Mark Keizer

Cha Cha Real Smooth has an unforced charm and lack of guile that’s refreshing and stops just short of being precious and ingratiating.

The South Korean director, working at the top of his game, drops tantalizing clues that are best analyzed in multiple viewings which, it can be reported from first-hand experience, will be very helpful.

Its observational shooting style is simple yet rich in quotidian detail. Its storytelling is morally neutral, yet charged with moments that obligate the viewer to question our treatment of farm animals.

It’s a sexually frank and intimate story told in a pleasingly mainstream manner that avoids greeting card clichés and empty “girl power” posturing.

It can be overwhelming at times, and it’s true that Huntt’s deeply rooted powers of introspection can sometimes curdle into self-absorption. But her lacerating honesty and restless, searching spirit make Beba a virtuoso bomb-drop of a documentary.

This is a deeply felt work anchored by two earthy performances that stay small-scaled no matter how melodramatic the slowly revealed secrets become.

Ultimately, Moll’s film is a cautionary tale for the lonely among us, a reminder that one step away from idealizing romance lies the risk of becoming a fool for love, which just might get you killed.

It's a stirring mix of sports and human drama that exudes an almost earthy sense of genuineness.

The tale of two older women whose decades-long secret relationship is threatened after tragedy strikes covers emotional and thematic ground that transcends the sexual preferences of the two main characters.

In Darkness takes its place among the many great European films to tackle the subject. Plenty of quality-seeking adult moviegoers will be lured to the arthouse and thoroughly moved.

Filled with twists and reversals that, for the most part, are motivated by character not plot, The Outfit is a nifty little period thriller that provides a showcase role for the always-amazing Mark Rylance.

Selick and Peele operate a bit at cross purposes in Wendell & Wild. The genius visualist wants to haunt our dreams. The socially engaged provocateur wants to haunt our troubled collective realities. Whatever doesn’t quite mesh in their collaboration is easier to forgive when feasting upon such extraordinary sights.

It’s easy to imagine Williams taking this story and crafting either a boisterously funny, obstacle-filled mad dash to the hospital or an indignant, op-ed baiting thesis on post-George Floyd America. Instead, he turns down the heat and blends the two, creating a buddy comedy of errors shot through with an ever-darkening undercurrent of racial commentary.

Unfolding at a relaxed pace and richly enhanced by DP Paul Guilhaume’s silky black and white images, Paris, 13th District is a candid, intimate, and authentic examination of the obstacles that keep young urbanites from connecting.

It pays off in a work of gorgeous stylistic precision where cautious glances and wistful anecdotes melt together to form a melancholy arthouse jewel about the tearing down of one woman’s identity.

Reijn, whose last directing effort was Instinct, the Netherland’s 2019 Best International Feature Film Oscar submission, directs with a loose, improvisational energy. If she keeps too loose a grip on the reigns, occasionally letting scenes meander, there’s another surprise or biting line of dialogue to get things back on track. While there’s plenty of blood and nasty kills, Reijn is not here to provide a true horror film experience.

Consistently amusing, if about a reel too long, it’s a tightly controlled, low-boil send-up of the acting process.

Call Jane is a feminist work told with straight-arrow purpose. It assumes that the slightest melodrama would devalue the sacrifices these women made and the community they created. If that’s a miscalculation, the movie is still effective and enlightening—and a worthy companion to 2022’s The Janes, an excellent nonfiction documentary on this remarkable cooperative.

Blend of sardonic humor and bitter poetry.

Just when we thought there were no new twists to the story of the Warsaw Ghetto comes this documentary: focused, sorrowful and revelatory.

Killing Them Softly tries hard - and succeeds - to be a film of the now with its political parallels right in front of us. Yet it's also an invisible companion to the dirty business at hand - and it is a business.

Alcoholic movie characters run the gamut from lovable millionaire (Arthur) to Skid Row bum (Henry Chinaski from Barfly) to all-out, suicidal depressive (Ben from Leaving Las Vegas). As written and performed, Winstead's Kate triangulates between all these approaches and finds a sincerity that plays to the intellect, not to the rafters.

In his densely constructed and pretty damn brilliant film The Juche Idea, Finn takes aim at North Korean president Kim Jong-il's theories on cinema and how its ultimate purpose is to advance political ideology and party loyalty.

More than just a jocular account of a musical comedy revue, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is a snapshot of a unique man's psyche at a very peculiar moment.

For fans, this is exactly how the story of Jean Valjean's transformation from thief to saint should be delivered: smothered in bombast.

It’s steeped in a grave sense of portentousness that burrows under your skin. The issue is the weighty script, bleak and heavy with apocalyptic consequence, which contains undeniably intriguing notions that are often not satisfactorily explored or don’t quite cohere.

Viewers will find its emotional arc obvious and familiar, although the summoning of those emotions is where the movie derives its power.

Watching even the most tossed-off gag is worth whatever shortcomings Make Believe has, including its lack of real drama.