Written and directed by its star, Julio Torres, the new semi-surrealistic comedy “Problemista” belongs in the category of the un-categorizable. While not as strong, Torres’ film could be mentioned in the same breath as Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” and Miranda July’s “Me and You and Everyone We Know.” These films take a serious subject and color it with whimsy and artistic imagery, giving a sharper edge to their storytelling.

Over the past decade Appalachian-set thrillers have had a rough go of it. 2015’s “The World Made Straight,” “Them That Follow” (2019), they lacked substance. The Ron Howard-directed “Hillbilly Elegy” and “Devil’s Peak” by Ben Young were misguided efforts whose superior casts did not fulfill their promise. This year thankfully brings us Eshom and Ian Nelms’s “Red Right Hand”, a well-directed Kentucky-based crime film that

A man with an ice skating chimpanzee picks up a hitchhiking serial killer. What sounds like the beginning of a joke is actually a true story and the basis for the flawed new film “He Went That Way.” In 1964, a man named Dave Pitts was traveling Route 66 with his trained chimpanzee (who skated in the Ice Capades) when he picked up a young man in need of a ride. His passenger turned out to be a serial killer.

The influence of the Western world: is it good for the planet? History shows that, perhaps, the U.S. needs to stop pushing our ways on every shore on which we land. Writer/director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s “The Monk and the Gun” examines the pitfalls of democracy and cautions embracing modernization in a land not yet open to the outside world. Dorii’s film contrasts the Bhutanese way of life with the Western way of television and organized elections

“A NEW KIND OF WILDERNESS” Director: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen

A tear-jerking documentary follows an Englishman living a pristine life in the Norwegian forest with his wife and family. However, when the matriarch succumbs to cancer, the family must decide how to honor her wishes to remain on the land as the children begin to come of age. A battle

Suspense of an audience's disbelief is a tricky balancing act. In the scope of a film, the proper tone must be set for viewers to accept any type of craziness a filmmaker will throw at them. In today's Hollywood action cinema, the ceiling on "over the top" continues to be raised. Sometimes wild and impossibly executed action set pieces work very well (the "John Wick" and "Mission Impossible" series).

James Ivory and Ismail Merchant were famous for their period costume dramas such as “Howard’s End” and “The Remains of the Day,” but the pair worked together for decades prior to those hits and Academy Award-winners—and they enjoyed an even more fascinating history and relationship off-set. Ivory, from Oregon, met Merchant, a Muslim from India, in New York (at the Indian embassy, no less), and soon they were making films together. By