Vulcanizadora is a step forward sans compromise––often hilarious, contemplative, even cautionary.

Much like the previous movie, Inside Out 2 has a predictably fun time journeying throughout the different corners of Riley’s brain. It also plays it pretty safe, careful not to disrupt too much about what its predecessor established, filtering in Michael Giacchino’s whimsical and soulful score to piano key stroke more of its connective tissue.

While Donzelli’s latest feature is a well-acted, stifling study of domestic violence, one wishes there was more to take away than a schematic lesson in the horrors of abuse.

Like much of the director’s work, it’s the kind of thing you could have seen late night on television when you were much too young. It would have also left a mark.

Fresh Kills gets much of the atmosphere and tone right, and at its best is an evocative character study of mob wives and daughters; A’zion lends a particularly fascinating performance as a tough-willed woman ready to stand her ground and look out for “her people.”

There’s something hypnotic in the rhythms of the film, seeing how troubles that could be easily resolved are left to fester; now there is no going back.

It’s easy to see Family Portrait as a film about familial dynamics (all of which are similarly complex) and a snapshot of an erratic day (all of which are, when the family gathers), but Kerr unearths something buried much deeper. Throbbing underneath the surface is longing.

Maybe Zauhar’s film isn’t totally surprising; it nevertheless hits close to home while never veering too hard into either cringe comedy or navel-gazing. A promising sign there’s still juice left in the small-scale relationship drama indie.

Dreyfus is brilliant as Zora, whose single-minded avoidance of her daughter’s situation leaves her in a constant state of keyed-up inertia.

A serviceable but slightly soulless copy of countless films.

With inspiration taken from the somber wave of ’70s American buddy movies, To a Land Unknown will comfortably endear itself to audiences, avoiding anything overly discursive so it can thrive provoking anger and pathos.

It’s far from perfect, but as an introduction to a brand-new voice it’s never less than compelling.

There are similar beautiful moments checkered across this five-borough endeavor.

To her screenplay’s credit, Pankiw manages to avoid a full-on mystery. The worry in these kinds of movies is that the effort to obfuscate and hint at the heart of the problem doesn’t pay off. But the reveal here is thoughtfully constructed.

Written by Hu and longtime collaborator Rui Ge, it embraces the same premise of countless a noir before it: a lone drifter comes home to start afresh, only to face the ghosts of his troubled past. What’s sensational about Hu’s latest is the way it undercuts that dread to land on an engrossing note that rings wholly, convincingly earned.

Ezra is a flawed, earnest, often-unflinching look at a family doing their best.

It’s so funny for the first hour and last 20 minutes that one can’t help wondering what the hell happened with the 40 in-between––a frustrating, unfunny slog of a middle section that’s so hard to sit through it will unfortunately keep many from reaching the brilliant, bizarro finale.

All We Imagine as Light may not transcend form or style the way Kapadia did in her first feature––perhaps the only thing they share is dreamy titles––but that doesn’t make it any less transcendent. If anything, this is a more universal transcendence, one predicated on the strength of being together, the innate spark in people, and the potential we all have to see everyone as someone.

For all its morbid undertones and philosophical ruminations, Misericordia is neither a dirge nor a lofty symposium. Strange as it may be to say for a story that begins with a burial and then shatters after a heinous death, this is a supremely and surprisingly funny film, where humor gradually accrues a subversiveness not unlike desire’s own.

It all comes together beautifully, a film to stimulate curious corners of the mind and adventurous parts of the spirit.

Everything from the film’s humanist energies, down to the timbre of the dialogue, rings like an endearing, never-labored homage to Persian cinema.

This is a film that knows what it’s doing and does it very well

The aspirations are admirable, but at 140 minutes it’s overlong, arriving at a pretty natural end before another act begins and we launch into what suggests an unwarranted second film. (Still, one that also ends up being good.)

Anora is a devastating, gut-busting beauty––regular cinematographer Drew Daniels lending his brilliance to yet another Baker triumph––the kind that hurts your heart and holds you tight to recover at the same time, tears of laughter streaming down your face.

Serebrennikov’s English-language debut is as muddled as its subject, but––for all these glaring and convenient omissions––it is also one of the director’s strongest in quite some time, a film whose form feels wholly in service of the story and man at its center.

With a gentle yet rigorous vision, Eephus coalesces into a reflective study of nostalgia: both for a game that has evolved and for a certain kind of American social life that is dwindling as fast as the sun fades.

Taormina achieves a singular tone.

The film may not leave any deep marks or make you consider parenthood in a new light, but it still constitutes an auspicious debut.