The final result is about as much of a time-passer one could make with this script and what must have been a small budget.

With Native American activists (Zahn McClarnon), anti-Mexican cartel women vigilantes, and the eye-opening power of white guilt when indebted to someone for your life, The Forever Purge is erasing the line separating its high-concept fiction from the nation outside our window. This franchise has never looked quite so familiar.

Wladyka’s film is always gripping, always searching, and always testing the boundaries of its protagonist and its audience.

Ultimately what stands out about 7 Days is its sharply scripted humor and leads’ incredible chemistry.

Roaring 20’s, through its myriad messages, tries to make some sense of the life-changing, collective madness we experienced in the past year, and attempts to give us back the hope the pandemic might have robbed from us.

As thrilling and fun to watch as any fictional crime narrative, The Lost Leonardo is also a straightforward and unflinching indictment of the way power is brokered in our modern-day society—behind the scenes, out of reach, under the veneer of beauty and esteem.

Fathom, like the study of whalesong, isn’t just about the whales––it’s also about how we can bridge the gap between “human” and “nature” to create something meaningful. Its unhurried, contemplative pace and gorgeous nature cinematography are a welcome reminder to appreciate the wilderness still inherent in all of us.

Being on the track at all and using it to springboard themselves to higher education is the real victory here. It’s hard to dig ourselves out of trouble if we’re never given a chance. They got one and ran with it.

Liu and Altman put forth a film that causes you to be upset with these systematic cycles of violence and oppression while also giving you a desire to create positive change yourself or, at the bare minimum, support those making a difference.

Although masterfully directed and performed, the film somehow feels a bit unresolved, especially since the family lives in a populated suburb rather than a rural area which would make their desperate actions far easier to conceal.

Through the performances from Glaser and Brosnan, as well as its unabashed willingness to look extremely silly, False Positive may be worth one’s time. This is Friday-night thriller cinema from the Single White Female or Hand That Rocks the Cradle book, and sometimes that’s just what one is seeking. For anything more than that, look elsewhere. Like, to Rosemary’s Baby. Again.

This feels like the final public statement from Wilson: he’s only here to vibe, cry, and spend time with his family. Music is part of his life as he still performs, but it’s not his highest aim anymore. Love and mercy is what Brian needs in his twilight years, and it seems like he has it. May his heart be full of spring.

Richardson and Vayntrub become the perfect straight-man characters to traverse the chaos with clear heads as everything devolves around them into petty grievances and homicidal bloodlust.

Ultimately, it’s the archived, audio recordings of Ailey that give the documentary its soul.

Sealey’s film may not add up to a fully realized and coherent film, she has nevertheless made an engrossing feature that recontextualizes Bundy not as the alluring psychopath, but as a profoundly desperate figure, who craves attention.

While von Horn’s script has trouble fitting its themes and plot together, Magdalena Koleśnik’s performance commands the good and the bad.

Sweet Thing could only be more personal if Rockwell himself was in it, but it remains a drama filled with wonder, containing magic that can only pop up when you’re in your teens.

Mark, Mary & Some Other People finds comfort and empathy in the story of two people still attempting to figure it out.

Italian Studies disorients the viewer for an experience that has moments of singularity, though it can’t hide from its disjointed nature. But it’s different, and that has definitive value.

If one can get past the exaggerated nature of The Beta Test, there’s much to glean from its mixture of laughs and critiques. Come for the mystery, stay for the study of society by two white guys playing absolute assholes. Even if that study reaches farther than it can grasp.

Bouwer utilizes a memorable aesthetic (think Annihilation) that personifies nature while also reducing humanity to its base yearning for satisfaction. And Kapp renders it all part of a bigger scheme revealed through dream-like trances stripped of subterfuge and hope of escape.

Luca is a film soaked in nostalgic affection for the Italian coast, awe for the empowerment of knowledge, and love of the power of family, whether born of blood or choice.

Director Jeanne Leblanc and co-writer Judith Baribeau pull no punches in portraying the malicious underbelly of the town at the center of Les nôtres.

The delineation between good and evil maybe a bit too black-and-white throughout, but none of those aspects remove the potency of the lessons learned along the way.

What we get is a lot of good material presented in a rather straightforward manner.

With excellent archival footage, first-hand accounts, animated portraits curated with relevant quotes, historians providing context, and the contemporary pursuit for justice, Rise Again proves itself to be an extensive deep dive into a subject that needs to be taught.

Tense and gripping, Hogir Hirori’s documentary Sabaya never positions itself as a thriller. There’s no need. Barring a few cards of scene-setting exposition, this vital dispatch embeds viewers with a rescue operation in the Middle East, and does so with a degree of first-person access that’s not just instantly bold: it’s nerve-janglingly scary.

It’s using a taboo topic to compare/contrast how those existing within it can be angel and/or demon. It’s not, however, trying to comment on that topic, so don’t expect a message movie. This is a genre film utilizing its subject matter as a springboard towards drama.