Whether you like Bruce Springsteen or not, I dare any viewer of this movie not to be completely swept away by the pure joy of the infectious “Blinded by the Light.”

Inspired by Sarfraz Manzoor’s 2007 memoir “Greetings from Bury Park,” the film “is inspired by the words and music of Bruce Springsteen.”

Set in 1987 Luton (a working-class town in southeast England)

In the eighties and nineties independent film was in its heyday. Many great “human” comedies came out of this era. Before giant Hollywood romcoms, little films filled with relationship-related comedy were plentiful, with many of them being highly entertaining.

Writer/director Joshua Land’s new Maryland-set film “I Like Me” (co-written by Abby Sussman) has a mid-nineties

I think cinema, I love cinema, I see a great number of films during the year and always have. If asked to list great director names, I would reply, Fellini, Bergman, Fassbinder, Kurosawa and Kubrick. Though a hundred names would barely begin to cover it. But… and oh, yes, Tarentino. Despite not much enjoying his movies—too much violence, albeit often humorous, rivers of blood, and a permanent agitation—I believe I’ve seen all his films since “Reservoir Dogs.”

San Francisco’s Castro District is known for its historical importance in the LGBTQ community, most famously for the election of Harvey Milk as the first openly gay elected official in California’s history. The Castro is used quite differently in the new independent comedy “Bathrooms Stalls & Parking Lots.”

Coming from Brazil, Leo (the film’s writer/director Thales Correa) arrives in San Francisco’s

A talking head archival documentary to be sure, but with a subject such as Mike Wallace (who spent his career as a so-called talking head) there was no other way to film it.

Wallace is, perhaps, the one man who defined television journalism. His demeanor was stern and his questions were sometimes strikingly blunt and he didn’t suffer fools gladly nor take BS answers to direct questions. Even Wallace

In a yurt on the snow-covered fields of northeastern Siberia, Nanook (Mikhail Aprosimov) and Sedna (Feodosia Ivanova) live following the traditions of their ancestors. Alone in the wilderness, they look like the last people on Earth. Nanook and Sedna's traditional way of life starts changing, slowly, but inevitably. Hunting becomes more and more difficult, the animals around them die from inexplicable causes, and the ice has been melting earlier every year. Chena

The Rose of the title is Jessica Buckley who, as Rose-Lynn Harlan does a tremendous turn as an untamable working-class Glaswegian just out of prison after a stint for committing a petty crime. She’s a cleaning lady by trade, a Nashville-style country singer by aspiration, a mother of two and an unmanageable rebel, all within the staid contents of her small life. The twisted charm of Tom Harper’s movie

Brazilian-American filmmaker Alexandre Moratto’s “Socrates” is his first feature length film. It was produced by the Querô Institute of Brazil, co-written, produced, and acted by people ranging in age from sixteen to twenty. These young film makers come from low-income communities and they received support from UNICEF.

This story revolves around a fifteen year-old named Socrates

This Israeli film by Sameh Zoabi, an Arab Israeli, comes to us boasting a number of awards but that doesn’t prepare us for the treat of this thoroughly enjoyable and unpretentious story. “Tel Aviv on Fire” is one of those gems—think “The Band’s Visit” or “Tony Erdmann”-- that grab and delight from the opening scene to the very end, with nary a slackening of rhythm. Salam (Kais Nashif, a well-known Palestinian actor

Low-key independent character pieces are director Lynn Shelton’s specialty. With films such as “Humpday," “Your Sister’s Sister," “Touchy Feely," “Laggies," and the undervalued “Outside In," Shelton creates projects that seem gimmicky on a surface level and infuses them with deeply personal meditations on the human condition. Her uniquely easygoing writing style has proven Shelton to be one of the most interesting writer-directors in film today.