“Goldin’s openness and forthrightness extends to her advocacy on behalf of so many others who, like herself, struggled or continue to struggle with opioid addiction.”
“‘Blood Relatives’ is constantly in conversation with past vampire works without feeling the need to signpost its references. Segan is confident in the material, both onscreen and off.”
“Condensing, combining and streamlining are expected elements of movie storytelling, but ‘She Said’ works toward a composite that validates as many facts and details as possible within the limitations of the feature film format.”
“‘Hi I’m Blake’ has a profound, encouraging lifeforce, especially when Jeff McQuitty and Hanan Townshend’s hard-hitting crescendos complement the subject’s perseverance.”
“‘To the Moon’ is the rare low-budget indie that delivers the goods across the board.”
“In ‘The Pez Outlaw,’ the Storkels include enough material centered on the durable and enchanting romance between Glew and wife Kathy to keep viewers firmly on his side.”
“‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ is a superhero movie with a lot to say and do, paced well for a film over 160 minutes long, but it still dumbs itself down at times because either the director or studio simply doesn’t trust the audience.”
“Acting coaches should take a look at Dylan & Zoey’s bathroom monologue scene… this is the type of cinema that I’m always looking for.”
“Dunham delivers the most polished and confident feature of the four she has made so far…”
“At just under 90 minutes, ‘Exposing Muybridge’ doesn’t wear out its welcome, but there are a few aspects of the subject’s colorful legacy that could have used more detail and consideration.”
“‘Meet Me in the Bathroom’ succeeds when viewed as a celebratory snapshot of the Big Apple’s pre-9/11 rock youth. Still, the overall approach feels off and somewhat uninspired.”
“‘Saint Omer’ isn’t a film that looks at gendered and racial dynamics in the courtroom; it’s a film that looks at the ideological puppet strings that define those gendered and racial dynamics beyond immediate visibility.”
“Be it film, novel, poem or song, the triangle is one of the most frequent tropes in storytelling. Denis is such a gifted moviemaker, though, that cliche is absent from the precise and specific moments inside her intelligently constructed universe.”
“At its best, Noah Baumbach’s impressive and thoroughly decent adaptation of ‘White Noise’ interestingly discusses people’s relatable ownership of secrets yet complete inability to internalize them.”
“Poitras avoids melodrama, catharsis and sensationalism in ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.’ The result is acutely devastating.”
“It is hard to partake in the self-congratulatory tone of She Said’s conclusion.”
“‘Halloween Ends’ succeeds or fails on the strength of Campbell’s performance, and the young, relatively new performer is a revelation.”
“‘Moonage Daydream’ is committed to art and artist. With few exceptions, like the acknowledgement of Bowie’s love for Iman, private life stays private.”
“‘One Fine Morning’ is an exercise in comparatively calm, delicate cinema. It balances serenity with pathos and never strays from realism, in contradistinction to Hansen-Løve’s previous film — the highly metafictional, altogether more playful ‘Bergman Island.'”
“Ferguson applies remarkable editorial skill to make judicious choices regarding what to keep in ‘Nothing Compares’ and what to omit.”