Gary Goldstein

That Kasbe, who also shot and co-edited, so firmly embedded himself in this distant, hardscrabble world results in a wealth of candid, you-are-there moments that highlight the complex intersection between the fraught state of wildlife preservation and the desperate scramble for human survival.

Although 16 Bars doesn’t always effectively balance its powerful music element with its stirring personal profiles, the film remains a vital and involving portrait.

It’s hard not to be taken by these beautiful animals’ intelligence and devotion. More specifics about the dogs’ training, care and the costs involved would have been a plus. Otherwise, it’s a stirring portrait of war, duty, sacrifice and the love of a good dog.

If often sad and unsettling, the film is also livelier and less oppressive than it may sound thanks to the fine writing, deft direction by Adrian Noble, and the superb, if painful interplay between Redgrave and Spall.

There’s much to recommend here — emotionally, sociopolitically, musically — and it’s heartening to see greater openness to LGBTQ+ folks than outsiders might expect; compassion, grace and humor are in abundant supply.

Although it may initially seem like a fairly wispy story of family dynamics and romantic uncertainty, there’s a subtle depth to the proceedings that creeps up on you in resonant ways.

This indulgent, overlong film takes a solid hour for its bigger themes of love, loss and guilt to settle in. By then, however, the movie has tried our patience to the point that many may not care.

This fanciful piece, written and directed by Alexis Michalik, based on his popular play “Edmond,” owes more than a passing debt to “Shakespeare in Love,” among many other stage-centric films, while staking its own claim as a brisk, funny, sneakily poignant love letter to words, plays, playwrights and actors.

This follow-up to 2016’s “High Strung” has its visual dazzle and performance highs but the story and characters are just too fake, chaste and grit-free to take seriously.

Although it occasionally plays as a Statue of Liberty promotional tool (there are worse things), the film is a timely, engaging and well-assembled look at one of our national treasures and its eternal place as a beacon of light for anyone “yearning to breathe free.”

Prolific actor-comedian-musician Tim Heidecker may have a sizable cult following but it’s doubtful he’ll find many new fans with his latest effort, the tedious and laugh-free mockumentary Mister America.

With its deeply creaky gender and racial themes, this strained film evokes something unearthed from several decades ago, if not before.

[A] brainy, niche, often arcane documentary.

Kallos’ tough, austere, often Bergmanesque debut feature (he’s an admitted fan of the Swedish master) also offers a vivid window into South Africa’s churchgoing, agriculture-dominant Free State region, as well as of several lingering effects of apartheid and the cultural decline of the nation’s Afrikaner population.

The movie could have used a more thorough, gram-for-gram comparison of plant-based and animal proteins. No matter, there’s much fine food for thought.

The movie works best when it focuses on the senses and the specific connections between hearing, language (both ASL and oral) and music.

It’s a stirring and delicately reflective piece of work.

The film can’t quite surmount its fanciful conceit.

It’s watchable and intriguing stuff, yet also silly and inconsistent.

This overlong film’s glacial pace and talky, unevenly told narrative undercut its potential power and accessibility.

The Sound of Silence, anchored by a superbly modulated performance by the always intriguing Peter Sarsgaard, is fascinating, original and, yes, deeply resonant.

If Becoming Nobody may dig only as deeply as the filmmaker and/or Alpert chose to go, it remains an inspiring, stirringly meditative portrait of one man’s profound spiritual influence on a world that has surely needed him.

Although deliberately paced and a bit repetitive, the movie contains many lovely subtleties and two superb, swoony lead turns that keep us invested.

Director Jaki Bradley can’t quite pull the story’s disparate strands together to form an effective narrative, much less a lucid finale. There’s a potentially nifty gay noir lurking about, but this “Ferry” misses the dock.

Save Mailer’s pushy “New Yawk” accent, the leads do what they can with their unconvincing characters and the rusty plot, but it’s a hopeless effort. Nice opening title sequence though.

A deeper dive into Szeles’ ostensibly complex psychological makeup might have given the movie more heft, though Szeles, magician that he is, clearly remains more about the illusion than the reveal.

For all its loaded potential to evolve into a gripping look at life in a correctional facility plus an atypical spin on gay longing, the film squanders much of its running time with thin, repetitive scenes of young men behaving badly.

Adam Dick makes a solid feature writing-directing debut with “Teacher,” a tense and propulsive thriller with several vital, provocatively rendered thoughts on its seething mind.