‘Last and First Men’: Film Review

Time tugs strangely on the sleeve of “Sweet Thing,” a heartfelt, hopeful yet slightly hollow black-and-white coming-of-ager from American indie stalwart Alexandre Rockwell (“In the Soup,” “Pete Smalls Is Dead”). A lively, bittersweet meditation on an impoverished childhood that is still rich in innocence and imagination, it feels old-fashioned in a way that does not quite gel with its bid for contemporary grit.

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.

You might think that someone raised deep within a barbecue dynasty would have his nose so tuned to smoke that he wouldn't have a palate for much beyond that. Not so in Uncorked, Prentice Penny's story of a son (Mamoudou Athie) whose passion for fine wine carries him away from the BBQ joint his father (Courtney B.

[Note: In the wake ofSXSW's cancellation this year,The Hollywood Reporteris reviewing select fest entries that elected to premiere digitally.] Just weeks after arriving in the United States, a 26-year-old visiting scholar from a small city in southern China disappeared from her Illinois campus. Two years later, in the summer of 2019, her suspected kidnapper went on trial.

Filmmaker Rob Beemer is smart enough to know that an esoteric subject demands the presence of celebrities to garner attention. Thus, his documentary chronicling the rise of mindfulness and meditation over the last few decades opens with footage of such familiar faces as Anderson Cooper, Oprah Winfrey and actor Patrick Dempsey.

Like the revelation that the dowdy French-cuisine evangelist Julia Child worked for American intelligence operations during World War II, there's something quaint and almost comic about the historical nugget upon which Jonathan Jakubowicz's Resistance is based: Before he became the most famous mime artist in history, Marcel Marceau worked in the French Resistance, forging passports and smuggling Jewish children across borders to save them from Nazi exterminators.

“Tape,” a guerrilla indie drama that confronts some of the ways sexual harassment has been embedded in the entertainment industry, begins with Rosa (Annarosa Mudd) getting ready to go undercover — but really, she’s dressing for battle. After rigging herself up with a hidden camera, she mutilates her body in homage to Lavinia in “Titus Andronicus,” piercing her own tongue and using a razor blade to carve a bracelet of blood around her wrist.

[Note: In the wake of SXSW's cancellation this year, The Hollywood Reporter is reviewing select fest entries that elected to premiere digitally.] Movies about boys in high school and college spill over with reckless partiers, nerdy loners and aggrieved misfits eager to show the world what they're made of.

There will likely be no shortage of movies dealing with #MeToo themes, but Deborah Kampmeir's indie feature scores points by being one of the earliest. A hard-hitting psychological drama about an actress who surreptitiously monitors her former assailant and his current prospective victim, Tape benefits from its well-executed thriller mechanics and terrific performances by its three leads.

Young Deragh Campbell is a hard actress to forget, even in offbeat roles like an obsessed researcher of family history in MS Slavic 7or its docudrama precursor Never Eat Alone, both by filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz. Kazik Radwanski’s Anne at 13,000 Ft.

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.

Welsh singer Duffy has offered up her first song since revealing she was raped and held captive during a now-deleted Instagram post last month.

The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) has become the first major arts, theater and cinema venue to close its doors in the U.K. as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

With his perverse (and some might say perverted) look at the early life of Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister W. L.

Two older working-class men, both secretly gay, meet by chance and a hidden relationship develops in “Suk Suk,” the poignant third feature from writer-director Ray Yeung. Inspired by a sociology professor’s oral history of older gay men in Hong Kong, the drama incorporates documentary-like elements about end-of-life issues for gay elders.

Leslie Odom Jr. and Freida Pinto make sympathetic, easy-on-the-eyes lovers in “Only,” an absorbing post-catastrophe drama, in theaters and on demand March 6. Consider “Only” a variation on the “What would you do in this horrid situation?” subgenre. Only it’s more a “What would we do?” which can be an exponentially more challenging proposition. (Hard enough to agree on where to get takeout.)

Tilda Swinton poses with her daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, inside the BFI Chairman’s Dinner held at Rosewood on Monday night (March 2) in London, England.

You might feel a sense of shame watching Rotimi Rainwater’s “Lost in America,” an expansive documentary look at the issue of youth homelessness in a country where the problem seems unthinkable, and its victims are so often invisible. You are likely to ask yourself how many times you have passed by a homeless child and did not quite see them.

Halle Berry, Rosario Dawson, Tiffany Haddish, Jon Bon Jovi, Sanaa Latham, Jewel and Rebecca Gayheart-Dane. No, it's not the all-star cast of an upcoming Netflix movie.

"I often bought Playboy for the graphic design," says one of the commentators in Jennifer Hou Kwong's documentary about the men's magazine's founding art director, Art Paul. Prior to seeing the film you'd probably assume it was a joke, much like the sheepish explanation commonly offered by Playboy's purchasers that they read it for the articles.