John Fink

Sadie is a grim and moving character study grounded by exceptional performances.

The film problematically never quite commits to being one thing: bouncing around the investigation, being work of advocacy, and a study of family violence. In doing so, it lacks the kind of emotional impact and outrage it ought to have.

A Glitch in the Matrix fits well within the canon of Ascher’s pictures, which offer a kind of creepy alternative history of popular culture as interviewees work to identify hidden structures within their lives—including one who insists on organizing time in twelve-day weeks.

Edited with a brisk pace by Samuel Nalband, WeWork is a fascinating character study of the kind of entrepreneur that is often embraced without criticism by the financial press as a “thought leader” while offering vague catch phrases about “disruption” and “transformation.”

Shim’s direction grows more confident as he expertly delivers genre thrills and moral dilemmas.

Demystifying the backroom deals of film financing, Bateman has crafted an authentic-looking and -feeling commentary on show business designed perhaps to make the kinds of acquisition professionals and insiders who attend festivals and film markets uncomfortable.

This is much more than an ethnic family drama that aspires to have “cross-over universal” appeal, even as it generates such by throwing too many elements together alongside three unique, compelling stories.

Smart and perceptive, The Pod Generation is more than a one-note big-tech satire.

Krauss packs a lot into what could be read as a prequel for his documentary, creating a brutal war on terror picture with a timely context.

Despite some endearing passages, Gene Stupnitsky’s uninspired crude tween comedy Good Boys is a cringe-inducing affair.

Director Bill Benz (best known for episodes of Portlandia), Clark, and Brownstein have a good deal of fun playing the business side of show business—the documentary filmmaker trying to find a unique angle between concert footage, or the star having to take mundane questions from the press in each city she visits on tour. It both documents an identify crisis and doesn’t.

Isn’t It Romantic misses several opportunities to find humor in its absurdity with low stakes, too little of a comic payoff, and only a few cursory observations about gender roles and norms in these universes.

The jokes simply don’t land as hard as they should, even though the cast has a genuinely interesting shorthand with each other.

It’s frustrating when a film provides us with an original character and an engaging first act while following so predictably in the shoes of other home invasion and defense thrillers.

Pretty Problems explores several interesting themes but never quite knows what to make of Jack and Lindsay, their new friends, or the help that enables them. It feels conceived from within its own bubble, where money can in fact buy you almost anything you want except for a sense of fulfillment if you don’t know exactly what’s desired.

The arc of the story feels a bit rushed as it darts between past and present, focused around a journey that is incomplete. Perhaps with a few more weeks or even another year, Berns’ story might have grown into something slightly more compelling as he transition into his new role as a grandfather and provider on a dwindling income.

Kim’s Video is endlessly entertaining, embracing the energy of the films that made Redmon, a kid from Paris, Texas, who loved movies and was thankfully able to escape to New York at the right time and find Kim’s.

I Love My Dad is as funny as it is mortifying, with Oswalt as a kind of sociopathic Cyrano de Bergerac justifying his behavior in the name of becoming closer to his son.

The inescapable problem at the core of any omnibus or anthology film with multiple cooks in the kitchen is, by all design, things will be uneven. Yet V/H/S/99 is fun enough in the context of TIFF’s Midnight Madness—including standouts from the usually gross and reliable Flying Lotus and Johannes Roberts, whose film is genuinely terrifying before turning a bit silly in its final moments.

Embellishments aside, Flamin’ Hot is like the perfect snack or comfort food: consistent, delivering an experience that pleases because it is so familiar, and a classic Hollywood rags-to-riches story with a heavy dose of Latin flavor.

The characters are just complex enough and the action is just engrossing enough to keep us interested, but Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, working from Jeanne Ryan’s novel, haven’t quite built a solid-enough foundation to foster a genuinely compelling commentary on today’s social media obsession.

Duck Butter remains a subversive treat for much of its running time, even when it falls into familiar patterns.

Perhaps the director’s most no holds barred picture yet, it expresses the anxieties and political division of the Trump era.

The film, although likable in passages, keeps the problems it explores local, with a narrow focus rather than creating a national call to action.

Superbly entertaining ... An engaging thriller first and a millennial can-do tale second, Tollman’s script sometimes tells rather than shows as it repeats points later in the picture. Yet the rapid-fire pacing is continually riveting, calling back to the great political thrillers of yesteryear.

Schroder and his subject do have a nice casual familiarity; hopefully he’ll check in on Ingels every ten years or so.

The film does fall short of being the rousing comedy it sets out to be, falling into a fairly predictable pattern with a neat resolution and concept that it delicately doesn’t turn on its head.

Foster and Fanning are predictably great together, cut from the same bayou cloth, both doing what they must to get by, but the script gives them too little to work from. Instead, there’s only enough material for a few touching, if not heavy-handed moments along the way.