Carlos Aguilar

While Homeroom is far more contained in length and scope than a Frederick Wiseman opus, the way editors Rebecca Adorno and Kristina Motwani construct a narrative from a seemingly free-flowing assembly produces a similarly immersive viewing experience, as if one was wandering the school shrouded in an invisibility cloak.

True to its title, Baena’s latest takes us through more than a few tonal twists and plot turns, even if they don’t always land smoothly or humorously, in its exploration of how fooling oneself into believing a fantastical fiction can provide dangerous respite from a bland, ordinary reality.

Subtlety has never been one of Jeunet’s tools, and the comedy in Bigbug is enjoyably over-the-top, occasionally a bit too mannered, and often laugh-out-loud funny.

Through Balvín’s plights, Heineman invites us to consider how entertainers have become commodified and disassociated from their humanity in our eyes. That’s not a cry for pity or compassion, but to investigate our expectations of them as people and not solely as distant figures.

With enough enjoyable originality to differentiate it from the numerous takes on the super men and wonder women that so heavily populate film and TV these days, We Can Be Heroes flies Rodriguez back to one of his main areas of interest.

As engrossing as it’s alarming, the documentary flows with a stream of consciousness about the illusion of the “Chinese Dream.”

Sundown doesn’t subvert what we’ve come to expect from Franco’s work, but it is still a distinctively cerebral rumination.

But in spite of its form not being as compelling as its subjects, Rebel Hearts is still an inspired and inspirational recounting of a historical moment and the women at the center of it.

Though some elements read forcedly wedged in for thematic potency, “Plainclothes” feels seductively alive when Lucas and Andrew are alone together—either under the warm lights of the movie theater, where their shadows betray them, or as their hands touch the other’s body inside a lonely greenhouse.

What prevents this life-affirming account from turning boringly saccharine is the caliber of humanity that Hawkins lends Philippa.

Co-directors Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt exalt the professional and personal life of Jazz musician Billy Tipton in No Ordinary Man, and avoid simplification of the trans masculine experience.

Both a restaurant makeover journey and the portrait of a child who grew up to have enough cash to purchase his personal Disneyland, this amusing documentary bears witness to Parker’s at-all-costs mentality, even when the more advisable choice would be to abandon the project.

For all its otherworldly beauty, “Utama” could benefit from slightly more robust dramatic beats to complement the hyper-sensorial experience that imbues in the spectator, especially in addressing the displacement of Indigenous communities across the Americas and beyond.

Through some of the screenplay’s slight formulaic stumbles, it’s Gallo’s charmingly fierce performance that anchors all the loose pieces.

The more heightened aspects of this genre piece don’t feel of place thanks to both lead performers operating with remarkable subtlety.

While Zeman’s enthusiasm is occasionally infectious, his conjectures, explained in voiceover, are riddled with platitudes and self-centered sound bites that say more about an egotistical need to be the first at something, to be the one who found 52, than about our connection with our large swimming counterparts.

Although Rotting in the Sun isn’t revelatory about how little those in the higher echelons of society think about the tribulations of average people, the movie’s forceful way of expressing it achieves its presumed goal: to punch up and mock the fools.

In “Pepe,” a formally imaginative and thought-igniting experimental docufiction, Dominican director Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias molds the real-life events around the hippos imported by notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar into an exciting, visually unpredictable consideration of colonialism and human hubris tinged with the fantastic.

While the on-the-nose title suggests each individual is an isolated entity...the character construction and how their respective desires intersect with one another, in tandem with an effectively dizzying atmosphere, render it more original than expected.

Misshapen parts and all, “Fortune Favors” fulfills its purpose as a joyfully eccentric tribute to personal authenticity.

Watching “Emilia Pérez” is akin to tasting a combination of substances that haven’t previously been put together, at first being taken aback by the bizarre taste but still going in for another sip.

For all its entrancing imagery, Zi is ultimately contrived in how the few concrete details of the narrative come together. The result is more experiential than thematically substantial.

Less inventive that it gives itself credit for, Free Guy qualifies as a summer blockbuster with something mildly compelling to say; not the most articulate or substantial in its exploration of its most interesting ideas, to be sure, but enjoyable nonetheless

Mahdavian’s nonfiction proposes something distinct: a subtle portrayal of non-sensational humanity.

Said maintains plausibility throughout, never plotting far-fetched tribulations, but just outrageous enough to cause the viewer to cringe nervously.

A single frame of “The Imaginary” can outshine the mass-produced, visually uninspired animation in some of the American offers targeting the same demographic.

McCarthy and editor Brian Philip Davis deploy high-voltage moments with expert timing, using the dark to their favor in refreshing fashion.

There’s no definitive verdict on pot’s attributes here, but Waldo on Weed offers reasonable hope with discerning caveats.