Marjorie Baumgarten

What might happen to Alex, once removed from the spotlight, remains a black hole.

As a first-time feature filmmaker, Beecroft’s storytelling technique could stand greater development, but her sense of place and mood is spot-on. Her film will definitely make you want to scrape the mud off your boots before you leave the theatre.

One of Chaplin’s sweetest and most humble movies.

Opus is an attack on media mouthpieces and mindless sycophants, but its barbs only scratch the surface before the inevitable mayhem takes over.

Even though the film is a jumble that oftentimes leaves its top-notch cast unmoored and renders its science-fiction elements somewhat anemic in light of our current expectations from special effects, Megalopolis is truly one from the heart, an outpouring from one cinephile to his tribe.

Joy Ride slides comfortably into the tradition of hard-R road-trip movies while also demonstrating that American culture still has many areas to open up in terms of representation.

All That Breathes instills admiration and wonder while also subtly implicating human beings in a responsibility for the upkeep and furtherance of life.

Even if this is a film that does not always make perfect sense, Infinity Pool is a film that does not shrink from its transgressions.

We may come to Empire of Light like moths to a flame but, ultimately, the film’s glow lacks incandescence.

While the film provides many invaluable insights into Spielberg’s technical and thematic tropes that can be seen repeated throughout his career, the filmmaker also burnishes aspects of his life story and leaves out chunks of years to create what is inevitably a self-indulgent yet delightful origin story, appropriately called The Fabelmans.

As grisly and disturbing as Bones and All is, the film strikes me more as a romance, a coming-of-age movie, and/or a lovers-on-the-run chronicle. Dark and bloody, definitely; but also, at times, sweet and hopeful.

As we begin to follow the trail of journalist Areez Rahimi (Ebrahimi, who received the Best Actress award at Cannes for this role), the film becomes a very effective thriller. Through her, we also experience the country’s entrenched misogyny.

All the film’s accoutrements are note-perfect from the costuming to the music, performances, and set design. Messy family life and moral ideals perfuse the film’s landscape but the film shows how these things can become the foundational elements of an individual’s life.

As masterful as the character it portrays, TÁR is a textured, finely calibrated, stunningly composed, and thoroughly contemporary study. Its chords reverberate long after the music fades.

Instead of skipping lightly over rough seas, Triangle of Sadness bobs to shore like a floating sarcophagus.

Maltese writer/director Buhagiar emphasizes the character’s transformative path rather than her pitiable starting point, and with the help of some suspension of disbelief and a symbolic pigeon (no, not a Maltese falcon) Carmen comes into her own.

Although the film allows us a certain emotional proximity to the twins, it never rewards us with understanding or dramatic resolution. Their story draws us in, but distant (and silent) outsiders they remain.

The premise of I Love My Dad is so icky that the film’s writer, director, and co-star, James Morosini, lets viewers know at the very outset that its plot is based on a true story, thus automatically rendering it more palatable.

What you’ll find in The French is valuable social history rather than a sportscasting document.

Even if it still isn’t the band’s time (as Bowie might say), Fanny: The Right to Rock is essential viewing for every student of rock history, not to mention feminism.

Based on a memoir by Annie Ernaux, Happening is remarkable for its first-person depiction of the panic and desperation of a young woman carrying an unwanted pregnancy. Moreover, the film is remarkable for its depiction of a determined and unflinching female protagonist who refuses to accept her predicament as her deserved fate.

The imagery by cinematographer Michal Englert is stupendous, but the dialogue and plot by actor-turned-screenwriter Joshua Rollins, who also has a small role in the film, are a bit too minimal. Infinite Storm always shows the perils we face but never explains them.

Julie’s restlessness is anchored by a self-confidence that Reinsve conveys guilelessly and brilliantly.

Melodrama mixes with light-hearted touches, moral dilemmas, and historical reckoning in Almodóvar’s latest.

As usual, Oscar-winner Frances McDormand delivers a rich, physically detailed performance that leaves as much under the surface as above it.

The Reason I Jump will be revelatory for viewers who know little about the subject, and affirmative for caregivers and parents of children on the autism spectrum. What everyone, however, can take away from the film is the knowledge that just because someone is unexpressive, it doesn’t mean they are without thoughts and ideas; and just because someone’s bodily motions may appear odd and eccentric, it doesn’t mean they are possessed or unmanageable.

The family’s reunion story is enhanced by showing it from each character’s perspective. Each time, we discover more about each person and come to admire the sensitivity they show toward one another.

Even though Stardust is not coated in gossamer, the film still has some glittery moments.