John Fink

Moreh’s approach creates a surprisingly comprehensive, if (by design) one-sided, American-centric view of the peace process. Interviews and archival materials have a means of immersing us in the backroom discussion.

Here is the rare kind of often sweet college comedy with good-natured laughs that captures a side of the process rarely seen in frat comedies: the divide between those in the service industry and those that have the luxury to party eight days a week.

The film problematically never quite commits to being one thing: bouncing around the investigation, being work of advocacy, and a study of family violence. In doing so, it lacks the kind of emotional impact and outrage it ought to have.

The Hunt for Planet B is an evocative documentary.

Covering the same ground as many fiction and non-fiction works about grieving and action in the wake of tragedy, Park’s picture feels somewhat more nuanced.

Language Lessons is often likable thanks to its small cast and improvisational nature which delivers beyond the kind of Zooom table reads that nonprofits were offering as pandemic fundraisers throughout the last year. However, in terms of its cinematic value, it never quite transcends, feeling like a film that’s necessary in the moment without exploring the impact of the pandemic head-on.

Edited with a brisk pace by Samuel Nalband, WeWork is a fascinating character study of the kind of entrepreneur that is often embraced without criticism by the financial press as a “thought leader” while offering vague catch phrases about “disruption” and “transformation.”

Alone Together has something rather profound to say, it’s just a shame that it never does so in a truly coherent way.

Apart from a few minor faults along the way, the film is an often exciting exploration of the world through the eyes of Lily Hevesh, who has put her ten thousand hours in prior to graduating high school and is now living the dream.

The film is built on a wonderfully nuanced performance by Kier, who behind his sadness and longing can still lob a sassy witticism at rival Dee Dee Dale, and when they finally confront each other over discontinued hair spray, it’s pure joy to watch.

With a conversational tone framed by extensive archival footage and access to Smith and his family, Clerk is an intimate overview of Smith’s universe, inner circle, and influence over the course of his 25-plus year career.

Demystifying the backroom deals of film financing, Bateman has crafted an authentic-looking and -feeling commentary on show business designed perhaps to make the kinds of acquisition professionals and insiders who attend festivals and film markets uncomfortable.

What we do have is a vital and horrifying record of a crisis that we should have quickly learned from, that captures the moment with the immediacy of Facebook Live or Snapchat, while its subjects provide context months removed from the events of January and February 2021.

A Glitch in the Matrix fits well within the canon of Ascher’s pictures, which offer a kind of creepy alternative history of popular culture as interviewees work to identify hidden structures within their lives—including one who insists on organizing time in twelve-day weeks.

Despite a few missteps including its ambiguous treatment of female comrades in the film’s first two acts––including Hampton’s all-too-brief courtship with Debrah Johnson (played by Dominique Fishback)––Judas and the Black Messiah is mostly an uncompromising and riveting character study exploring power and oppression.

The film is unafraid of showing the real costs of political corruption from blood running in the streets to direct bribery at the polling stations on the day of the election. As intimate as it is brave, Softie is vivid warning and not an easy film to shake.

While The Reason I Jump is a profound and moving experience, one that isn’t easy to forget, it’s most effective when operating as an experimental work, taking a unique and lyrical approach to a subject that has often focused on the relationships and social struggles its subjects feel.

All My Life recalls the formula employed by Hallmark Originals, which have predictable beats, lack nuance, and are a kind of cinematic comfort food––this is the cinematic equivalent of drinking your Carmel Frap while crying your eyes out to the new Hasley album.

While the narrative may seem to some frustratingly sparse, The Killing of Two Lovers represents a leap forward for Machoian who somewhat scales up, creating a hauntingly personal portrait of a couple at a crossroads struggling in more ways that one to get by.

While the film never quite elevates itself to a harmonious balance of camp and art house, The Empty Man doesn’t lack ambition.

Plotting and pacing asides, Sylvie’s Love is a rich and graceful picture in passages.

The arc of the story feels a bit rushed as it darts between past and present, focused around a journey that is incomplete. Perhaps with a few more weeks or even another year, Berns’ story might have grown into something slightly more compelling as he transition into his new role as a grandfather and provider on a dwindling income.

She Dies Tomorrow is a bizarre and textured work of cinematic poetry, playing like a menacing death march into the unknown.

It’s a repulsive punk rock work that falls short of achieving what it sets out to do, finding itself parodying work that’s already a parody of itself.

Invigorating in many passages, the drama offers a few twists on a fragmented mother-daughter relationship. If anything, the film announces the arrival of an indie filmmaker to watch for in the coming years.

Explicit and spontaneous, Aviva is a film with several brilliant moments that sometimes loses its way in overly indulgent sequences and set pieces as it dares to chronicle nearly every intimate encounter its characters and many of their friends have over the course of about 40 years. While overly ambitious, Yakin imagines the private life your lover had before you with a sociological lens.

Instead of sinking in, I found myself yearning for the classics it has either been influenced by or is borrowing heavily from. If this were a more academic exercise it should have come with an extensive works cited page.

I Will Make You Mine is a brisk and somewhat scrappy film at times rushing its third act and embracing its small-budget roots. While an abrupt climax leaves messy lives a little too neat and resolved, the film is a fitting and sweet third chapter in the Surrogate Valentine series.