Dan Mecca

The film serves as a lovely reminder of why art is important, how watching something can make you feel, make you understand, make you consider.

Cutting Through Rocks, like its subject, is resilient. The film is ultimately the sum of small, powerful moments.

The cancer-diagnosis plot device is certainly well-worn and can often be viciously maudlin, but Haley does well in utilizing it as a means to work on something a bit more nuanced.

It often feels like a Barbara Hammer film itself while evolving into a sharp, clever montage that moves fast and entertains throughout. It’s funny and disarming and, ultimately, quietly uplifting.

Do not let the brief runtime or spartan setting dissuade you. This is nuanced drama, well-felt and well-told.

There is life and death in every single frame of City of Ghosts, not to be easily forgotten.

Kranz succeeds in finding understanding in the unthinkable.

Johnston and company are aware that introducing a hero means more than showing off his suit and gadgets or building up the universe he will eventually encapsulate. Before any of that, we must care about who he/she is.

The majority of the film is driven by Riefenstahl’s own voice from various recordings. She often comes across as charming and intelligent. That is, of course, what makes her decades of denials and lies all the more disturbing.

Simultaneously, Cyrano feels like something new and something old. The best of both worlds.

Miller’s New York, full of academics who still have the capacity to act like children, isn’t exactly new, but plenty fascinating.

Bittersweet, touching and always funny, The Farewell is lived-in from top to toe.

Any pain is endured and ultimately enjoyed (save the insane gags Knoxville pulls), allowing audiences a guilt-free good time at the movies. It may not be smart, but the feeling of joy sure as hell ain’t stupid.

Aesthetically and dramatically, Tantura is a fairly straightforward piece of work, and this is appreciated. We are being presented with the facts as the filmmakers see them. Schwarz and his collaborators acknowledge Katz and the complications of his word, while also letting us hear the admissions from the soldiers themselves.

A Still Small Voice captures good people doing their best to navigate constant crisis. The struggle will linger with you for some time.

An essential watch for cinephiles and beyond, let Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché be the first step in your discovery of a talented artist that had as much to do with the innovation of cinema as those already firmly established in the canon of the craft.

Together, writer/director Joseph Cedar and lead actor Richard Gere craft a singularly memorable character in Norman Oppenheimer.

Starring an against-type and utterly fascinating Michelle Pfeiffer as the titular Kyra, the film narrows in on the tragedy of getting old in America.

There are few things better than when a good idea blossoms into a great movie. It’s What’s Inside, written and directed by Greg Jardin, achieves this rare feat.

The prison drama is a well-worn sub-genre, ripe with predictive beats and expected narrative turns. Those behind this picture are determined to subvert those expectations, and the attempt–though not fully realized–is much appreciated.

There is a clarity to every performance from start to finish, from Roberts all the way down. Yes, the thriller elements that are introduced never fully connect with the tone of the overall experience, but it’s a minuscule criticism.

As the survivors of these schools grow older and pass on, this film should remind future generations on whose hands the blood rests. More must be done, but it’s a start.

Huda’s Salon recalls Hollywood mysteries from the 1940s in both its brisk pace and disarmingly simple style, resulting in a sparse, intelligent thriller.

What starts as a documentary about film reels discovered near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge becomes a chronicle of the Soviet Union through the lens of a popular actor’s successes and failures.

Wright the filmmaker wrings out one of Wright the actor’s career-best performances.

Choe shows a deft hand in her brevity and economy of action. So little happens yet it matters so much.

One sincerely hopes that this is the first of many collaborations between Viswanathan and Baig. Rarely do those behind the camera feel as sync with those in front of the camera as what is conveyed in Hala.

In so many ways, A Haunting in Venice feels like some sort of culmination.