such, and is always watchable, if only for the sight of thespians hamming it up for a buck. Here’s (vainly) hoping that Welcome to Acapulco will put those fallen legends back on the map.

This is pure cinematic meditation, requiring a surrender to its languid tempo and hallucinatory vibes.

If you happen to be in the mindset for a long, leisurely, spiritual cinematic rumination about the fragility of life, the futility of our professional pursuits, the power of femininity, and the sheer bliss of living in the moment, then delve right in. The writer and director’s aim is not to shock or devastate, nor elicit any strong reaction, but to make one ponder the Meaning of It All.

Yes, it’s all uber-violent, in-your-face, completely lacking sophistication – but I’ll be damned if it’s not entertaining.

Those looking for a message are missing the point. Grennan’s goal is to literally ravage your senses, leave you breathless and ashamed of humanity.

Part of the reason Condor’s Nest works as well as it does is that none of it feels forced or showy. Blattenberger truly set out to make a kick-ass WWII flick, albeit with his tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Silly and scary, atmospheric and disjointed, I Trapped the Devil showcases Lobo’s affection for the genre. He wisely avoids falling into the “gore” trap, instead relying on characterization and our fear of the unknown to raise the hair on the back of your neck.

There are worse ways to pass 90 minutes for those willing to disregard the film’s numerous, glaring flaws. Call it a Chinese Mission Impossible, minus Ethan Hunt’s budget and brains.

It’s a reminder of human resilience that manages to be both powerful and deeply flawed.

It’s all very granola and sentimental, a path well-trodden.

With a little more filmmaking flair, or drive, or a fresh perspective, East of the Mountains could’ve been a real gem. Instead, it’s a decent little character study about a man facing death, worth a look for the magnificent central performance alone.

Coupled with a few inspired moments and an earnestness that’s hard to dismiss, the film manages, just barely, to stand out from the rest.

This ballad falls right into the singular category of “so bad, it’s good,” a low-budget, highfalutin, bold, wildly overacted, and at times oddly lyrical gem that ought not to be overlooked.