‘Glitch in the Matrix’ Film Review: Trippy Documentary Questions the Nature of Reality

After the release of “The Matrix” back in 1999, there was renewed interest in the time-tested theory that the world around us is a simulation. And now, even today, perhaps more than ever before, that theory is still being discussed.

After three feature documentaries, Rodney Ascher has certainly found his niche. In his The Shining-themed Room 237,The Nightmare, about those afflicted with sleep paralysis, and his new A Glitch in the Matrix, he eagerly pushes nonfiction conventions right up to the border of identification with sometimes disturbed interviewees, exploring ideas that burrow into their heads and can wreck or at least transform their lives.

spoiler warning if you don’t want to know more — that the couple we’re so invested in is, indeed, keeping secrets. And not from each other, but from us, the audience.

evolution in talking about Sparks’ early music, we’ll see one or two seconds of a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, and if we’re told that their second album was more experimental than their first, here’s a shot of a car driving off a cliff.The obvious questions aren’t addressed in the slightest.

Also Read: 'Sesame Street' Documentary 'Street Gang' Set for 2021 HBO DebutAgrelo, best known for 2005’s “Mad Hot Ballroom,” does an exemplary job of storytelling as she corrals this saga into about 100 minutes and sums up just how groundbreaking the show was. “We thought we were changing children’s television,” says Cerf at one point in the film.

Also Read: 'My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea' Review: Satirical Teenage Adventure, 'Poseidon'-Style“Cryptozoo” follows the globe-trotting adventures of Lauren Gray (voiced by Lake Bell). As a child growing up on an army base in Okinawa, Lauren was plagued by nightmares until a mythical creature — collectively categorized here as “cryptids” — called a Baku ate her dreams and gave her peace.

Also Read: 14 Buzziest Sundance Movies for Sale in 2021, From Questlove's 'Summer of Soul' to Rebecca Hall's 'Passing' (Photos)The story is specific to one group of women at one particular time, but five decades later, it’s certainly applicable to current questions about the role of religion in society, about the place of tradition and rigor in the Church and about how social justice movements intersect with biblical teachings.

safety when talking about “In the Earth,” because this is a messy, creepy and at times deliciously nasty concoction that takes myth and legend and fuels it with currents of dread that may feel familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention for the last year.The film, which comes into Sundance with distribution from Neon, uses a pandemic – not necessarily our particular pandemic, but maybe – as a jumping off point into a tale of horror in the woods that gets more unhinged the further it goes, and

Also Read: 'One Day at a Time' Star Rita Moreno on the 'Odd Resistance' to Latinx Representation on TVNonetheless, Pérez Riera smartly tames the endearing adulation and expounds the reach of the project, with honest conversations on gender violence and ethnic discrimination as they relate to Moreno’s experiences.

Also Read: 14 Buzziest Sundance Movies for Sale in 2021, From Questlove's 'Summer of Soul' to Rebecca Hall's 'Passing' (Photos)The film was one of the opening-night presentations at the virtual Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, occupying the same position as previous music-focused docs like “Twenty Feet From Stardom,” “Searching for Sugar Man,” “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and last year’s “Miss Americana.” No doubt it left some viewers wishing that it had been the Eccles Theatre moving to the

Kourosh Ahari's debut feature proves an accomplished psychological chiller that impresses far beyond its historic status as a U.S. production featuring primarily Iranian or Iranian-American talent.

The psychological toll of investigative police work seeps into the bones of John Lee Hancock's gritty neo-noir The Little Things, which captures Los Angeles County's flat urban sprawl and snaking freeways to highly atmospheric effect.

Watch Video: Denzel Washington and Rami Malek Are Out to Catch Jared Leto in 'The Little Things' TrailerOne senses that Hancock (“Saving Mr. Banks,” “The Founder”) wants to bait and switch the audience with what at first seems like a straightforward policier but then pivots into a character study of Deke and Jim — respectively, an aging lawman who’s literally haunted by his mistakes and an ambitious young climber who may follow in Deke’s footsteps for better or for worse.

Just a few months ago, Juno Temple helped give the fledgling Apple TV+ service its first must-see: Ted Lasso, a practically perfect comedy series that radiated decency and hope in a world that...well, you were there. She’s very much on the other side of the coin in her reunion with the streaming service, playing a drug-addicted single mom so neglectful that abandoning her kid to the care of a just-released felon is actually a step in the right direction.

After all the passion and grievances stirred up in Malcolm & Marie, it's a tad on the nose to hear Cee-Lo on the Outkast track "Liberation" sing about the "fine line between love and hate." But it's glorious to watch Zendaya, in a commanding turn that cements her arrival as a grownup movie star, skate along that line with both raw emotionality and the jaded remove of a perceptive woman toughened by experience.

Watch Video: 'Malcolm & Marie' Trailer: Zendaya and John David Washington Have Steamy, Love-Hate RelationshipMarie’s opening salvo is that Malcolm forgot to thank her during his lengthy curtain speech, but that minor betrayal exposes a myriad of fault lines in their relationship, from his ego to her low self-esteem, not to mention the fact that she feels that Malcolm has raided her own past issues with drug addiction and rehab to create the female lead of his film, who’s having issues with drug

A working-class gangster pic whose protagonist is a more reluctant criminal than most, Jeremie Guez's Brothers by Blood adapts Pete Dexter's 1991 novel Brotherly Love. Sharp-eyed readers will have guessed that the action is set in Philadelphia, and the film's feel for its post-industrial, gray-skies setting is one of its main assets.

In a small village in tropical Kerala in the south of India, civilized society breaks down after a buffalo gets loose and the villagers mindlessly join in the hunt. Veteran director Lijo Jose Pellissery returns to the theme of mob violence he handled so well in the 2017 Angamaly Diaries, which pitted local gangs against each other with tragi-comic flair.

The two lovers "meet cute." One has an overbearing mother and an overly garrulous best friend constantly trying to interfere in his love life. The other has deep-rooted family issues.