Matt Fagerholm

What they tell us is inherently alarming, yet it’s a shame that such crimes aren’t conveyed in a more visually compelling way.

There’s a priceless scene in Jack Bryan’s new documentary, Active Measures, where McCain is seen smirking through a speech delivered by the Russian president, as he sneers with theatrical menace in the senator’s direction.

Like the director’s 2017 profile of Dries Van Noten, Martin Margiela: In His Own Words explores how its titular subject is driven by ideas rather than ego or a desire for stardom.

Far stronger than its lackluster buzz from Cannes suggested, this film is yet another testament to Farhadi’s genius in mining immense power from silence and stillness.

What makes this film special, first and foremost, is the performance by Chin, who has lost none of the acerbic edge she sported as Waverly’s mother in “The Joy Luck Club.”

Even with the inclusion of modern cell phones, this 2018 release feels like it arrived fresh from 1974, and that is what makes it a delight.

With its frequent use of puppetry and quirky animation, Boom Bust Boom suggests what an old-school episode of “Sesame Street” would’ve played like, had it focused solely on the subprime crash.

The post-apocalyptic landscapes captured by the courageous lens of cinematographer Artem Ryzhykov are deeply chilling, especially when Alexandrovich stumbles upon a classroom littered with gas masks.

One of the most refreshing things about Laurie Simmons’ similarly provocative feature directorial debut, My Art, is in how it challenges the very notion of what constitutes a happy ending.

Polsky’s skill in mining the darkly humorous shades of disastrous hubris is not all that surprising, considering he produced Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage’s funniest film to date, 2009’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.”

Since Thunberg is one of the most gifted and arresting speakers alive today, I Am Greta is inherently compelling as a behind-the-scenes document of the vulnerabilities masked by her forceful persona.

I didn’t laugh a whole lot while watching Adam, but I was never less than wholly engaged, and by the end, I felt grateful for having seen it.

By respecting the spiritual journeys of his subjects, Karslake affirms that he is more concerned with reaching across the aisle than preaching to the choir.

What makes Chase Joynt’s first solo outing as a feature director, Framing Agnes, such essential viewing is the extent to which it sheds new light on the legacy of trans Americans from the past century and beyond, whose voices are only just beginning to emerge from the vault of obscurity.

With a running time clocking in just over two hours, Promise at Dawn often plays like a truncated miniseries, with scenes moving along too quickly for their emotional peaks and valleys to reach their fullest expression.

Echo in the Canyon appears all too content in banking on our nostalgia for the formidable roster of artists it has assembled, relying solely on our familiarity with their work to keep our attention rapt.

What resonates most potently are the scenes of the 1972 trial.

What’s lacking from the film is any substantial exploration of the Constitution itself, and the democratic laws that would’ve made it a game-changer in Zimbabwe, had any of them been put into effect.

Entanglement is gleefully weird at times, but it could’ve been a whole lot weirder.

For all of its breezy charm, what makes “Guernsey” an often frustrating experience is the fact that the story uncovered by Juliet is exceedingly more interesting than the one she finds herself confined within.

If anything, the picture is a touch too benign for its own good, though it does earn enough laughs to warrant a recommendation, at least in its first third.

The vast majority of this picture is extremely well done, which is what makes its sudden misstep into wish fulfillment sentimentality during the final twenty minutes all the more of a letdown.

At a time when the long-overdue rallying cry for representation has inadvertently limited the type of stories artists have the permission to tell, depending largely on their outward identity, the success of LeRoy’s work—and the countless lives it mirrored—stands as undeniable proof that art should never be constrained by the boundaries of one’s experience.

When it comes to conjuring a sense of place, Driver’s film succeeds spectacularly, though it comes up short in other areas.

If this material were compiled into a book, it would be rightfully deemed great literature. As featured in Heise’s film, however, these insightful words are frequently marred by a style oddly akin to a mournful podcast, one that requires listeners to repeatedly peer at their phone to read the subtitles.

I got more enjoyment from reading Parlow’s exceptional interview in the production notes than I did from any given scene in the movie, some of which are so murky, they border on incoherent.

With these two top-drawer talents anchoring Michael Engler’s The Chaperone, one expects the picture to be terrific, and for the majority of its running time, it does not disappoint.

Regardless of its missteps, Grossman’s film should be seen as a necessary introduction to a multitude of stories warranting greater analysis.