IndieWire

During [Flaco's] year in the city, he inspired countless people and changed so many lives. Lane’s film reminds us that that journey doesn’t have to end, and really, should only push us to look closer, to look deeper, and to marvel at not just what we’ve lost, but what we have.

The restraint demonstrated throughout Characters Disappearing sets Warnick well apart from his peers.

Johnson recognizes how this, at heart, is a coming-of-age story about a rising star who’s learning to be unburdened by a future that’s better than he could ever imagine — a kid who’s learning that no one can become the person they pretend to be without being the person they actually are along the way. “Tony” struggles for an ending, but it doesn’t really need one; the real fun here lies in paving the way to parts unknown.

Despite the prescriptive nature of its framing, however, A Sad and Beautiful World ultimately wrestles with a question that neither of its characters will ever have the luxury of answering for themselves: Is it easier to love without hope, or to hope without love? Nino and Yasmina have always been bound together by that uncertainty, and the open-ended final moments of this movie leave us desperate to believe that they always will be.

What Van Zandt and cinematographer Sebastian Zeck show is, much like Dr. Widder herself, extremely impressive and not at all showy. In following Dr. Widder’s journey, we learn how much even a single good shot of bioluminescent activity is valued. By the time the film ends, we are treated to the whole fireworks display. Illuminating, absolutely.

Spider-Man can’t do it all by himself. At this rate, someone will need to come along and save him. too.

It’s a handsome, sharp translation of the stage to the silver screen. If it doesn’t fully recapture the electricity of watching these performers live, it at least confirms that the show, seven years past its Broadway debut, still has the ability to sweep you into its world.

For all of the affection it maintains for the dorkiness of pickleball, it’s ironically hard not to wonder just how much richer this movie might have been if it were just a little more at peace with playing on its own terms.

For most of its run, the film is po-faced serious anime business, with little space for the humor and heart that made “The Last Airbender” so special. Sure, “Avatar Aang” is ostensibly more adult — but sometimes, growing up isn’t all its cracked up to be.

The Kidnapping of Arabella arrives at a satisfying destination because it finds a certain peace in the knotted fabric of space and time.