Boots Riley might have previously been best known as a self-described “communist rapper,” but his new film, “Sorry to Bother You,” has been making a splash in the cinematic community after premiering last January at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Starring Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson and Steven Yeun, “Sorry to Bother You,” marks Riley’s writing…

•

Much of the violence in “Thoroughbreds” occurs offscreen, and so does the film’s critique of class. Set in the world of New England’s elite, the movie’s oblique black comedy is sometimes too subtle to make a fatal stab at America’s innocuous ideas of its own bourgeoise. But as in the best thrillers, true anxiety is…

•

When the first plans were being drawn up for Orlando’s Walt Disney World Resort in the 1960s, the amusement complex was initially called “The Florida Project.” Set on the seedy outskirts of this American Mecca, the world of Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” (2017) playfully engages with the mythology of its corporate neighbor in ways…

•

I’m new to Agnès Varda’s oeuvre, so in preparation for watching “Faces Places,” I decided to watch Varda’s “Cléo from 5 to 7” (1962), a snapshot of a singer named Cleo as she awaits the results of a biopsy. One of my favorite moments in the film occurs when Cleo, accustomed to singing pop songs,…

•