Andy Howell

The strength of Out of Plain Sight is that it dramatically illustrates both the importance and process of science and journalism, at a time when both are under attack.

The Eyes of Ghana leans heavily into the inspirational part of the story, and that’s understandable. Hesse is an inspiring figure, still fighting to preserve his country’s culture, restore film, and teach the younger generation, even in his 90s. But the film goes a little too hard on this point by adding soaring music and minimizing some of the complexity.

What Daniel Roher has done with well-worn forms is to use them as setups, but put them together with a twist in a way that seems fresh and exciting.

Linklater was a visionary experimenter in his youth, but now he’s grown into a true master, one able to buck the orthodoxy, not just for its own sake, but to achieve something transcendent.

The most beautiful thing about EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is that in connecting us so intimately to the man and showing him in all his complexity, Luhrmann cuts through the baggage we bring and gives us a fresh look at one of the most fascinating and accomplished musicians who has ever lived.

Daniela Forever is interesting and provokes discussion, but it stays just on the dream side of greatness.

Overall, That They May Face the Rising Sun is solid and worth your time. The acting is top-notch, and the story is compelling, but its verisimilitude is truly off the charts. This is the closest you can get to a time machine to take you to a bygone time and place that is little celebrated but worth remembering.

The film is so gloriously absurd that we are mainly driven through the narrative by the continuous reveal of new elements in this bizarre and hilarious universe. Still, when everything does come together at the end, there are some emotional payoffs that sneak up on you like a wandering turkey.

The film gets points for style, boldness, and an innovative science fiction setup.

It feels like a timeless classic. It takes us into the forbidden spaces we can’t otherwise know, not just cloistered rooms but deep into the human soul.

Where Tarantino is bold, the main shortcoming here is that Montiel plays it safe.

For better or worse, the film is more of an intellectual affair than a thriller.

Long after the last image has flickered into your eye, you’ll be left with a deeper, overarching appreciation of what humans are capable of at their best. You can’t put a price on that. Gordon and Archambault deserve a lot of credit for adapting her life in an exciting and heartfelt way.

There’s a reason 70s cinema is so revered for astounding character studies. In this age of superheroes, it is nice to have a throwback that lets us see some normal humans working out their differences the old-fashioned way — by being stuck together.

Rustin is an important story well told, with an outstanding must-see lead performance.

Lee is beautiful, daring, and elusive, as all great art should be. It’s a fitting tribute to a woman whose work exhibited the same qualities.

The success of the film mostly rests on Jessie Buckley in the lead role and her chemistry with Riz Ahmed as her potential romantic interest.

Every scene with Del Toro is magnetic — this is his best role in years. The film is worth watching for his performance alone. It is almost a modern noir, but in a fresh take, the detective has a happy relationship.

Even with everything else going for it, Ezra either fails or succeeds based on the title character’s performance, and William Fitzgerald knocks it out of the park. As with any child acting performance, Goldwyn deserves a share of the credit for getting exactly what was needed from the young actor.

Where Licorice Pizza was fun, bombastic spectacle of performances, I Like Movies is a more subtle, more human, more cohesive film with a devastating and distinctive point of view.

The set design and production value are top-notch, which makes it even more jarring that the production sounds so modern and American. It is taken to such extremes as to be its downfall. It somehow seems less believable because we’re ever aware of being manipulated. It is a shame because, in this case, the real truth was so much stranger than fiction.

Living is a good remake and a solid film on its own merits.

It raises interesting questions about cults of personality, our inability to deal with aging, and how we can use the people around us to get what we want. That’s not exactly surrealism, nor is it realism. It’s just Hollywood.

Characters are keenly observed and come front and center over the plot. Anything can happen. Absurdity reigns supreme. Yet, at the end of the day, we know a little more about the human condition after seeing it bursting at the seams.

This drama is about a real war, actual people, and things that matter. While it probably won’t make a billion dollars at the box office, for my money, a true story well told in a heartfelt way is invaluable and important.

Part of the problem with Moonage Daydream is that it is trying too hard.

Decision to Leave deals with the biggest subjects humans have to grapple with: love, sex, and death, and does so in what amounts to a serious, dramatic fashion.

The brilliance of Holy Spider is how it takes all the gripping, lurid suspense of the serial killer thriller, turns it on its head, and takes it to the next level as symbolic of a corrupted, misogynistic society.

Hold Your Fire is well constructed. It is as suspenseful as a top-notch thriller and has the added allure of being true and impactful.

2nd Chance stands right up there as a complete portrait of someone we are simultaneously repulsed by and drawn to. As such, it is one of the year’s best documentaries.

As clever as the plot is, how it comes to life is something to behold — a command to witness awesome splendor is really the only word that fits here.

Director Juho Kuosmanen excels in telling a story that seems entirely believable and realistic, never forced or predictable. The actors are equally talented.

Sometimes reality is stranger, more unbelievable, and more inspirational than fiction.

The Starling is trying to be a feel-good movie about finding hope in dark times. That’s admirable, but the main problem is that it does it in such a down-the-middle, straightforward way. As a result, there aren’t any surprises and at least a few missed opportunities. Still, Melissa McCarthy and Kevin Kline are worth the price of admission alone.

The Guilty manages to keep things interesting with a propulsive plot.

It is a worthy return to feature directing by Jane Campion and a thoroughly relevant film to our modern discourse.

Another problem with the film is the pacing. The main story is interesting enough, but it just feels padded and stretched.

Farhadi is, of course, excellent at revealing character through people thrust into morally complicated circumstances. This is achieved here through a slow build and a masterfully nuanced set of character choices.

The real tragedy is that all of the characters in Holler seem incomplete.

An important, compelling story that had to be told.

You might see Lost Transmissions just for Simon Pegg, but you’ll come away with a deeper sense of what schizophrenia is. You just might become more compassionate about people whose mental illness keeps them on the streets. And you’ll get to see a great debut feature whose nuance will keep you thinking about it for days.

It achieves that magic combination of nuance, depth, and having a big heart that makes it both a crowd-pleaser and a favorite of critics.

The director’s cut of The Current War moves at a faster pace than the original, the characters are better fleshed out, and the drama is more focused where it needs to be. The new cut has elevated the film from mediocre to interesting.

Directors Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis deserve credit for taking a gutsy leap with the subject matter and delivering without pulling any punches.

It is that kind of “inside the life of an astronaut” angle that keeps the film reasonably engaging, even if you don’t care too much about the characters.

Even though you can see the strings in the puppet act, the plight of the characters still sometimes manages to get to you.

It will stick with you long after you leave the theater. It is as moving as it is possible for a film to be.

I have a feeling Echo in the Canyon will be watched for decades into the future as the essential document of a very specific time and place that changed music forever.

ANIARA has plenty going for it — a great concept, a coherent tone, an uncompromising vision, and an ending that’s the ballsiest thing I’ve seen since AI. Sadly these virtues are undercut by some unforgivable sins — it is boring, has underdeveloped characters, and has a childlike understanding of the scientific concepts supposedly undergirding the plot. One of those could be forgivable, but all together they spell doom.

To its credit, Working Woman is laser-focused on its theme. There are no superfluous characters or side-plots. There’s no best friend to confide in, no hilarious sidekick. There’s just a woman who feels all alone like there’s no one she can trust, no one who will understand her.

Green Book is a real crowd pleaser — aside from the banter between the oppositely-minded characters, it has clear heroes and villains. The writers do manage to sneak a few nuances in, especially when discussing Shirley feeling out of place in both the white and black communities.

No amount of words that can convey the sense of the film, because it is such a gut-punch of emotion.

The lightning in a bottle you have to catch to make an epic love story work is chemistry between the leads. With one actor a relative novice, and the other trying to stretch himself and direct his first feature, the deck was stacked against them. But wow did they pull it off. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper are terrific together.