Batter up, film buffs! We’ve made it through the grand slam of awards season, have slid into Northern Hemisphere spring and the umpire has officially signaled us as “SAFE”. If you’re wondering about all of these baseball metaphors, it’s not just because the new Major League Baseball season starts next week—we’re pitching an ace new film centered on the sport itself to add to your watchlists.

Our contributors have also loaded their bases with a magical realist Zambian drama, a dystopian directorial debut, a Twilight Zone meets Frank Capra concoction and a documentary called Secret Mall Apartment about... well, about a secret mall apartment.

This month’s picks come from Marya E. Gates, Dan Mecca, Mitchell Beaupre and Brian Formo. Happy watchlisting!

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Written and directed by Rungano Nyoni.
Now playing in select US theaters.
A24

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, writer-director Rungano Nyoni’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut I Am Not a Witch, begins with one of the most visually arresting images you’ll see all year: a young woman, Shula (newcomer Susan Chardy), impeccably dressed as Missy Elliott in the music video for her song ‘The Rain’, finds a dead body as she drives down an empty Zambian road in the middle of the night. The body turns out to be her Uncle Fred, and with his death comes not only the intricate funeral proceedings of her people, but also a reconnecting of cousins who are bonded over a shared, yet unspoken trauma. This sparks a much-needed reckoning for a family whose secrets have remained buried for far too long. With her surreal humor and distinctive visuals, Nyoni crafts a unique filmic exploration of linger trauma, and the struggle to work past generational, class and gender divides.

Praising the film for its “depth, tenderness, care, humor,” Di0p calls On Becoming “astoundingly beautiful and surreal. True cinema. This filmmaker is my hero.” Camster2000 agrees, finding it “so deep and layered, it feels like a text, and I have so many questions I want to ask—not even of the filmmaker, but of other people who saw it.” Rendy finds Nyoni’s drama to be “incredible and very infuriating in all the right ways.” Lastly, Tomisin calls it a “lyrical master work,” adding “It’s wondrous how great work towers over everything else, how it overwhelms you and reminds you of your humanity, of the power [of] great art to move you deeply.” MEG

Aadi agrees, writing in their five star review, “I’ve never had a movie make me gripe and twist in my seat as this one did.” HeartBigApple notes, “It had wit, it was sharp, it was weird.” Impressed by Fortuné’s singular directorial vision, Alea shares that they “walked out with [their] mouth open cause holy shit! and it’s a directorial debut?!!” Fia25 praises The Assessment’s “thought-provoking exploration of pressing ethical dilemmas and emotional conflicts,” adding that the film, “dives deep into the intersections of technology, sustainability, the climate crisis, humanity and reproduction—offering no easy answers.” Carly concurs, stating, “If you have children, it’ll make you think. If you don’t have children, it’ll make you think.” MEG

Eephus

Directed by Carson Lund, written by Lund, Michael Basta and Nate Fisher.
Now playing in select US theaters.
Music Box Films

Jaemart writes winningly of Eephus: “Honestly lovely. Just one single baseball game... and when I’d start to get bored, the players would get bored, too. Things fail, things get awkward. It’s never forced into a movie—I like that.” Baseball is a sport with no clock. There is no forced end to baseball; it can go on and on and on.

One of the smartest things that director Carson Lund does in Eephus is design an unavoidable ending. Set in the American Northeast, a group of mostly middle-aged men play their last game of baseball on a field that will soon be the building ground of a new school. No matter what they do, the field is going away. These aren’t professional athletes, rather small-business owners and fathers and free spirits, mining lingering enjoyments out of America’s pastime.

Lund and cinematographer Greg Tango use the literal dying of the light to tell this story. With each ing inning, the sun falls further behind the horizon line. A welcoming autumn day devolves into a less-friendly, cold fall night. Still, the ballplayers play, determined to finish the game. Determined to hold on to the joy. Real life can wait a little bit longer.

Caroline nails it: “It’s so hard to make friends and hang out… this is why men invented baseball. I loved this so much. Takes someone who really understands baseball to film it in such a dynamic way that shows all the micro moments happening at any given time in the game.” DM

Peter touches on the Twilight Zone eeriness of the film’s atmosphere, writing that it “feels like peering into a snow globe and observing as one of the tiny figurines attempts to make sense of their place in the universe.” The Actor is based on a novel by crime writer Donald E. Westlake, an author responsible for stories as grim as Point Blank, Payback and The Stepfather, and you can feel the noir origins here, but Johnson hones in on the emotional core of Paul’s tale. 

With an exquisite, open-hearted performance from Holland, The Actor becomes a stirring existential query into what it means to be our true selves. What happens when your life is a charade, an act you put on to be this thing you think you’re supposed to be, and how can you fight to push through to nourish your real identity? What if it’s too late? The entire way through, Johnson carries us with a visual splendor that Alex enthuses has “more inspiration in the sets and camera movements alone than a lot of movies these days.” MB