The difference between being laughed at and having others laugh with you is perfectly exemplified in how the overweight young protagonist in stop-motion filmmaker Kristina Dufková’s coming-of-age story “Living Large” is treated by those around him. Bespectacled Ben Pipetka (Tyler Joseph Gay in the English-language dub) has an affinity for cooking elaborate meals and is […]

Cigarette ash piles on top of a few discarded CDs inside a darkened room where the members of a rock band, Los Planetas, struggle to make tracks for their new album. That brief shot conveys more than the mere disarray of the space. Those likely ruined discs symbolize a certain anarchic disregard for music as […]

One of the more engaging figures in Ondi Timoner’s 2022 documentary, “The Last Flight Home” — about the decision of her 92-year-old father, Eli Timoner, to use California’s end-of-life option — was the director’s sister, Rachel. A rabbi, Rachel Timoner brought a pastoral warmth and spiritual insight to the sorrows and joys, rites and spiritual […]

The kid’s gonna be fine. It’s the parents who are not all right in “Spellbound,” a straight-to-Netflix computer-animated fairy tale with a smart concept (what’s a girl to do when her home life is shattered?) and its heart in the right place. If only the movie were transparent about its premise from the outset, as […]

Latino actors have long been outspoken about the types of roles they are frequently relegated to in most American productions: criminals, migrants, housekeepers. On that front, the romantic comedy “Say a Little Prayer” succeeds at defying the status quo by presenting professionally accomplished American Latino characters (who own enviable homes) in a plot that doesn’t […]

While most nonfiction filmmakers remove themselves from the narrative equation of their work, never explicitly addressing their personal investment nor including their image or voice on screen, Chinese documentarian Nanfu Wang has forged her career doing exactly the opposite. The way her narration factors into each of her features, she has enmeshed her own experiences […]

In “The Wizard of Oz,” there can be no doubt which witch is the worst witch: That would be the one with the army of flying monkeys, who melts upon contact with water. But in “Wicked,” the green-skinned spell-caster turns out to be far more sympathetic than Glinda, her ostensibly “good,” oppressively pink rival. Loosely […]