Sunset Song
Set in a rural Scottish community during the early years of the twentieth century, Sunset Song is driven by the young heroine Chris and her intense passion for life, for the unsettling Ewan and for the unforgiving land. The First World War reaches out from afar, bringing the modern world to bear on the community in the harshest possible way, yet in a final moment of grace, Chris endures, now a woman of remarkable strength who is able to draw from the ancient land in looking to the future.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“One of the great director Terence Davies’ best films: an example of old school and new school mentalities coming together to create a challenging and unique experience.” – Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
“As with most miracles, Sunset Song is more likely to evoke awe than any one particular emotion; it accumulates an immensely tender beauty that fills up your heart like water rising in a well during a rainstorm.” – David Ehrlich, Indiewire
“Even if the film is somewhat less impressionistic than director Terence Davies’ previous work, many compositions and gestures beyond just the easy-to-praise 70mm vistas feel destined to replay forever and ever in the mind.” – Ethan Vestby, The Film Stage
Available Formats:
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All Good Things
All Good Things is a love story and murder mystery set against the backdrop of a New York real estate dynasty in the 1980s.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“The key to the film is in the character of David. One can imagine a scenario in which an overbearing father drives the son to rebellion, but what happens here is more complex and sinister.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“You go away slack-jawed with shock and sated with the chilling bedtime-story elements of a great unsolved mystery novel you can’t put down.” – Rex Reed, Observer
“The result is a potent and provocative movie that will keep you up nights.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Available Formats:
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Alan Partridge
Famous DJ Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) finds himself at the center of a siege, when a disgruntled fellow DJ (Colm Meaney) decides to hold their station hostage after learning that he’s getting sacked by the new management.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Alan Partridge stays true to this small, very specific world of regional British radio and this class of local celebrity while also injecting the high-level drama needed to carry such a story to a much larger audience. It’s this balance that should win the film over for Alan Partridge fans and the general movie-going public alike.” – Diana Drumm, Indiewire
“Ruddy hilarious. Just what big-screen comedy needed.” – Dan Jolin, Empire
“A scissor-sharp comedy of ineptitude and failure.” – Leslie Felperin, Variety
Available Formats:
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I Saw the Devil
On a freezing, snowy night, his latest victim is the beautiful Ju-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief and pregnant fiancée of elite special agent Dae-hoon. Obsessed with revenge, Dae-hoon decides to track down the murderer, even if doing so means becoming a monster himself. And when he finds Kyung-chul, turning him in to the authorities is the last thing on his mind.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“A mesmerizing study of the nature of evil itself.” – Scott Tobias, A.V. Club
“Director Kim Jee-woon’s astonishing story of a serial killer who picks the wrong man’s fiancée to murder, is so extreme and intense that it had to be trimmed down in its native country before it was released to theaters. We lucky westerners get to see it in all its hair-raising, stomach-churning glory, and that’s a wonderful thing.” – Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
“A terrific but uncompromising film that’s definitely not for everyone.” – Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Available Formats:
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Fay Grim
Writer-director Hal Hartley returns to the characters from Henry Fool, following Fay, a single mom from Queens who is afraid her 14 year old son will grow up to be like his father, Henry, who has been missing for years.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Clever, fast-paced and surprisingly moving.” – Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide
“A sophisticated, sometimes intentionally silly spy thriller of international intrigue, Fay Grim charts the history of American foreign policy while commenting on current global complications with wink and a nudge.” – Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times
“There’s no other woman acting today that even remotely resembles Parker Posey. For that matter, there’s never been anyone quite like her that I can think of. She has the dynamite improvisational instincts of a born grifter who wandered too far from one con and ended up in another – acting – and her tricky-risky game of onscreen three-card monte is, again and again, a jewel in indie filmmaking’s oft-tattered crown.” – Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
Available Formats:
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Europa Report
An international crew of astronauts are sent on a privately funded mission to search for life on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Kubrick’s masterpiece moved so slowly that it was something of an endurance test, even for avid sci-fi fans. Europa Report, by contrast, is brisk, thrilling and ultimately terrifying. And unlike 2001, it’s (mostly) grounded firmly in one of the most exciting areas in modern science.” – Michael D. Lemonick, TIME
“Banishing showy effects and cheap scares, the Ecuadorean director Sebastián Cordero has meticulously shaped a number of sci-fi clichés — from the botched spacewalk to the communications breakdown — into a wondering contemplation of our place in the universe.” – Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
“The sights are gorgeous—a seamless mix of archival imagery and impressively rendered digital views of our galaxy—and the science is, to layman’s eyes and ears, more than credible.” – Keith Uhlich, Time Out
Available Formats:
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Lucky Grandma
In the heart of Chinatown, New York, an ornery, chain-smoking, newly widowed 80-year-old Grandma (Tsai Chin) is eager to live life as an independent woman, despite the worry of her family. When a local fortune teller (Wai Ching Ho) predicts a most auspicious day in her future, Grandma decides to head to the casino and goes all in, only to land herself on the wrong side of luck… suddenly attracting the attention of some local gangsters. Desperate to protect herself, Grandma employs the services of a bodyguard from a rival gang (Corey Ha) and soon finds herself right in the middle of a Chinatown gang war.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Though the flavors of past genres are present in Lucky Grandma, all those ingredients add up to a truly unique, unforgettable dish that brings a familiar formula to a whole new level.” – Hoai-Tran Bui, Slash Film
“If you’re a fan of comedy, Asian cinema or both, you will almost definitely love this movie. It’s a unique fast-paced film that’ll be sure to entertain even the most persnickety of audiences.” – Lorry Kikta, Film Threat
“What makes this film special, first and foremost, is the performance by Chin, who has lost none of the acerbic edge she sported as Waverly’s mother in The Joy Luck Club.” – Matt Fagerholm, RogerEbert.com
Available Formats:
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Night Moves
As organic farmer Josh (Jesse Eisenberg), high society dropout Dena (Dakota Fanning) and ex-Marine Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard) plan, carry out and then witness the fallout of an attention-grabbing act of sabotage, they find their own personal limits tested.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Eisenberg does an enormous amount with what he has, proving to be sinister and vulnerable virtually within the same breath, and expertly putting across the torment he’s going through.” – Oliver Lyttelton, The Playlist
“This is a quietly gripping gem.” – Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times
“Night Moves is an unexpected pleasure, offering more than what we expect and taking its time to deliver.” – Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
Available Formats:
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On Golden Pond
Originally a successful Broadway play, Ernest Thompson’s On Golden Pond, the film features Norman (Henry Fonda), a curmudgeon with an estranged relationship with his daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda). At Golden Pond, he and his wife (Katharine Hepburn) nevertheless agree to care for Billy, the son of Chelsea’s new boyfriend (Dabney Coleman), and a most unexpected relationship blooms.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“On Golden Pond is a treasure for many reasons, but the best one, I think, is that I could believe it. I could believe in its major characters and their relationships, and in the things they felt for one another, and there were moments when the movie was witness to human growth and change. I left the theater feeling good and warm, and with a certain resolve to try to mend my own relationships and learn to start listening better.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“Mr. Fonda gives one of the great performances of his long, truly distinguished career. Here is film acting of the highest order, the kind that is not discovered overnight in the laboratory, but seems to be the distillation of hundreds of performances.” – Vincent Canby, New York Times
“Fonda and Hepburn work gallantly against the mythic: Norman and Ethel are specific people, New Englanders, a middle-class pair without any special abilities or beliefs that might ease their slide into the oblivion at the end of life. They are Every Couple, delineated with a sharpness that only two consummate professionals working at the peak of their powers could provide.” – Jay Scott, Globe and Mail
Available Formats:
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John Dies at the End
We’re talking about a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit. On the street they call it Soy Sauce, and users drift across time and dimensions. But some who come back are no longer human. Suddenly a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and David, a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can’t. Based on the novel by author David Wong, John Dies at the End was adapted and directed by horror auteur Don Coscarelli.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“It lays waste to linear narration, thematic coherence, psychological plausibility and just about everything else you might expect to encounter. It zigs, zags and trips over its own feet and on its own home-brewed hallucinogens. It’s a ridiculous, preposterous, sometimes maddening experience, but also kind of a blast.” – A.O. Scott, New York Times
“Give or take the titular disclosure, John Dies at the End is a thoroughly unpredictable horror-comedy — and an immensely entertaining one, too.” – Rob Nelson, Variety
“Some of the themes and the hallucinatory special effects are reminiscent of Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch, and there are cheeky allusions to Dawn of the Dead and even Eyes Wide Shut, but a viewer with an open mind might say that this midnight-style movie is more enjoyable than any of them.” – Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Available Formats:
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The Demons
Félix, a 10-year-old boy in Montreal, is afraid of everything, and when kidnappers start targeting boys, his imaginary demons merge with reality.
Description provided by Rotten Tomatoes.
“The doubts, fears, and yes, horrors of life beneath the comfortable surface of a Montreal suburb are subjected to the quizzical, pained gaze of a sensitive 10-year-old in Philippe Lesage’s laconic, unsettling The Demons.” – Jonathan Holland, Hollywood Reporter
“Fevered imagination and nightmarish reality brush shoulders to disconcerting effect in The Demons, Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage’s extraordinary examination of childhood fears festering in broad suburban daylight.” – Guy Lodge, Variety
“Easily one of the best Canadian films of the year.” – Adrian Mack, Georgia Straight
Available Formats:
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Entertainment
A broken, aging comedian tours the California desert, lost in a cycle of third-rate venues, novelty tourist attractions, and vain attempts to reach his estranged daughter. By day, he slogs through the barren landscape, inadvertently alienating every acquaintance. At night, he seeks solace in the animation of his onstage persona. Fueled by the promise of a lucrative Hollywood engagement, he trudges through a series of increasingly surreal and volatile encounters.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Take it or leave it, Alverson’s fourth feature is singular stuff, and it reconfirms the director as one of the truly bold voices in the all-too-homogenous U.S. indie film scene.” – Scott Foundas, Variety
“Somewhere on the axis where David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson and Joey Bishop intersect, a man in a Salvation Army tuxedo wanders the Mojave Desert supplying anti-comedy to every cocktail lounge and prison in his path. This is Entertainment.” – Kyle Smith, New York Post
“There’s a chic emptiness to Entertainment, undoubtedly, and anti-comedy constructs that may rub the wrong way, but there’s also a spiky intelligence at work too, one that engages through the artifice of disengagement and the illusion of ‘performance.'” – Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
Available Formats:
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Monsters
Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear there and half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain “the creatures”… Our story begins when a US journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“An amazing achievement for a ‘first-time’ filmmaker, which measures up to the finest indies for performance and character-work, and the biggest blockbusters for jaw-dropping effects.” – Dan Jolin, Empire
“The film is a startlingly original and haunting take on our ageless fear of otherness.” – Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
“However you slice it, Monsters is a dynamite little film, loaded with atmosphere, intelligence, beauty and courage.” – Andrew O’Hehir, Salon
Available Formats:
Kanopy Streaming
13 Assassins
A brave samurai must assemble an elite team of thirteen killers to assassinate the brother of the Shogun, a sadistic and well protected young lord who’s above the law, raping and killing innocents with impunity. The film culminates in a mind-blowing, forty-five minute battle sequence that rivals anything seen before in the genre.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Visually spectacular, with wide-screen cinematography from Nobuyasu Kita, impressive, full-scale sets and special effects and exhausting, immersive action scenes, 13 Assassins is pretty nearly the samurai classic it sets out to become.” – Andrew O’Hehir, Salon
“A classically structured rampage that bears serious comparison to the definitive greats of Akira Kurosawa, 13 Assassins will floor connoisseurs of action, mood and the dignity of a pissed-off scowl.” – Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out
“Few filmmakers juxtapose cruelty and beauty as audaciously as Japan’s Takashi Miike. A master director with great style and panache, Miike’s latest, 13 Assassins, is a classic samurai movie, right up there among the finest in the genre.” – Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Available Formats:
Kanopy Streaming
Beyond the Black Rainbow
Set in the strange and oppressive emotional landscape of the year 1983, Beyond The Black Rainbow is a Reagan-era fever dream inspired by hazy childhood memories of midnight movies and Saturday morning cartoons.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Something like a trippy grindhouse homage whose familiar images are refracted through a prism of blacklight posters, Jodorowsky films, and even Rob Zombie’s grungy psychotropic sensibility.” – Simon Abrams, Slant
“At heart, the film is no more (or less) than a brilliantly executed lark, but it’s not often that we’re reminded with such potency that movies are most delightful as sensory experiences.” – Mark Holcomb, Village Voice
“Though the finale feels a bit anticlimactic, the lysergic atmosphere, synth-heavy score and logic-resistant story line more than earn Beyond the Black Rainbow‘s concluding quote, borrowed from another classic midnight movie: ‘No matter where you go… there you are.’ See the late show.” – Matt Singer, Time Out
Available Formats:
Kanopy Streaming
Jabberwocky
A rerelease of Terry Gilliam’s 1977 medieval parody.
Description and score provided by Metacritic.
“Awesome! Bravura! Captivating! Dazzling!” – Gregory Weinkauf, New Times
“Gilliam’s first solo flight as a director is more notable for its inspired visual ideas than for the frequency of its laughs, but Python devotees will have fun.” – David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor
“Gilliam wins major points for so thoroughly debunking the Dark Ages.” – Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic
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