“The fun of ‘Medusa Deluxe’ is less about figuring out who the murderer is and more to do with watching everybody lose their minds over their little bubble being penetrated by an outside influence they can’t control.”
“Seek out ‘Aurora’s Sunrise,’ sit with it, and then think about how any lingering pain can be used for good.”
“‘Trader’ is a bit too unpolished to earn a double-bill pairing with classic films about stock trading, even if the thriller earned early acclaim from genre-specific outlets.”
“‘Time and Tide’ seems to gaze both forward and backwards at once, its breaking down of editing structure creating a strange discombobulating effect.”
“‘North Circular’ feels slightly unfocused at times, but this is likely intentional given how tough it is to nail down one definitive take on what it means to be from this area.”
“A strong feature debut like ‘Rub’ suggests that the writer-director doesn’t need fancy equipment or multi-million dollar budgets to sustain a successful filmmaking career.”
“‘Make Me Famous’ is a perceptive film about Reagan-era business strategies that elevated one group of creative gamblers and led others to their graves.”
“Ran Li’s quietly devastating feature debut, ‘Till Love Do Us Part,’ channels the charm of Richard Linklater’s ‘Before’ trilogy while carrying the emotional baggage of an introspective international classic like Federico Fellini’s ‘8 1/2.'”
“Not only does ‘Oppenheimer’ prove to be one the best-crafted biopics in recent memory, but it also boldly reaffirms the director’s auteur status.”
“‘Mad Heidi’ is a sassy Swissploitation film worth watching (it’s the only one in existence) and undeniably one of the best Swiss cheese-themed movies of the 21st century.”
“‘My Extinction’ reads like the opening chapters of an unfinished novel from an intellectual-turned-radical: heavy sociopolitical context, rich character development and instructions for the path forward. Essential viewing.”
“‘Amor Bandido’ is shrewdly paced, heartbreakingly performed and cunning in its political awareness.”
“The awareness of complicity in an institutional problem brings ‘The Fabelmans,’ ‘Babylon’ and ‘Empire of Light’ together.”
“‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ is the best franchise film since the fourth installment and possibly the best yet…”
“Discordant, broken, berserk: ‘Branded to Kill’ refuses all direct relations with geography in its depiction of a career hitman on the verge of losing control.”
“The ghosts of the divisive past that New Labour set out to consign to history’s trash heap reared their heads, presaging a politics that would cast off the Blairite technocratic order.”
“A rollicking good time that pulls disparate pieces together for a sex-positive exploration of family, friendship and identity.”
“‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’ prefers the space between categories. This position facilitates a unique experience of time, much like the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“‘The Five Devils,’ co-written and directed by French filmmaker Léa Mysius, burns bright with its cerebral story about female relationships.”
“As carefully controlled as every shot typically is for one of Anderson’s films, this is the most alive behind the wheel he has felt as a purely comic filmmaker in quite some time.”