Alex Saveliev

Once attuned, you’ll be rewarded with a sharply funny and oddly heartbreaking, albeit clumsily structured, indictment of our government... Armstrong’s razor-sharp trademark one-liners go a long way in saving this Day.

Islands is as effective, familiar, and quiet as a microwave.

The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs contains many such moments of scintillating, mysterious splendor yet doesn’t entirely fulfill its lofty ambitions.

Polley attempts to tackle the issue from multiple angles – how male toxicity is passed down to helpless youth by their elders, for example – but ends up running in circles.

A grueling affair, purposefully so, bringing to mind Steve McQueen’s similarly relentless 12 Years a Slave. There’s not much respite to be found in those bloodied waters, nary a buoy to grasp.

An indictment of a regime but also a look at the strength that perseveres despite the most dire circumstances, this film, and its lead star, deserve all the upcoming love at the award circuit… if there’s any justice left in Hollywood, that is.

Marona’s Fantastic Tale gently and poetically deals with heavy themes like mortality, solitude, and loss, but manages to be suitable viewing for the entire family. It reiterates that the love our dogs have for us is unconditional and that we shouldn’t regard them as accessories or temporary means of respite. It’s also a phantasmagoric feast for the eyes. Seek it out.

The filmmaker performs an astounding feat of maintaining the perfect balance between self-awareness, alienation, warmth, comedy, and pathos. Apples is a singular experience.

Mendes finishes things on a graceful, open-ended note. He adeptly handles unabashed romanticism and raw grief, optimism and hopelessness, significantly aided by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor’s soft piano score. The music peaks during the film’s most fervent moments, both violent (a protest during the climax) and tender (our heroes climaxing in each other’s embrace).

Supremely entertaining and hilarious, First Love will melt your brains, punch you in the gut and leave your hearts a-flutter.

While maybe not top-tier Jarmusch, the film certainly marks his most mature effort to date.

The fact that it purports to function as a not-so-thinly-veiled parable about the limitlessness of sexuality, gender fluidity, and the marginalized makes it that much more unbearable.

Political intrigues, potential murder plots – oh, and Putin’s rise-to-power and consequent 18-year-reign – Gibney serves it up, warts and all.

Polsky packs a lot into the film’s slim 80-minute running time. It’s dense but never overwhelming, presenting facts and anecdotes in a coherent, intuitive, supremely entertaining fashion.

Although Soderbergh complicates his cinematic dish with too many flavors, No Sudden Move still offers plenty of bites to savor.

Don’t come in expecting high-stakes melodrama, soul-twisting resolutions, or fiery exchanges. This is one of those meditative films about a fragment of life, wherein we find distinct familiarities. It demands that we slow down and appreciate its leisurely pace, its elegiac/humorous tone – and primarily, its lead performance.

The true-to-life repartee between the leads – at times tender, at others snappy, one minute heated, brutally cold the next – is a joy to behold.

Though Farewell Amor is not a “dance movie", it’s primarily about that moment when we dance - when everything else falls away, Amor takes over, and we bid our troubles farewell.

The two actors are bound to be showered with awards, as is the production design, the polished script, etc. But there’s no intrigue, no real substance beneath all the gloss.

Whether you like blues or not, you’ll appreciate the musicianship on display here. Inspired and inspiring, Satan & Adam will make you thank the heavens for this legendary duo.

A reminder of the importance and intimacy of literature, a meta-study of art vs. fabrication, an indictment of cultural appropriation/racial stereotypes, our increasingly digitized world and entitled generation, The Plagiarists is also an ode to how much can be done with very little. Parlow and his crew knock it out of the park.

Ozon knows his camera placements, musical cues, and, of course, actors, and here he barely steps wrong, pulling us into the narrative, even while dialing back on his usual extravagance.

By simply witnessing the grandeur of the sea, by allowing us to glimpse that symbiosis between ocean and universe, the film ends up resonating powerfully, a feast that will stimulate both the eye and the cerebral cortex.

There may be a lot going on here, but none of it sticks; there’s no momentum or a sense of purpose. In other words, Swift fails to achieve lift-off, over and over.

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

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

He and Côté write an ode to human resilience; they compose a soliloquy about lost identities; they paint a portrait of people seeking meaning, guidance, warmth. The result is a soulful cinematic treatise on the gradual, painful loss of a city’s soul.

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.