Jim Slotek

I’d almost recommend seeing the first act of Song Sung Blue and then heading home in high spirits. But it would be wrong to whitewash real life (rewrite it a bit, sure).

Krymalowski brings a vivacious energy to a movie that would otherwise be one long trudge to safe haven.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a platform for comedy as a burlesque of drama, with enough winks, pop references and silliness to keep the premise going. Funny stuff.

Colette is ultimately a feminist tale, but never one that wallows in self-pity or seriousness. It is also carried along lightly by a script with a streak of wit.

Hovering over Together Together is the expectation that two people who enjoy each other’s company as much as Matt and Anna do will eventually end up together. Beckwith plays with this trope nicely.

What gives Hearts Beat Loud its life is the father-daughter interaction and chemistry between Offerman and Clemons. Their original jam session makes the audience sit up and take notice.

This might be a Dune that could even be appreciated by someone unfamiliar with Dune.

A hero from an era when we still had heroes, the diminutive Romanian-born, activist and lawyer fairly burns through the screen with passion born of witnessing the worst that humanity can do. And he still tours the world with the impossible dream of ending inhumanity.

Intriguingly weird, and only loosely tethered to its own reality, Lawrence Michael Levine’s Black Bear is two movies in one - both on the theme of creativity-squeezed-from-pain, and both offering Aubrey Plaza the acting turn of her career.

Sims-Fewer clearly follows her vision, and paints an unsettling picture with sure strokes. I look forward to more.

Far from being mysterious and confounding, it rings utterly true as it captures both the beauty and fragility of young boys’ friendships, amid the storm of growth and social pressure.

People expecting plenty of Laurel & Hardy style laughs will be disappointed, obviously, given the movie’s comedy-lions-in-winter theme. But this thoughtful portrait of a long-lasting professional marriage rings touchingly true.

You can’t come away from Love, Cecil without appreciating how much of Beaton's aesthetic outlived him.

Orwell: 2+2=5 is food for thought for sure, practically an all-you-can-eat buffet of thoughts. As a statement, it is all over the map. But as an experiential representation of Orwell’s warnings-come-true, it is worth seeing.

I was worried King Richard would come to resemble the platitudinous The Pursuit of Happyness, which earned Smith an Oscar nomination, but is not one of my favourites of his films. I was pleasantly surprised thereafter.

I’m Your Man is certainly a metaphor for our increasingly intimate relationship with our own technology. Some have seen it as a direct reference to our intimacy with personae on social media, virtual relationships that exist at the expense of our connections with people in the real world. Whatever it is supposed to be, it is a smart and often witty take on a not exactly new sci-fi premise.

In this feature debut, De Filippis paints an utterly believable picture of the kind of immigrant/children-of-immigrants family where emotions fly and can turn from rage to love on a dime.

An odd, sweet, dryly funny, existential and slightly blasphemous buddy-movie, in which an Orthodox cantor, grieving his wife’s death, seeks the help of a pot-smoking college professor to understand what becomes of a corpse.

Amanda Kim’s admiring documentary Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV, makes a case that Paik may not have merely been one of the most influential of the avant garde, he may have been one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century - period, one who invented a new visual canvas.

The Personal History of David Copperfield is a comedy that washes over you with its warmth. Iannucci’s fans should be prepared to encounter the director in an unusual and infestious good mood.

Given The Trial of the Chicago 7’s snapshot of an era of an almost hopelessly divided America, and Kafka-esque and monstrous misuse of power by a bullying President, the timing for its release couldn’t be better.

An unusual blend of a travel show and those MTV staple Unplugged specials, Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman on Disney+ isn’t exactly a deep dive as far as travelogue goes. But it does offer a glimpse into U2’s soul.

An emotionally moving thriller that smoothly negotiates the horrors of the supernatural and real world evil with haunting imagery and tension.

Motherless Brooklyn is the sort of risk-taking effort that deserves kudos whether it works or not. As it happens, this lengthy film-noir labour of love by writer, director and star Edward Norton, is well worth the ride.

Though it kind of loses track of its marquee title character mid-movie, Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is a must-watch for Cohen fans, with copious concert and backstage footage. It is also a snapshot of a time, and of hedonistic artistic idealism.

It’s on the track where it finds traction. The events of the various races, reflected on the faces of characters whose lives revolve around the outcome, tell a story all by themselves.

While Stahelski is unlikely ever to be called upon to make a rom-com or coming-of-age movie, he and Reeves have taken the fluid action of the John Wick series to a point of “how are they going to top that last insane thing they did?” And there’s an imagination at work that’s straight out of Looney Tunes.

As with Carpenter, build-up is the thing (Michael is mostly talked-about for the first half-hour), and producers Blumhouse’s trademark jump-scares are a nice stylistic fit.