A Borrowed Identity commendably avoids polemics in order to provide a textured portrait of a young man going through a set of personal transitions against the background of ongoing cultural flux that reflects a larger, collective identity crisis. Its evocation of the historical period feels carefully honed and resonant.

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World isn’t a perfect watch, and it's often confusing and confounding. But it gets at the heart of this forlorn figure, a once idol turned tragic Greek hero. It’s unflinching, and one of the most honest portraits of the pitfalls that can happen in child stardom.

Watching Coppola land on his head and then pick himself back up again and point himself at another brick wall is ultimately strangely inspiring.

It’s not a “bad” film, but Billie Jean King’s story could have been so much deeper. It’s a movie that doesn’t hit nearly as hard as she did.

Though it doesn’t break new ground, Hive still reminds one how urgently significant it is to honor the unique fighting spirit of women, and how much cinematic joy seeing that spirit flourish against the odds can bring about.

The film's retro, John Carpenter-esque synthesizer score, composed by Jeff Grace, further pushes viewers away.

Yan’s debut as a writer/director is a mostly sturdily constructed, and deftly edited, series of “meanwhiles,” a sprawling narrative of loosely and closely connected people whose lives intertwine in a variety of ways.

There are multiple knockout supporting performances, and the film has a gift for giving you just enough of the supporting characters to fill them out in your imagination whenever Lourenço leaves their presence.

Directed by Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse” is a remarkably cogent and compelling presentation not just of Spiegelman’s life story but also his personality and art.

Some experiences are so profound (and/or scarring) that they elude explication. The Inspection is about that sort of experience, which translates far beyond boot camp and resonates through our lives, until the final trumpet fades.

This movie’s not frustrating because it’s blunt or vicious, but because its creators are only so interested in a world condemning Agnes to a dire fate. Her actions may ultimately be shocking, but her story is anything but.

The people in this movie have intelligence in their eyes, but their words are defined by the requirements of formula comedy. If this had been a European film, the same plot would have been populated with adults, and the results might have been magical.

This is a nuanced film, one that doesn’t lay itself out in what we would consider a satisfyingly linear fashion. But it’s the sort of thing that gets a grip on your spine when you’re least expecting it.

Every bit as exciting and heartwarming and imaginative as the Oscar-winning original and maybe even funnier.

One of Them Days satisfies like a high-five landed after three whiffs: a rewarding win on account of the stumbles it took to get there.

Defa’s film aligns with the notion that it’s how a story is told--how it feels--and not just what it is about. And there is so much to feel from his take on dysfunction, including how it presents siblings who can sing and dance in unison but are not friends.

That opening scene is also, in retrospect, somewhat depressing for the way that it conflates a glib fatalism with an unbelievable sort of turn-the-other-cheek optimism ("If they hurt others, it's because they hurt, too,” as Benedicta says in one scene).

Even if In This Corner of the World ends on a note that imagination and hope can continue, it would serve our world leaders, two in particular right now, to watch this before allowing the horror of war to repeat itself.

At its most controlled and insinuating, Dark Waters is reminiscent of paranoid thrillers from the 1970s like "The Parallax View" and "Chinatown," where you know going in that you're going to see a story about how profoundly bad things are, thanks to corporate influence over government as well as the economy, but the extent of the corruption is still shocking.

If it falls victim to a bit too many college film student clichés, it’s easy to forgive Meyerhoff due to the great performance she draws from her talented young star and what this film means for her bright future.

For all of the film's ideas of art and entertainment, it might just forever change your preconceptions of the firework.

Throughout, Coded Bias constantly feels like it's not recounting a saga that’s like grounded science-fiction, it’s making us aware that we're square in the middle of one.

The film is just as much about politics as it is a family working out the demands of a politically active life with the demands of the home.

There are moments of emotion and triumph, especially during the sequences of discovery, but the mood overall is understated, quiet, thoughtful.

While some of these struggles are specific to the French communities the film follows, they are also universal, with recent echoes deeply familiar here in the US. And despite a morally ambiguous parting note, Athena incisively engages with these battles despite a brassy style that at times overpowers them.

Obviously, the situations of A Picture of You feel a bit forced but they’re handled in such a likable way that it’s forgivable, especially in the superior second half of the film.

Once the movie hits its true stride it’s really fascinating. At least it is if you have an interest in its subject, which I think maybe you should, since the compulsion to stand on a stage and seek approval by telling jokes is one of the most potentially masochistic in the entire human condition

It’s a fun soulful documentary that’s rarely ever invasive, depicting the type of statesman we’re sorely missing today.