Anna Storm

There is nothing grand about Anchor and Hope. It is only that which is extraordinarily difficult to make: a simply well-executed film.

With heavy-hitters like Melissa Leo and a particularly terrific John Hawkes backing up a magnetic deGuzman, the slight, 80-minute movie makes for strange and surprising entertainment.

Although the film hits all the time-marks of cinematic storytelling, the characters are broad, the music intrusive, and the dialogue made-for-TV-movie-esque. Just because the plot is swift does not mean the story compels.

The true star of the movie is its structure. By cleaving the action in two, both the development of Elliott and Mia’s relationship and what happens after its peak are given their just due. It’s certainly something to make someone who is sure she already knows where the story is going think: Who cares? I’m with these characters, anyway.

Languid, associative, at times dragging, at other moments deeply affecting, thanks to a song and a trick of the light, Ethan Hawke’s Blaze is difficult to define.

There’s a “Let it be” sense to McAlpine’s soft exhortations, which struck me as a little ironic, since her Cielo might have garnered more of the appreciation it deserves if she herself had quieted and simply let it, the sky, be, in all the reverent glory she with the silent poetry of her camera was already showing us.

It’s a flashy film, but also rather derivative. In the end, Hot Summer Nights is a study in the power of talented actors to elevate material.

Ostensibly a drama filmed with European realism, What Will People Say has the air and the unsettling effect of a horror film.

The fun of Uncle Drew is to be had in the energy of its athletic cast, all of whom appear to be having a grand old time playing around.

It’s a bit self-glorifying, but you can’t deny that Garcia’s story of job-hopping and success won on charm, passion and hard work is compelling.