'Human Nature': Film Review

A juvenile gag that just might have been funny as a minute-long entry in its makers' online filmography —other short works include Nip Slip and Saint Dick — Tyler Cornack's Butt Boy imagines the crime spree that ensues when a man's newly discovered appreciation for prostate massage goes absurdly awry. Soon, bars of soap and TV remotes aren't enough, and he's doing naughty things only dreamed of in Eddie Murphy's 1982 song "Boogie in Your Butt.

Farce is not a genre we commonly associate with the Germans, but then, as “Curveball” reminds us at the outset, this wildly atypical Teutonic satire — which plays like a cross between “Wag the Dog” and “Dr. Strangelove” in its portrayal of incompetence at the highest levels — is “A true story.

Another word for “Cargo,” a truly unique blend of Hindu mythology and mid-concept science fiction about a futuristic new process by which the recently deceased are beamed onto a spaceship far away in order to have their memories wiped and their souls cleansed for reincarnation, might be “baggage” — as in, dead people show up with their hands and pockets full of whatever preoccupied them on Earth, and it’s the crew’s job to calm them down and ease them through the transition.

Showing how much punch can be put in an unconventional indie, Los Conductos by Colombian director, writer and editor Camilo Restrepo strings together simple visuals to follow a runaway from a religious cult of “the chosen.” Hiding out in empty warehouses, the young man reviews the events that led up to his life in a group from which there is no escape, and his disillusionment with its charismatic but criminal leader.

Out of the vast universe of nature documentaries, I don’t think I’m alone in finding films about life under the sea to occupy a special place. The very fact that they exist, of course, is amazing — though when you watch one, part of the wonder is that you’re not thinking about how aquamarine filmmakers actually hovered in the ocean depths to shoot this stuff.

By Dino-Ray Ramos

In Dubrovnik, as everywhere, the wealthy do not live near the airport — so much noise, so much traffic, so many planes overhead stealing sections of cloudless blue sky.

[Note: In the wake of SXSW's cancellation this year,The Hollywood Reporteris reviewing select fest entries that elected to premiere digitally.] One of the timeliest stories of 2020, it turns out, is how the Cambodian refugee community took over the Southern California donut industry from the 1980s on.

A different point of view on the First World War told with the chilling truth of someone who has lived through combat and its shocking aftermath, Blizzard of Souls(Dveselu Putenis) derives its power from its strong, simple depiction of war seen through the eyes of an innocent 17-year-old soldier. In this it may be compared to Sam Mendes’ 1917, which was also based on eyewitness accounts of the war.

With the exception of Flipper from 1960s television, or maybe the talking Fa and Bea from Mike Nichols' 1973 movie The Day of the Dolphin, few cinematic dolphins have displayed quite as much personality as Echo, the main character in Dolphin Reef, Disneynature's new documentary premiering on Disney+, narrated by Natalie Portman.

[Note: In the wake of SXSW's cancellation this year, The Hollywood Reporter is reviewing select fest entries that elected to premiere digitally.] A few years ago, SXSW presented a film called Thank You Del, which introduced newbies to the tremendously influential improv teacher Del Close via an annual tribute hosted by the Upright Citizens Brigade.

[Note: In the wake of SXSW's cancellation this year, The Hollywood Reporter is reviewing select fest entries that elected to premiere digitally.] Hearing the term "Wakaliwood," most cinephiles will think of Bollywood, Nollywood and other portmanteaus used to designate a large region of cinematic production — often one viewed with some condescension (if seen at all) by the more entrenched parts of the film industry.

Of all the members of the animal kingdom we think of as akin to humans — chimps, dolphins, whales, perhaps (if we’re being honest about it) our dogs — elephants may be the most movingly and preternaturally aware. Because you can see how intelligent they are.

[Note: In the wake ofSXSW's cancellation this year,The Hollywood Reporteris reviewing select fest entries that elected to premiere digitally.] From its forbidden beginnings to its decades-long staying power, onstage and off, the love story of Johnny Cash and June Carter has had a mythic hold on the pop-culture imagination.

Best known for the unexpectedly soul-shattering San Francisco suicide doc “The Bridge,” indie filmmaker Eric Steel came out and came of age in 1980s New York at a moment just before AIDS devastated the city’s gay community. Such timing must have been surreal, to assume something so liberating about one’s own identity, only to watch in fear and uncertainty as this fraternity of newfound freedom collapsed around him.

A riveting and radical act of empathy, with actress Deragh Campbell’s unforgettably embodied portrayal of mental instability as the eye of its storm, Canadian director Kazik Radwanski’s astonishing third feature (after “How Heavy This Hammer” and “Tower”) is a brief, bracing burst of microbudget indie filmmaking at its most powerful.

LONDON -- Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has her first post-royal job: narrating a Disney documentary about elephants.

Refreshing as a river dip on a hot day, but also mildly melancholic, as though perhaps it is the last swim of the summer, Guillaume Brac’s wise, witty “À l’abordage” is an optimistic portrait of gentle disappointment, the kind a youthful generation has to experience before growing up a little bit.

Like any good science documentary, “Human Nature” starts with a hypothesis. The filmmakers posit that audiences are bored by the dry format of most science docs, but that there is a better strategy to present complex concepts about biology in such a way that both educates and entertains.