Jacob Oller

The veteran-comes-home revenger Trigger Warning is thoroughly idiotic and deathly slow, filled with so much ugly camp that it could stand in as the first Lifetime Original action movie.

As Potrykus’ unromantic Midwestern losers mature, so too does his filmmaking. But Vulcanizadora still feels like a natural progression of his slime-slacker milieu: At the movie’s heart, there’s still a ridiculous and upsetting idea, thrust upon desperate members of the lower-middle class, seen through to its tragicomic conclusion.

Furiosa is a film well-planned and deeply dreamed.

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.

While the youth are still game to rebel, the film’s calculated spontaneity leaves its travelers stranded in search of something real, an ironically contrived quest whose very undertaking undermines its goal

What initially feels like a budget presentation about the issues of being stuck in space and several proposed solutions (explored at various lengths) ends up feeling both too structured and, eventually, too scattered for its fascinating yet still speculative subject matter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s a funky, janky, raw piece of autobiography, masquerading as the only thing the film industry makes anymore: A superhero movie. The riotous and weaponized result is everything the corporate use of the Joker isn’t, and everything it could be.

A return to form for writer/director Ivan Sen—an Indigenous Australian filmmaker whose 2013 movie Mystery Road, its sequel and its miniseries spin-off all deal with similar subject matter—this cold-case thriller hacks through its genre clichés and Christian symbolism early so we can appreciate its charming, somber core.

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.

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.

A multimedia extravaganza of frozen idiocy, Hundreds of Beavers is a slapstick tour de force—and its roster of ridiculous mascot-suited wildlife is only the tip of the iceberg.

While there is a literal amount of truth running through the semi-autobiographical Suncoast, its glossy, uncertain cutesiness is as fake as Ron DeSantis’ height.

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

Between the Temples is covered in these sores, full of stories that are funny from the outside and will be funny when told with hindsight. And it is funny. But it’s the honesty, our understanding of the how and the why behind these truthfully conveyed pains, that lodges Silver’s film in your heart.

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.

The documentary gives faces, names and histories to those affected by the residential schools—and looks, bracingly, towards a future where healing is possible.

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.

Love Machina may want to take a peek behind its own curtain every once in a while for a reality check.

A standard-issue horror barely making the move from short to feature (it’s only around 80 minutes before credits), The Moogai is a scare-free blunt instrument, imprecise and uninterested in its own genre beyond its potential for metaphor.

Crafted with such delightful suspense that you can’t help but smile as you squirm, Brief History of a Family pulls from plenty of genre influences (its have/have-not friction and affluent apartment confines will be familiar to Parasite fans) to construct a tight dramatic metaphor encompassing Chinese parenting values and the end of a sociopolitical era.

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.

Its devastation is familiar. But because filmmaker Shiori Itō is both survivor and journalist, and recorded her own investigation into her assault in real time, the documentary becomes a thrilling testament to her exceptional, tenacious agency in the face of a hostile world.

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.

Like its absentminded hero, the film can sometimes get sidetracked right when things are getting good, wandering down schmaltzy or twee narrative paths. But when it lets Thelma (and Squibb) do her thing, the comedy is perfectly cute and a stellar showcase for what an actor’s late career can offer.