'Mayor': Film Review

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.

Red Heavenis timely in a way that the filmmakers could not have anticipated when they started making the documentary five years ago: It gazes head-on at isolation, confinement, boredom and stress — issues that nearly everyone is confronting in some combination or another as the world goes on coronavirus lockdown. But there's a lightness to the film as it explores weighty matters, along with a dash of reality show dynamics, framing cosmic questions in a familiar format.

Every time a new mental-health therapy arrives, it’s propelled by the ideology — and the testimonials — of a religion. Sigmund Freud’s descriptions of psychoanalysis all point to the miracle-cure mythology of the moment when a patient, at long last, touches the nerve of his or her suppressed trauma and is liberated from it.

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.

The famous quote from 13th century Sufi mystic Rumi about the place beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing provides the title of I'll Meet You There, writer-director Iram Parveen Bilal's domestic drama set in a Pakistani immigrant community in Chicago.

How many women drummers can most people name? Tomboy pointedly doesn't try to fill that sparse category. Instead, this enlightening but uneven documentary profiles four representative drummers from different generations and with a range of musical styles.

Terminally ill pets and their desperate, distressed caretakers are those that seek Dr. Marty Goldstein’s miraculous help.

You wouldn't think that sex addiction and testicular cancer are topics that could be mined for any but the cheapest of laughs. And Hooking Up would prove you right.

Two people, each unhappy with their lives, meet and form an unlikely emotional connection. It's a time-honored narrative formula, but Amber McGinnis' debut feature employs it to uncommonly moving and funny effect.

Mayor Musa Hadid is a celebrity of sorts in Ramallah, the historic Palestinian capital in the central West Bank, situated just a few miles north of Jerusalem. But it’s hard out there for this idiosyncratic, handsomely attired and mustachioed character, greeted often by excited kids and curious adults whenever he is spotted in the streets of the bustling town he tries to better for its citizens, burdened by the stifling politics of the region.

A quarter-century after starring in a film called Floundering, James Le Gros still makes an ideal embodiment of his generation's ambivalence about joining the world of squares. In Gary Lundgren's gently warm Phoenix, Oregon, the actor plays an unpublished comic book artist who, after years of tending bar for others, is talked into starting a business of his own.

A rideshare with a giggly geek driver who may be a serial killer. The staggering-through-the-ink-black-woods-with-nothing-but-a-flashlight look and mood of “The Blair Witch Project.” A mystic schlock demon like Candyman, the Slender Man, or the spectral figures from “The Strangers.” A Victrola in the middle of the road, cranking an ancient warbly ditty à la “The Shining.” A cabin full of snowy TV screens out of the “Poltergeist” showroom.

A rideshare with a giggly geek driver who may be a serial killer. The staggering-through-the-ink-black-woods-with-nothing-but-a-flashlight look and mood of “The Blair Witch Project.” A mystic schlock demon like Candyman, the Slender Man, or the spectral figures from “The Stranger.” A Victrola in the middle of the road, cranking an ancient warbly ditty à la “The Shining.” A cabin full of snowy TV screens out of the “Poltergeist” showroom.

A three act play-like look at a certain kind of man's response to the ascent of Donald Trump, The Misogynists casts Dylan Baker as an all-purpose bigot who, deep down, probably knows he's reveling in his last chance to be himself, and better cram in as much as possible. It's a tour-de-force for an actor who's more than willing to be loathsome, and will be welcomed by both Baker's fans and those of writer/director/provocateur Onur Tukel.

A college student proud of his array of mental disorders reacts oddly to being expelled in Inside the Rain, Aaron Fisher's feature writing/directing/acting debut.

An indignant, activist doc about one of those subjects most people agree is crucial but unsexy, Chris Durrance and Barak Goodman's Slay the Dragon takes up the scourge of gerrymandering. Viewers who don't need that word explained to them —it's the convoluted drawing of legislative district boundaries, done in favor of the governing political party — may feel a feature film is overkill.

Dim echoes of David Lynch and early Roman Polanski abound throughout “The Carnivores,” a fitfully fascinating mix of teasing narrative opacity and stylized psycho-thriller atmospherics.

In the striking pre-title sequence ofSchoolgirls,a choir of youngsters move their mouths silently, as though their voices have been stolen from them.