Andy Howell

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.