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In case you’re wondering, “Nothing Can’t Be Undone By a HotPot” is not only the best movie title of the year so far, but also a no-frills Chinese whodunit about a pile of stolen cash, a human body, and a long line of dirty laundry. The cash and the body present themselves early on in…

Every year, the Cannes Film Festival is an embarrassment of riches, offering moviegoers a smorgasbord of exciting, challenging cinema. In recent times, the likes of “Parasite,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” “The Worst Person in the World,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Drive My Car,” “The Zone of Interest” and “Anatomy of a Fall” debuted on…

Chris Pine‘s first film as a director, “Poolman,” is a character comedy about oddball Los Angelenos that doubles as a spoof of 1940s detective movies. Pine also cowrote (with Ian Gotler), co-produced, and plays the title character, Darren Barrenman. Darren is a big-bearded, long-haired, talkative, thoroughly goofy pool cleaner who lives in a tiny trailer right next to the…

Police brutality is a subject that never seems to leave the news. There’s too many instances, too many stories from around the country pointing to a larger abuse of state-sanctioned power. Some headlines bubble up to national attention, even those that don’t will leave marks on the community where it happened. In “Power,” documentarian Yance…

There’s a moment in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s 2018 film “Asako I & II” that radiates tenderness: Married couple Asako (Erika Karata) and Ryohei (Masahiro Higashide) have just returned home after helping at a fish market. Ryohei, exhausted, lays flat against the wood of the floors. Asako has spent the day watching him as he helped out,…