Film-Forward

American

The Bronze

Hope Ann Greggory (Melissa Rauch), a bitter gymnast who once won an Olympic bronze medal for the U.S. team, is now wasting her life away in the sticks.

Knight of Cups

There are funny and heavily satirical moments of Hollywood excess and ennui. Think Stardust Memories with Bret Easton Ellis’s acid view of Hollywood. If some passages fly over viewers’ heads, there is still the breathtaking cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki.

Creative Control

A stylish, unique piece of speculative dystopian filmmaking, set in Brooklyn at some indeterminate time in the near future.

Songs My Brother Taught Me

The cinematography, the subtly paced storytelling, and the doleful music score combine to form an artistic expression akin to free verse poetry.

Ava’s Possessions

This is a sly, well-made little horror/comedy that puts a unique spin on the demonic possession genre while providing just enough chills and laughs along the way.

Tumbledown

As in the recent documentary Amy, questions of who has the right to tell a deceased musician’s story come into stark question. (Fans? The family?) Tumbledown, from first-time feature director Sean Mewshaw, brings up a lot of arresting issues. A talented musician dies after releasing only one brilliant album, and as his widow struggles to […]

James White

While some may balk at the arrival of yet another indie film delving into the angst of a twentysomething New York writer who broods and self-destructs, James White, the debut from writer-director Josh Mond, takes a slightly different tack that sets it apart. It stars Christopher Abbott of Girls fame. On that TV show, he […]

I Smile Back

It would be a gross understatement to say that I Smile Back is a bit of a downer. The film covers depression, drug use, and childhood trauma, among other things. The story itself is fairly straightforward, but it’s the main performance that makes the experience worthwhile: Sarah Silverman commits completely to an extremely challenging character. […]

Stinking Heaven

A foul, jarring, but effective little film, Stinking Heaven shoves our faces into the very toe jam of addicts struggling to achieve sobriety. Set in the 1990s and shot on some sort of Betamaxy videotape to give it that authentic, grimy ’90s feel, the film depicts daily life in a suburban New Jersey commune catering […]