Andrew Bundy

While its structure is a little lopsided (the beginning portion plays like a doc about Choy) and the tone tends to sway somewhat harshly between justifiably acidic and politically enlightening, “The Exiles” is an essential look at “philosophical homelessness” and an expert example of documentary cinema as a truth-telling device.

Deserted by a workplace and landscape whose wintry indignation is reciprocated in kind, Newton carries the film with intrepid resolve, turning in an amenable performance that’s inflamed in its downcast nature, while earning wholly justified sympathy.

Unfortunately, Halle Berry’s Bruised is a grueling hybrid of your weak, everyday Sundance debut and TV sports movie.

Not so surprisingly, it’s a movie made by theatre geeks, for theatre geeks, though feasibly to a severe fault. In other words: if you know the songs and faces on screen, you’re bound to enjoy it infinitely more than a casual movie-goer will.

Slow and stagnant despite the ongoing swirl and fleeting natural style, Riggs film ignores any firm story promise in favor of establishing almost solely character and circumstance, resulting in a sincere lack of basic plot progression, eventually leading to an unbelievably unsatisfying pay-off that made this writer throw his hands up in rage (ironically enough).

The narrative provides enough thoughtful laughs that fans of politically-tinged genre fare featuring phallic fire totems should chuckle enough and have fun.

If nothing else, Drunk Bus succeeds in capturing that period of juvenile transition, like many of the Apatow-era late 2000s comedies did.

This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection, is that rare gem of a film that falls into an unclassifiable category.

Ulman’s black and white freshman feature is an absurdly and assuredly packed jack-in-the-box that’s short, sweet, and, incidentally, a quirky sharp, vainglorious commentary on these post-crisis, Robinhood Redditor times.

All the narrative ideas are sound—comparing and contrasting schoolyard perspectives based on age, gender and experience is a great premise—yet for all of its resonant human ideas and modest aesthetic strengths, Mouannes’s film feels a little half-finished.

It leans a bit heavy into big swing emotional moments and has a few shouting matches too many, but Asgari gives an absolutely tremendous performance that hits like a wrecking ball and may make even the most stone-hearted tear up.

Huge fans of the performer will likely shed tears at few parts throughout, but there’s nothing especially unique or particularly thought-provoking about first-time director Tylor Norwood‘s filmmaking approach to make his documentary stand out.

Sinha’s debut may not be destined to be the next American indie classic, but it’s a powerful debut film with a stirring perspective on criminality and immigration.

Its approach may not always work, but the film is undeniably ambitious, and implemented in an affecting way.

As an embodiment of existential anxiety, it’s often effective, but other than stunning composition work and a few blips of vibrant harmony, it’s largely empty as a romance.

Both performances at the film’s center are just outstanding.

Tonally confusing ... For all its strange and specific flavor, "Clifton Hill" is too tame and tepid to truly work as weird noir.

Chu’s performance is astonishing.

It tells a lot of great stories and illuminates a city-wide tragedy, but given all the heartbreaking and enraging stories within, one wishes Decade Of Fire could emotionally sear and rage just as well as it educates.

Kim’s film is a compassionate piece on interpersonal connection that’ll touch your heart when it’s at its most vulnerable

The work is emotionally instructive but thematically unfocused. Despite having a fascinating story to tell and some illuminating subjects, American Factory comes off as slightly over-zealous, educationally speaking, and is without a manageable sense of moral edification as an observational documentary.

Overall, despite a few profound explosions of emotion, the remake is more tonally overbearing than it is dramatically rewarding.

Shadyac’s movie may ask difficult questions about the ills that society grapples with today, but it tackles them in a shallow, facile, sometimes uncomfortably out of touch manner.

Tolkien is an unfortunately typical biopic riddled with obvious influences and ham-fisted thematic hypocrisy, but it is effective in capturing the moral consequences key to the humanity of Tolkien’s masterpiece.

Ash Mayfair’s debut film is an astonishing achievement for a first feature, one not every film-goer will be able to stomach, but a work every caring cinephile should see.

There aren’t enough synonyms for the word courage to do Sasha Neulinger’s story real justice. Rewind, is simply an astounding movie and a milestone in psychiatrically minded filmmaking.

It’s the kind of movie you sit on, but then can’t wait to revisit. Suburban Birds is a rewarding and revelatory first feature from a fresh artistic voice.

The award-winning filmmaker is a one-woman crew on the project, and Klayman’s tenacious fly on the wall, verité approach illuminates the cynical limitations of Bannon’s cruel human worldview through day-to-day contradictions, far more than an interview-style documentary where such a figure is given a platform to talk in circles ever possibly could.