hris Baugh’s raucous Boys from County Hell is a delightfully goofy horror-comedy filled with its fair share of blood and guts.

The first narrative feature to be allowed to shoot inside the Olympic Athletes Village, Olympic Dreams is a strong, emotionally-pure indie drama that took my breath away.

The Death of Dick Long gallops to the finish line with authoritative tenacity, its final moments hitting me like a swift kick to the head from a startled horse I’d made the unfortunate mistake to frighten.

“There’s a moment in this world where you have to sort of say that you understand what role you’re expected to play and shout out lout that you’re not going to be doing that anymore. Things are going change, and that includes that sad truth that some people are going to have to fall off your radar and some new people are going come on it.”
– Paul Downs Colaizzo

The redemptive clarity of Brittany Runs a Marathon is pure and refreshing, its understanding of people in personal crisis learning to take responsibility for their actions even more so.

Blinded by the Light is a musical celebration of life, family, friendship and love, the song it sings as memorably pure and as hauntingly electrifying as any of the ones Springsteen himself has written and performed throughout his illustrious career.

“Everyone is also all so funny and so good. They’re all very capable actors and improvisers. It was always surprising. The events happened in the moment and I think that you can feel that. ”
– Marc Maron

“I think so many people going into the movie might feel one way, and feel very strongly that way. By the end of the movie, it’s not that I hope the movie changes their mind, but I hope that it at least puts a question mark there. That they’re saying, maybe I don’t know everything, and maybe that’s not the point.”
– Lulu Wang

The Art of Self-Defense is a strange little comedy I couldn’t have disliked even if I had wanted to try to do so, Stearns’ latest a gleeful bit of martial arts rebellion I’m excited to see again.