The White Rabbit gives an amnesiac girl the name Alice, then keeps reminding her companion Mary that she is a “Plus One.” Carroll’s English Wonderland supplies a vocabulary for deciding who belongs. Transplanted into FuRyu’s Japanese CRY series, its familiar names become provisional identities for departed souls whose lives are gradually disclosed. Alice has forgotten hers, an unusual condition among the challengers assembled here. They have been offered freedom if they kill the Queen of Hearts, with considerably less clarity about what that freedom entails. Tea complicates the arrangement. Competitors gather socially between attempts to escape, preserving a familiar ritual...

Ravi tells Jay that what he wants most is family. The two friends are smoking and watching planes, briefly allowing their conversation to acquire some emotional weight before joking it away. Neither seems equipped to leave the admission alone long enough to discuss it. Yet the admission has happened. Ravi can retreat into the familiar routine of taking the piss, but he has given his friend information that ought to change how they treat each other. A job soon gives that desire a practical shape. Working for a building-supplies business means Ravi must wake early and reconsider the usefulness of...

Ravi tells Jay that what he wants most is family. The two friends are smoking and watching planes, briefly allowing their conversation to acquire some emotional weight before joking it away. Neither seems equipped to leave the admission alone long enough to discuss it. Yet the admission has happened. Ravi can retreat into the familiar routine of taking the piss, but he has given his friend information that ought to change how they treat each other. A job soon gives that desire a practical shape. Working for a building-supplies business means Ravi must wake early and reconsider the usefulness of...

Wyatt and Cora bring their boat ashore together, still enjoying the playful uncertainty of a first date. Then Wyatt is pulling it in alone, at a later point in his life. Mark Wilson Sunderland lets an action carry us between periods in Dementium, giving the change an emotional meaning before supplying its explanation. We recognize the activity and notice the missing person. It is an economical way to introduce a relationship: first through the ease of two people talking, then through the space one of them leaves behind. The film becomes less settled about how its past should appear. Memories...

Kristin Harila sells her flat to finance an expedition that still depends on permissions, weather windows, and somebody agreeing to pay the remaining bills. These are useful obstacles for a documentary: specific, consequential, and capable of stopping the project before anyone reaches a mountain. Even Sigstad’s Savage Mountain makes the organization of her 2023 attempt to climb the world’s fourteen peaks above 8,000 metres remarkably absorbing. Seven Summit Treks eventually covers costs when her money runs out. Behind the record she and Tenjen “Lama” Sherpa complete in 92 days sits an operation whose difficulties cannot be overcome by physical determination....

Remove the recorded vocals in Let’s Sing 2027 and the space they leave becomes yours to fill. A familiar melody can suddenly feel less secure when the voice carrying it disappears. Keeping the original singer audible, using a vocal guide, or choosing an instrumental backing gives players control over that exposure. These settings accommodate different kinds of pleasure: following a voice you love, finding your footing, or hearing yourself carry the song. There is no reason everyone arriving at the same karaoke session should want the same degree of reassurance. Feat extends that choice into the relationship between singers. Up...