Alex Saveliev

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.

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.

The filmmaker casts an unflinching eye at his broken-down subject baring his soul, atoning for his sins, and lamenting the past. There’s no way back for him. This is a trip down a rabbit hole that’s as devastating as it is transfixing.

Big Fur may be rather slight, but hey, if you ever yearned to know what the “huge difference” between a standing bear and a Sasquatch was, you’re in for a jolly good time.

In a feature filled to the brink with needles being inserted into – ahem – a variety of teenage orifices, an injection of humor would have certainly been welcome.

Gripes aside, if you’re looking for a low-key, old-school, charming-as-a-basket-of-kittens lark, give Then Came You a shot. It serves as a great reminder of Gifford’s prodigious talents – and as a hint that she may yet have more to reveal.

The idea of a fusion of these two prodigious talents, the mere notion of Wood’s multi-instrumentalist skills and love of art complemented by Figgis’ distinct visual style and jazzy vibes, is exhilarating. So it’s that much more disheartening that Figgis’ documentary, Ronnie Wood: Somebody Up There Likes Me, somehow ended up so damn perfunctory.

Lee has created a cinematic microcosm – atmospheric, containing powerful scenes, driven by some committed performances – that forgets to make a coherent point. The titular curse seems to be that of narrative ambiguity.

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.

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.

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.

Say what you will about Cactus Jack, but the fact that it’s extraordinarily unsettling cannot be denied. If you find yourself relating to any second of its purposefully hateful narrative, you may want to immediately call your local psychiatrist.

Breaking Surface boasts a verisimilitude lacking in its glossier Hollywood counterparts. Hedén doesn’t resort to gimmicks like sharks (ahem, except for that dog), rightfully trusting that Nature’s elements present a formidable enough foe to his two strong female leads.

A hope for pleasure is almost as enjoyable as the pleasure itself,” a character quotes Shakespeare at one point. I didn’t derive any pleasure in hoping for pleasure while watching Esau – and man, did I hope.

A soulful soliloquy about the fragility of memory and starting over, Brian Cavallaro’s 32 Weeks sails along smoothly until a storm of an ending sends it sinking into melodramatic—and oddly gruesome— depths.

Survival Skills has so much going for it, one may feel tempted to go along for the ride, bumps and all.

Yang seems to have embarked on his own writer’s odyssey, going for broke, with a substantial studio budget to help visualize his dreams. There’s no doubting the creativity he displays in A Writer’s Odyssey; he could, however, work on coherence and restraint.

If you enjoy being sober around your trippin’ buddies, then Tyger Tyger may be for you, but you’re much more likely to feel left out.

The Parish does not even attempt to avoid sentimentality or predictability. Tony Tibbet’s awkward editing reveals a man doing his best to mask budgetary, directorial, and auditory blunders.

Klein’s decision to pull a Kramer vs. Kramer and provide his heroine with next-to-no discernible rationale for bailing on her family both pays off and becomes a minor hindrance.

Consisting of three segments, this hit-and-miss cinematic jumble imagines our world being taken over by the titular otherworldly gateways. Their origins and purpose remain ambiguous throughout, which some may find tantalizing, while others will deem infuriating.

While admirable in its ambition, the end result just doesn’t quite gel. Cool poster, though.

When the film isn’t deafening you with the sounds of bullets and screams, it revels in silence, in birdsong, in the buzzing of flies, in the tranquil sounds of nature. These sequences are captured beautifully by cinematographer Andrew Commis, Arnhem Land’s emerald ponds and breathtaking vistas forming a stark contrast to the bloodshed and fire and chaos.

For a sci-fi feature, it’s certainly not visually-stimulating; perhaps it would’ve worked better as an audio-book.

The result is tonally-uneven and predictable, down to its lame stabs at exploring xenophobia.

Don’t come looking for scares either: possessed narcissistic actors choking themselves over and over isn’t all that frightening. The script, by Luke Baines and Nick Simon, just can’t find any new, intriguing ground to cover. As a comedy, however, the feature is infinitely more effective.

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.

The director speaks to the beauty and longevity of cinema and the power and resilience of our past. But it's that interplay between sound and sight that proves the most penetrating. No talking head, or eloquent analysis, could be as powerful as that uncanny synthesis.