Benjamin Mercer

The Wailing might be a somewhat meandering and nonsensical genre recombination, but that spell never breaks over its lengthy running time.

A well-appointed period piece that nonetheless has no time for Midnight In Paris-style nostalgia.

Early in First, Khaira compares music to oxygen. The film might’ve felt a little more enlightening if all the songs had room to breathe in turn.

Almost There, made under the banner of Windy City-based doc shop Kartemquin Films (Hoop Dreams), gives Anton’s kitschy-colorful portraiture the requisite close-up, but the film quickly becomes more compelling as a protracted intervention than as an act of advocacy.

Though Farahani takes care to pose her project as both a portrait of and an intervention in Mohasses’ life, it winds up being considerably less interesting as the latter.

Nowhere the film goes is unexpected... but the plainspoken Freeheld charts a mostly admirable course there.

A lot more thought-provoking on issues of collective memory (or lack thereof) than the typical prestige picture, but it does falter dramatically in its later stretches.

Even with a runtime just barely over an hour, the shock comedy of Hellaware grows a bit numbing after a while.