Los Angeles Times

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.

Occasionally, “Your Mother” indulges in genre clichés, such as gratuitous slow-motion and solemn pronouncements about the warrior’s code. But even then, the film feels energized by its bold mixture of pulp pleasures and weighty musings, operating with a bruising efficiency that Ali’s skilled assassin would no doubt respect.

It’s about inertia and abdication, not solutions, and while I don’t entirely love this strange comedy, I’m giddy that it’s lurched into existence.

“Shake Your Booty!” wants its grieving main character to get back out there on the floor, but the movie never finds a consistent rhythm for her to try it.

Structurally, the film is all choppy shock scenes, like the program itself. I left annoyed by the overall movie, yet haunted by a half-dozen of its images.

The movie’s metaphors are mixed; its sense of purpose is poetic and assured.

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.