According to official estimates, a woman in India is raped every 20 minutes, and roughly 90% of those incidents go unreported, despite strengthened legal protections that have been put into place. Police investigations seldom achieve much, either, especially since residents in many communities (particularly in rural areas) prefer to handle such episodes among themselves without outside official intervention, a means to avoid bringing undue attention to such troubling circumstances and the attendant shame that accompanies them. However, in 2017 in eastern India, a courageous father whose 13-year-old daughter was brutally assaulted and subsequently beaten by three men chose to pursue the matter legally in court.

Films that feel like they’re “reaching” in their attempts to make a statement can result in a frustrating watch, as is very much the case with the latest from acclaimed writer-director Wim Wenders. This character study about the life of a middle-aged public toilet cleaner in Tokyo (Koji Yakusho) follows him through his virtually unchanging daily routine of working, reading and taking nearly identical photos of trees. Even though there are minor differences in the events of his day-to-day life, much of his schedule is relentlessly the same, a comfortable yet mundane pattern that’s cinematically repeated endlessly (and one can imagine what that does for holding viewer interest).

Those who believe that institutionalized systemic racism is fundamentally an American problem should probably give a serious look to this latest offering from writer-director Ava DuVernay, best known for the superb historical drama, “Selma” (2014). Based on the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by best-selling author Isabel Wilkerson, the film examines how organic prejudices are actually a worldwide phenomenon.

Given the blatantly self-serving attempts at spin, unrepentant obfuscation and outright lying that we see so much of these days coming from officialdom, big business and the media, it’s no wonder that so many of us have become fed up with such brazenly untruthful tactics. And that’s not just activists and advocates saying this – it’s a growing sentiment from everyday citizens who’ve tired of the practice of unbridled deliberate deception.

Isn’t it amazing how failures can often lead to unexpected successes? Those missteps frequently have a way of opening meaningful doors, even if it doesn’t seem that way at the time they occur. But how readily are we aware that such developments can occur?

When it comes to making what’s touted as being a grand, sweeping epic, a filmmaker had better have his or her ducks in a row before beginning. Unfortunately, in the case of director Ridley Scott’s latest, that’s only half true.

In 1989-90, the skies over Belgium were filled with unidentified flying objects on an ongoing basis, prompting the incident to become known as “the Belgian UFO wave.” Not long after it began, journalist Marc Vaerenbergh (Dominique Rongvaux) began investigating the event in depth, speaking with countless civilian and military witnesses. He stayed on the story until he suddenly and mysteriously vanished (presumably for knowing too much), a disappearance that was never officially solved.

What’s the difference between love and sex? It’s a conundrum that many of us wrestle with (and one that many of us would probably rather not bother with). However, what if it comes up in connection with resolving a sensitive, ongoing problem? That’s what Sandra (Lucie Debay) and her partner Rémy (Lazare Gousseau) must face when it comes to finding an answer to their longstanding infertility problem.

It’s always frustrating to walk out of a movie and ask yourself afterward, “What did I just watch?” That was my reaction to this scattered, unfocused offering from the writing-directing duo of Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon, and that’s unfortunate given that this release has some definite strengths in its corner.

From time to time, a movie comes along that’s hard to define, and, hence, it’s hard to know what to make of it. Such is the case with the second feature outing from filmmaker Johan Renck, a director best known for TV commercials and music videos, a reputation that bleeds through at times in this production. Viewer opinions and interpretations of this one are all across the board, making “Spaceman” one of the most challenging releases to peg in recent memory.