There’s a sequence in the narco thriller Sicario where we’re just watching characters driving. More specifically, it’s protagonist Kate (Emily Blunt) in a big black SUV in the midst of other big black SUVs and Mexican police patrol cars barreling through Juarez, Mexico. They’re transporting a criminal kingpin who’s part of a Mexican drug cartel. […]

Poker is not a glamorous pursuit, and poker table lifers, like Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn), are not hotshot forces of nature. The realities of poker, grinding it out hand after hand for upwards of 10 hours at a time, inevitably hitting bad luck after doing everything the right way, are far different than the adrenaline-fueled, million […]

One of the most pessimistic, yet accurate, onscreen portrayals of modern life in quite some time, writer/director Yury Bykov’s The Fool is the best kind of morality tale, because it all but denies the very existence of morality. In the Russian town where the film transpires, it has become exceedingly rare to have a shred […]

Pawn Sacrifice is a love story unlike any other, as it is a love between a man, chess genius Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire), and silence. Chess played at the grandmaster level requires stretching the human mind to its outermost limits, as matches have to be exhaustively prepared for, and there are more potential moves and […]

In the English-speaking world, Ruth Rendell hasn’t exactly made her mark on the big screen. In the Francophone world, however, the late mystery and thriller author’s effect continues to be felt. At fewer than 15 pages, Rendell’s Edgar Award–winning short story “The New Girlfriend” seems an odd choice for a feature film. But director François […]

For director Morgan Matthews’s first feature film, he drew upon a documentary he produced and directed about the selection and training of the British team for the 2006 International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), titled Brilliant Young Minds (2007). Many of the young competitors had a form of autism, which that film linked to their mathematical ability. […]

She’s your best friend. Your cruelest enemy. Sexier than you. Cooler. No one makes you feel as alive as she does. And no one knows better how to make you feel so small. She stole your boyfriend. Turned your girlfriends against you. But you’ll do anything to be around her. You love her. You hate […]

Directed by Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker Produced by Nichols, Walker, Jenner Furst, Joey Carey and Woltermann Released by First Run Features USA. 86 min. Not rated The “you are there” Direct Cinema genre aims to make the viewer feel like an unobtrusive observer. The documentary Welcome to Leith falls partially in that […]

Directed by Jonas Alexander Arnby Written by Rasmus Birch, based on an idea by Christoffer Boe, Arnby, and Birch Produced by Caroline Schlüter Bingestam and Ditte Milsted Released by Radius Danish with English subtitles Denmark/France. 84 min. Rated R With Sonia Suhl, Lars Mikkelsen, Sonja Richter, Jakob Oftebro, Stig Hoffmeyer, Mads Riisom, Esben Dalgaard, Gustav […]