Jacob Oller

A documentary that can struggle to tie its young politicos to the outside world, but thrives when tying them to each other.

The sports doc finds plenty of beauty and excitement befitting its genre in its uphill battle, even if it sometimes tries to wrestle above its weight class.

A vibrant and lovely character study, Mamacruz makes the most of its horny matriarch.

A blistering adventure filled with dread and wonder, there’s a macabre classicism to the film—a sense that, even if life as we know it falls apart, some essential elements persevere.

Writer/director Rich Peppiatt’s film has a harder time connecting its stylish music video silliness with drama that meanders and a political message that repeats like it’s stuck on a cheap turntable.

Writer/director Chandler Levack finds uncommon honesty in this Canadian video store employee and those he chafes against, even if the coming-of-age story eventually falls into some of the more palatable pitfalls its strident star would rail against.

Though the filmmaking is perfectly competent and sometimes engaging, these moments where things click in a way that doesn’t feel like a teacher tap-tap-tapping on a chalkboard’s spelled-out “themes” are rare. It’s a muddled and messy movie, colorfully congested with ideas that often seem contradictory.

Writer/director Minhal Baig’s ‘90s coming-of-age drama is one of realistic warmth, rumbling hopes and roadblocks jutting up in front of children whose very existence is defiant.

It’s a movie by a Black woman about a Black woman (that barely, blessedly avoided being directed by James Franco) that doesn’t just capture a nuanced and specific experience, but the rollicking and resonant digital audience that initially embraced it.

Half mock-doc, half sci-fi two-hander, all bone-dry L.A. satire, Something in the Dirt takes a bemused look at those all too happy to exploit phenomena and each other—with the typical small-scale charm of an Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson project.

Locked Down is a crushing miscalculation on every level that should’ve stayed locked up.

Though director Reinaldo Marcus Green finds winning performances away from his lead, the milquetoast script serves the tennis patriarch a soft lob—one without potential to inspire or excite, and one that’s constantly reminding us that we already know how it ends.

Despite its important subject and impressive access, the surprisingly surface-level film doesn’t have much to say.

American Symphony itself is at its most mundane when focused on the professional life of the rousing, youthful musical multihyphenate. And, because it builds its structure around the creation and premiere of his first symphony, much of the film bundles that mundanity into the kind of behind-the-scenes footage accompanying a concert doc.

What makes How to Blow Up a Pipeline great, is that it so deftly wins us to its cause anyway. It’s absolutely electric filmmaking.

Don’t Blink is the rare documentary both vague enough to whet your appetite and specific enough to imbue a sense of kinship with its subject, like an old friend from camp you haven’t seen in decades. Like Frank himself, the film chugs ever forward as an elaborate, chaotic, grumpy, optimistic mess.

This blend of genres, aesthetics, realities, and virtual realities doesn’t all add up—or adds up a bit too neatly, as the script makes Conor’s hazy backstory unmistakably clear—but OBEX is still endearingly contained, passionately executed, and impressively unique.

While Plaza continues to make her case as a versatile A-lister capable of leading the more complex version of this kind of heist film, Emily the Criminal is a little like an initiation that never needed to happen. Her bonafides are proven. But it still stands as another showcase for her, as she shines even through its uninspired racket.

A fresh take on how our hyper-connected world observes catastrophe would rightly pick at this scab. But Alex Garland approaches this modern hopelessness with impersonal detachment, dreaming up an empty war filmed for no one.

Phillips simply tries to do too much.

Playing in the stylish, piss-taking space of Gurinder Chadha and Edgar Wright, Manzoor’s feature debut attacks adolescent fears—failing to achieve your dreams, settling for less, fading from loved ones—with spin-kicks, fake mustaches and evil plots so absurdly sinister that even the most jaded, monosyllabic teens will have to crack a smile.

A splendid showcase for Tran, a lead duo of inventive and endearing original characters, and a big final swing make Disney’s tour through Kumandra one worth taking even if it’s shy of a tour de force. Raya and the Last Dragon is an admirably mature tale in a rich and vibrant world that parents and kids alike won’t mind trekking across over and over again.

Filmmaker Amber Fares assembles a ton of footage into a thorough portrait of a disillusioned activist-comedian, though that portrait and the one-woman show it revolves around are themselves limited messengers of a worthwhile call to action.

Porcelain War‘s questions around how we cope, and what’s worth fighting for, are as vital as ever with the world still full of ignored pandemics, government-sponsored genocide and ongoing invasions.

A delightful new-school deconstruction of old-school Romantic adventure that never compromises on the lushness of setting, color and emotion inherent in the latter, The Sea Beast rises to the front of Netflix’s animated offerings like a high tide.

By only brushing up against the factors that make its case fascinatingly, timelessly American, The Burial stays soft, a trial by pillow-fight—but that’s how you please a crowd.

After half a decade focusing on high-concept silliness, like the giant-fly tragicomedy Mandibles and the leather-jacket thriller Deerskin, Dupieux follows his more ridiculous impulses by letting the midnight horror anthology stay up until Saturday morning, blending gore and guffaws in an amiable, breezy comedy.

Though its bold genre gamble and strong lead turn from Maisy Stella keep My Old Ass from the YA slush pile, its feint towards being a more cerebral movie about hope and regret, two opposing forces separated only by time, infects the mediocrity of its more traditional story with disappointment.

Even if it feels a bit too neat and tidy and predetermined a metaphor, one has to appreciate 2nd Chance’s ogling commitment to dissecting a perfectly American parasite.

Acid drips from every line and visual gags double as celebrity commentary while still delivering sublime slapstick. Even if it sometimes stops making sense, My Big Night never loses its sensibility.

Tragos and her brave, badass subjects spend almost all of Plan C zipping through explanations of a constantly evolving abortion landscape.

A counterpoint documentary to its festival companion Love Machina, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck’s Eternal You observes the burgeoning industry around techno-spiritualism with wry skepticism.

Scrapper isn’t funny or sweet enough to overcome some of its more cutesy leanings, and it’s not inventive enough to stand out from its peers covering the same kind of burgeoning parent-child relationship. But it hangs together, as brief and unsatisfying as its narrative may be, which proves Regan capable of pulling off a feature, even if we’ll need to wait for a second film to fully see her more off-the-wall ideas flourish.

When its pet topics enter into conversation with one another, revealing a throughline underscoring the basic rights of everyone working on a film project, Subject cruises along. In the film’s most propulsive sections, passion is as paramount as self-awareness, with vigorously cut documentary snippets affectionately emphasizing its self-critical points.

It’s best when it fully commits to its subtlety. Long passages without dialogue highlight the wavering music and Todd Chandler’s artful, sometimes wry editing.

Once the documentary has made its easy point, it doesn’t have much else on its mind aside from making it again and again. For some, that’ll be eye-opening enough, but I don’t think they’re the people who’re watching documentaries about rap lyrics.

Heart of Stone is murky, drab and always going the wrong speed. It’s either motionless, allowing exposition scene after exposition scene to lay out the boring details of what might happen if the wrong folks get control of The Heart, or erratic, dicing its badly remixed action sequences like it was trying to avoid a copyright strike from the movies it steals from.

All this seriousness about love, loss and the human needs that start up early and continue until the end aren’t without a sense of fun. Some Kind of Heaven’s glib punchlines (like its title) and aesthetic choices (like a voyeuristic camera and thrillery score accompanying Dennis’ more slimy schemes) work best when they’re paired with some nicely dry moments of undermining honesty.

Bloodlines honors a legacy of unrepentant silliness and gleeful gore with a knowing wink.

Domont’s compellingly drawn portrait of entitlement, impotence and the amplified conservative values of the bros casting the bones of capitalism is a violent delight, filled with tough scenes. Yet, its unpredictable ending is such a triumphantly visceral showdown that the impossible is achieved: The excruciating intensity is completely worth powering through.

Thanks to Gosling—playing his role like his schmuck detective from The Nice Guys accidentally found himself in a Mission: Impossible—the film breezily flits between a savvy behind-the-scenes pastiche and a committed action rom-com.

Emergency’s ensemble sustains its premise for far longer than it should be able to, maintaining the nuanced balance of commentary-thriller-comedy whenever the script becomes too interested in just one ingredient of its complex cocktail.

By applying our technocapitalist present to the kind of person that this reality inevitably creates, Fincher’s created a thoroughly entertaining look at a pathetic crook—all while delivering a self-deprecating blow to clockwork living.

Rich with subtext and warring cultural iconography, it’s got body horror, religious doubt and enough delicious flesh to leave gorehounds completely sated. Colorful and bold, it’s a beautifully scary affair.

A war epic between the people and the state, it sprints through a grassroots resistance movement like a brushfire: Blinding, dangerous, all-consuming.

As wacky as it all sounds (and there are certainly punchlines to appreciate), Escobar’s creation can be shockingly moving.

Neither Heaven Nor Earth transports you to a world where you believe anything could happen because it effectively paints wartime life so closely to supernatural terror. War may quite literally be hell.

Bros says many of the right things, often loudly and directly, as it reblazes an already well-marked trail towards normative convention.

People don’t always want Goldilocks movies, but amid the melodramas and rom-coms, the IP blockbusters and action movies, Fremont’s easy flow and small scope provide the same reassurance (and opportunity for projection) as a small, optimistic piece of paper.

For those who haven’t really thought about the filmmaking behind the glut of true-crime clogging up the streamer carousels, there are some revelatory moments of media criticism in here. But for those more aware of how the sausage is made, it’s simply a light and dry bit of jabbing at a dominant kind of media.

The Scout is as pretty-gloomy as an off day in New York, as winning as a good work anecdote, as defeating as another day on the job, and as listless as a generation starting to feel the shadow of their looming midlife crisis.

City of Gold is simultaneously a vibrant, colorful love letter to the unsung parts of Los Angeles, a populist philosophy of food and culture, and a thesis on what criticism should be.

Despite the stamping of hundreds of feet, The Long Walk smolders with the blunt power of a burned flag.

Messy as it is, the filmmaking so energetically delivers its acidic pessimism that it’s rarely unpleasant.

Nine Days marks Oda as one of our most exciting new directors, a filmmaker possessing an innovative cinematic mind with a heart to match.

When Power sticks to its experts, its case is compellingly assembled, its points lucidly made (backed up with archival images) and its unspoken importance undeniable.

The Outwaters’ chthonic calling card showcases a jack-of-all-trades horror artist, even when it’s more upsetting than scary, but its labyrinth can quickly feel like a straight line, skillfully obscured.

Half musical and half drama, it finds balance in poetic stillness and exuberant motion.

While the kills, perpetrated by a being mostly just seen in mirrors, are sometimes a bit too obfuscated by their gimmick to be viscerally satisfying, they slot in perfectly with the film’s themes and aesthetic even when they’re not dumping cascades of blood.

A Compassionate Spy is not a thrilling recollection of treason. It has little to say about the actual espionage that Hall pulled off when he was an 18-year-old Harvard grad working on the Manhattan Project.

Watcher flourishes as it complicates its premise beyond the unknowable and faceless desires of a shadowy silhouette.

Gunn and crew have made that vibe, alternating between inventive and bloody battle and ballbusting hang-out sesh, their delightful spandex hallmark—and The Suicide Squad’s intensification of it from the GotG films feels like it’s been let loose on a particularly rowdy vacation.

Thanks to its commitment to the ‘70s made-for-TV bit, ever-escalating stakes and nervously swaggering lead performance, the ratings ploy from Hell finds substance inside its shtick.

Despite a few moments of heightened bliss that remind us what kind of talent it has in front of the camera (and the operatic possibilities of Hong Kong action), Raging Fire’s dull discussion of policing never lights a fire.

The Batman is ambitious and dedicated to its vision, but despite some rather obvious clues, it can’t crack how to make the World’s Greatest Detective seem like one at all. Rather, we just have another passable Batman, not different enough to outrun his legacy’s ever-growing shadow.

Ahmed’s intimate performance and Tariq’s intense framing lend Mogul Mowgli a raw power that’s heady, heavy and a little heavy-handed.

The main attractions for Marvel’s Ten Ring circus are better when freed from the MCU’s captivity.

Its predictability is pleasingly colored by countless icky-fun, yokai-inspired curse-monsters.

After so long playing with the legacy and impact of Spider-Man, No Way Home finds its way back.

Exit 8 excels at capturing that isolation and disaffection in an elegant environmental ouroboros, though what it does once it establishes its atmosphere never matches that simple artistry.

Every creative problem White gives himself receives the most boring, trite solution, each chance for artistry stifled by mediocrity.

A charmingly unambitious, ultimately enjoyable step down of a sequel: A controlled expansion where novelty fades to reveal technical prowess and contempt starts peeking out behind familiarity.

If you’re down for a light comedy with a very specific audience, pitched somewhere between Wet Hot American Summer and John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch, AdirondACTS welcomes you (and your prepared monologue—you did prepare a monologue, right?) with open arms.

Some of the film’s punchy dialogue pops us on the nose now and again with its Themes (specifically its notes on sexism and the American Dream), but if you’re willing to look past that and a contrived half-hour detour, I Care A Lot is a savvy and wicked endeavor peppered with personality.

Writer/director Andrew Semans’ sophomore feature pulses with black-hearted humor and cruelties so odd as to be undeniably believable, but it’s Hall’s expressive transformation that drives the film’s blood into its final manic fever.

The film builds to its conclusion without building its main character.

Monkey Man is the kind of action movie I want to see more of, and it gives Patel the chance to turn himself into the kind of action star he wants to see.

There is power in the inescapable, in the dreaded endpoint of becoming news after a lifetime spent fearing it—mourning it. But despite its length and artistic competence, Brother’s lack of affecting specificity displays rather than embodys grief.

Violence, political strife, marital problems—the world keeps on turning, but Before, Now & Then explores what’s needed to hold steady through it all.

Blichfeldt’s film offers a R-rated counterpoint better than most “faithful” fairy tale adaptations.

In making its characters physically confront their heartbreak, Handling the Undead becomes one of the saddest, most contemplative zombie movies ever made.

Its dedication to Long’s point-of-view is admirable, but Lee’s filmmaking hits the brakes like a student driver, sacrificing what made the framing narrative enticing in the first place.

Though the connective tissue keeping the film’s story together often requires its thin characters to improvise or otherwise overstretch themselves from sketch to sketch—emphasizing their relative shallowness as short story subjects—the medieval absurdity at the heart of the comedy always lands.

As is, The Dry’s condensed yet unfocused, by-the-numbers drama might be fine enough, but those looking for a truly great telling of this story may feel that justice wasn’t served.

In The Piano Lesson, the ghosts are as tangible as they’ve ever been, and the film barely containing them is as weathered and tense as any family in need of a séance.

Captain Underpants’ plethora of animation styles (including a wonderful sock puppet sequence) separates the film into imaginative sublayers, keeping it from feeling like the one-joke wonder that it often edges towards.

Hallow Road really thrives when at its most simple. Sticking with Pike and Rhys in a simple windshield shot, cutting only to other tight, static angles from inside the car, allows the pair to carry the film.

The oppression is coming from all angles, but the unifying factor of these methods is that they have all already been described by author George Orwell. In the cutting documentary Orwell: 2+2=5, director Raoul Peck adds all these attacks up, expressing his contemporary horror using Orwell as his voice.

Bleak and crisp and cold as an Icelandic waterfall, Lamb is a movie with a sheepheaded toddler in great knitwear, the vague looming of something sinister and a filmmaker that can’t seem to wrangle it all.

If you love slashers, and love the language of slashers, it’s inevitable that the charms of In a Violent Nature will reach you. Eventually.

The Day The Earth Blew Up could honestly stand a bit more of that madness.

Digging into the art world’s juicy guts and suturing it up as a compelling, ambitious sci-fi noir, Crimes of the Future thrills, even if it leaves a few stray narrative implements sewn into its scarred cavities.

The film can’t stop splitting the difference between dissonant remnants of Woo’s baroque sentimentality (Zee lighting a candle for each life she takes) and snarky Hollywood action idiocy.

Since we don’t really have characters and we pretty much know how this story is going to go, all we’re left with is images—and Staub proves himself a greenhorn every step of the way. The script, for all its by-the-numbers structure, still has plenty of potential for some engaging and unique moments.

It’s still a bit of a romp, but sacrificing both its logical plotting and dark humor with shortcuts (and not quite having an ending, just kind of stopping once it’s out of gas), cuts the legs out from under Fresh.

Like the rest of Annette, the dry humor isn’t funny enough to fully sustain its cool-kid commentary and the filmmaking is never grand enough to fully sell the caricature.

It may not be a must-see movie for everyone, but a select few—scrappy DIY filmmakers, lovers of hands-off fantasy, those that love a good “film still as portrait”—will find something to enjoy. The rest might chafe a bit, but will still hang on to see where The Wanting Mare’s ride takes them.

Patti Cake$ clearly loves music, but fails to translate that into a compelling narrative. It’s an album filled mostly with half-baked skits.