Gregory Nussen

Sometimes the central metaphors of the film are so cleanly didactic they risk becoming preachy, but, more often than not, the film tilts in such inventive ways that recognition only breeds appreciation.

The film never really leans into the farcical possibilities of its premise nor its earnest appraisal of Augusto Pinochet’s legacy.

In its gorgeous animation and stylization of motion blur, Arco pleads us to return to a time when we dreamt about the future as hidden through fluffy clouds and resplendent rainbows.

It's to the actors' credit that it works when it does, and what it ultimately posits about marriage is as grossly haunting as it is disturbingly poetic.

Dan Trachtenberg's third Predator entry is exciting, but also tonally askew in ways that prevent it from hitting its stride.

The Breaking Ice is fixated on intense in-between states that work to separate people from each other and from themselves, as if to say self-acceptance and love aren’t destinations so much as journeys, at once formidable and worthwhile.

The film is comic yet vicious and cynically bleak in its portraiture of Japan’s silent plague.

The film would've been better served had it stuck to either satire or tense drama, but whatever the case, the climax of Saleh's film is aces and as taut as can be.

The best parts of Mother of Flies are in the margins. At its most lucid, it tells us that life, death and healing are magic — both of the Western and witchy varieties.

The Incomer is a sweet and charming adult fairy tale whose primary characteristic, a twee and cheeky sense of humor, is both its appeal and its achilles' heel.

The circumstances around Audrey and Eli's union (Moon Choi and Son Suk-ku, respectively) is tender, yet forceful, beautiful, yet pained; but the film is otherwise formless, uninspiring and moves like molasses.

After its more interesting first hour, the intimate access gets tiresome, and it's hard to say what is gained by being introduced to the personal lives of the members of a notorious hate group.

Through the amazing array of talking heads Hanks assembles to share their relationship to Candy, we are left with the distinct impression that there just wasn't anyone else like John. A grand man indeed, in a grand documentary to suit him.

Thompson and Greer really are extraordinary, however, and their tête-à-tête nearly saves Kirk's enterprise from the doldrums.

An essential doc that reveals the origins of her singular voice with exceeding warmth and vulnerability.

Einbinder, who is about to enter into the last season of Hacks, for which she has won an Emmy award, turns in a magnificently dialed-in, heart-forward and honest performance. Theroux has rarely been this funny and he somehow makes what could be a cartoonish character feel believable and sympathetic. Reynolds and Gluck equally bring forth gravitas to two roles which are tricky for any actor in that neither character is particularly open with who they are, nor where they want to go. And yet their lives feel written all over their faces. It's one of the best ensemble performances of the SXSW festival.

The innocent, it turns out, isn’t a single character but the person inside us all, playing at the version of ourselves we’d rather be.

This is a purposefully languid movie that proves real, genuine tension can be built without crash landing right on your head. In an era of fast cuts and escalating explosions — the kind that Hemsworth, Ruffalo and Halle Berry all know intimately from their time in Marvel's universe — it is refreshing to watch something this confident in its own particular DNA.

If American Pachuco leaves you wanting more, perhaps that's not a bad thing; Valdez deserves the last word, anyway, and he's not finished.

Its bizarre blend of genre and tonality comes together in an altogether surprising way; a labyrinth of ceaseless pleasures.

This is a theatrical story told in a purposefully and self-consciously theatrical manner.

She Dances seems almost scared of its own premise.

Palestine 36 is beautifully shot and researched, and peppered with historical touches.

The combination of crime film and romantic gothic horror never really gels. It is successful in its invocation of old Hollywood (including a very fun opening credits sequence), and its horror beats are effective, but it doesn't work in total.

As an anguished cry against colonialism, Pepe works best when illustrating the micro ways in which culture is erased by capital interests.

We all need a really good laugh, and Drymon and company deliver.

Carousel is a moving romance in all the ways it isn't romantic.

June Zero is a tender, if sometimes cynical, portrait of a new country on old land struggling through the growing pains of establishing its presence both to the international community and its own people.