Josh Kupecki

Some Kind of Heaven effortlessly blends humor and pathos into a memorable and at times unsettling study on where life’s trajectory might land us, and that is a concept that deserves more than mild contemplation.

It is at times a beguiling and compelling piece of cinema, but it’s not without its frustrations.

Writer/director Moshé (South by Southwest 2017 selection The Ballad of Lefty Brown) grounds the tension of the various ethical dilemmas in Aporia by focusing more on his characters than on the gimmick of his delightfully lo-tech time murder machine.

Biller infuses the film with such style, such elegance, such joie de vivre, that I had a smile on my face for the whole running time.

The natural world and the industrialized world are at odds once again. But it is to Da-Rin’s talent as a filmmaker that her political and ideological intent never overshadow this deceptively simple and astute tale of a sick man yearning for his home, and finally hearing the call of the wild.

Guilt, shame, and regret are all frequent topics of discussion, as the family comes to terms with this impending event in wildly different ways. But however acutely intimate and emotionally formidable Last Flight Home can be (it is relentlessly both), it is thankfully tempered by the human being at the center of it.

It is nothing less than a tapestry detailing the human desire for, yes, money, but more importantly, for connection.

Field trips to a cheese aging facility, a winery (of course), and a cattle farmer, whose methods of grazing are plotted out with mathematical precision, highlight the care and passion that are instilled into each and every morsel dropped onto the plate with the tiniest of tweezers. Menus-Plaisirs is a fascinating exploration of that passion, and perhaps the closest many of us will get to experiencing it at all.

Chaos Walking is, as with any pop confection, catchy and has a solid beat, it’s just a shame that this tune is all too familiar.

True to Canadian stereotypes, it is a polite evisceration: a slap and a tickle, as it were.

Sisley has created an authentic and nuanced portrait of a family not just in crisis, but in transition: big transition, sparked by the accumulation of small moments where the heart is laid bare, where the frustration boils over, where the delusions must be faced. And where the truth is embraced.

With a modest budget that belies the eye-popping visuals at play, filmmaking duo Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney have affectionately crafted a sweet romance surrounded by the tart crunch of satire.

A feel-good film that uses hope, kindness, and generosity (if a bit austerely) to convey this strong message that releases endorphins as strong as any runner’s high.

The interplay of setback and triumph of the sports film genre, here informed by both racial and socioeconomic concerns, is comfortably familiar, and Green, with writer Zach Baylin, never met a tennis serve/time transition they didn’t run with, but they keep their gaze on Papa Williams and his provocative eccentricities, dutifully lionizing the man as good as any royal biographer.

Bettis is perfectly cast as Mandy, her hazy disaffection to the increasingly bloody mayhem she has to deal with is best described as nonplussed irritation. Other performances are hit and miss.

Preparations successfully trades narrative authority for a more provisional path, and much like its main character, remains wholly enigmatic.

Aside from the requisite wide shots of sweeping desert, sea, and cityscapes marking the various stages of the journey, Garrone (the Italian director of Gomorrah and Tale of Tales, among others) keeps the camera close to Seydou, and Sarr’s skill at the subtle transformation of his emotional responses from, say, heartbreak to happiness (and back again) is incredibly compelling to watch.

The film is episodic and often veers into hit-or-miss flights of fancy.

A sapphic blending of Westerns and mythology (Boorman via Cocteau?) shot through a filter of Seventies sci-fi paperback covers, After Blue is the second proper feature from French experimental filmmaker Bertrand Mandico – although his output of shorts is abundant – following 2017’s The Wild Boys.

There There skews its world ever so slightly, arriving at some nicely off-kilter insights amid its non sequiturs, but for all its neat tricks, function is definitely following form here.

It’s a mixed bag for sure, but The Good House ultimately displays enough self-assurance to overshadow its contrivances.

Roth delicately captures the weight of weariness that burdens Neil, as he shuffles the streets in his Birkenstocks, briefly showing signs of life in the company of Berenice. We are locked on to Neil for those signs, and Roth’s performance is utterly absorbing.

One would think that a film concerning ghosts, time travel, and righting past wrongs would clearly lay out the rules, but Do and screenwriter Christopher Larsen are more interested in pastoral atmosphere than logic and with examining the emotional toll of regret, of mistakes, and how those things can follow you forever.

The film offers a familiar structure of family, friends, and experts speaking of O’Brien’s struggle, of the need for more awareness, and of the growing health care crisis that looms in the not too distant future.

Corsage has many things going for it, most of them being the virtuoso performance from Vicky Krieps. She imbues Elisabeth with a restlessness that comes off her in waves, and as her fury percolates, so too does her shrewdness. And so would the dramatic tension, but Kreutzer wields metaphors so bluntly that any emotional poignancy quickly evaporates.

The rainswept city streets overflowing with graffiti and half-torn leaflets are poignant tableaux of melancholy, the jazz-infused soundtrack by Denis’ house band, Tindersticks, unifying each moment. But as evocative and intoxicating as these elements are, they never quite fit into a cohesive whole, as Trish and Daniel tryst their way to the Costa Rican border.

An anthology film of five segments, it is an indulgent celebration of that venerable weekly magazine whose collective bylines helped shape the cultural preoccupations of the last century, not to mention informing much of Anderson’s work.

What (a kinder and gentler?) Schrader has crafted with Master Gardener is a fable of redemption. And there lies the deviation. For all its looming menace and potential violence, not to mention what the biracial Maya will make of Narvel’s past - a past literally written on his body - Master Gardener is sweet, and, horror of horrors, hopeful.