Christian Gallichio

Even with the notable gaps in Dalla’s story and slight storytelling, For Lucio works as a professional, if not precisely personal, introduction to the renowned musician, showcasing how his songs reflected a country that was grappling with class struggles and an identity crisis during the 1970s.

While the ending––a weird collage that attempts to recontextualize the story that came before it––will probably be the main talking point, it’s also the least-interesting component of Erkman’s feature. Instead, it’s the bifurcated structure that lends itself to a compelling, albeit frustrating narrative.

In digging up what seems to be his own personal history, Honoré doesn’t trust the audience fully to fill in those silences.

A scattered, occasionally galvanizing, call to arms, To The End paints in broad strokes. Yet, when it lands, which it often does when focused on the sheer doggedness of its protagonists, Lears’ film replicates the simultaneous enthusiasm and indignation that propels these activists to continue working.

Not all choices that Williams and Jones make pay off—including a late-act decision to explicitly spell out the reasons Cadi is seeking revenge—but The Feast is a compelling addition to the burgeoning genre of eco-horror, one of the more gruesome, nasty films in recent memory.

This Land often feels like a simplified (but not unwelcome) plea for sentimentality— its observational approach essentially diffuses any political reading. It’s odd to watch a film so invested in the rhythms of politics that is also strangely apolitical.

While Trocker attempts to connect the form to the content of the film, he gets lost in his formalist conceits, never creating fully realized characters to hold the weight of his structural choices.

If anything, the murder is tertiary to the gossipy takes and fanciful camera work — this film is built around vibes, right down to its pulsating score by the electronic musician Koreless and its dancehall end credits.

When the film firmly goes off the rails in the second act, [Cronenberg] still showcases an ability to play up tension as the four children hunt each other in the expansive mansion. In isolation, the bifurcation works but, taken together, it suggests an underbaked concept that was never fully realized and, alternatively, a slasher that never makes its characters feel human.

Featuring pointedly jagged performances from James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan, the only characters in film besides their son Arthur (Samuel Logan), who moves around the film, and frame’s, periphery, Together is an occasionally slight, but nevertheless riveting showcase for the actors and Kelly’s decidedly unsentimental script.

Those Who Wish Me Dead is a violent, enjoyable action film that doesn’t aspire to preach. Instead, the film foregrounds Angelina Jolie reclaiming her title as a preeminent action star, moving at such an energetic speed that by the time you start to think about the sheer insanity of the plot, the credits are already rolling.

Unfortunately, as its title implies, Meat the Future is more glorified advertisement than deep-dive into the clean-meat movement.

It’s never anything less than an insightful watch, which doesn’t exactly make it memorable.

Body Parts has too many ideas running through it to cohere around an effective thesis statement, framing the entire narrative as one of linear progress toward inclusion. It unravels in too many different directions, cramming in first-person testimony, historical overview, and social context into a too-short runtime.

While compelling in individual scenes, especially as the boys navigate their increased anger at the world, Beautiful Beings ultimately whiplashes between too many ideas and subplots to create a coherent thematic through line.

Mosquito State may fall short in synthesizing its odd fusion of body-horror and cautionary Wall Street tale, but it’s nevertheless a memorably gross film that shows Rymsza should make work more often.

Return to Space is a bit too neatly packaged and overly idealistic about what SpaceX might mean for space travel. By turning their focus up to the stars, the filmmakers, unfortunately, ignore the myriad issues that private space travel creates on earth.

Somewhere within these two hours is a lean-90-minute action film that is only interested in violence and gore. Project Wolf Hunting may occasionally get bogged down in its own mythology-building, but once the kills start piling up, it’s easy to get lost in the mayhem.

In the end, The Mauritanian is an efficient procedural that condemns the Bush-era treatment of detainees more effectively than any other recent narrative film. It’s an affecting, but nevertheless tragic, watch.

Alice and the Mayor isn’t bad, per se; it’s just routine. Not radical enough to be the political call to action that it so desperately wants to be, and not fully developed enough to the character study that it eventually reverts back to, it’s a strange hybrid of a film, with the two disparate sections never really working in conjunction.

Taurus may not reach the existential heights of “Last Days,” but it’s a step in the right direction for Sutton and a continued reminder that Baker needs more roles that reflect his skill set.

In the end, Hillbilly Elegy is shameless Oscar bait only redeemed by Close and Bennett’s restrained work.

While always visually interesting, the plot fails to live up to the sheer detail of costume and set design. Waddington proves herself to be a stylish director. If only next time she can find a better script.

There’s little egregiously terrible about The Lost Husband, but a lot of the film is less than memorable. The relaxed, casual vibe is often at odds with the amount of sorrow that has seemingly crippled these characters. Yet, it’s the type of film that you already know the ending before the first scene is over.

Only time will tell if The Beanie Bubble represents the final dying gasp or merely the end of first-wave product-driven narratives. But, like Beanie Babies themselves, one hopes that this bubble will burst sooner rather than later.

When the film drifts into the larger discourse of Abercrombie’s fall, it favors simplistic answers — namely the democratization of social media — over a more critical interrogation of why Abercrombie fell, and how they are still trying to claw their way back to relevancy.

The Secrets We Keep is a film in search of a more coherent message.

The Goldfinger isn’t per se bad. It’s consistently watchable, Lau and Leung are capable actors, and the narrative––even if standardized––is interesting. But this is perfunctory in a way Infernal Affairs never was.