Alex Saveliev

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.