Robert Abele

The gravitational joy of Wilson’s comic approach is watching how he follows his instincts and later applies his own sui generis mortar to the assembled vérité blocks.

That sense of a body of art, one with an endless capacity to exist sensually and meaningfully, is the powerful message of Barbara Forever.

As to whether this setpiece-driven epic is a game-changer, your mileage may vary. But it can still lay claim to being a flagship roller coaster, one with enough mechanical and storytelling hitches to give it a tantalizing oddness.

It’s no exaggeration to say that every carefully crafted image in Rafael Manuel’s stunning debut feature Filipiñana is like an exclusive, disturbing world unto itself, telling its own story. At the same time, each frame builds upon the last to create a gripping, caustically funny narrative about patriarchy, disempowerment and compliance. In other words, everything a day at a golf resort should bring to mind.

David Kittredge’s deeply researched, lightning-paced explication of a great director’s most infamous bomb is, in a curiously heartfelt way, meaningful. Across a rollicking tale of hubris, excitement, compromise and curses, it’s good to be reminded that even when money is no object and when auteurs ruled Hollywood, every movie is some kind of miracle — just for having gotten completed.

Even the most awkward parts of the film feel uniquely alive. But as Dreams in Nightmares wends its way to a close, it’s also easy to believe you’re witnessing a percolating virtuosity that’s all Ford’s own.

Thanks to the rigorously retro-cheap aesthetics of the film’s crack design team (production designer Anna Kathleen, costume designer Shawna-Nova Foley and puppet creator Devon Hawkes Ludlow), your memories of being tube-babysat will be triggered.

The right mix of true and imagined can give the simplest of humane narratives — in this case, the possibility of renewal in an epidemic of hurt — a fresher chance to touch us.

Maybe someday, Roth will temper his empty-calories instincts and make more of a meal out of his twisted ideas.

Whatever raw charm existed in the original underdog sleeper hit from 2001 (and found some purchase in the agreeably goofy 2018 sequel) has been hardened here into a piece of machine-stamped plastic.