Despite a very frank and welcome illustration of gay sexuality rarely seen in modern media (in this manner at least), Greater Freedom continually teases us with storylines and subject matter by choosing to frame this era through a relationship that it cannot rationalize.

The overwriting of every single discussion smacks less of realistic debate than of a writer/director in the throes of a fit of didacticism who simply never trusts his audience to get his meaning without it being iterated and reiterated to the point of white noise.

There's something deeply poetic about Lincoln making his way through a changed nation to meet his demise. Such poetry is nowhere to be found in Lincoln.

Despite the frustrations of its labyrinthine rhythms, Landmarks is a worthy companion to Martel’s Zama in its prodding at the contradictions of a country whose denial is so grave it will bend its language and its laws before acknowledging truths that shed light on the horrors of its past that painfully echo in the present.

A disappointment, certainly, but not one without its pleasures.

While the film lavishes in the beautiful landscape and the vibrant, eclectic music that abounds, it never coalesces into anything greater than the sum of its parts, or become the film the subject deserves.

What is certain is that there’s at least something here everyone should find appealing, even if the film that houses these special moments isn’t quite there.

Given the unhurried pacing and general underplaying of the situation’s gravity, the film feels like visiting a museum exhibit rather than living through a flashpoint of history. Here, the past’s horrors are but pictures nestled safely behind glass.

Jenkins has a vision and something interesting to say in Private Life, but it needs some serious editing to convey it succinctly.

These recollections might be captivating on paper, but they become somewhat monotonous and uninteresting on screen.

Stolevski aims for a life-affirming treatise on the poetics of human existence but strains to be more than a pretty copy of his well-known influences.

While the experiment itself is fascinating, the approach taken by Almereyda in using distractingly peculiar storytelling techniques only succeed in distancing the audience from the film's inspiration.

It’s difficult to classify The Things You Kill properly, a film drifting into the revenge genre as much as it possesses an undeniable overtone of mystery, simultaneously knocking on the door of a slight psychological element.

It's not particularly funny or moving and it's terribly self-indulgent. Flamboyance and cartoonishness rule, there's hardly a moment of genuine emotion, and most overtures in that direction are superficial. As a picture ostensibly about love, revenge and the ugliness of slavery, Django Unchained has almost zero subtext and is a largely soulless bloodbath, in which the history of pain and retribution is coupled carelessly with a cool soundtrack and some verbose dialogue. Though it might just entertain the sh.t out of the less discerning.

As a film whose central theme emphasizes the dangers of living in the past, Wright, Pegg and Frost become fatally distracted by nostalgia, eventually paying too much homage to previous classics—especially their own—to create another film that deserves to stand alongside them.

Rather than individuals facing all-too-common yet rarely portrayed challenges, the characters here seem little more than pawns in a predictable game, whose conclusion is never in doubt.

This is an auto-auto-auto-fiction that throws out the occasional fun, cinephiliac in-joke, and teases the odd insight into creative blockage and romantic unfulfillment. But mostly, it serves to prove the old adage that a self-deprecating awareness that your movie has nothing going on in it is no substitute for having something going on in your movie.

In short, Babylon is bland and sadly, should be much better.

At best a handful of transitory pleasures, Sils Maria threads through the peaks and valleys of weighty, interesting topics, but makes no lasting impression on them.

There is some pleasure in spotting the winks and legends and shout-outs, but as with any biopic, of any figure, you can’t just bank on familiarity— you have to give the unfamiliar viewer (and, considering the platform it’s on, there will be many) reasons to care. By the end of Mank, even I wasn’t sure any of this mattered all that much.

This isn’t a movie about despair in the face of seemingly implacable problems; it’s about the heavy lifting that constant hope requires. Disappointingly, that surging energy which animates the activists profiled here, in ways both intimate and caught-on-the-fly, never coalesces into the desired blueprint for reform.

Zhangke's always had a throughline regarding economic inequality and the 21st century-style Chinese capitalism in his work, but Mountains May Depart might be the director's defining statement on the way that his nation has changed over the past few decades. If only he were a touch subtler about it.

The Plague is a movie-movie, rather than a genuinely searching or affecting film about that most awkward age when fitting in with a group can seem like the most important thing in the world.

All in, the film is an unprecedented misfire for Denis.

There’s nothing lost in the translation of Fences, but its high fidelity means there’s little, if any, inspiration to be found within.

Burshtein has devoted most of the last 20 years teaching and making film in that world, but here makes her international feature debut with a curious comedy-drama that has its strengths, but ultimately proves somewhat disappointing.

Make no mistake: The Innocents is no young adult novel adaptation, and things get very dark very quickly.

When the final moment comes and it's revealed how the children died, it's less of a surprise than a shrug. Drama robbed of suspense is just dull.