Film Review

Amos Gitai. If you can recall when Vincent D'Onofrio was sexy, Gitai has that sort of confrontational charm. He turns you on while he sets you on edge, even at age 66.

One of Israel's most prolific directors, this constant provocateur has let loose with over 80 shorts, documentaries and narratives since 1972, many of them exploring Israel in an acutely critical manner, from Orthodox misogyny (Kadosh (1999)) to his war experiences during which he was wounded (Kippur (2000) ), to a story of a residence, from its Arab owners to the Israelis who took ownership (House (1980)). The latter documentary was made for Israeli TV but was deemed inappropriate, and if Gitai hadn't smuggled it out of the station, it would have been destroyed.

Lately, if you feel unworthy because God has given you just too good a life...just too much joy... and your hair shirt is at the cleaners, you can do your penance by watching J Blakeson's The 5th Wave.

"For the longest time I couldn't put a name to who I was. I didn't have an image to who was like me. It was torturous," Jane Lynch notes in Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema, the savvy documentary from 2006 by Lesli Klainberg and Lisa Ades.

Robert Adanto's documentary The F Word navigates the liminal space between 3rd and 4th wave feminism and between IRL and URL by capturing the work of Brooklyn-based artists who raise questions about self-representation, sexuality, and embodiment. Their work offers a glimpse of unbridled female power and sexual agency, and yet is not fully rooted in fantasy, often contending with the brutal realities of the male-dominated (art) world. Along with this dynamic cast of artists, The F Word includes commentary by scholars and professors alike -- including former Art in America senior editor Nancy Princenthal -- to add background and to contextualize the works and concepts he explores. After the premiere, three of the film's artists, Kate Durbin, Leah Schrager, and Katie Cercone will join the director in a post-screening panel discussion.

"Why is everyone on this fucking island addicted to drama?" the all-knowing Mama (a superb Luis Alberto Garcia) moans.

Mama is the owner of a Havana gay bar featuring chintzy drag performers who gesticulate to emotional diva tunes and who, when the show's over, whore a little on the side. That's part of the setting for Viva, Ireland's Spanish-language submission for this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

It is hard to believe that Aaron Sorkin wrote Steve Jobs. After all, he's the writer behind such brilliantly entertaining work as The Social Network, The West Thing and (even) A Few Good Men. It's disappointing enough that Sorkin's storytelling lacks imagination and drama. What's worse, Sorkin has created an irony-free zone where the infamously vicious Jobs comes across as a Christ-like figure, aided by Michael Fassbender's almost beatifically enigmatic performance. It's not that Jobs is paranoid, crazy or even mean, it's that he's misunderstood by everyone -- except his Mary Magdalene-like long-suffering marketing director Joanna Hoffman (portrayed by Kate Winslet with an oddly appearing and disappearing European accent of unknown origin.)

The devil-may-care, rakish charisma of the rough-hewn rockstar Keith Richards is on full display in the brand new Netflix-released documentary, Keith Richards: Under The Influence.

As Saint Jerome noted so wisely, "Early impressions are hard to eradicate from the mind. When once wool has been dyed purple, who can restore it to its previous whiteness?"

"You think I'll sit back and do nothing as you try to eat me like a juicy grasshopper?" shouts Richard, the thuggish head of the Ugandan crime syndicate, the Tiger Mafia.

In 1997, Pedro Costa (above), at the age of 38, began a trilogy exploring Portugal's impoverished, an undertaking that would continuously draw raves from the more erudite critics around the world. First came Ossos, which was pursued by In Vanda's Room (2000) and Colossal Youth (2006). These films, often showcasing the same characters, are sublimely visual, meditative masterworks that paint within shadows the seemingly plotless lives of the drug-addled inhabitants of a ghetto that is slowly being dismantled.