Angel Manuel Soto's “Charm City Kings” is a movie with big dreams. It wants to bring you into a rich world through the exhilarating spectacle of dirt bike riding, and also tell the timeless story of a boy becoming a man with the right...
Two of the most buzzed and ridiculously fun films from Sundance 2020 came out of the U.S. Dramatic Competition program, a pair of movies that I can’t wait for the rest of the world to see. Neither are perfect, but both have that kinetic energy...
Alison Brie stars in “Horse Girl” as Sarah, a socially awkward craft store employee whose mental health is rapidly deteriorating. The history of mental illness within her family, particularly that of her grandmother, is not on the...
Premiering under Sundance’s “Spotlight” selection (after previously making its way to the Venice and Toronto film festivals), is Jayro Bustamante’s “La Llorona,” a slow-burn horror movie that grapples with...
There is no more divisive modern political figure than Hillary Clinton. She invokes more passionate defense and unbridled vitriol than arguably anyone – yes, even him, as a lot of his defenders often couch their praise in caveats – and...
The Sundance Film Festival has a reputation as a showcase for dialogue-heavy, character-driven independent cinema, but it’s not all dramedies about people coming to terms with their family members. There’s room in this massive program...
You never see the boss in full in "The Assistant." At the most, he is a dark blur passing in front of the camera on his way somewhere (he's always on his way somewhere). Other than that: his voice is heard through the door, through the thin office...
We know the facts of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin because it is a true story. So "Incitement" is what newspaper editors call a "tick-tock," showing us how it happened and, as the title indicates, why it happened. The...
It took me a moment to catch up with the dry absurdist humor in “The Traitor,” a new Italian period drama about that time when, from 1980-2000, real-life Mafia don Tommaso Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino) informed on a couple hundred...
Whenever a festival like Sundance appears on the calendar, the major features and documentaries take up much of the oxygen. And for good reason. However, short films are often skimmed past on the way to other brighter and shinier titles with either...