Brehm

Pope Francis: A Man of His Word is about as straightforward as a documentary can be. Pope Francis looks into your eyes and lays out the things he believes are most urgent for humanity today.

Deadpool 2 isn’t for kids, but it sure is fun. I think it has a good heart too. There’s genuine sentiment on display in the midst of all the mayhem. Every moment of the film has been crafted to provide a good time for the audience

Despite the clamorous portrayal of motherhood, however, Tully doesn’t vilify motherhood or raising a family; nor are self-liberation and relational independence presented as remedies to a disease generated by traditional family structures. It’s not about doing more of “this” and “less” of that.

Disobedience spends less time trying to justify the romantic relationship between Ronit and Esti and more time trying to help audiences understand how they emotionally navigate their worlds. The affective synergy generated by voyeuristic close-ups and the deft performances of McAdams and Weiz is an emotional tour de force.

‘The Rider’ is a remarkably beautiful, compassionate, tough film that reckons the courage required, by the individual and by the individual’s community, to make that leap of identity into something new when the old is no longer possible.

Come Sunday—streaming now on Netflix—recounts a period in the life of Carlton Pearson, a pentecostal preacher of renown who, in the late 90s, came to believe that there was no inherent need for anyone to make a conscious decision to follow Christ in order to be saved from eternal damnation.

“Avengers: Infinity War” orbits a pair of central questions of a moral nature: “Are all lives worth the sacrifice of one life, and if so, are you willing to sacrifice the life of someone you love to save the rest?”

The best Noirs leave you feeling hollow in the end, as the characters feel. “Gemini” isn’t built on the same kind of nihilism, so it lacks the genre’s weight, even if the mystery is deftly handled.

This movie is one slick machine – a blockbuster about a world where blockbusters have so colonized the hearts and minds of the masses that the only creativity that still exists is in the reshuffling of references and the careful recreation of pop-culture icons, for pay. It’s a chocolate egg inside a chocolate egg inside a chocolate egg. And everyone is happy about it, including the audience.

We may find the animation amazing, but the film itself is captivated by the camaraderie that exists between humans and dogs. Dogs are perpetual devotion devices that return exponentially more consideration to kind people than kind people give to them. They are also capable of returning exponentially more malice or fear as well. Dogs are remarkably gifted at mirroring human emotions and responding in kind.

In a small town called Eureka Springs, nestled in the Ozark Mountains of rural Arkansas, a miracle takes place nearly every day: People with wildly different beliefs and values manage to peacefully co-exist.

“Pacific Rim: Uprising” is smart filmmaking, and smart filmmaking is all the more important when the material is so pulpy.

Jinn, which premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival, is many things. It is an African-American story. It is a Muslim story. It is a mother-daughter story. It is a universal story. In many ways, though, this complex and excellent film comes down to a simple question: What’s wrong with pepperoni pizza?

Randal Hendricks is in trouble. Within the first few minutes of “Number 37,” a South African film which premiered at the 2018 SXSW Festival, we learn that Randal owes thousands of dollars to a dangerous loan shark. What ensues in this tense and gripping thriller is both familiar, with obvious shades of “Rear Window,” and utterly original.

“Summer in the Forest” is at once a loving portrayal and a revolution. It is a declaration of a truth we bear witness to; whispered through the beauty of nature, noticed in the least of these, and championed by those who would “waste their time” with those the world has no patience for.

Set in the world of contemporary art dealing, “The Price of Everything” tells a tale by turns amusing and chilling. What happens when art moves from an object of appreciation to a commodity fetish, when people with more money than sense swoop in and insure that great works will never see the light of day, and remain trapped on the wall of a New York penthouse?

“Black Panther” is about a good a movie as Marvel has produced, but it saddens me to see Coogler’s bravura drenched in Disney/Marvel sauce.

One hundred years ago, the town of Bisbee, Arizona – a major copper mining site – experienced a worker strike, but the mine owners, aided by the sheriff, rounded up over a thousand strikers, stuck them on a train, and deported them to the middle of the New Mexican desert. In this documentary, the current citizens of Bisbee recreate the horrifying events of July 12, 1917.

The short film categories at each year’s Academy Awards are consistently home to some of the best filmmaking represented in the entire program.

“I wouldn’t believe it if it weren’t my story.” Interview subjects in “Three Identical Strangers” keep sounding this refrain, and with good reason.