Even at a pace or two too long, while starting to coast on the pure rush of initial, stronger ideas, it’s perhaps his best-engineered work since The Village and arguably the purest piece of entertainment he’s ever made.

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is a more conventional outing, hemmed in by its multi-generational plot and sentimental twists. But you will not want to miss its action scenes, staged within phenomenal settings.

While expanding some of its snapshots could’ve helped, the approach works well enough, welcoming a director to watch in the process.

It’s rare to see a film that captures a disappearing community with such immediacy, remorse, and, yes, occasional joy.

Shujun has built a compelling, evocative mystery that maintains its enigmatic, unfinished feeling even after the higher-ups have closed the case and patted themselves on the back.

The film may not hold together cohesively, but it’s still quite mystifying why it so spectacularly failed to resonate when its greatest sequences are beautiful evocations of the director’s childhood, both real and imagined, even if it is forever destined to live in the shadow of his previous semi-autobiographical work.

Because Victory is set in 1999, it’s easy to get lost in a welter of 20-year-old K-pop references. It’s just as easy to be swept along by Hyeri’s amazing confidence.

It’s an imperfect, singular ride through small-town suburbia with lightning-fast pacing that causes some segues to have you wondering if you missed a scene.

Timpson, along with co-writer Toby Harvard, prefer to take the easy way for achieving their goals, the film leaning into dated comedy and a relentless charm offensive that makes its efforts too strained to fully embrace.

Northam is very good in the lead role.

For a good stretch of time, though, The Count of Monte Cristo is a prime example of popcorn fun, even if its filmmakers might have not intended for it to be laughed at as much as I did. But whether it’s for the right or wrong reasons, a good time is still a good time.

At the very least, Stuckmann’s earnestness as a horror fan is apparent throughout Shelby Oaks, even though his admiration doesn’t translate effectively to his filmmaking.

It’s dazzling as handiwork and world-building, but more questionable if we scrutinize it as just as a work or piece of psychological realism, which it has aspirations of being.

For all the weak symbolism, Great Absence‘s achronological structure is a triumph.

Considering how the story sounds on paper, it’s all the more impressive that it becomes moving without ever once turning to the kind of pandering weepie I feared from the outset.

Things are revealed, loose ends are tied, and Kormákur keeps it all moving at brisk pace given the evolving intrigue. The word “lovely” feels old-fashioned, but it’s appropriate here. This is a lovely film.

Tamahori leaves The Convert awkwardly stumbling between a swashbuckling action film and a mild-mannered costume drama.

Twisters is far from perfect, but Lee Isaac Chung manages to defy odds by sticking the landing in his leap to blockbuster cinema. The film impresses in set pieces, but it’s his brand of delicate, character-driven drama woven in-between that makes this feel fresher than anything currently at the multiplex. 

It’s not that Longlegs doesn’t make sense of its parts, or that it lacks, as Harker alludes, even a singular revelation. It’s that it seems to think the most basic twist possible counts. Even with its jagged accents, the pieces are just too clean.

There’s no reason La Práctica––a handsome, funny, wisely melancholic film of just 95 minutes––should stand unseen, nor Martín Rejtman not be considered (however belatedly) a valuable asset in contemporary cinema (which he infrequently visits). As both introduction to and summation of his work: par excellence.

All in, this is a brave piece of filmmaking that builds to a frightening climax: Nash’at creates an image of nervous ineptitude before pummeling you with the harshest of realities.

The film isn’t slight on effort, and the Studio Ponoc crew isn’t lacking talent (better realized in their short-film anthology Modest Heroes). But The Imaginary seems crucially lacking in the very quality it so breathlessly extols: it’s technical competency without imaginative vision, nor deep understanding of children.

There are clearly-defined targets, to be sure, but Babysitter struggles to make the point that perhaps we’re all human. It’s somewhat cringe-inducing by design, but the satire and humor feel dated.

In Chronicles, as in the two short films, [Tomás Gómez Bustillo] is primarily concerned with spiritual, ethical, and religious contrasts; scenarios in which miracles are mixed with coincidences, faith with rationality, and boredom with inspiration. But that is where the comparisons end; for Chronicles is in every way a more serious, controlled, and moving work of art, which stands with the very best of contemporary Argentine cinema.

While A Sacrifice‘s third act may be a bit too silly for its own good, the pervasive feeling of dread will linger on long after the credits roll.

He escapes the confines of being just a hired gun, but in the case of A Quiet Place: Day One, Sarnoski’s tender, apocalyptic character drama keeps getting interrupted by a bunch of pesky aliens.

Despite being a considerable step down from the Scorsese-approved psychodrama Pearl, there’s an awful lot of fun to be had, from the gruesome kills to the delightfully over-the-top performances.

Amachoukeli knows there isn’t a version of life where pain doesn’t exist, and with Àma Gloria she offers an unadorned warning––a place of refuge for when we need it.