Themes of family ties, obsession, and morality, so dramatically realized in Conviction, are gracelessly and shapelessly strewn together here.
How astonishing is it then that the film’s greatest failure—its inability to tell a cohesive story—is also one of its greatest achievements?
Good, clean genre entertainment, the sort of harmless yet endearing brand of moviemaking seemingly unattainable in today’s Hollywood system.
The film is made impetuously watchable and disarmingly emotional by the filmmakers’ strong command of docudrama and nonfiction narrative style.
Markus Imhoof’s film reveals itself as a curious, audacious mix of personal essay film and nature documentary.
First-time director BJ McDonnell lacks the looser, more whimsical hand that would have allowed Hatchet III to transcend its thoughtlessly imitative state.
Its views on organized religion are so halfhearted and perfunctory as to make Kevin Smith’s Dogma seem like a veritable master’s class in theistic studies.
Sinister, comical, aggravating, and audacious, Calvin Reeder’s film is nothing short of an affront.
The filmmakers certainly exaggerate (i.e. exploit) their subject, but for a community that prides itself on shock value, there seems no sufficient alternative.
Doin’ It in the Park is perhaps the first important film about street hoops, even if the overall product struggles from a lack of focus.
More than some run-of-the-mill social-awareness doc, the film pays as much attention to the personal and emotional strife of its subjects as it does to their activism.
Ryuhei Kitamura’s latest genre bloodbath is par for the course, in spite of the occasionally flourish of interesting subtext.
The overall product doesn’t reveal anything about its subject that a Wikipedia page couldn’t do just as well.
What Woody Allen is to New York, Gus Van Sant is to Portland.
As far as derivative crime sagas go, Paul Borghese’s film might represent the new gold standard of shameless barrel-scraping.
The political dynamic that underpins The Rules of the Game is nonexistent in 1st Night.
What starts as a tense thriller eventually evolves into a darkly humorous and astute character study, a Coen brothers-esque comedy of errors by way of a Jack Londonian survival story.
While the film is deeply romantic and nostalgic, possessing a genuine reverence for youth and rebellion, it’s also something of a tragedy.
The film is a tasteful, well-orchestrated drama that never reaches beyond its humble means.
The filmmakers display a genuine reverence for their subjects, evident even in the intimate but never intrusive photography.