Michael Frank

The urgency in Beyond Utopia cannot ever be understated. The consequences of the risks taken by these people––both the defectors and Pastor Kim––cannot be undervalued. Each risks everything in this journey.

Sweet Thing could only be more personal if Rockwell himself was in it, but it remains a drama filled with wonder, containing magic that can only pop up when you’re in your teens.

The writer-director never rushes this story, but still wastes no time in the film––each scene contains weight and value. Each moment builds on the memories of Shula and of the women in this family, fractured together, constantly reminded of monstrosities, somehow still taking steps forward.

Sr. is sweet and tender, never playing as a dolled-up version of this relationship; it instead depicts a trueness in this bond, a warmth that has existed all of their lives. The sounds that echo after the film ends are the Downeys laughing together––about dumb stuff, about film references, about the past, about their present, about anything and everything.

More movies could use the genuine kindness and comfort Mills provides with his stories. He’s become an auteur concerned solely with humanness. He gets his audience to shed earnest tears, both happy and sad. There’s something special about that, about Mills, and about C’mon C’mon.

It’s a gorgeous piece of animation to consume. It envelopes the viewer, providing a casing similar to the bubble Amélie lives in for her first two years.

French Exit easily could have been an unnecessary cliché. Instead, Jacobs’ film provides a polished portrait filled with originality, melancholy, and comedy.

Zlotowski’s fifth feature excels thanks to a compelling lead performance from Efira, giving insight into one woman’s relationship to motherhood. Her wants, her love, and her losses are all on display, built up only to be let down. Baked in a stern reality, the drama never loses that central, necessary thread.

Neptune Frost has a quality of few films: pure, authentic creativity. It can be overwhelming, mudding up the actual narrative of a movie that coasts around genres, topics, and emotions. It confuses more than it explains. But none of that matters. It always has something important to say and a powerful way to say it.

A moving, devastating piece of filmmaking.

[Kempff] crafts a film that grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go, one that’s equally absorbing in look and performance, despite a diminished importance mere hours after it ends.

This is a studio offering that coasts on likability and enjoyment––luckily, there’s enough of that fun to go around.

Liu and Altman put forth a film that causes you to be upset with these systematic cycles of violence and oppression while also giving you a desire to create positive change yourself or, at the bare minimum, support those making a difference.

A genre film committed and receptive to the melted minds of its characters and the equally melted minds of its audience

Brewster and Stephenson struggle to penetrate the armor of this famous poet, focusing instead on her career, her health, and the way that others look at her. Most often they do so with deep admiration, a longing to be fixed by Giovanni.

For a Lynch diehard, Lynch/Oz will be catnip. For any average moviegoer, it digs into the well of American cinema history with enough fascination that it’s worth a watch.

Spare an hour. Give time to cinematographers who usually give their talents to stories other than their own. This film will remind you of the purgatory we live in, but more than that, it’ll remind you of our shared experiences and worldwide connection.

It’s moving in its minuteness, in the difficulty of daily living for two men trying to survive an intensive, low-income job. Still, it returns to the issue of friendship and how, as people age, they begin to grow apart.

If obviously silly, it represents an obsession with cutting-edge tech, the shininess of something new, and making our lives easier, lazier, and less connected. Although this commentary is blatant, the film—with all its insanity—remains highly enjoyable: real good, real fun, real simple cinema.

The film plays as one extended memory—sometimes more bitter, sometimes more sweet, always a combination of both.

It gives time, credence, and a stage to Mamie, a woman immortalized through her motherhood and 50 years of advocacy overlooked that has become overlooked. It’s a timely, essential piece of filmmaking.

At a minimum, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain stirs up appreciation for these tiny feline creatures that have gone from the streets to staining the carpets. Out of unusual direction and honest portrayals emerges something much greater.

Clint Bentley’s Jockey sources its strength from its casting. Led by a career-best Clifton Collins Jr. and supported by more-than-solid performances from Molly Parker and Moisés Arias, the film leans on these three actors to tell a tried-and-true story.

González-Nasser captures something essential about Sofia’s life: the exhaustion. The film, more comedy than drama, breaks both the viewer and Sofia down in equal parts, pushing either to continue this never-ending day, showing the pressure of a job that many others tell her is “so cool.”

If you watched Reading Rainbow as a kid, the doc will leave you in puddles. If you didn’t, it will still likely leave you with tears in your eyes—happy tears.

Unflinching in her questioning of the abandonment and how it affected each individual party, the film moves throughout Jin’s life with persistence and without rush. The result is an affecting, brutal look at the real-life trauma of the One-Child Policy for one economically struggling family in a rural area of China.

It hinges on a shade of obsession and a hint of delusion, but if anything, it shows how much the mind can swirl when life doesn’t go as expected, as it rarely does.

Park’s debut comedy leans on its cast and a smart screenplay to offer up a social commentary both bitter enough to make a point and agreeable enough to make people laugh, even leave with a smile on their faces. While it’s a tricky line to balance, Park (barely) pulls it off.