That the perspective this time is from a girl’s point of view rather than a boy’s is significant. At least it is in theory. The scripter is Joe Kelly, who, along with J.M. Ken Nimura, created the comic. It’s not a knock to note that the main creative talents behind the camera are male — the women of the cast are clearly imbuing their characterizations with what they know. But there’s still something about I Kill Giants that feels projected, a work more informed by empathy than experience.

Ditching many of the high school movie tropes for idiosyncratic raunchy comedy, Lorain’s film deliberately calls out the double standard that still exists while letting her flawed young characters still have fun.

By the time we get to Ashe’s AIDS-related activism, and the horrible way USA Today twisted his arm into revealing his diagnosis, Citizen Ashe has taken us on a complex, sometimes infuriating tour of its subject’s life. It begins with the birth of an athlete, then morphs into the creation of an activist. The transition is so subtle that you only realize it after the film ends.

Simultaneously lush and lurid, sumptuous and startling, A Bigger Splash never goes where you expect, even as its undercurrent of danger is unmistakable from the start.

Catnip for writers and humorists of all stripes, Wolchok’s film provides delightful breakdowns of various cartoons, examining the comedic rhythm of their design and detail.

For its near-miss moments, the inside-out approach of The Mission results in a richer film than one might have expected from reading the summary on a streaming menu.

Some of the twists the film takes, particularly in its final third, strain the powers of belief, but the ending, thankfully, does not soft-pedal all that came before.

Children of the Sea is consequently yet another animated fantasy based on hackneyed tropes, like sprite-like martyrs, the guiding hands of fate, and vague nostalgia for a pre-technological past.

While the mood is that of a gentle and affectionate comedy, the film makes some extremely sharp points about fanaticism, sexism masked as holiness, and tolerance among the faithful.

Ultimately, while this character-based drama proves consistently engrossing, it leaves various pertinent and fascinating issues frustratingly unexplored.

With its coming-of-age and its historical context, Beans concerns ideas of pain and conflict, but it’s too timid to really engage those ideas, to honor their discomfort aside from how horrific discrimination is (a few scenes of the family being ambushed by racist Canadian citizens are upsetting, but played too directly for tears).

Strawberry Mansion sacrifices nothing. It's whimsical but it's poignant, it's light-hearted and it's deep.

This down-to-earth approach works surprisingly well because Southside with You never loses sight of the primary tenet of a great romantic comedy: All you need is two people whom the audience wants to see get together—then you put them together.

Co-written by Seligman and Sennott, Bottoms is fun and silly in all its chaos. The two have created a ridiculous world where the overdramatic high school drama is not always supposed to make sense, but that’s part of the appeal.

Witherspoon tries, even doing her first-ever nude scenes, to convince us she has hit the skids. Yet no matter how greasy her hair or how dead her eyes, I just can’t buy her as a self-destructive junkie.

The documentary’s skillful use of archival footage connects us to Tucker’s extraordinary talent as a singer and her vibrance and magnetism as a performer, adding poignant context to the present-day scenes, showing her often faltering, trying to hide her vulnerability.

This is more than mere fan service slide show. It is a joyous, infectious story of the human capacity to change, and the importance of creative freedom to guide that change.

The funniest thing about “Daaaaalí!” is how often Dupieux succeeds at tricking you into thinking that he’s about to zig when he’s clearly ready to zag. It’s not a sophisticated bit, but Dupieux’s commitment to illogical anti-humor remains pretty disarming.

On the Count of Three is a rousing tragicomedy that straddles a line between incredibly calibrated gallows humor and a devastating discourse on the burden of existence.

The animated movies that have sustained in history trust children to follow complex plots and themes. It’s great to see that kind of trust reemerge in a film that never forgets to be entertaining too.

Gagarine plays like a mournful lament for a community that banded together during hard times before being separated and scattered to the winds, leaving no trace of its communal existence behind.

It's an ambitious family film that will work for all ages, and one that never talks down to its audience while presenting them with an entertaining, thought-provoking story. It also contains some of the most striking imagery Disney has ever produced, dropping its characters in a world that feels both classic and new at the same time.

Jane Giles and Ali Catterall's documentary "Scala!!!" is about a legendary, notorious, hugely influential and long-gone London theater. But it'll appeal to anyone whose formative moviegoing years were defined by eccentric, usually urban or college-town cinemas that programmed whatever the folks who ran the place found interesting and switched lineups every day or two.

It’s not a groundbreaking piece of work, and I wish it embraced its indie, Hartley-esque roughness a bit more instead of trying to be too polished in the final act, but it’s always nice when a movie with little to no buzz sneaks up on you like this one did for me.

God is destined to forever be a complicated subject for most mortals, yet there’s no question this film has made me a believer in the boundless artistic potential of its creator.

It's all over the place, and if there was a way to unify all of its disparate elements, the filmmaker never quite figured it out. You just have to agree that it's all of a piece and accept it isn't going to settle into any one mode for very long.

Even when the courtroom scenes fall into overly familiar visual patterns, Foxx adds tension, frivolity, and a sense of rigor, elevating The Burial from its common bones to a stirring, distinctive comedy with high re-watch value.

As a realistic portrayal of an all-consuming drive, it sticks the landing.