The most dispiriting thing about “Detroit” is how it reminds us of how things haven’t changed, even in the years of Black Lives Matter. Directors Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal’s third collaboration together (after “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty”) is as sickening and well directed as expected. But this time, there’s a sense of pointlessness that permeates throughout the whole thing: what does this film have to say about police brutality and racism that we don’t already know?

Sadly, not a whole lot.

Bigelow focuses the majority of the film on one night during the five day long Detroit riots of 1967, when the Algiers Motel was raided in search of an alleged sniper. What followed instead was the beating and torture of several young black men: Larry Reed (Algee Smith) and Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore), singers for vocal group The Dramatics; Carl Cooper (Jason Mitchell), who accidentally triggers the incident with a starter pistol; and veteran Robert Greene (Anthony Mackie), who is caught playing games with Juli Hysell (Hannah Murray) and Karyn Malloy (Kaitlyn Dever), both of whom are white. Philip Krauss (Will Poulter) is the ringleader of the violence while security guard Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega) watches passively and occasionally intervenes.

Watching the psychological torture and brutal beatings that occur for most of the film is truly horrifying to watch. Smith and Mitchell especially prove harrowing given that all they’re given to do is stay up against the wall, scared for their lives. The same can’t be said for Boyega’s Dismukes: there’s a truly fascinating idea to be examined about why he would choose to stay silent while witnessing this obvious breach of authority. But as written, Dismukes is far too passive and flat to truly dig into his motivations.

Similar issues abound for the officers as well; though Poulter gives his all to the performance, Krauss is simply too much of a strawman over-the-top racist to truly feel like a real person. When someone like him is constantly yelling about how he’ll kill everyone in the room, it makes it easy to believe that it truly is just bad apples in the force, rather than problems of the system. In fact, many of the issues “Detroit” attempts to bring up are issues that have been brought to light via the Black Lives Matter movement, but the film doesn’t seem to be saying anything other than “police officers do terrible things to black people and get away with it.”

It’s bad enough dealing with the fact that an officer can get away with shooting a man in his car while he was reaching for his wallet and still walk away in real life; seeing it here just brings to mind victims such as Tamir Rice and Philando Castile and thoughts of the depressing realities.

Bigelow’s best work has always had to do with examining masculinity and machismo, from works as varied as “Point Break” to “The Hurt Locker.” Occasionally she still finds intriguing threads to examine: for instance a scene in which Officer Demens (Jack Reynor) asks Hysell “How come you don’t like white guys?” It drips with entitlement and aggression, suggesting the ways that black men are still stereotyped as animals out to steal white women and the fear that causes white men. And to be honest, it’s a scene tense with the implications of sexual violence. But alas, the script never digs into the moment, quickly moving on to the next theme. It’s frustrating because this type of situation is especially suited to Bigelow’s pet themes of masculinity and presentation, things she explored beautifully through Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”.

Bigelow is a skilled director of thrillers and she shoots each scene as a tense horror movie in the vein of her past two films, cinema verite style moving camera. But by glossing over the trials (none were convicted) and the start of the riots, she and Boal fail to truly gain context for the primary events. At times it seems almost stubbornly dedicated to providing a simple “Just the facts” approach that would better work for a documentary. As it stands, the end of the film proclaims that the true events were never figured out and that it was reconstructed from the memories of the participants, so there isn’t much of a reason to think about calling this nonfiction.

The subject of the riots may have been even better served as a full fledged documentary in the vein of last years outstanding “O.J.: Made In America”: one that takes time to go over the history of the Great Migration and the rising racial tensions of 1967 while spotlighting the trial and the memories of the victims. The intentions here are well-meaning and I’m not quite sure if the two creative forces (both white, like much of the creative team) are suited to telling this story about black pain.

What is clear is that by the end there’s a sense of pointlessness to the whole endeavor and a feeling of having wallowed in depravity for a good 143 minutes. “Detroit” is a raw and brutal movie befitting its subject matter, but it fails to find something truly meaningful or new to say about police brutality or racism in America. We already see enough black pain in the news and our social media feeds; the question is: do we want to keep seeing it on our screens?

“A Ghost Story” starts off like you’d expect any haunted house movie: with a couple (Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara), alone in a suburban farm house, suddenly awoken by a loud noise they can’t seem to explain.

An object falls with no explanation of how it occurs. Lights flicker and something shimmers on the walls. It all seems so obvious until the man is killed in a wreck and returns, clad in a sheet with eye holes like the kids in “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”

It’s an absurd sight, but what’s more impressive is that for 82 minutes, it works. David Lowery’s mysterious, surreal and profound film is hard to classify exactly, and even harder to describe. What’s certain is that it is a unique and original idea executed skillfully.

Lowery is best known for last year’s well-received remake “Pete’s Dragon,” and for his 2013 film “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”, also starring Affleck and Mara. Fittingly, he was also an editor on Shane Carruth’s “Upstream Color,” another unclassifiable film that flirted with genre fiction. His skill there is on display when he shoots in the Academy ratio, corners of the frame softened to resemble an old album book, and often shot in washed out colors that are no less alluring.

At times, Terrence Malick comes to mind, especially in the long, wordless stretches and metaphysical interests of the story; though he borrowed extensively from Malick for “Saints,” here Lowery breaks free into his own unique style to tell the story of one person in the middle of a strange land.

The focus is almost entirely on Affleck, who remains silent and completely covered for a majority of the run time. It’s a performance that relies entirely on physicality, something he put to masterful use in “Manchester by the Sea” (for which he won Best Actor). Every movement he makes clues us into his state of mind, charming us at first then drawing us into a vein of deep sadness.

Mara gets the benefit of having her face visible, but she does a lot with silence as well, including one scene involving a pie that is surprisingly riveting (and became a small in joke on Twitter during the film’s premiere). Both effortlessly slide into the stream of conscious narrative as the story cuts from various eras and moments of their lives. It raises questions about the nature of the afterlife and human existence while not being overbearing in any one approach.

“A Ghost Story” is a movie that must be seen to be believed. It’s a struggle to even begin to describe why you should see it. If anything, that’s reason enough: movies like this don’t come around very often. It’s bound to be the most interesting and unique movie released all year. Both existential and quietly moving, it’s the kind of movie that seeks to cover all of human life and experience, and in its own way, gets there.

If nothing else, you’ll see the most intense non-sexual pie-eating scene ever produced.  

Judging by his last film (2016’s “Krisha”) it wasn’t much of a stretch for Trey Edward Shults to make a horror movie next. While ostensibly about a former addict returning home for one tumultuous Thanksgiving, the unsettling score and swooping, tight camera moves gave it the feeling of a tense horror movie. Even more surprising was how well he managed that tension using his own house, family members (most notably his aunt, Krisha Fairchild), and even himself.

Now, with “It Comes At Night,” Shults gains a larger budget and more well-known actors, but doesn’t skimp on the psychological tension or the creep factor. It may not have the jump scares, but like fellow A24 alum “It Follows,” it’s a masterclass in tension and atmosphere.

Taking place on a secluded house in an undetermined city, “It Comes At Night” opens in the aftermath of some unknown cataclysm. The exact cause never detailed: there are whispers of a sickness that appears to cause boils. In the first few minutes, it claims the life of David, the grandfather of a small interracial family consisting of  Paul (Joel Edgerton), Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr). Shults takes time to carefully lay out the world, but never flashes back or pauses the story to give additional detail. We know as much about the world as the characters do, and he trusts the audience to pick up on the small details and get a handle of the danger. This also has the benefit of significantly cutting down on clutter, so the initiating conflicts occur within the first few scenes.

That conflict comes in the form of Will (Christopher Abbott) as he  attempts to break into their house to get supplies for his family. A couple of tense interactions later, and soon his wife Kim (Riley Keough) and young child Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner) are guests. From here, Shults makes the subtle choice of turning the film into a quiet, observational drama.

Of course, it’s one in which there is only one singular red door leading outside (a recurring symbol through Travis’ many nightmares), in addition to the aura of cautious trust. Looming over the whole affair is the score by Brian McOmber; while not as experimental as his score for “Krisha,” his work here still gets the atmosphere across. It anchors every nighttime trek through the house, building up the tension effectively.

Continuing the trend from “Krisha,” Shults wrings strong performances out of his more experienced cast. Abbott and Keough (an A24 alum herself) hold their own against Edgerton and Ejogo, each character projecting their distrust at the new situation, but also slowly warming up. We can see how each and every character really does care about each other, and they trust us to read their expressions to tell what they’re feeling. From time to time, “It Comes At Night” may slip into a dream sequence or thriller set piece, but at its heart is a very human story. Whatever Shults decides to do next, he’s certainly a director worth following.

The rise of streaming services have provided a wealth of new shows that bring new viewpoints and ideas to the table. Netflix has been a blessing, providing shows as varied as depressed horse comedy “Bojack Horseman” to the women’s prison show “Orange Is The New Black.” But the most subtly ambitious of these was revealed to be Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None,” its second season finally dropping May 12 after its 2015 premier.

The show initially followed Ansari’s Dev, an actor trying to make a living in New York, as he fell into a relationship with Rachel, played with magnificent chemistry by Noel Wells. While their central relationship formed the bulk of the serialized plot, it was the little things that made “Master of None” such a delight: the performances of Dev’s friends (Eric Wareheim, Kelvin Yu and MVP Lena Waithe), his casting of his actual parents, the way it could confidently switch between romantic comedy and a deeper social issue like “Parents” or “Indians on TV.” Not to mention the show is consistently unique and funny. Somehow, Season 2 has gotten bolder, more ambitious and even more confident and self-assured in its voice. This is truly a masterpiece of television that can’t be missed.

Season 1 was a naturalistic, even cinematic rom com whose boldness came out in the aforementioned episodes. The latter delved into the issues of Indian representation on TV, simultaneously rebuking the idea that too many characters like Dev make it an “Indian thing.” As socially conscious as it could be, it wasn’t too dissimilar from dark comedies like “Louie” or even “Girls.”

The first episode of this season sets out to tear down any preconceived ideas the audience might have: the premiere breaks from the format by shooting in black and white, while paying homage to Italian classic “Bicycle Thieves” through a plot in which Dev gets his phone stolen.

Afterwards, it becomes the kind of show that feels confident enough to give us an episode that not only follows characters completely unrelated to the main cast; it also drops us into an eight-minute stretch following a deaf character that features no sound and is entirely subtitled. What’s even more incredible is that Ansari and co-creator Alan Yang are able to sustain their voice and make these sidestories into characters we wish could have their own show.

The magic continues in the other season standout “Thanksgiving” — co-written by Ansari and Waithe — that follows the friendship between Dev and Waithe’s Denise as the latter comes to terms with being a lesbian over the course of several Thanksgivings with Denise’s family.

The performances from Season 1 could vary from great to a little creaky in their naturalism, and Ansari’s here follows suit (though he has gotten a little more confident). Perhaps the most unexpected has been that of Ramesh, who is played by Ansari’s actual father Shoukath Ansari. It’s easy to see where Aziz’s sense of humor comes from when you see his dad on screen. Blessed with expert timing on lines like “What is this, Fox News? Why am I being attacked?!” Season 1 gave us an insight into their relationship and the trials Ramesh faced coming to America, but here, he’s free to just be as funny as he wants. This leads to some of the most laugh-out-loud moments in the series, next only to Denise.

The one low note among all this is that of Francesca (Alessandra Mastronardi), Dev’s paramour from Italy who briefly travels to New York City. She gives a pleasant enough performance, and the two have decent chemistry, but she pales in comparison to Well’s performance from last season, and one can’t help but compare the two. It doesn’t help that she never quite gets as much character as Rachel, even with an hour-long episode devoted to their relationship. Still, if that’s the only thing to complain about, there’s a pretty great series wrapped around it.

Ansari has gone back and forth on whether he wants to make a third season. If he did, it would be wonderful to see what new places he and Yang could take the show and what stories they could tell.

If not, then they’ve left a pretty great legacy in these 10 episodes. You would be remiss to not catch this while it’s hot, but any time you watch it, it’s a humanistic and frequently funny season, equally comfortable in confronting being a non-religious Muslim or the woes of the first date. Not to mention all the pasta you get to see on-screen.

Photograph courtesy of Atlus USA

It’s here: the ultimate game for the PlayStation 3 and 4, the one all other role-playing games must aspire to be. “Persona 5” is big, it’s sprawling, it’s glorious and it’s as close to a masterpiece as any game I’ve ever played.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so drawn in, so into a game that I wanted to spend all my waking hours just figuring out what comes next. For those fans who waited the eight years from the release of “Persona 4” (all the way back on the PS2!), it’s more than worth the wait; for those just starting, it’s as good a place as any to get into the most unique and beloved RPG series around. If you own a PS4 (or even a PS3), you must own this game.

“Persona 5” opens with a bang as your character — known as Joker — runs through a casino, narrowly escaping guards before being captured by the police. From here, the story flashes back to the beginning of March of some futuristic year, as your unnamed protagonist is sent from his rural home to Tokyo in the wake of an arrest after stopping a violent assault.

He’s not even started school before he finds a mysterious app on his phone and discovers the Metaverse: an entire alternate universe born out of the distorted desires of adults. With the help of his friends (and a talking cat named Morgana), they decide to become the Phantom Thieves, reforming society through stealing the hearts of adults they find unjust and cruel, all while keeping a low profile and being a normal high school student.

As has become the series staple, “Persona 5” is really more like two games in one; for most of the in-game calendar year you’ll be attending classes, after which you can choose to spend time with friends, take on a part-time job or try one of the many different activities around Tokyo. Most of your time will probably be spent with the Confidants, a revamp of the “Social Link” system present in “3” and “4.”

The basic idea is that you spend time with certain side characters after school and on the weekends, which function as side plots. Spend enough time with them and they rank up, which gives you a huge bonus to fusing Personas (more on those later).

As befitting a thief, spending time with Confidants provides you with bonuses and extra skills to take with you into battle. For example: spending time with your teammates allows you to unlock battle skills like follow up attacks, spending time with a politician can strengthen your speaking skills and in turn give you a leg up in negotiations, etc.

Further complicating this arrangement are the social stats you’ll need to level up outside of all this in order to talk to some of them, meaning you’ll have to spend precious time reading books to level up knowledge or taking a Burger challenge to rank up guts. Ironically, you’ll have to manage your time just right in order to get the most out of the game and make battles as easy as possible.

At several key points, you’ll also be donning masks and journeying to the “Palace” realm, which houses the dungeons for each target. The most welcome and recognizable change to veterans of the series will be the Palaces, which are hand-crafted with a different environment, enemy (“Shadows,” as the game calls them) and chest as opposed to the randomly-generated endless hallways of previous entries.

In addition, “5” introduces stealth to the mix by allowing the player to take cover and ambush enemies when they get close. The changes are welcome and serve to break up the monotony, even if the camera at times is a little stiff and it feels too locked in for a specific vantage point. Randomly generated dungeons still do exist in the form of “Mementos,” but it’s relegated mostly to side quests and grinding on your off days.

Successfully ambush an enemy, and you’ll be thrown into a turn based battlefield similar to most japanese role-playing games. The core of these fights revolve around a Persona, which can be thought of a little like Pokemon, except instead of monsters you fight using demons, mythological gods, historical figures and more.

Whereas in the past, Personas were gained through a series of cards to choose from at the end of battle, in “5,” knocking down all Shadows initiates a hold up, from which you can talk to Shadows and convince them to join your team. Every Shadow has a unique way of talking as well: you may have to flirt with a Pixie in order to flatter her or soothe, an old man on a horse (Berith) who rants about the “kids these days.” Even if you fail it’s still enjoyable just to see what they’ll say to you.

Developer Atlus has been sorely missed by the previous generation of gamers: the last new game they released was 2011’s relationship-focused puzzle game “Catherine” — in which you play as a man cheating on his girlfriend while being plagued by mysterious nightmares. The year 2013 brought an expanded edition of “Persona 4” to the mistreated PlayStation Vita, as well as an entry in the “Shin Megami Tensei” series (of which “Persona” is a spin-off).

It takes only one look at it to see what they’ve been doing with all that time. This game looks fantastic: from the text that flashes during battles and around the world, to the seamless transitions between different areas (silhouettes of people riding a train or walking on, the main character dropping down before running off), even the menus are dripping with style. I cannot stress enough just how good this game looks, it’s truly the most stylish thing on the market.

Perfectly complementing these visuals is the insanely catchy soundtrack provided by series composer Shoji Meguro. From the melancholy trip-hop in the night to the upbeat daytime tracks and the unique songs for each dungeon, everything matches the mood perfectly and provides the perfect background for a thief.

This isn’t to say there aren’t definite flaws: one of the most frustrating elements are the fact that despite having an overall theme of rebellion and breaking free of societal norms, the only two characters explicitly coded as gay are stereotypes who only show up twice, both times to freak out the protagonist and his friends. They aren’t written as hateful so much as lazy and ignorant, and it’s especially disappointing in light of the way “4” handled the themes of teenage sexuality. In spite of this, the rest of the story and game are so well polished that they seem to be a minor drop in the bucket compared to the wealth of content offered throughout.

“Persona 5” stole my heart, and all of my free time. I can’t remember the last time I was this obsessed with a game, frustrating deaths and all. Every single moment I could I wanted to run back and find out what happened next. I have the battle theme constantly stuck in my head; even right now, as I write this, I’m listening to the soundtrack. Atlus has outdone themselves, creating a true masterpiece of a game, one that ranks as the best of the decade and the best RPG on the PS4.

Finally, coming to the end left me dazed and empty in a good way, like I’d finished a long book and had to say goodbye to the characters I’d met along the way. I get fired up just thinking about running through a Palace to steal treasure while the guitars shred over my TV. This is a game you should not miss even one second of, the standard to which all other JRPGs will be held to. There will likely never be another game like this, at least until “Persona 6” comes out. If the pictures and these words won’t convince you, then that’s your loss.

Photo: FX Networks

You’ve never quite seen a superhero show like “Legion,” especially not from Marvel. Since “Iron Man” established the huge, complex and box-office-dominating Marvel Cinematic Universe, most properties have come with the same basic, uninteresting visual style, not to mention similar plot structures and dialogue.

But “Legion” isn’t officially part of the MCU, not in the way that something like “Jessica Jones” or “Daredevil” is; indeed, it is the first TV show of the “X-Men” universe, it’s own strange, convoluted beast.

Rest assured, this is not your daddy’s superhero show: “Legion” may be the most interesting and unique superhero property to grace a screen since Heath Ledger became the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” For that, you’ll have to thank “Fargo” creator Noah Hawley, now building a resume of TV projects that logically shouldn’t even work (how many people groaned at the idea of the beloved Coen Brothers movie being resurrected?) and spinning them out into mini-masterpieces of their own.

And he could find no better character than David Haller, a young man introduced as a schizophrenic who’s been institutionalized for a couple of years at the start of the story. You see, David has been told his entire life that he’s mentally ill because he hears voices and believes that he’s been able to move things with his mind (albeit unintentionally). But what if he isn’t? This question gets answered rather quickly in the pilot, so there’s no question of whether or not David actually has powers.

Where “Legion” twists is in its perspective: the show freely travels through the past, through hallucinations, dream sequences, backgrounds and alternate states so casually that it’s almost impossible to tell at first glance whether what we’re seeing is actually occurring. It’s the perfect representation of his state of mind and Hawley pulls it off beautifully. There’s a sense that even if we can’t grasp everything that happens in an episode, the creators do and this confidence helps to center the show as it freewheels into its many digressions.

Speaking of Hawley, this has to be the most beautiful show currently airing on television. The pilot in particular (directed by Hawley) is awash in vibrant colors and flush with camera moves. Its enough to rival Steven Soderbergh’s work on “The Knick,” maybe even the most stylish (and one of the best) shows of this decade: the late, lamented “Hannibal.” It’s a welcome break that immediately distinguishes the show from other superhero shows currently airing.

In addition to Stevens, “Legion” also features “Fargo” actresses Rachel Keller and Jean Smart as, respectively, girlfriend Syd Barrett (quite the evocative name) and mutant army leader Melanie. A standout Aubrey Plaza plays the mischievous and wild-eyed drug addict Lenny and former “The League” star Katie Aselton stars as David’s sister Amy.

Stevens and Keller especially have a really nice and believable chemistry, but the rest of the cast slowly come together as the show settles in. Stevens himself is wonderful, shedding any similarities of his past performances to really dig into David’s fractured state; this is a man who’s been told all his life that he’s mentally ill only to discover that may not be true, and Stevens portrays him with just the right amount of displacement and intensity. They’re all a joy to watch together, even if they’re not all on screen.

“Legion” is definitely not going to be a show for everyone. The amount of symbolism and free-flowing narrative may simply be too much for some viewers and admittedly, this is a show that requires some focus lest you end up more confused.

But for those willing to stick with it (and even for those who don’t like the plot) will be rewarded with a rich and decadent audiovisual style, both evocative and dazzling, and a plot that operates on more than just superhero conventions. Watch it because there likely isn’t another show quite like it on television, and there may not be another one for quite some time.

Hamed Malekpour: Wikimedia

The Oscars have always been political. Think about the various controversies over films such as “American Sniper,” “Zero Dark Thirty” or “Crash.”

Of course this year, that has already started in the best picture category between the alleged “white people saving jazz” of “La La Land” versus the examination of sexuality and race in “Moonlight.”

However, a more explicit tie to the current political climate became clear when it was confirmed that famed Iranian director Asghar Farhadi would not be allowed to attend the ceremony in support of his film “The Salesman,” which has been nominated as Iran’s submission for best foreign language film.

Farhadi has already had the distinction of being the first Iranian winner back in 2012 for his masterpiece “A Separation,” and even before the director himself confirmed that he would not be attending the ceremony, there was an outrage over the fact that he would potentially be barred from entering the country based on something as arbitrary as his origin.

What stings even more is the idea that Farhadi cannot be allowed in this country because he is a “foreign” filmmaker. The themes of his films are universal — most of them about the challenges and relationships between families and how even little actions can cause large unforeseen consequences. The White House later clarified that Farhadi could be eligible to receive a waiver, which seems only possible because of the profile he received through the Academy. Would this mean that the subjects of “The White Helmets” — a documentary short following volunteers of the Syrian Civil Defense rescue organization that also received a nomination in its respective category — are banned because they aren’t deemed important enough to spread their message?

In addition, as an outsider, he has a refreshingly unique perspective on America, pinpointing themes and ideas that many American filmmakers often overlook. Just this year, we were given “American Honey,” a road trip movie directed by Andrea Arnold, a British woman who highlighted the many landscapes and hardships of the Midwest and South with a beauty typically unused for these kinds of places.

We cannot have these perspectives if we do not let these filmmakers in, and they cannot receive proper exposure at festivals such as New York International or Sundance if they cannot be allowed to present their films in person. We cannot hope to fix Hollywood’s large-scale diversity problems if we do not allow in the kinds of faces and voices that would provide such diversity.

The ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries has proven to be nothing more than a short-sighted, racist attempt to keep refugees from entering the United States and the case of Farhadi presents yet another example of how this has hurt people.

Think about how difficult it could be for lesser-known filmmakers who want to present their films at Sundance. If they cannot enter this country, then it makes it that much harder for them to earn distribution so that more people may see it. They cannot promote their film to American media or support it at award shows.

A whole generation of artistic voices are silenced through such a malevolent ban. To agree with it is tantamount to agreeing that these are voices that do not deserve to be heard and celebrated as the art that they are. How can Americans hope to engage and learn about these cultures and demystify them if these creators can’t even enter the country?

Farhadi is now being seen as the frontrunner for the award and there are few who would be a better choice (save Maren Ade’s “Toni Erdmann,” representing Germany, which in its own special way would be a protest vote). But a win for Farhadi would also demonstrate that Hollywood does not support this limitation of artistic expression and can further illuminate how a ban like this hurts talented, innocent people.

Photo: 20th Century Fox

“A Cure For Wellness”, set to release Feb. 17, isn’t the type of movie that Hollywood makes very often.

It’s a go-for-broke, crazy stylish sort of horror movie, directed by Gore Verbinski (who got his start with the remake of “The Ring”). The easiest way to describe it would be an unholy mashup between “Shutter Island” and “Crimson Peak,” with a dash of “The Shining” and the discarded parts of Verbinski’s attempted “Bioshock” adaptation.

What’s even more impressive is that it mostly manages to pull it off, and the result is one of the most unique and striking movies to come out of the reboot and sequel heavy studios in quite a long time. You may need to see it for the sheer fact that there will probably never be another one like this.

The film opens with an ominous sequence of a finance worker dying of a heart attack. The scene then shifts to an incredible side view of a train speeding along a track, with the mountainside perfectly reflected to give an eerie feeling of symmetry. Inside is Mr. Lockhart (Dane DeHaan), a young executive who’s just been promoted following the aforementioned death and is tasked with travelling to a reclusive spa in Switzerland catering to the wealthy known as the Volmer Institute to retrieve the CEO of his company in time for a merger.

What should only be a short trip takes a turn for the worse when Lockhart is involved in a car accident and soon becomes a patient of Volmer despite protests. With no way to get down the mountain and no way to contact the outside world, he’s left to wandering the halls, talking with the other patients (mostly old, rich people), receiving strange treatment from Institute founder Dr. Volmer (Jason Isaacs) and tentatively romancing Hannah (Mia Goth), a woman younger than the average patient who’s been there since birth.

Though the beginning is fairly predictable, it succeeds in pure atmosphere and mood, pulling out tension from small shadows or surreal, hallucinatory moments. Eels feature prominently, as do vaguely suggestive and sinister overtones.

Verbinski puts every last bit of the style he so memorably put into “The Ring”  into this film. He is so successful at creating  sensory aspects of the film that it isn’t until about halfway through that you realize it seems to be stalling at parts. Justin Haythe’s script could’ve lost about 30 or so minutes and it never fully characterizes DeHaan or Goth.

Of the two, Goth is barely given much to do except give cryptic advice and eerily sing when she’s not helping DeHaan. There’s a sense that at least three different conflicting stories could be extracted from this movie’s plot: a terrifying feminine coming of age story, a man trapped by a dark secret in his past and a gothic suspense.

The film is most successful in the second half, but DeHaan’s backstory is never fully developed. There’s a feeling that the director and writer would happily choose to let it continue as a surrealistic mood piece, but are forced to provide some sort of concrete explanation. Rest assured, when it does come, it’s the biggest zag you’ll have seen in a studio movie so far.

Could “A Cure For Wellness” be a lot shorter and more concise? Yes. Could it decide what kind of story it’s going to tell? Definitely. Does it veer into uncomfortably exploitative territory involving Goth’s character? Absolutely.

What keeps the whole thing from derailing entirely is the luscious, gorgeous set by “King’s Speech” production designer Eve Stewart, working in conjunction with the arresting images created by “The Ring” cinematographer Bojan Bazelli.

This will no doubt be one of the most divisive movies of the year. Finally, spearheaded by Verbinski’s unique imagination and a willingness to let it take him wherever he wants, “A Cure For Wellness” is likely a movie you won’t forget anytime soon, and makes other Hollywood movies wish they did it as well.

The movie “Toni Erdmann” has the kind of plot you’d expect from an Adam Sandler movie: father surprises his workaholic daughter, she rebuffs him, he reappears in disguise to play pranks on her and in 90 minutes, both learn to love each other again.

But this film is three hours long, comes from Germany and competed for the Palme D’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (where it was cruelly and surprisingly snubbed of any award).

It is, quite simply, the best film made last year and close to being among the best of this decade. Maren Ade’s third feature is a strange, unclassifiable hybrid that has no business working at all, let alone being as side splittingly hilarious as it so often is. Somehow, whether through sheer force of will or confidence in her material, Ade makes it work and the result is just sublime.

Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek), a retired 70-year-old music teacher with a mischievous glint in his eye, is introduced in the opening minutes playing a prank on a delivery man, putting his sick sense of humor on full display.

His daughter Ines (Sandra Huller) is more serious and reserved, so naturally she doesn’t take well to him showing up in her Budapest apartment on a whim. Though she placates him by bringing him with her to some work functions, it’s clear she would rather he keep his distance.

By the time Winnie finally leaves around the 30-minute mark, the film proceeds to follow Ines through her daily work life as she attempts to assert herself as a woman in the workplace (a theme Ade gently nudges to the foreground as it goes on). So it’s genuinely surprising when Winnie barges back into her life wearing fake teeth and a terrible wig, calling himself Toni Erdmann and professing to be things as varied as a life coach to the German ambassador to Romania. His reintroduction is among the funniest scenes in the movie, enhanced by the way Ade strings it out to the point where it’s almost unbearably tense as to when he’ll pop back up.

Describing more of the plot would ruin some of the more well planned gags, but rest assured that Ade skillfully switches tones on a dime, turning every interaction with Erdmann into painfully funny cringe comic sequences that never overstay their welcome. It’s a testament to how wholeheartedly the actors commit to the performances and Ade’s dedication to tiny details that none of this comes off as phony or unrealistic.

Huller and Simonischek possess fantastic comedic timing and physicality; some of the best jokes are when they aren’t even trying. An example is late in the film when Ines throws spaghetti at her father and he catches and tosses it behind him at a wall, without even breaking from his dialogue.

Ade isn’t ashamed to lean into broad humor like this and it culminates into a fantastically audacious sequence at the climax that’s a masterpiece in cringe.

Even before that, there’s at least one scene that will make you stand up and clap (the viewing audience at Cannes certainly did). But more than anything what keeps this from being some empty exercise is the commitment to showing Ines’ unhappiness at her surroundings. She may not enjoy her father breaking into her life, but it’s clear that she’s not enjoying it before that. Their final scenes together just after the climax will come close to breaking your heart.

“Toni Erdmann” has lived under hype since its Cannes premiere, and it fully lives up to every word of it. If the world were fair, subtitles would not be holding it back and it would screen in every theater in America. In fact, there have been rumors of an American remake in the works which Ade hasn’t entirely dismissed.

It would be a shame if it did go through, because in its current state there’s nothing like “Toni Erdmann” in theaters and there probably never will be again. Do not let the subtitles scare you away from this; it’s a one of a kind masterpiece that deserves to be seen in theaters, and it should be Maren Ade’s breakthrough moment.

Photo courtesy: Canal+, France 2

It’s the kind of opening you aren’t likely to forget anytime soon: as the credits fade out, the camera lingers on a cat watching dispassionately as its owner, middle-aged Parisian businesswoman Michele Leblanc (Isabelle Huppert) is in the process of being raped. In the aftermath of the attack, she gets up, cleans the shattered glass, washes herself, throws away her clothes and orders sushi for her and her son.

Cut away the first three minutes and you would be wondering why she sleeps with a hammer in her bed. She doesn’t call the police, either. Rather she just goes to the hospital and later the video game company she owns with her friend, Anna (Anne Consigny).

That’s just the start of the myriad of complications at work in this blackly comedic, wildly subversive film, which just this weekend was awarded two Golden Globes: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actress.

Although maybe that shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise.

After all, Director Paul Verhoeven built his Hollywood career on making dark, cutting satires disguised as blockbusters filled with violence and sex.

“Elle” is nothing if not an entertaining movie despite the subject matter, and it’s precisely because of these contradictions that the parts all manage to come together and avoid being the misogynistic mess it could have been. Every step of the way it zigs where you expect it to zag. Subverting expectations and keeping the viewer off guard as to what could happen next.

But the glue holding the whole enterprise together is the 63-year-old Huppert. The actress has had a long and storied career, and in this film she’s found what may be the most challenging and best performance she’s ever given.

As scripted by David Birke (who wrote the script in English then translated it), Michele is practically every negative thing men say about women: she’s an ice queen of a boss, is openly hostile to her son’s girlfriend and at times acts jealous around her ex-husband.

On top of that, she’s also sleeping with Anna’s husband and flirting with her married neighbor.

Huppert takes these qualities to heart, unafraid to make Michèle seem unsympathetic even as she seems intent on destruction. She doesn’t care if you understand why she’s doing it, and it’s thrilling to see what she does next as you look for some sign of the thought process going on in her face. Her willingness to dive deep into the character’s psychology pays off in dividends once she begins the hunt for the rapist, leading to a second act reversal of roles that’s brilliant in its implications.

“Elle” is perhaps the boldest and smartest film ever made about rape. It acknowledges that not everyone reacts the same way to a violent trauma and refuses to paint its characters as strictly right and wrong.

The most provocative thing it suggests is that rape is a crime of power rather than desire, and that the most powerful thing a woman can do is turn those power dynamics around.

“Elle” doesn’t offer any easy answers or feelings, but it’s this precise feeling that makes it among the best of the year.