#‘Porcelain War’ Review: Intimate Reflection on Making Art in Wartime Ukraine Is Beautiful but Frustrating

#‘Porcelain War’ Review: Intimate Reflection on Making Art in Wartime Ukraine Is Beautiful but Frustrating

Watching Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev’s visually confident, intellectually insecure documentary Porcelain War is like listening to a recitation from a brilliant poet while somebody sitting next to you is whispering what the poems are actually about. And the person sitting next to you explaining what the poet is trying to say is… twist… also…

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#‘Girls Will Be Girls’ Review: A Distinctive Drama About Fraught Mother-Daughter Relationships

#‘Girls Will Be Girls’ Review: A Distinctive Drama About Fraught Mother-Daughter Relationships

Before Mira (Preeti Panigrahi), a headstrong and academically gifted 16-year-old, met Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), she didn’t think about love. She focused on her classwork and dreamed of perfect scores. Their courtship, a series of endearing encounters that start with a night of stargazing, changes her priorities. Now, Mira studies Sri’s body, fantasizes about their…

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#‘Rob Peace’ Review: Chiwetel Ejiofor Crafts a Conventional but Stirring True Story of Talent, Struggle and Tragedy

#‘Rob Peace’ Review: Chiwetel Ejiofor Crafts a Conventional but Stirring True Story of Talent, Struggle and Tragedy

In his feature directorial debut, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Chiwetel Ejiofor crafted a humanizing portrait of a gifted Malawian boy who saves his village from famine by building a DIY windmill. That film — based on the true story of inventor William Kamkwamna — leaned into the conventions of inspirational movies to shape a…

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#‘A Different Man’ Review: Sebastian Stan Drops the Mask in a Provocative Dark Comedy With a Heart

#‘A Different Man’ Review: Sebastian Stan Drops the Mask in a Provocative Dark Comedy With a Heart

Looks can be deceiving in A Different Man, writer-director Aaron Schimberg’s endearingly twisted take on actors, playwrights, egos and the plight of the profoundly disfigured. Like the famous “Eye of the Beholder” episode of The Twilight Zone, in which humans turn out to be society’s freakish outcasts, this dark comedy suggests what happens when an…

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#Sundance: First Reactions to Kristen Stewart’s “Brutal, Triumphant” Lesbian Pic ‘Love Lies Bleeding’

#Sundance: First Reactions to Kristen Stewart’s “Brutal, Triumphant” Lesbian Pic ‘Love Lies Bleeding’

The official description for Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding on the Sundance Film Festival website calls the A24 pic “an off-the-wall, rambunctious lesbian love story” that “crashes into a family drama of the darkest ilk in this muscular thriller.” It’s also cited for “violence, graphic sexual content and other mature content.” It’s a pretty spot-on…

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