Robert Abele

It's a character study about faith in connectedness, with an unforced love for cross-generational companionship that's special indeed.

Taguchi and Lefferman approach it all less like journalists or vérité documentarians than friendly guests who want to be respectful yet connect to something deeper about pain, mourning and forward movement.

A refreshing instance of world building where the emphasis is on satirical wit, activist smarts and character, it feels like one of those movies we’ll be looking at decades from now and, however tech has transformed our lives, saying “Yeah, ‘Lapsis’ had that.”

Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down never fully escapes its branded-content vibes, but as a parallel love story and back-to-battle story, it succeeds.

If it’s too much to ask of Arnold that her bid for heightened naturalism make a ton of sense, “Bird” at least maintains a heartbeat of ache and affection for youth in all its rudeness, revealing a filmmaker who isn’t afraid of losing her claws if she traffics in the thing with feathers.

There’s little that’s not dispiriting about Among the Believers and its measured, direct entrée into a closed world of hopeless boys and girls memorizing the Koran, but forbidden from learning its meanings.

There are times when The Tale of King Crab seems like it could have been made in the silent era, so dedicated are Rigo de Righi and Zoppis to the simple, dramatic power of what they choose to show us. Their characters search for love, justice and gold while the filmmakers make clear what they treasure: ageless tales like these.

However one ultimately feels about Fisk’s reportorial compass, This Is Not a Movie presents a necessary, thought-provoking portrait of a dedicated truth-seeker.

Informally sketched but deeply felt, Bradley Beesley's documentary Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo mingles with the spirited cowgirl inmates who compete in Oklahoma's annual state penitentiary rodeo.

Instead of sinking into crude, one-night-stand joke territory, Night Owls roots around for the spark of real chemistry and, in the winning turns of Pally and Salazar, finds it.

For a movie designed to honor the unexpected depths of a cultural hallmark, Ramen Heads does achieve, to borrow the ultimate standard of ramen quality, enough satisfying slurpability.

The Ward is bland shock therapy from the guy who reinvented bloody peek-a-boo with the classic "Halloween."

Part biopic, part mystery, part exposé, Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed is ultimately a cooled celebration, one eager to acknowledge that gurus are complicated, showbiz is treacherous, and some landscapes hide things.

The combination of technique and message is ultimately winning. It’s tempting to think of Biggest Little Farm as the real-life equivalent of an epic pastoral storybook tale, but with the kind of happy ending that suggests a blueprint for saving the earth.

Sollers Point boasts a cool, classically observational tone marked by Sabier Kirchner’s invitingly elegant cinematography that eschews the vogue for artificial shaky-cam edginess, and the naturalistic detail of a lived-in neighborhood populated by at least a dozen instantly memorable characters — by turns stressed, satisfied, curious, weird and sad — just doing their thing.

The details are mesmerizing as is the rule-breaking psychology behind it.

One of the best sports documentaries in recent memory.

Though admirably sensitive to the inner lives of opened souls, The World to Come is more a journal with faded photographs than a past made vividly present.

How are the action sequences? They’re fun until they feel familiar, and even then they’re still a trip because the long takes demand admiration for the sheer brute exertion at work.

Queen & Country — though often charming — has a tendency to wander and strain.

In its clear-eyed empathy for the totality of life, Free Chol Soo Lee is only deepened by not ignoring what happens when the spotlight fades on a righted wrong, and what’s left are demons, trauma, guilt and that thing both sought after and scary: being free.

Touzani, an unfussy, patient director with a fondness for the simplicity of human interaction, implicitly trusts her star to carry the film’s effervescence and complexity, although you may wish the filmmaking was a little less straightforward.

The key to the fun is that Yeon eschews lookie-loo gore for thrilling set pieces: his fleet, imaginative action scenes recall Brad Bird’s crisp transition to real people in peril when he made his “Mission Impossible” movie.

You don’t have to be a Deadhead, or even a casual listener, to find in Long Strange Trip a compelling tale of what happens when iconoclasts become icons.

It’s a fascinating story of endurance, shaky scientific methods, and solidarity that’s been given a thoughtful resurrection thanks to the writings of Genovés himself – acted in voiceover by “Zama” star Daniel Giménez Cacho – and the recollections of seven participants.

Whether snarling behind shades in uniform or off hours in elegant dresswear, Chen is a rule-breaking hoot, never more so than when she’s gearing up to heap abuse on a near-tears little girl in order to break her.

Like any craftily layered confection, what at first presents itself as colorfully whipped reveals itself to be a more tangy, lasting bite.

Despite the good intentions, structurally it's all over the place with an excess of montages, archival footage, interviews and information practically drowning out any chance to appreciate the richness of the German composer's beloved achievement.