Support cinema and give the gift of Alamo. The first two episodes, which premiered at Sundance, are engrossing, fast paced, and clear about the stakes of the DA office trying to implement a new agenda while retaining public trust, and the challenges of trying to turn a ship in a new direction. 15. But the snow is pretty, you say. The “Gorilla Glue Girl” never wanted her nickname. The election was a hotly contested one, with layers of history and politics specific to Zimbabwe, but President manages to draw out those layers to create a compelling portrait of what a stolen election really looks like. Quietly absurd, Salomé Jashi’s Taming the Garden observes as a village in the country of Georgia uproots and transports a tree across town to a barge waiting at the shore. Try shoveling it. Alamo Drafthouse Victory Shoutout Horror happens to be one of Korean cinema’s strongest genres; there are numerous Korean horror films that appeal to a broad range of tastes and easily beat Hollywood’s offerings. To move the tree requires upheaval all over the village, and many other trees have to be trimmed or cut down so passage can be made. Next, their torsos. Sweet little Boris’s grisly demise tips the relentless ride Darborg and Dickson have in store. Eventually, their temples. That’s the focus of Debbie Lum’s Try Harder!, in which Lowell students speak frankly about the extraordinary work they’ve put into getting into their dream colleges. Darborg seems acutely aware of the alone-together retreats that even people who love each other deeply tend to beat during strenuous times, those feel-good responses for which we fumble and the eventual stumble. It is brutally cold outside. In the late 1960s, as social change was happening both within and beyond the walls of the Catholic Church, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles found themselves in a quandary. Writing With Fire follows the women through a pivotal time of transition: They’re moving to digital platforms, which pose a special challenge for a newspaper when some of its journalists have never handled their family’s phone, lest they break it. There’s a history of iconic, agonised faces in cinema – the bloody-eyed nurse in Battleship Potemkin, Marion Crane’s scream in Psycho, Joan’s unsettling, soul-penetrating stare in The Passion of Joan of Arc – and the blinded Eddie, blood running from her eyes like tears, belongs in that mythic pantheon of cinema’s agonised women. Aster might get to a similar place as Darborg but rob all the power by taking twice as long to do it. Their consciences told them to adapt to better serve their community, and to advocate for social changes they saw as congruent with their faith. Here are the 15 best documentaries I saw at Sundance — and how you, too, can watch them in the months ahead. The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry, 2006) Writer and director Michel Gondry is known for his seamless use of magical realism in … And when recruiters for Syrian Dream — a team of young footballers who are also refugees — show up, they are ready to spring into action. Aster might get to a similar place as Darborg but rob all the power by taking twice as long to do it. Which … well, in a way, that’s happening, too, but MOVING ON. Shots ring out. How to watch it: Users is awaiting distribution. How to watch it: Try Harder! Nadja and David scatter, forced to seek shivery shelter. By Alissa Wilkinson @alissamarie Feb 10, 2021, 8:30am EST Dr McKenna has also shared one of his favorite modern horror films, phychological horro The Lighthouse, which stars Willem Dafoe and former Twilight star, Robert Pattinson. How to watch it: Cusp is awaiting distribution. When Larry Krasner was elected Philadelphia’s district attorney in 2018, he became very powerful — and took many Philadelphians by surprise. One of the biggest crowd-pleasers and award winners at Sundance was Summer of Soul (Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), and that’s no surprise. This certainly like the sort of detritus Netflix regularly drops into an abyss of algorithmic anonymity. As they settle in to soak up the serenity of nature’s wonders and seemingly reconcile their differences, a rifle’s laser sight lights up their tent. newsletter. Director Jonas Poher Rasmussen interviews his friend, Amin, who endured years of horror after fleeing Afghanistan with his family following the Taliban takeover. The movie follows as the modern-day protagonists finds herself in a Louisiana plantation during Confederate times, and it's a deeply unsettling experience, especially throughout its first act. Red Dot contorts that notion in an unsettling and unsparing fashion you won’t soon forget, winter, spring, summer or fall. In honor of Ingmar Bergman’s one hundredth birthday, the Criterion Collection is proud to present the most comprehensive collection of his films ever released on home video. Wholesale power plans left Texans on the hook for thousands of dollars after prices spiked. The effect of his past is a strong one, showing how even after finding safety and relative stability, Amin’s previous experiences will never stop reaching their long fingers into his present. It’s to Cusp’s credit that there’s still a sense of magic and possibility throughout the film, as if the girls have some hope for their futures. Rebel Hearts tells the group’s story, focusing on why the nuns changed and what they risked in refusing to bend to church leadership. Millions rely on Vox’s explainers to understand an increasingly chaotic world. Korean cinema has been on an upward trajectory lately, for instance with Parasite’s win at the Oscars. The events were filmed, but the footage sat in a basement for 50 years. Boris bolts. Our streaming entertainment options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. How to watch it: Taming the Garden is awaiting distribution. Ahmir Thompson — better known as Questlove, the drummer and front man for the Roots — directed the film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, sometimes dubbed “Black Woodstock.” The staggering concert, held over a series of weekends in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park, featured everyone from Sly and the Family Stone to Nina Simone to Stevie Wonder to Mahalia Jackson. Quite a few films at Sundance considered the effects of technology on our lives, but none were quite so lyrical or elegant — or, perhaps, chilling — as Users. They’ve got nothing on Red Dot, with bold choices to recalibrate your entire concept of what’s transpiring and elevate an 80-minute mean machine into essential viewing for those who prefer their thrillers Hobbesian — nasty, brutish and short. Tessica Brown’s TikTok saga is a lesson on the highs and lows of viral fame. Ron DeSantis’s plan to make it harder to vote by mail, briefly explained. And then the terrain around them when they get up to investigate. Or traversing the mountains of it that your lazy comrades left behind on their sidewalks, which iced over into ass-busting and muscle-pulling death traps. "I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy": Doctors describe what their sickest coronavirus patients endure. The US is about to surpass half a million Covid-19 deaths, SNL tackles #FreeBritney, the Ted Cruz Cancun saga, and Andrew Cuomo’s scandals in its new cold open, March Madness is back for 2021 — and so are the fans, Much of Texas has power back — but it still faces water and food shortages. Popular Hindi cinema which portrays them as meek, docile, shabby and under-confident has naturalized the stereotype in line with Hindu caste sensibilities. Not limited to being just a genre label, Artsploitation Films presents intriguing, unsettling, unpredictable and provocative films to an audience long numbed by filmic predictability. President is a truly incredible achievement and an illuminating look into how authoritarians seek to keep people from participating in a “democracy.” Director Camilla Nielsson returned to Zimbabwe, the site of her 2014 film Democracy, to follow the 2018 presidential campaign of Nelson Chamisa, president of the opposition party. It is a thrilling, enraging film, and its intimate access to Chamisa and his advisers is extraordinary. They ran the gamut from dramatic explorations of refugees’ experiences to funny and heartbreaking looks at American high schools to experimental films about technology’s effects on our lives. Director Ali El Arabi chronicles their efforts to play their way out in Captains of Zaatari, a thrilling sports documentary that underscores the high stakes of the chance these young men have to play football. Watching All Light, Everywhere is informative, but more importantly, it’s an experience — and a sobering one. That’s the question Theo Anthony (Rat Film) tackles in All Light, Everywhere, a sprawling essay film about “blind spots” in the technologies we trust (or mistrust) to keep us safe and the illusions they too often depend upon. How to watch it: In the Same Breath premieres on HBO in spring 2021. They talk obliquely about the older men — often friends of their parents — who molested them when they were children. But what do cameras miss? Thankfully Netflix is here to help with biweekly, subtitled reminders that winter 2021 could always suck a lot harder. But Cusp makes it clear that sexual assault is a problem of culture, not of individuals — and that the fault lies with generations that don’t take action to change it. Gov. Cameras are ubiquitous, from body cameras on cops to drone-enabled cameras that capture views from above to the cameras we all hold in our hands every day. Dr McKenna said: "John Carpenter's partnership had ended with the big studios, but he still managed to make this deeply unsettling series of films." Now it’s been compiled into a documentary about a pivotal moment in Black cultural history — and an absolutely infectious film to watch. San Francisco’s Lowell High School is one of the most competitive public high schools in the US. Directors Isabel Bethencourt and Parker Hill only gradually reveal their subject: the pervasiveness of sexual assault in not just the girls’ lives, but also in the lives of their entire age cohort. How to watch it: At the Ready is awaiting distribution. And this year’s selections were no exception, even if the 2021 festival was an unusual one, having largely migrated to digital platforms. Caravaggio, leading Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th centuries who became famous for the intense and unsettling realism of his large-scale religious works. After another senseless shouting match, David books an impromptu camping trip for him, Nadja and their dog, Boris, to lay out underneath the Northern Lights. However, the continuous struggle of Dalits against caste oppression is usually ignored in cinematic narratives. also reveals, with dark humor, the bias against students of Asian descent that persists at many elite American schools. At the Ready follows a group of such students through a year in their lives, gently unearthing the roots of their enthusiasm for a future as a DEA agent or border patrol officer. For some of the townspeople, this upheaval is devastating. Please get with this program. Why? Philly D.A. How to watch it: Summer of Soul (Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) will be distributed by Hulu. How to watch it: All Light, Everywhere is awaiting US distribution. It’s also a hopeful film, demonstrating how today’s high schoolers are engaged with and listening to rhetoric on a national scale — and how they retain the ability, unlike so many adults, to think for themselves. Yeah. But more importantly, it’s a look into the lives of refugees and the ways the world sees them. At Lowell, though, the stakes are different. Cusp is a little staggering and incredibly beautiful. It makes the case that members of Gen Z have always been primed and ready to take their place as activists; it’s the rest of the country that’s finally started to move in their direction. Chip in as little as $3 to help keep Vox free for all. We undeniably live in a surveillance society. And that transformed relationship has big implications for our future as a species. The filmmaker plays with the idea of a “true history” on celluloid by chiding the very concept – truth in cinema, as in Western bad boy mythology, is a lie. How to watch it: Flee will be distributed by Participant and Neon. It’s a fast-paced and fascinating story that has implications far beyond Catholicism. Look. At Horizon High School in the border town of El Paso, Texas, students have the option — just as they do in 900 other Texas high schools — to join a “law enforcement” vocational track. 15 groundbreaking, unsettling, joyous documentaries to look for this year The best nonfiction movies from Sundance 2021. We’re informed at the beginning of Homeroom that the film covers the senior year of Oakland High School’s class of 2020, which means we already know what these kids don’t: The disruption of a lifetime is coming. They’ve moved to Stockholm for Nadja’s medical studies, and her stray moments out of school find David vegging out on video games to decompress from his stressful job. How to watch it: Writing with Fire is awaiting distribution. […] Days are weeks now. Humans have shifted from thinking of ourselves as small creatures on a big Earth to “users” of that Earth, bending it to our every whim. The film from director Nanfu Wang — who grew up in China but now lives and works in the US — takes a fearless approach to the often willful misinformation spread by multiple governments as the Covid-19 pandemic began to take hold in early 2020. It is awaiting a release date. But then the film forces you to consider what Nadja and David’s upward mobility really epitomizes, creates some chilling context for the detachment strategies they’ve adopted … and really, really starts to burrow under your skin. The world is a wide, wide place, and documentary filmmakers are committed to exploring it, celebrating it, and warning us not to take it for granted. How to watch it: The eight-part series premieres on PBS’s Independent Lens on April 20. It’s a stirring and inspiring documentary about some very courageous women, who deftly articulate and defend the need for accurate, fearless journalism in the pursuit of justice. Sign up for the From the dizzying disorientation of David and Nadja’s initial flight from danger to a shot of blood running in rivulets out of a gnarly wound, Red Dot is filled with things to make you say yeesh and feel bad for them. The idea that things are bad but you could be in these folks’ shoes is the basis for all controlled-fear cinema. The result is a chilling, truly absorbing film with big implications for the future. Krasner had been a civil rights lawyer for decades, often finding himself in opposition to the DA’s office, and the new position came with some real challenges. Pictures from either of these scenes–unsettling orange skies in normally paradisiacal parts of California, aerial views of doomy plumes of smoke covering the … In 2002, a group of Dalit women in India — who are considered so unclean, they’re not even in the country’s caste system — started a newspaper they called Khabar Lahariya (roughly translated to “News Wave”). Red Dot builds to a brain-popping boil that, for all the hosannas hurled their way, filmmakers like Ari Aster and modern-day M. Night Shyamalan could only dream of equaling. But the person who wants the tree — for reasons that remain opaque for most of the film — is providing roads in exchange, and the town desperately needs that help. Find the latest movie reviews from Empire, the world’s biggest movie destination. Red Dot contorts that notion in an unsettling and unsparing fashion you won’t soon forget, winter, spring, summer or fall. The film wisely probes the complex intersection of race, politics, law enforcement, and adolescence, showing how the school-to-cop pipeline in America is constructed early in the lives of not only these teenagers but also thousands of others. Exclusive free Watch Party events for four unique, unsettling genre thrillers from Blumhouse Television and Amazon Prime Video. You thought those knobs across the street who leave their orange shovel outside but never use it have a neck-snapper on their hands? They love playing football. is an eight-part documentary series about Krasner’s new role, and it’s thrilling and intriguing to watch. But it’s only been like this for a couple weeks, you say. How to watch it: Homeroom is awaiting distribution. How to watch it: Rebel Hearts is awaiting US distribution. And that message resonates throughout the film. They’re not the only ones. They discuss rape with painful familiarity. The Werners have four children staying with them- Maya, Nadine, and Connor are foster kids, whereas Dominic is their biological son. It’s definitely a survival setup as old as time. How to watch it: Captains of Zaatari is awaiting distribution. In late January, the streamer served up a so-so wintry spin on Con Air and Assault on Precinct 13 in Spain’s Bajocero (Below Zero). Directed by Natalia Almada and scored by the Kronos Quartet, the film feels a little symphonic, a mesmerizing exploration of how technology is transforming the ways we relate to the natural world. Flashbacks to Amin’s experiences are mixed in with his current uncertainties surrounding his relationship with his partner, Kasper, who desperately wants to buy a house, get married, and settle down. How to watch it: President is awaiting distribution. Discover Empire's take on the latest cinema, Blu-ray and DVD releases. The bishop disagreed. We’ve become the townspeople, and we now understand not only how ludicrous and sad this quest was, but also the great consequences of even the simplest pillaging of nature. And it’s a compassionate, powerful, and often very funny look at a generation that will never be the same. The third film in Peter Nicks’s trilogy about Oakland, California, Homeroom focuses largely on a group of OHS students who are passionately involved in activism, particularly around policing in their schools. The result is a sometimes funny, sometimes unsettling glimpse into relationships, identity and how hard it is to actually know someone. Mahmoud proclaims that refugees don’t need pity; they need opportunities.