Should you take pleasure in the misfortunes of others, then Old Stone will prove a merriment. For the not so sadistic it might present grumbled frustrations and dour indignities. The site of the injustice in Canadian Johnny Ma’s debut feature is Chin …Read more

We’re all familiar with the narrative elements of Moonlight —absent fathers, drug-users, the escalating path to incarceration, a life cut down and curbed before its potential reached, and desires discovered or relieved. Such is definitely the case fo …Read more

Spa Night slyly opens amidst the sauna fog where a male body with a toweled head lunges forward with strained exhalation. But then, the towel is plucked off to revealed a young male not engaged in any sexual activity, but soaking in the steam with hi …Read more

Nervous laughter is usually reserved for dramedies of manner and wriggles only into the best of horror movies. The scares in The Wailing, a tale of impressive genre-blending, elicit laughter just until you realize what’s going on, but by then it’s to …Read more

Elvis Martini (Nickola Shreli) is an unusual name. The kind that winks at you from the pages of a hardboiled thriller or dime novel. Fittingly it’s the name of the protagonist in Cash Only, which is indeed a crime thriller, the kind with gangsters an …Read more

Praise for the New Zealand comedy is long overdue. Sometimes sour, a touch twee and so thoroughly deadpan is the humor that you might marvel whether it is intentional or not. Filmmaker Taika Waititi is the force behind What We Do in the Shadows (2014 …Read more

Don’t Think Twice Don’t Think Twice, Mike Birbiglia’s second feature film, stands taller than his previous feature, a slender work. Deeply personal and borne of his off-Broadway play and book, Sleep Walk With Me overextended its slight premise, the l …Read more

Adult Life Skills Anna (Jodie Whittaker) steals away into her mother’s house to fetch her laundry, still wet, and hurriedly microwaves her bra. That’s a new one for the books. There are other original surprises in Adult Life Skills, the debut feature …Read more

Pablo Trapero’s The Clan is the answer to the American gangster movie. His film is not about the Ku Klux Klan, but the notorious Puccio family from Buenos Aires who kidnapped and killed people in the haze of post-Falklands War 80s. Arquimedes Puccio …Read more

There is little salt to balance out the sugar, yet the Sweet Bean remains delightful. A conventional tale about a few misfits teaching each other about life conforms to a certain narrative mold, but is elevated by Naomi Kawase’s delicate direction an …Read more