Martin Tsai

Live at the Foxes Den comes off like some long-unproduced Broadway musical finally dusted off when someone raised enough money to mount it as a film production instead.

Impressively, Gangs of Wasseypur manages its sprawling story lines deftly and maintains a brisk pace throughout its daunting length. The performances are uniformly excellent, even if no character in Part 1 is at all likable.

The Quiet Girl has a meaningful message on nurturing. But with so little of consequence going on, it’s crucial to get the emotions precisely right. Without voiceover narration tying everything together, some scenes feel out of place, random, or offer little beyond aesthetics.

Although director and co-writer Cutter Hodierne tells the story from the pirates' viewpoint, he adds no more dimension to them than the one we saw in "Phillips."

While Chevalier is by no means terrible, it seems like such a huge missed opportunity for an important historical figure to have finally gotten his due.

If bare-knuckle fights are what you seek, director Ekachai Uekrongtham certainly delivers. But the film scarcely scratches the surface of the horrors of human trafficking.

The real reason Happening manages to be so persuasive is because it tells such a vivid, intimate and relatable story, whether as a viewer it has happened to you or someone in your life, or your biggest fear is that it will.

Self-discovery through artistic expression is often trite, but Frank's rehabilitation and transformation readily win us over when we're least expecting it.

The information presented in “Lowndes County” is absolutely vital, but all the archival interviews it surfaces make one wonder if a better documentary on the same subject exists.

The musical numbers are inconsistent, ranging from radio-ready to after-school-special quality. Some story lines pale compared with the others. But overall, this is an immense achievement.

We all need a little reassurance once in a while to stay true to ourselves, and Turning Red is speaking directly to generations of Asian women in the diaspora when they need to hear this the most.

Unfortunately, directors Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick have squandered a worthy subject.

Ribière and Le Bourdonnec get almost hypertechnical with all the cattle breeds, feeds, grades, cuts, marbling, dry-aging and preparation. Nevertheless, most any carnivore would find this absolute torture on an empty stomach.

Accepted ultimately arrives at a conclusion about the harmfulness of the “model minority” narrative without necessarily deploying the exact term, as it highlights the fact that these inspirational stories about marginalized people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps are often used to allow systemic inequities to fester.

Johnson freely bounces around buzzwords like “disruptors” and “influencers” with dripping mockery, but he stops way short of satire. He never entices us to take an active interest in this new cast of characters, and there isn’t much suspense or high stakes to speak of even when things start to head south.

The narrative of Strachwitz as preserver of obscure music just repeats like a broken record with the introduction of each region, genre and musician.

Top Spin grips, exhilarates and breaks hearts like the 1994 film "Hoop Dreams."

Unexpectedly, the film best serves as a cautionary anecdote that epitomizes the mutual apprehension between Internet-age start-ups and establishment media.

At a different time, I might have been more inclined to entertain Reijn's proposition seriously. But it's just her luck that the great Catherine Breillat, who has devoted her illustrious career to investigating these taboos, dropped a far superior film on the same subject matter, Last Summer, just a few months prior, beating Reijn to the finish line.

The film proves much more valuable as a historical allegory than as a musical survey.

If it only had a brain, a heart and the nerve.

The slickly produced documentary Farmland often comes off like lobbyist propaganda, profusely extolling the virtues of the independent American farmer.

Bitterbrush director Emelie Mahdavian allows you to tag along with two range riders, listen in on intimate conversations, and bask in spectacular and sometimes unforgiving nature as you observe their way of life.

The documentary style makes the proceedings all the more frightening.

This cautionary tale couldn't be more timely or essential.

The film's exploration of the tenuous bonds within a community will surely prompt serious soul-searching.

It’s an intimately scaled film that still demands to be seen on the big screen; never once does it leave the impression that it would be best suited for a streaming platform. Hyde’s refined and attentive direction, Bryan Manson’s crystal clear cinematography, and Stephen Rennicks’ sparkling score have done wonders cultivating the sensual tone and texture.

Like a typical Hollywood action-thriller, though, the screenplay jeopardizes the film. The twists concocted by writers James Robert Johnston and Bennett Yellin are mostly predictable; and the ones you don't see coming are outlandish.