Maggie Boccella

There are gaps filled with nothing but silence; still, for a no-budget indie, it’s still constructed rather competently.

A fun and frantic vampire film with darkly comic performances amidst its clever life lessons.

While it never fully succeeds, Khan understands that strange in-between place that ‘80s films exist in and mimics that energy well, even if the script doesn’t quite keep up.

It’s a long, hard ninety minutes, even with someone as charming as Farrier leading the charge, but that ultimately feels like the point — that minutes turn to hours with Michael Organ.

Director McKay seems to understand that special balance between terror and camp, and it’s that which makes Renfield, which premiered this week at the Overlook Film Festival, such a delight to watch.

At Midnight is a rom-com that loves the hell out of rom-coms, and rightly so — the genre’s at its best when it’s not trying to be clever or smart or better than those that came before it, when it fully embraces the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with watching two people fall in love, and Feingold’s script knows it.

The Starling Girl is steeped with empathy, not just for Jem, but for every young woman, religious or not, who struggles to know herself and gives in to the desire to be seen, no matter the voyeur — just to feel alive, and like they matter.

It strikes at the core of what makes us human, our hopes and fears and the relationships we invest ourselves in. It is community as art as activism in one giant loop, filtered through the gaze of a woman so unflinchingly tireless in her efforts that you cannot help but be on her side.