Sheila O'Malley

Huda's Salon does not stop for one second to take a breath, and the subjects revealed have enormous and urgent philosophical reverb.

Spa Night takes too much time to portray David's achingly slow and incomplete coming-out process, but its focus on the interior maelstrom of a teenager is extremely insightful

An engaging and sneakily profound film.

In an era of stark division, not to mention demands for simplistic storytelling one can absorb while doing household chores, “Honey Bunch” revels in the uncertain, ungraspable, the neither-nor of it all.

A deeply felt teenage melodrama.

It works best when it's most impressionistic. Although the big events in life have the most impact (you wonder what on earth is going to happen to these three boys), it's the small things — the early morning light, the tall grass, the black flowing river, Ma's smudged mascara, Paps' dazzling grin — that we really remember.

Moxie doesn't have the satirical bite of, say, Mean Girls, nor does it have a particularly punk rock energy, but Poehler does an admirable job keeping things moving.

Call Jane is about an important subject, but it's also a character study of one woman waking up, not just to her own strength, but to the fact that she's hidden in the suburbs for too long. It's time to help others. It's a very satisfying character arc.

Overall it is a friendly and affectionate backstage look at the world of the mostly-straight male dancers at La Bare.

Traditions are people’s stories, connecting them to their ancestors, to this patch of ground. Knowledge is passed down literally—recipes, sewing patterns, hand-drawn truffle maps—but also symbolically; myths, fables, fairy tales. You can’t put a price on any of it, and that, ultimately, is what Trifole is all about.

Cocote, filmed entirely in the Dominican Republic, is filled with such images, seemingly unconnected to one another at times and yet when placed in collage they create a powerful and visceral experience.

Written and directed by Andrew Semans, Resurrection is a diabolically intense psychological thriller, with two riveting central performances from Hall and Tim Roth, neither of whom shy away from the dark nutty territory they are required to enter.

Liza, a tribute to someone still alive, is gentle in its intentions, but the overall effect is meaningful.

It's an extremely effective context for this particular story, told with no nostalgia, lots of humor, and a cast of really watchable characters. They are "types," for sure, but the types are given room to breathe. It's a sensitive and interesting film.

The film has atmosphere and energy as well as a specific point of view.

Caveat is a masterpiece of understatement for a title, and a witty opener to Damian Mc Carthy’s directorial debut, an impressive and often terrifying film, taking place almost solely in one location, with two people trapped in a moldy dimly-lit house.

Cinematographer Samuel Calvin is to be commended for his striking work, and Reece shows an intuitive understanding of when to move the camera, and—more importantly—when not to move the camera. It's all very elegantly put together.

The Widowmaker, narrated by Gillian Anderson, is a disheartening portrait of blatant greed, as well as a fascinating examination of the trial and error process used in the scientific method.

It's a quiet and gentle film, emotional but not manipulatively sentimental, sad but not nihilistic, Marilyn Manson epigram and Goth-font chapter markers notwithstanding.

There are a couple of hallucinatory sequences that don't quite work, and the score by Paul Mills comes swooping in, insistent upon being inspirational in a way that feels like unnecessary underlining.

The Great Invisible is strongest when it focuses on the micro rather than the macro. How the spill impacted individuals in the region is the real story of The Great Invisible.

Ritch's script is thoughtful and intense, making The Artifice Girl a mentally engaging and challenging work.

Les Misérables is a gripping experience, tense and upsetting.

This is Owen Kline's first feature, and he knows this world—the world of comic book obsessives and hopeful comics artists—very well. Nostalgia is probably at work in the film—somewhere—but it's buried under layers of grime and bitter disillusionment.

A good old-fashioned melodrama, albeit with a quieter touch.

This sounds very dark. But I Used to Go Here, grounded by a beautiful performance from Gillian Jacobs, treats its subject light-heartedly, while still managing to be honest.

The theme is present in every frame. Gilford's affection for the characters is clear. I'm happy to have met them, to have been welcomed into their world for a short time.

Ghosts and spirits appear, and weird things are indeed summoned, but Brooklyn 45 is really a meditation on grief and the unfinished business of war as experienced by a group who struggle with adjusting to peacetime.