Jared Mobarak

Maybe it doesn’t stimulate your intellect as much as other recent genre fare, but it definitely offers an engrossing setting through which to travel for 80 minutes.

The Fan Connection is a bit rough around the edges as far as production value goes due to its shoestring, one-woman show budget helped only by a Kickstarter campaign during post-production, but don’t let that deter you from seeing the heart and humanity present in every single frame.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that, like this duo’s supplies, returns diminish with every passing day.

While there’s always a humorous slant to proceedings (kudos to Shawn Wilson’s endearingly pure park ranger), that edge of danger is where it excels.

Robe of Gems isn’t an easy film. Its harrowing content is devoid of optimism and its pacing ensures we wallow in the resulting suffering even if very little of it is actually shown on-screen.

Pawo Choyning Dorji’s feature debut Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom captures the juxtaposition of big-city living and small-town surviving in a way that resonates beyond its cultural specificity—we all understand the contrast.

Wandel pulls no punches in her depiction, and both Leklou and Vanderbeque deliver performances well beyond their years.

It helps, too, that the music is good (Kat and Bastian sing a lot, each song being plot-specific considering they’re writing about their love and its demise), the integration of social media effective (Kat’s life is online and Charlie still uses a flip phone), and the inclusion of Lou and the kids as a way to see both Kat’s and Charlie’s hearts beautifully tears down their defenses as well as ours where accepting this “whirlwind” (it is months, not days) at face value.

Definition Please‘s strength is its authenticity and normalization of minorities away from blatant stereotypes. It acknowledges the struggles endured with honesty and humor in ways that are as relatable as they are unique.

Director Terence Krey and Nyland (who co-writes as well as stars) have crafted a horror film under the name of the aforementioned song An Unquiet Grave, so a return to happiness will inevitably be short-lived if it even arrives.

Kruger and Nyong’o elevate the material to a level it probably doesn’t deserve with Chastain and Cruz following closely behind.

Watching Matthew Heineman’s documentary The First Wave isn’t therefore a casualty of diminishing returns due to a false sense of redundancy. If anything, it proves more powerful from accumulation.

So Late So Soon proves a warts-and-all expression of love, companionship, and the struggles intrinsic to the proximity inherent in both and how age makes everything harder.

Faison’s performance in the role is not one to be forgotten either. He’s playing a man with obvious psychological trauma, but never in a cartoonish way. There’s a brilliant authenticity to how he shifts his vocals depending on who he is talking to too.

Garfield is funny and charismatic to draw us in and devastating when presenting the palpable shame that keeps us caring. Broadway cameos aside (some even get to sing during the biggest set-piece of the whole on “Sunday”), however, Garfield can’t carry the full weight of the story alone.

Violence becomes both a weapon and a tool throughout the proceedings while words do the same since both must sometimes be wielded as the former in order to be successful as the latter.

The purpose of Nelson and Curry’s film is to therefore turn the focus of what happened back onto the real perpetrators rather than the victims who have been vilified as such instead.

Gossling populates this little town with so many horrible people that you assume the tornadoes are coming to purge them from society. It’s therefore somewhat jarring when she lets impending tragedy provide them redemption instead.

Maskell is great in the title role.

While a lot of Detention is steeped in anguish and anxiety, the terror induced by those emotions becomes the pathway back into the light.

I don’t think John Ridley’s Needle in a Timestack (adapted from the short story by Robert Silverberg) quite reaches the full potential of its conceit, but it comes close while overcoming any early preconceptions.

She’s normalizing disability, spearheading awareness, and fighting for self-acceptance.

Perhaps that’s the point: selfish men do selfish things while the people they love pay the price. That’s a lesson. And it might have worked if not for the sunny, hopeful air of its surrounding package. South of Heaven isn’t dark enough to buy that as its intent.

The acting is top-notch throughout, matching the film’s quiet yet dark nature.

There’s plenty to like here: gorgeous cinematography—there’s an unforgettable shot during a power outage at the coma facility, where the generator attempts to flicker the small, rectangular lights along the walls of the main, symmetrical room—propulsive synth beats to go with the choir, and stellar performances that at some point all skew towards parody to really drive home the indoctrination angle before each awakening opens eyes to the truth.

It’s messy and overly convoluted, but the ends do mostly justify the means.

Adapting a book by Deborah Kay Davies, director Harry Wootliff and her co-writer Molly Davies bring True Things to life as a quasi-reaction to Instagram captions generally painting a much sunnier picture than reality could ever prove.

One mystery is solved so another can begin without missing a beat as revenge takes on new meaning in the aftermath of its completion.