“Many directors twice Balagov’s age could only dream of making a film this unwavering and unsettling — so explicit in its understanding and exploration of extreme female pain.”
“Diop’s feature debut is one that embraces the strange, joyous and tender moments that extend beyond boundaries and linear temporalities. Neither love nor life moves in a straight line.”
“More mood piece than cohesive story, it’s impressive chiefly in how McGuinness mirrors the desolate bleakness of the protagonists’ lives with the parched cinematography of their surrounding landscape.”
“Greta Gerwig continues to exercise her command of cinematic storytelling with ‘Little Women,’ a perfectly wrapped and beribboned Christmas gift as welcome as a steaming cup of cocoa after a frosty skate around the local frozen pond.”
“A sharply-shot film, ‘Brotherhood’ effectively uses the short running time to question familial responsibilities/motives, and the central performances make Joobeur’s planned feature adaptation even more intriguing.”
“A showcase of the potent purity of visual expression, ‘Alva’ concerns itself with consequence, more specifically the consequences we attribute to ourselves, as well as those we put upon others we can never truly know.”
“‘Richard Jewell’ is, for the most part, a captivating recreation of a man’s journey through hell and back. Its strong acting and character relationship dynamics are the main selling points, as Eastwood’s sense of direction and pacing are the best they have been in a long time.”
“Playing with of-the-moment vocabulary familiar on college campuses, the latest ‘Black Christmas’ upends several slasher conventions, even if the film is a step down from the director’s excellent ‘Always Shine.'”
“‘QT8: The First Eight’ is a serviceable, well-edited survey of Tarantino’s filmography prior to ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.'”
“There’s no telling the story of Khodorkovsky without telling the story of Russia, and it’s for that reason that ‘Citizen K’ is rather invaluable to people like this writer, Americans of a certain age who perhaps aren’t well versed in Russian history.”
