Jake Kring-Schreifels

It’s inspiring to watch. Isseks provided the tools and the idea, but the students took the cause to new heights, a symptom of their strong feelings about the governmental negligence occurring in their backyards.

The younger Day-Lewis has crafted something haunting and exquisite, a slow-burning, two-handed meditation about grief, regret, and the kind of absence that irreparably fractures a family. Mostly, though, it supplies the elder Day-Lewis a chance to flex his dormant muscles, most prominently with a couple of monologues—one humorous and scatological in nature, the other reflective, darker, and more vulnerable—that sneak up on you in overwhelming ways.

In a satire like this, the laughs start heavy, but Early’s best trick is ending this journey in an earnest, emotionally authentic place. He’s not playing a punchline so much as a humorous, painful truth.

Murphy keeps Steve on the tracks. Among his great gifts is an ability to convey feelings while internally processing information.

Greengrass doesn’t have you squirming in your seat because he’s manufacturing drama but because he knows when to cut, when to slow down, when to fire on all cylinders. This sounds like a science, but it’s actually an art.

It runs pretty thin pretty quickly, a monotonous circle of arguing, indecision, concerned looks, and anxiety that stalls out the whimsy and momentum and all unique aesthetic possibilities of Freyne’s under-explored setting.

Quiet and heartbreaking, if not slightly conventional, Omaha unfolds like a slow-burning mystery.

As the movie’s romantic arc unfolds, everything just feels a little too goofy and distracted, considering the earnest monologue that Fayruz gives near the end that questions why so many young men and women are dying for causes they don’t understand.

Sweeney––who, in addition to acting and directing, wrote the script––has no trouble with lubrication, layering genres atop each other in a way that’s plausible and cohesive. He’s got an acute feel for how to deploy humor and grief into the same space, especially as more backstory unwinds and the movie’s heightened stakes infiltrate the perception of his characters.

These people and places read more like figments of imagination, part of a borough Holder wants it to be. As such, the movie is a rough, painterly sketch, a first draft that’s easy to read, provokes warm feelings, and deserves just a little more detail.

Suburban Fury is a reminder that even the most candid historical figures are never fully transparent.

While The Damned sometimes resembles a reenactment, Minervini makes a valid attempt to highlight war’s aimless priorities on its marginalized and unheralded members.

Much like the previous movie, Inside Out 2 has a predictably fun time journeying throughout the different corners of Riley’s brain. It also plays it pretty safe, careful not to disrupt too much about what its predecessor established, filtering in Michael Giacchino’s whimsical and soulful score to piano key stroke more of its connective tissue.

There are similar beautiful moments checkered across this five-borough endeavor.

To her screenplay’s credit, Pankiw manages to avoid a full-on mystery. The worry in these kinds of movies is that the effort to obfuscate and hint at the heart of the problem doesn’t pay off. But the reveal here is thoughtfully constructed.

A Different Man is a loaded story––filled with plenty of passed detours and dark alleys––and it can start to feel a bit punishing by the end, where Schimberg struggles finding a natural resolution. But maybe that’s the point. This movie feels itchy because these are messy, undefined, unresolved topics.

The characters here are half-baked, archetypes meant to fit into this semi-supernatural mystery box without the cathartic release that defeating various hate-groups should have.

It’s fair to say there’s too much going on at once. The movie can feel like it’s a bit on steroids, too. But it’s so self-assured, so confident with the characters it’s tethered to, the genre lines it blurs, and the love story that waffles with each dead body rolled up into a carpet or dragged down a stairwell.

It feels like a short that’s been stretched to breaking point.

McBain and Moss capture all this with an unobtrusive eye. They have a real grasp of how to capture and frame candid interactions, how to pace this kind of near-reality television drama. It doesn’t hit its ambitious stride, though, until the end.

A loveable, low-stakes joyride.

Like its main character, this movie seems hesitant to say anything. It sacrifices exhilaration and settles for emptiness.

Lee has crafted strong, sensible character studies, filled with long pauses and reflective beats. It’s just trapped in the wrong vehicle.

Even in its overwhelming melancholic power, Haigh has made something therapeutic—about longing and holding on and learning to let go.

In many ways, AIR embodies the last decade of sports movies that have pivoted from showing action on the field or court, instead peeking into corner offices and classrooms to examine the power players and dealmakers pulling the strings.

This is a sure-handed debut with a reliable group of actors.

The beauty is that Torres never forces these messages down your throat. The movie is too looney, too specific to be so obvious.

It’s exciting to see a debut so self-assured and comfortable in its own sun-baked skin.