Ben Croll

Though adapted from the book (and life) of William S. Burroughs, this carnal film builds just as much on the filmmaker’s ongoing interest in unmet desire, finding greater ecstasy in the wait than in the act.

Don’t let the name fool you: April is a wintery affair. By far the most uncompromising vision to play at this year’s Venice Film Festival, director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s slow cinema horror show might also be the most audacious.

The Order might be the filmmaker’s most accomplished work to date, offsetting a kind of broody fatalism against natural splendor, and punctuating the bloody affair with an action beat.

Taken as a whole, The Brutalist both mourns and celebrates American ambition –the ambitions of an immigrant class trying for a new life with no guarantee of success, and the ambitions of a filmmaker filling a canvas with a lifetime of obsessions.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice goes all-in on the legacy front, offering everything you want and less, playing as a Burton buffet that leaves you stuffed if not quite satisfied, and in no real hurry to go back for thirds.

Like a sheep in wolf’s clothing, Halina Reijn’s surprisingly genteel Babygirl might bare the occasional fang, but it doesn’t have much bite.

Those with buy-in might find themselves won over, as, on its own terms, Marcello Mio offers a heartfelt and even occasionally moving show of artistic trust and collaboration, playing as an unambiguous love note from a filmmaker to his favorite star.

We take frequent and foolish pleasure watching the four charismatic leads brush up against one another while bristling against their assigned roles, with the film giving performer time to shine.

The self-contained “Treasure” ambles along on the strength of a fine, self-contained script and two winning performers, without ever reflecting or commenting on the historical weight it sets out to explore.

You’re grateful for the time spent with a genuine epic of ideas and rueful that such heady themes weren’t more fully explored in a better film.

Viewed under the right conditions — that is to say, late at night, in a certain headspace and surrounded by an audience of fellow travelers ready to take the ride – “Cuckoo” will offer an awful lot of big-screen fun. Only those external factors are nearly necessary to meet an overeager film with only one note to play.

Small Things Like Things is a modest gem.

The director’s comfort with the more placid rhythms of arthouse animation results in some appealing detours whenever the frenetic narrative stops to feel the breeze.

This slight-but-winning confection will have little effect on the controversial director’s galvanizing public image but, after a string of stuffy disappointments, Coup de Chance will offer comfort to the filmmaker’s many completists – especially given Allen’s intimation that this 50th film might well be his last.

If Dogman has very little to say, it coasts on style amiably enough, showcasing another gonzo turn from Caleb Landry Jones, and presaging Luc Besson’s return. For good or ill, this old mutt still has some bite.

A peak-performance engine running wholly on charisma, Richard Linklater’s Hit Man revives and revitalizes a genre in awfully short supply.

If The Killer is chilly-to-the-touch and anchored by a quiet and intensely physical performance by Fassbender, the filmmakers nevertheless wring an awful lot of wit from this frigid world.

Like any good conductor, Cooper knows that the smallest of gestures elicits the most thunderous response.

That the film remains witty and wise throughout its most lurid stretches makes the Venice Golden Lion contender one of the year’s most unexpected heart-warmers. That the filmmakers lavish commensurate attention on all those bawdy embellishments also guarantees you a bloody good time along the way.

Given the film’s abridged runtime and its genuine playfulness, even Wes-skeptics might find themselves cracking a wry grin from time to time.

It should come with little surprise that Ferrari astounds when Mann’s focus narrows to pure gear-head reverie; unfortunately, in between the film’s narrative engine often sputters and stalls.

Though he finds little room for subtlety and even less interest in complex moral shadings, director Edoardo De Angelis can still ably wring tension from this brave, if foolhardy, mission, spinning his camera around ever-cramped quarters as the two crews, enemies-turned-shipmates, navigate uncharted terrain.

With story beats and character turns that strain well beyond familiarity, Elemental matches formal adventure with storytelling timidity. Here is a new spin on the old formula, livened up by advances in technology and delivered with real artistry. The film is full of complex and volatile parts, all held together in the most elemental of containers.

Like a Brueghel or a Bosch, Youth (Spring) is less an individual portrait than a bustling portrayal of types — lovesick fools and weary old souls, agitators and wallflowers, peacocks and young parents-to-be, all united and made equal by the same shared and endless labor and the same cramped living quarters. And all of them — but for two outliers — united by age.

Corsini has delivered a wonderful film, a beautifully calibrated coming-of-age drama that ever so elegantly flutters questions of race, class, guilt and opportunity through a seaside summer breeze.

As it calls the institution of marriage to the stand, Triet’s piercing film holds the ambient tensions and illogical loose ends of domestic life against the harsh and rational light of a legal system that searches for order in chaos.

Neither provocation nor counter-point, The Zone of Interest is instead a furtherance, a new take on an ungraspable madness we must never let ourselves forget.

More frustrating than a misfire, “Jeanne du Barry” suffers instead from near total myopia, roaring to life with wit and ingenuity when the constellations align and the lead’s star can shine, and dwindling before the risk of any possible eclipse. The film burns hot and bright — and quickly flames out.