Robert Abele

Overlong yet alluring.

Like one of those energetic Martin Scorsese montages where we’re privy to how a vibrant underground ecosystem works, the documentary pulls us inside a partying milieu of lights, stage gimmicks, fad dances and tough, colorful characters, a handful of whom are interviewed here alongside a few cultural commentators.

Zahler's still starkness, enhanced by a fondness for long shots and dark spaces, is refreshing in this shaky-cam era, and his ear for Old West sensibilities — from the mythically polite to the realistically xenophobic — is clinically effective.

Commendably entertaining.

If it struggles to make sense emotionally (or logistically), it benefits from the confident pace of a literate, mainstream entertainment, and the tactical showmanship of star Bryan Cranston, who’s made something of a specialty out of the average guy going through a metamorphosis.

The film's three-pronged narrative does a fair job of laying a spooky groundwork for the revelatory emotional sadism that lies behind most acts of evil; it just takes a bit of clunky exposition to get there.

The movie is itself rough around the edges, notably in some chintzy attempts at animating pulp graphics. But it's briskly pieced together from interviews and archival footage.

You can’t encapsulate the horrors of the Holocaust in 80 minutes, but what the 12 interviewed survivors accomplish in the documentary Destination Unknown is nevertheless a vivid portrait of genocide put into practice, and its everlasting effects on the living.

For good stretches, The Banker can be as dryly engineered as a loan application, but the galvanizing story it tells — like a last stand of rebel ingenuity before the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made discrimination unlawful — is a solid interest-earner.

Almost Holy captures something meaningfully urgent in the brutal day-to-day of tough love amid a world of tougher indifference.

Even with a cut-and-dried approach to characterization and the issue of man-made consciousness, The Machine percolates with an elegantly palpable sense of wonder and danger.

As snapshots go of bright kids facing the next step, Try Harder! is winning enough, but considering how much more there is to follow up on, here’s hoping it’s only part one.

Bhargava's naturalistic approach to capturing the sights and sounds of a city in full revelry on rooftops and in the streets is colorfully vivid - reminiscent of Wong Kar-Wai's silky urban baths - but it threatens to keep the human drama at arm's length.

It won’t replace your favorite girl-meets-boy classics, but it yo-yos between the heart and the loins with admirable verve, and it boasts a few richly comic turns.

The abiding darkness and occasionally graphic visuals will likely reduce its appeal as talking-critter family fare — think growling nighttime campfire tale instead of sun-dappled spectacle — but it makes for a welcome swerve from the Mouse House’s fun-zone approach to these timeless stories.

Kruger is entirely commanding.

Pintilie has a way of nudging the strangeness of her fiction/documentary hybridization so that your engagement isn’t predicated on narrative catharsis, but simply a desire for the continued frankness of it all.

The Starling Girl doesn’t always hold our attention, mainly due to an occasionally shaggy pace that forgets we’re often ahead of the plot. There are also two endings: one built on a choice of Jem’s that’s incredibly stirring and naturally tense, but then a subsequent scene with music and dance that reads more like something scripted to be a meaningful bookend.

Even with a thinly drawn lead, Blizzard of Souls maintains an undeniably raw power as a small country’s coming-of-age story, told through a bright-eyed wannabe hero and forged in a maelstrom of death and disillusionment.

As messy (and even physical) as the family’s exchanges can get, Benguigui always has the sisters’ inherent solidarity in mind. But it’s still a jarring mix of tones to contend with, and the many narrative strands — which include a trip to Algeria — aren’t all satisfactorily resolved.

The shared love of the movie's featured racers for their long-rebellious sport makes for a unifying energy, but their individual experiences — and different attitudes toward the future — provide an underlying complexity.

The takeaway of Reversing Roe is that Stern and Sundberg are issuing a warning, one backed by a grim timeline, forcefully presented, that makes it all too clear what’s at stake if a landmark ruling on women’s rights is overturned.

Despite an awkwardly jokey title, Now, Forager has charm, intelligence and a cool passion for its principled characters - an appealing off-menu slice for hungry indie admirers.

What Susanne Bartsch: On Top makes clear is that the art of being seen, as facilitated by Bartsch, can carry unexpectedly poignant depth.

Though not without its mini-heartbreaks and melancholic turns, North Sea Texas explores emergent sexuality and first love with a refreshing optimism.

At War has plenty of cinematic energy for a movie devoted primarily to people shouting at, but mostly past, each other.

Thirteen Lives may be a vivid rescue procedural first and foremost, but it’s also a testament to the guardian spirit possible in any of us.

A stirring ode to cultural bridge-building.