Christian Zilko

Roommates has a real chance at being a formative experience for someone, which is more than a lot of movies can say. But those of us who have already been sufficiently formed? We can find better things to stream this weekend.

Indie films about indie filmmaking are a tired trope for a reason, but it brings me pleasure to say that The Travel Companion is one of the better ones in recent years.

But aside from calling for some bland common sense regulations that should be uncontroversial to any sane person, Roher doesn’t attempt to make anyone agree with him. After all of the information is presented, the film is much more interested in exploring the human story of how each of us has to wrap our own mind around an impossibly large topic.

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is best understood as a basket of jokes and non sequiturs that simply need some kind of framework to keep things semi-coherent. That’s a compliment, of course, as these are very, very funny jokes.

Simply put, Buddy is everything you could want from a midnight movie. It gets harder and harder to find something that feels fresh enough to be truly shocking and executed competently enough to transcend its gimmicks, and we should all celebrate when we find one.

Unfortunately, Undertone is far more interesting as a phenomenon than an actual movie. Tuason and company deserve to be commended for telling a narrative film on such a small scale, but the finished product fails to deliver a conclusion that’s scary enough to justify its lethargic, slow-burn format.

If King Hamlet has any legacy as a film, it will likely be as a comfort watch for Isaac’s superfans and Shakespeare devotees. It won’t be joining the canon of great nonfiction cinema, but I have no doubt that many viewers will find that watching a shirtless Oscar Isaac play with an adorable baby while quoting Shakespeare is a great use of 89 minutes.

Amid all the barbarity for barbarity’s sake, Jonsson carries the film with a deep well of unspoken regret.

Even if it occasionally makes you crave more narrative heft or elaboration about the facilities it discusses, the film is a vital work of public service that demonstrates why we can’t cure these social ills by simply throwing more money at them.

Most of all, it’s about the depressing reality that some of us are capable of holding both of those extreme views about a person without noticing any level of contradiction. There might be no fixing such a fundamental flaw in the human condition, but “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo” does an admirable enough job of dramatizing it.

The White House Effect largely steers clear of overly simplistic narratives about politicians exclusively making decisions to serve whatever special interests whose “pockets” they happen to be in. But it doesn’t shy away from the role that the oil industry played in turning a party that initially seemed interested in fighting climate change into one that has spent nearly half a century adamantly denying it.

It’s not clear where else the series has to go — both in terms of the character’s journey and the fact that Finland only had so many geopolitical foes in the 1940s — but if the story ends here, our journey with Aatami will have been a satisfying one.

Perhaps a better film would have prioritized more of the personal over the universal and formulaic, but “Belén” seems more interested in being a rallying cry than a character study. On that count, it will almost certainly succeed, and audiences around the world might soon be chanting “I am Belén” as loudly as Argentine women did in 2017.

Rather than mock their small-time dealings or direct them to chase brighter lights, “Song Sung Blue” treats Mike and Claire’s pursuit of tribute band glory as a sufficient driving force for a meaningful life. This isn’t a story about how you’re never too old to chase your wildest dreams and play in the big leagues; it’s about how there shouldn’t be any shame in realizing that you are.

The arc of time is long, but it bends toward justice, The Eyes of Ghana argues, and movies can help bend it a little further.

Ultimately, The French Italian has far more to say about navigating the mundanities of a stable and pleasant relationship in your thirties than about theatre, revenge, or noisy neighbors.

Obsession should keep everyone awake long after they get home from seeing it.

The Last Viking elegantly juxtaposes the ludicrousness of the situation (one of the funniest side plots is Werner’s avid Beatle fandom and his apparently sincere belief that this makeshift band is going to deliver high quality covers) with the trauma that underscores the ridiculousness events.

The director does an excellent job of nailing the small details required to translate Shakespeare’s verse into the realism of film.

Even with a ridiculously fun premise and more than a few twists, the film never fully regains its initial suspense after the bomb explodes relatively early in the film.

Charlie Harper is the kind of film whose impact will always be the strongest as you’re walking out of the theater. The lack of originality and occasional on-the-nose dialogue cancel out most of its rewatch value, but it’s hard not to be affected in the moment by the sincerity of its storytelling and the chemistry between Robinson and Jones.

The Baltimorons makes a solid argument that every one of us is only a dental catastrophe away from turning everything around.

Indie animation remains one of the toughest niches to find traction in, but here’s hoping “Boys Go to Jupiter” launches the film career of an artist who graces us with his whimsy for decades to come.

Sometimes Souleymane feels like he’s sprinting through a race with no finish line, and sometimes he’s running into an unmovable brick wall. The film exists in the space between those opposing outcomes, and its contradictions become its greatest strength as it depicts the endless exhaustion of navigating a system that doesn’t care about you nearly as much as it claims to.

By turning the tables and making a Black woman the landowner, the filmmaker manages to both subvert the past and illustrate the same economic forces that led to all the inequality we still face in the real world. It all makes for a fitting Fourth of July weekend viewing, with plenty of cannibal combat thrown in for good measure.

On its own terms, “Ice Road: Vengeance” is not a terrible movie. Neeson’s mediations on finding ways to grieve without putting your entire life on hold offer more emotional depth than you’re likely to find in any direct-to-VOD action movie with “Vengeance” in its title.

For a film that treats historical realism as a primary selling point, The Ritual has no real grounds on which to assert that it’s less fantastical than any of the better exorcism movies out there.

Boonbunchachoke has made a darkly hilarious film that deserves to be remembered for much more than its shock value.