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Charming culture-clash rom-com is full of life, celebrating human universals of family and love, and embracing differences that make the world so interesting. Smart and spritely, feminist and funny.
A sly, penetrating zing and a frisson of Insta-influencer horror — of the oppression of performative perfection against a marzipan backdrop — renders Austen’s fluff and nonsense deadly serious.
Guerilla filmmaking is at its most charming in this melancholy romance set — and improvised and shot on the fly — in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Village. Delightful and delicately observed.
My pick: “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl),” a tremendous ode to the power of sports to boost girls’ self-esteem and set them free from the shackles of the limited expectations.
My pick: The gorgeous “Brotherhood” opens up reductive notions of Middle Eastern cultures in the Western imagination while telling a moving story of family and forgiveness that is quite universal.
My pick: I haven’t seen a short film this year that is as full of pure joy as “Hair Love.” I’d like to think that its sweet positivity will be the thing that, at this awful moment, gives it an edge.
Behold ladyrage given full candy-colored, sparkle-sprinkled voice in an ironically comical spectacle: Haha, isn’t this delightfully absurd? Or is it? This is kidding-not-kidding on celluloid.
Poor Blake Lively does her de-glammed best in this poor Xerox of much better Turn The Urchin Into A Spy thrillers. But there isn’t a single human interaction in this hamfisted movie that rings true.
Strips away the ambiguity of the source story to leave us with lazy jump scares, visual gloom, and a cheap cheat of an ending. Gaslights its protagonist and, incredibly enragingly, the viewer, too.
This Michael Bay–esque love letter to China Rescue & Salvage may be propaganda, but its enjoyably bonkers melodrama and grippingly engaging action are a lot less obnoxious than any film Bay has made.
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