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20 Days in Mariupol is a vital, unflinching and heartbreaking documentary about the Russian invasion of Mariupol, a.k.a. the Siege of Mariupol, in Ukraine during 2022. A team of journalists, including director Mstyslav Chernov, put their life on the line to film the horrors of the war. The images Chernov captures speak louder than words and will haunt you for quite some time. An older man, for instance, wanders around Mariupol with his belongings after being displaced from his home. He looks weary, hopeless and disoriented. Doctors at a hospital desperately try to save a wounded young child, but the child dies on the operating table. Civilians, including children, gather at a crowded underground shelter. Mariupol looks like the post-apocalypse. Meanwhile, birds-eye view shots of the city display even more of the devastation while also making the film feel quite cinematic and providing it with scope. 20 Days in Mariupol documents the Ukrainians' suffering and serves as proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, of Vlamidmir Putin's war crimes. At a running time of 1 hour and 34 minutes, it opens at Film Forum via PBD Distribution. 
Black Ice is a mildly engaging, but heartfelt and enraging documentary about racism in the sport of hockey. Director Hubert Davis should be commended for taking on such a broad topic that spans many decades and still remains a systemic problem today. He interviews former NHL players like Ali Akim, P.K. Subban and Make Dumba, each of whom discusses their incidents in their careers when they encountered racism. Saroya Tinker, a black hockey player, also gets a chance to share her experiences. Their personal stories are equally moving and alarming while showing how systemic the issue of racism is in hockey. You'll also learn about a part of hockey history that should be better known: the Colored Hockey League, an all-black hockey league that was founded back in 1895 until its demise in 1930. Why isn't it better known today? Thank you, director Hubert Davis, for bringing it to the audience's attention---to be fair, it deserves to be the topic of a seperate documentary. Black Ice doesn't do an effective enough job of stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, so it treats its broad subject with somewhat limited scope. It's great to have the human element in any documentary, but more analysis and provocative questions would've elevated the film above mediocrity and would've also helped it to avoid becoming repetitive. It's slickly-edited, though, so it's far from a dry and academic documentary. At a running time of 1 hour and 37 minutes, Black Ice opens in select theaters nationwide via Lionsgate. 
Lakota Nation vs. United States is a powerful, illuminating and emotionally resonating documentary about the struggles of the Lakota Indians to take back the Black Hills of South Dakota that rightfully belongs to them. Co-directors Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli don't just put a human face to the issue by interviewing Native Americans, but they also explore the history of Native Americans while shedding a whole new light on it that goes above and beyond what you've read about in your school's textbooks. You'll learn about how the Lakota people lost their ancestral land throughout the years, how they've encountered racism, and how the U.S. government has repeatedly failed to honor treaties that give the Lakotas and other members of the Sioux tribe the legal right to own the Black Hills. Their land was stolen and they have every right to get it back. They also have every right to be indignant. Unless you're made out of stone, you'll be deeply moved by their perseverance, courage and determination to continue to fight to reclaim their land. It's not an easy battle, but it's an important one that's worth fighting for. There's a lot of propaganda, misinformation and misrepresentation of Native Americans, i.e. the way that they've been repeatedly depicted as violent and savage enemies in Hollywood westerns. Clips from those westerns are shown here to prove that point. It's also worth mentioning the breathtaking, poetic cinematography that captures the majesty of the Lakota's ancestral land. Although this documentary is about the search for truth and justice, it's fundamentally about the search for democracy in a country where democracy isn't fully functional. At a running time of 2 hours, Lakota Nation vs. United States is one of the best documentaries of the year. It opens at IFC Center via IFC Films. Afire  Leon (Thomas Schubert), a writer, and his friend, Felix (Langston Uibel), a photographer, spend their summer holiday at a remote cottage near the Baltic Sea. Nadja (Paula Beer) also lives in the cottage and introduces Leon and Felix to her lover, Devid (Enno Trebs). Afire has many shades of Eric Rohmer's romantic films running throughout it. Like Rohmer, writer/director Christian Petzold sees and treats his characters as human beings, warts and all. He focuses on the relationships between his characters, each of whom has their own personality, flaws, desires, dreams and regrets. Leon is the most flawed character among the group. He's arrogant, but also has a sweet, tender and sensitive side. He may seem strong on the outside; on the inside, though, he's insecure and vulnerable. Case in point: he can't handle negative criticism of his manuscript when Nadja asks to read it. Initially, he's reluctant to even let her read it, but he soon caves in and changes his mind. He takes her dislike of his manuscript personally and invalidates her feelings. The fact that he puts so much weight on validation from others isn't a good sign. His publisher, Helmut (Matthias Brandt), soon arrives and reads the manuscript aloud. Helmut isn't just a plot device, though. He bonds with Felix, Nadja and Devid in the meantime. There's a slightly undercooked subplot involving Felix and Devid having a sex-charged love affair. There's also a wildfire blazing in the distance which may or may not spread to the cottage. So, Afire does somewhat bite off more than it could chew, but that's a minor, forgivable flaw. Like Rohmer, though, Petzold has a knack for natural dialogue without any clunkiness, schmaltz or over-explaining. He excels at incorporating just the right of exposition and comic relief, i.e. the silly title of Leon's second novel which won't be spoiled here. Most importantly, he also manages to find plenty of Spectacle within the evolving dynamics between his complex characters which makes the film engrossing and captivating. Thomas Schubert, Langston Uibel, Paula Beer and Enno Trebs are all very well-cast and sink their teeth naturally into their roles without any hamming or under-acting. In other words, you don't feel the wheels of their performances turning just like you don't feel the wheels of the screenplay turning here either. Paula Beer is both charismatic and radiant just like she is in Undine and Don't Look Away. The pace moves slowly, but not too slowly, so Petzold trusts the audience's patience. He also adds some symbolism through the wildfire which can be seen as a thought-provoking metaphor. Fortunately, he doesn't dumb the film down by explaining the metaphor. This isn't the kind of movie where the director holds your hands and spoon-feeds you everything that you need to know. You don't even have to see the wildfire as a metaphor if you choose not to, so Petzold does an effective job of leaving enough room for interpretation. At a running time of 1 hour and 43 minutes, Afire is engrossing, provocative, captivating and refreshingly un-Hollywood.
 Earth Mama 
 The Flood  Sheriff Jo Newman (Nicky Whelan) agrees to let convicts seek shelter at her station during a hurricane. She throws them into a jail cell, but, soon enough, Rafe (Louis Mandylor) arrives to free one of the prisoners, Cody (Casper Van Dien), who was his getaway driver when they stole money in a heist. Meanwhile, large alligators threaten everyone's lives as the flood waters rise. Based on its premise alone, The Flood sounds like it could be a gripping, terrifying thriller like Jaws, but with alligators, or more recently, the mediocre horror/thriller Crawl which charts the same waters. Unfortunately, the screenplay by Chad Law and Josh Ridgway leaves a lot to be desired as it wastes too much time with dull exposition and distracting subplots that take the focus away from the horror/thriller elements. There's also too many conflicts going on all at once while none of them stick the landing. There's a strong hurricane, flooding, dangerous convicts, hidden cash from a heist, and, finally, the deadly alligators. The dialogue is often stitled without enough wit or comic relief. This isn't Lake Placid, but it could've used a little bit of dark comedy, more horror or something along those lines to take it up a few notches. Not a single scene captures any of the tension, fear or claustrophobia that you'd expect to feel when people are trapped in one location in the middle of the night with alligators lurking around. The characters are underwritten and forgettable, but what's most disappointing is that they don't get to banter much. The Flood plays it too safely without taking any risks. The filmmakers know where to take ideas from, but not where to take ideas to. The performances are mediocre at best, but to be fair, that's forgivable because in a horror film, the big star is the the horror---as Roger Ebert once wisely stated. Like last week's Insidious: The Red Door, The Flood doesn't deliver nearly enough when it comes to horror, and it squanders many of its opportunities to be scary or at least exhilarating. It's more entertaining than The Black Demon, though. The special effects aren't anything exceptional nor are they impressive enough to elevate the film on a visceral level. The same can be said about the rest of the production values, i.e. the score, cinematography, lighting, editing and set designs. At a running time of 1 hour and 31 minutes, The Flood is a mildly engaging, meandering and lackluster B-movie that won't whet your appetite if you're looking for a solid horror film, creature feature or thriller.
 Final Cut  Rémi (Romain Duris), a filmmaker, shoots a zombie film in one take inside an abandoned factory while being tough on his actors including Raphael (Finnegan Oldfield), who plays a zombie, and the film's star, Ava (Matilda Lutz). To spoil the plot of Final Cut any further wouldn't be fair to audience who haven't previously watched One Cut of the Dead, the recent Japanese dark comedy that become a cult classic. Writer/director Michel Hazanavicius dutifully follows the plot of One Cut of the Dead without making any major changes. So, the same twists are here and happen around the same time, too, which means that if you've seen the Japanese original, there's nothing to shock or surprise you in terms of the plot alone. The characters, though, are often annoying like nails on a chalkboard or just plain over-the-top without actually being funny. The first 30 minutes are tough to sit through---much more so than in One Cut of the Dead--because the beats often don't land. Nor do they land when Final Cut flashes back to how the zombie film became financed by Mrs Matsuda, (Yoshiko Takehara), or when Nadia (Bérénice Bejo), the make-up artist is introduced. The rest of the film suffers from dullness with small bursts of dark humor that gets repetitive. There's also gross-out toilet humor that's painfully unfunny, lazy and on top of being disgusting. While One Cut of the Dead is as wildly entertaining and wickedly funny as Shaun of the Dead, Final Cut doesn't even come close. It's just as disappointing as Fool's Paradise. Unfortunately, none of the actors in Final Cut have good comedic timing here because they're trying too hard to be funny and you can feel the wheels of their performances turning every step of the way. That would've been forgivable if the screenplay were witty and funny instead of being so asinine and juvenile. Scatalogical humor can be funny in moderation, but here the poop and vomit scenes overstay their welcome. Tighter editing would've allowed the film to flow much smoother and prevented the last 30 minutes from dragging on and on. It's not a good sign when you can feel the weight of a film's running time and when the actors seem to be having more onscreen fun than the audience is having. At 1 hour and 51 minutes, Final Cut is a repetitive, dull and painfully unfunny misfire that pales compared to the far superior One Cut of the Dead.
 The Miracle Club  Three friends, Lily (Maggie Smith), Eileen (Kathy Bates), and Dolly (Agnes O'Casey), go on a pilgrimage from Dublin to Lourdes. They hope to find miracles there and to bathe in the healing waters found in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. Another friend, Chrissie (Laura Linney), arrives from the US to attend her mother's funeral in Dublin before joining them on their pilgrimage. Co-screenwriters Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager and Joshua D. Maurer do a decent job of incorporating exposition. The first act briefly introduces the audience to Lily, Eileen and Dolly's home life and the reasons why they need miracles. Eileen has breast cancer, Dolly has a son who hasn't spoken yet, and Lily wants to cross Lourdes off of her bucket list before it's too late. Chrissie has childhood trauma that's not revealed until the third act. Lily also has traumatic memories that she needs to overcome. This is the kind of film where you can feel the wheels of the screenplay turning with nearly everything being telegraphed and over-explained to you without much room for interpretation. There are some attempts at comic relief, but they're far and few between and not laugh-out-loud funny or witty per se. Even The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has more humor to balance the many dramatic moments. The third act feels contrived and the characters arcs don't feel authentic enough for you to believe that these women truly changed by the end of their pilgrimage. Unfortunately, by the time the end credits roll, The Miracle Club remains somewhat shallow without exploring its themes of friendship, forgiveness, and hope profoundly enough. The tender and charismatic performances by Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, Agnes O'Casey and Laura Linney help to breathe life into the shallow screenplay and to provide their characters with small hint of their inner life. The film's poignancy comes from their performances, not from the screenplay. It's too bad that the screenplay neglects to open enough of a window into the characters' heart, mind and soul, though. You learn just enough about them to see them as human, but there's so much that's underdeveloped which makes you wish you could spend more time to get to know them or how the pilgrimage affected them. The editing feels choppy at times and there are pacing issues, especially during the third act that moves too quickly. These women clearly had epiphanies at Lourdes, but you barely get the chance to see how they've innately grown once they return home from the trip. At a running time of just 1 hour and 91 minutes, The Miracle Club suffers from the same systemic issue as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel suffers from: it's a heartwarming story with clunkiness, preachiness and schmaltz.  Psycho-Pass: Providence  Akane Tsunemori (voice of Kana Hanazawa), an inspector working for the Criminal Investigation Department, investigates the murder of Dr. Milicia Stronskaya, a professor who had been doing a research study on the Japanese government's AI program Sibyl System that monitors its citizens with AI. Her investigation leads her to discover that a terrorist organization called Peacebreakers are responsible for the murder. Psycho-Pass: Providence suffers from a screenplay by Makoto Fukami, Tow Ubukata and Gen Urobuchi that bites off more than it could chew, but it remains somewhat engaging as a crime thriller with a fine balance of action, suspense and intrigue. The film opens with a scene showing the murder of Dr. Milicia Stronskaya that serves as a catalyst for Akane's intestigation of the Peacebreakers. This isn't so much as whodunit, but rather a "Why did they do it"? Akane is determined to find out why the Peacebreakers murdered the professor. What did the professor know about the Sibyl System through her research that lead to her murder? Was she a whistleblower? The deeper that Akane gets into the mystery, the more twisted and complex it gets. Fortunately, the screenplay has just the right amount of exposition to avoid causing the audience to feel confused, even if you're unfamiliar with the Psycho-Pass. The Sibyl-System is definitely at the very beginning along with what "psycho-pass" means, so this works as a standalone film unlike many other recent anime films. To be fair, some of the dialogue does get a little heavy-handed preachy with its messages without trusting the audience's intelligence enough to decipher the messages on their own. Also, there's not nearly enough comic relief, though, which means that, around the hour mark, the film begins to feel somewhat monotonous, but at least there's another action sequence around the corner that helps to steer the film away from becoming lethargic. There are also some surprising twists which won't be revealed here. It's best to watch Psycho-Pass: Providence while knowing as little about the plot as possible beforehand. The animation is decent while creates a visual spectacle with lots of attention to detail. However, it feels a little cold and not dazzling enough to elevate the film. The action scenes are thrilling, though, and easy-to-follow, much like the plot itself. It's also worth mentioning that the film doesn't become exhausting at any point---in other words, there's no wall-to-wall action. At a running time of 2 hour, Psycho-Pass: Providence has a compelling story with interesting characters, so it's not a lazy, run-of-the-mill anime film that's merely going through the motions.
 Two Tickets to Greece  Blandine (Olivia Côte), single mother, suffers from depression and loneliness after her ex-husband left her for a younger woman. She's supposed to go on a trip to Greece with her son, Benjamin (Alexandre Desrousseaux), but, at the last minute, he says that he can't make it. Instead, he gives his ticket to Magalie (Laure Calamy), Blandine's childhood friend who Blandine hasn't seen since they had a fallout back in middle school. He also surprises her by arranging her to have dinner with Magalie at a restaurant before they both embark on the trip to the Cyclades islands of Greece. If you're a fan of empowering films about women going through self-discovery like in Under the Tuscan Sun and Shirley Valentine, Two Tickets to Greece will be just the film for you. The screenplay by writer/director Marc Fitoussi is wise and witty with the right balance of humor and poignancy while avoiding schmaltz and lowbrow humor. Blandine has a lot in common with Shirley from Shirley Valentine because she's unhappy with her life and stuck in a rut, although she's not quite as self-aware nor as blunt as Shirley. Magalie, on the other hand, has an upbeat personality, isn't afraid to speak her mind, to be free-spirited, and to be reckless much like Maude from Harold and Maude. Not surprisingly, Blandine and Magalie's trip to Greece doesn't go as smoothly as the planned because of Magalie's recklessness, so they end up stranded on a completely different island than the one where they booked their hotel at. Magalie helps Blandine to break out of her shell, so-to-speak, like Maude does to Harold during their adventures. They can also be compared to Felix and Oscar from The Odd Couple. As the plot progresses, Blandine and Magalie become increasingly complex human beings who have more to them than meets the eye. Bravo to writer/director Marc Fitoussini for not only seeing and treating them as human beings, warts and all, but for making their blossoming friendship feel authentic. It's great to see characters who are capable of introspection, a very important tool in life, that's a sign of emotional maturity. Small details like the fact that Blandine used to enjoy roller skating during her childhood or that she and Magalie love The Big Blue become more significant details later on. Kristin Scott Thomas shows up in the second act as Bijou, one of Magalie's free-spirited friends who moved to Greece to live with her wealthy Greek husband without learning Greek. She, too, has more to her than meets the eye, as it turns out. There are no villains here except a silent one: the breast cancer that Bijou is fighting against. Fortunately, the subplot about her cancer battle doesn't veer the film into maudlin territory nor does it distract from the film's refreshingly honest focus on female friendship. Olivia Côte and Laure Calamy are very well cast and have terrific chemistry together, even during the scenes when Blandine and Magalie don't get along. They handle the comedic scenes convincingly and naturally as well as the dramatic scenes, so that's a testament to their skills as actresses. More importantly, though, they find the humanity of their roles while radiating plenty of warmth. Kristin Scott Thomas manages to have some fun in her role as Bijou. Of course, the breathtaking scenery of Greece adds plenty of visual style to the film and becomes like a character in and of itself. Moreover, the pace moves briskly enough without any scenes that overstay their welcome. Among all of the films in the "female friends bond on a trip together" series of 2023, namely, 80 for Brady, Book Club 2, Joy Ride and The Miracle Club, Two Tickets to Greece reigns supreme and fully earns its uplift. At a running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes, it's a heartfelt, funny and empowering journey well worth taking.
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