Jordan Raup

A generous, graceful, full-hearted drama about the complexities of desiring a child when your physiology denies you at every turn.

Once again Soderbergh has delivered a film that comes across as effortlessly constructed, which could only be achieved through immense consideration of every detail.

A thematically rich and acutely moving update for both a new generation and certainly many more to follow.

With a lovingly crude sense of humor and finding the perfect star in Hewson to radiate sincere liveliness every moment she’s onscreen, Carney has crafted a winning tale of motherhood and music.

It’s his commitment to the physicality required that signifies a mythic status to both the henchman who have the honor of fighting him and those watching the spectacle on display.

If Collet-Serra put Neeson on a merry-go-round and added some danger, I’d gladly show up.

It’s the director’s most emotionally attuned and narrowly focused work, a film in which our attention is not pulled along by heavy dramatic shifts or distracted by a mountain of subplots, but rather how trauma can form a life of complacency and it’s only slivers of progress that hint at a more promising future.

It’s difficult to imagine something funnier, dumber and more action-packed coming from this group.

Embracing the sci-fi genre, they take out the world-saving doom and frightful creature effects this breed of films is known for, and instead deliver a light, cuddly adventure that’s a step below its predecessor in shear (sorry!) inventiveness but still containing a wealth of delightful comedic gags.

Marjorie Prime, a micro-scale sci-fi chamber drama, fascinatingly explores the perception and dissolution of what we remember throughout our lives.

While there’s no denying the film’s empathetic, tear-inducing impact, one wonders if a tighter structural grip would allow it to have been even more effective.

Landline is a film about many things: sisterhood, infidelity, growing up, marriage, parenting, self-discovery, etc. That it manages to have illuminating insights about each, and none feeling like they are taking the backseat, is a feat unto itself.

What’s lacking in aesthetic cohesion, pacing, and subtlety is made up for in a powerful lead performance and an essential story with compelling religious undercurrents.

Capturing a stressful environment of constant interruptions that distract from medical urgencies, Switzerland’s Oscar-shortlisted procedural is a work of high intensity and acute resonance, even if it lacks a certain personality by design.

By keeping characterization and plotting to a minimum, García has crafted a film in which he invites his audience to bring their own interpretations to the pensive story.

Rather than focusing on Lizzie as a figure out of a horror movie or creepy folk tale, she is portrayed as a woman who found liberty only through the death of her oppressors.

As the steady flow of alcohol removes the barriers and fast-forwards the many years of estrangement, Moodysson’s skill at zeroing-in on the naked sorrows of the human experience is as sharp as ever.

Menashe works as both a rare introduction to a way of life largely unseen (or exaggerated by those outside of it) as well as a touching depiction of fighting for what’s most important in life.

Marczak himself, who also plays cinematographer, is wary to delineate the line between narrative and nonfiction, and part of the film’s joy is forgoing one’s grasp on this altering perspective, rather simply getting wrapped up in the immaculately-shot allure of its location.

One of Eighth Grade‘s greatest strengths is its specificity related to the current generation.

An earnest, clear-cut drama about the struggle for one woman’s liberation from the shackles of domesticity, Puzzle does what it sets out to do remarkably well.

One imagines how over-the-top zany this could have been made, had the adaptation been overtly faithful, yet Linklater is able to extract the heart of the story while injecting some of his own characteristic themes.

With a grand score by Alan Silvestri that kicks up at every possible turn and extravagantly over-the-top Hathaway performance, this update on The Witches is a family-friendly Halloween treat that still boasts Zemeckis’ brand of the bizarre and a clear-eyed vision that seems all the more rare in today’s Hollywood.

While spare early passages are narratively opaque and formally ornate to a distancing fault, the riveting second half––including a chilling reckoning with others occupying the desolate land and a well-executed structural gamble––brings profound expansion to this chilling story of atrocity.

As we hear the actual recordings of the astronauts communicating with the designated capsule communicator (aka CAPCOM), it gives Apollo 11 an underlying, powerful thread of humanity.

With its cohesive black-and-white cinematography from Pete Ohs, a dedicated performance from Birney, and a plethora of crafty homespun special effects, OBEX is an inherently likable journey that should appeal to more than just those whose childhood was similarly, inextricably linked to this early era of computing.

An effective concoction of cosmic mystery and earnest emotion to elevate its small-scale, homespun design, Colin West’s Linoleum evolves into a nifty, heartfelt sci-drama.

Accompanied by Mica Levi’s score–which mixes fairytale-esque harps to introduce the story and Southern-fried beats and synths as the craziness progresses–Bravo elevates the material and provides a unified, eccentric vision.