Rodrigo Perez

Fleck and Boden certainly have strong filmmaking smarts. They understand restraint, have terrific observational eyes, and know how to coax honest performances out of actors. So it’s perhaps a shame that Mississippi Grind is ultimately too underwhelming to stake with any confidence.

The Covenant is so self-assured in its noble filmmaking values and beliefs. It makes a knowing nod between two men— and the heroically punishing sacrifices they risked for one another— one of the most moving moments on screen this year.

‘Sly Lives!’: should we file it under good doc? Sure, it’s very watchable. But does it really unpack the burden of black genius? Well, that is a thing, to be honest. The culture moves on fast and the standards to which black artists are held are always way more ruthless and higher. I’m just not entirely convinced it lands this thesis as well as it hopes it does.

While its ambition does show a director still aspiring for great heights, its patchy execution only partly restores the faith.

Calvary may not be for all audiences, with its pitch-black heart and sober existentialism not exactly commercial stuff, but its unwavering commitment to the intelligent thorniness of its themes, and the masterful control McDonagh exerts over the shifts in tone are worth cherishing, bringing it soaring close to something divine.

The film’s real revelation is that 14-year-old Alfie Williams. For all of the names in the picture, it’s an ensemble built around him, and Williams proves his mettle and will undoubtedly have a long and prosperous career after this film.

Pain & Gain fails at being an entertaining and ridiculously fun Michael Bay movie and curdles into something much more tone deaf and obnoxious.

Saulnier’s overall mise en scene is impressive. Everything from precision camera work, rigorous composition, framing and blocking, nimble, tight editing, and stress-inducing music, Rebel Ridge kicks ass in the best possible sense, entertaining, thrilling, and always captivating.

It’s a lovely, charming, vibrant, sad, bildungsroman tale and roman-fleuve that pays small tribute to Maradona. But more importantly, it manages to both memorialize this agonizing turning point in his life and warmly reminisce on the bliss that came before it.

Trenchantly reflecting on the mishandling of success, blind ambition, idolatry, hero worship and the complex and competitive nature of artists in romantic relationships, Listen Up Philip is brilliantly chock-a-block with resonant observations.

Yes, it’s the DCEU’s best film, but as we know, that’s not saying a lot. But, hey, that terrific second act that we should cling to even if it’s a distant memory by the time love defeats aggression. “Wonder Woman” might be molded by the mighty Gods, but as shaped by mere mortals her mettle and beliefs and can be only so wonderfully divine.

Unpretentious and unassuming, but effective, Corbijn creates his own cozy, sleeve for these trailblazers to get their due and creates a must-watch for rockologists everywhere in the process.

Though it may feel threadbare for some, Iñárritu’s near exhausting movie is still unforgettably visceral and there’s so much to be dazzled and experientially shaken by.

Stutz in the end isn’t revelatory per se, but it is deeply heartfelt, intimate, nakedly honest, and engaging.

Stronger feels genuine and certainly has the right intentions, but never converts to something truly enlivening.

Resembling a patched together sketch of an idea, and a thrown-together filmed play, set (mostly) inside a house, Locked Down should have just been terminated in the lab, instead of rushing out like a vaccine of entertainment that cured absolutely no one of their doldrums.

There’s tremendous social and moral texture throughout the drama, but the socio-economic commentary of the movie is fabric, not heavy handed accessory. And the provocative ethical breaches—savage and scathing in the latter half—give the movie its delectable and wicked bite.

The minor problem of it all is while what Anderson is trying to say can be read across the sky like a beautifully glistening moonbeam; it does often lack the craterous depth of feeling we know he’s capable of when doing his best creative and emotional astrography.

This pleasingly mellow portrait of a bunch of kids making movies is also an instance of defanged nostalgia — when it was an occasion to highlight the economic, political, cultural circumstances that made this kind of creativity possible.

Wild never really earns its hard-fought struggle for redemption and personal reinvention.

At the very least, the skillful film generally doesn’t insult the audiences intelligence and generally is a lot smarter and sharper than most mainstream moves in cineplexes these days.

Ill-defined, overlong and wandering with unlikable leads (even Alan is too feeble and useless to sympathize with), The Mend would be a disaster if it weren't for the fact that the lack of vision is marginally absorbing in a kind train wreck, “will this movie ever reveal what the hell it’s about?”-like manner.

Well-drawn and intimate, Miller’s best observations come incidentally; Five Star explores ideas and relationships rather than spelling them out.

Baumbach’s sharp examinations of the limitations of the callow arrogance of youth and the fatuous nature of egocentricity are pointed and riotously enjoyable.

This terrific and sublime experience, and strikingly original film, is mandatory watching for the adventurous viewer.

Swims forward with tenacious shark-like energy and therefore is sleek, efficient and utterly engaging.

The aspiration itself—what seems to be the clear desire to elevate a conventional murder drama to something greater—feels unmistakably tangible. And ambitious attempts are often intriguing even if they don’t always land.

As an sensory experience, 'WOWS' is mostly a terrifically visceral one, a full throttle fast and furious bacchanalia of drug-fueled madness. But as a scathing indictment of American rapacity, it isn't particularly deep or resonant beyond the exterior.