THE POWER OF THE DOG by Jane Campion | Trailer
After a dozen years away from feature filmmaking, New Zealand writer-director Jane Campion returns with this intricately composed tale of the existential wreckage of toxic masculinity as expressed by a Benedict Cumberbatch performance that will sear itself into the deepest recesses of your soul. Every character’s demons are tightly suppressed, controlled, and manipulated, until they either devour the possessed or burst out upon those unfortunate enough to stand in the way. (Streaming on Netflix)
THE SUICIDE SQUAD by James Gunn | Trailer
Freed from the shackles of the MCU’s oppressive culture of blandness, writer-director James Gunn is finally able to revel in all the R-rated insanity his heart desires, in whatever DC universe this movie supposedly resides in. Even amid the symphony of hilarious vulgarity, gleeful ultraviolence, and extreme irreverence (especially for a $185 million superhero film from a major studio), Gunn finds a way to deftly weave genuine pathos and heart throughout. When you find yourself developing deep emotional bonds with a man-eating man-shark and a genocidal starfish kaiju, you know you’ve found something special. (Streaming on HBO Max)
DRIVE MY CAR by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi | Trailer
Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story of the same name (with special assistance from Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi delivers a meditative, metatextual exploration of the power of art — and the stories we tell ourselves — in the face of repressed self-understanding, regret, and grief (with special emphasis on “meditative” as you will certainly need to let go of the burdens on your attention to get through the film’s occasionally ponderous but wildly rewarding three-hour runtime). Hamaguchi ingeniously transcends the limits of spoken language as the film wrestles with and embraces what human connection truly means. (Now playing in theaters)
THE MITCHELLS VS THE MACHINES by Mike Rianda & Jeff Rowe | Trailer
Prepare your body parts to be tickled: your noggin by the dexterous rapid-fire silliness, and your eyeballs by the stunning visuals, an animation sensibility borrowed from the revolutionary Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Harnessing the frenetic energies of YouTube and Vine and (maybe??) Newgrounds, two of the minds behind Gravity Falls (with producing help from Phil Lord & Chris Miller) have found a way to mash up a poignant family road trip drama with an apocalyptic machine-uprising action-comedy to create arguably the most fun screen experience of the year. (Streaming on Netflix)
ZOLA by Janicza Bravo | Trailer
You’d be forgiven if you assumed that the “first film based on a Twitter thread” would be the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. But with the vivid vision of writer-director Janicza Bravo, this bonkers stripper fable is a resounding declaration that the source for great cinema that can come from anywhere, even a 140-characters-at-a-time grammatical travesty. Bravo sucks you in with a tense tale that dances the fine line between nostalgic dreamscape and waking nightmare/glittery panic attack. Like the abyss that is our social media world, who you believe and what you believe no longer matter. (Available to rent and streaming on Showtime)
A HERO by Asghar Farhadi | Trailer
Iranian master Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) spins this darkly comedic yarn where the concepts of reputation, honor, truth, and what even constitutes a good deed get as frayed and knotted as our own surprisingly malleable sense of morality. Even as our hero struggles to disentangle this mess, the knot only tightens, like a noose around his neck. Farhadi, ever the maestro of depicting with stark clarity the messy chemical reactions of social norms and structures, toys with our allegiances with dizzying splendor in a way that only he can. (Streaming on Amazon Prime)
PASSING by Rebecca Hall | Trailer
Race is pretty damn weird. It’s simultaneously real and completely made-up. It’s an elemental aspect of our being, yet it’s a costume we are forced to wear. We celebrate our racial identities as a symbol and impetus for community, yet so often it serves as an inescapable, divisive prison. In her exquisite black-and-white ballad, actor-turned-filmmaker Rebecca Hall explores — with ethereal unease — the interplay of who we are, how we see ourselves, and who we wish to be. Even those who seek freedom, where race is no longer a scarlet letter but an all-access pass, still find themselves held captive, in a nesting doll of iron bars. (Streaming on Netflix)
FLEE by Jonas Poher Rasmussen | Trailer
In this animated documentary depicting the life of interview subject Amin, who fled Afghanistan in the 90’s as a teenager before being separated from his family, storytelling serves as catharsis and self-discovery. Home was all Amin ever wanted; feeling safe and grounded forms the bedrock of being truly human. After a life of being forced to hide, Amin finally finds what should be happiness, only to see himself living a different kind of lie. The tentacles of trauma, we come to discover, never fully recede. By bringing his story to life, Amin can finally confront his past in order to freely move into the future. While the choice to animate was originally intended to protect the identities of the depicted, the modest yet rich artistry magically draws us more deeply into his experience, where we can breathe the humanity that Amin always felt was missing. (Available to rent)
NINE DAYS by Edson Oda | Trailer
There’s something hauntingly stirring about the vastness that can be found within simplicity. In Edson Oda’s feature film debut, we feel the entirety of the universe contained within an isolated house. The infinitude of the human experience is expressed through the staticky screens of stacked CRT televisions. And all of life’s joys and sufferings are seen through the eyes of those who have not, and will not, ever actually live. This serene parable provokes thought at every turn, yet it’s the spirit, not the mind, that will be lost in boundless reflection. (Available to rent)
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