Aaron Hillis

It’s all a curious humanist experiment with anecdotal surprises and whimsy, but its motives aren’t in sharp focus like Doyle’s hotshot imagery.

Folklorist Alan Govenar has dedicated himself to exalting their work in dozens of books and films. His knowledge and affection are contagious, but this enjoyable documentary is a sampler plate crammed with bite-size pieces that only hint at the original fare’s distinctive flavors.

It’s all rather implausible, as is how all those cinema luminaries Barenholtz once nurtured seem to have no impact on his style-free storytelling.

With unpretentious formal rigor and a lighthearted deadpan, the film tracks Xiaobin’s development through self-reflexive escalation.

This thanklessly watchable film, recut since its mixed Sundance premiere, may not warrant Holden Caulfield’s trademark judgment of phoniness — but, like any clichéd writing, deserves rejection.

The setup may be as unsubtle as a metaphoric morality lesson about Europe’s not-too-distant past, or perhaps it’s politically timeless; it’s not a far leap to also think about a certain someone’s insane need for backscratching loyalty within the White House.

Machines proves both uncompromising and unforgettable.

This self-reflexive ode to following muses, finding meaning in nothingness, and transcending the sensitive roadblocks between fathers and sons is loopy, irreverent, and more intensely personal than anything its mystic creator has invented before.

The footage relies more on idealistic testimonies than a cinematic experience showcasing DBA's vitality.

Herzog smartly takes a broad, bird's-eye perspective of our early techno-evolution.

Dizzily entertaining when the knives, bullets, and feet are flying, and sometimes painfully melodramatic during the interim exposition.

Manically imaginative and very funny.

Though it dodders engagingly at its antihero's pace, Remember is not subtle.

The performances are undeniably authentic, the cinematography could make Terrence Malick stand to give a slow clap, and sometimes a sensitive mood and evocative milieu are enough to sustain when there's barely a plot.

Between the generic shadowy cinematography and a gothic score that manages to telegraph even the film's jump-scares, there's no tangible tension by which to build an effective climax.

It's rare that a drama shows such specificity with respect to the experience of coping with autism, and that sensitivity goes a long way.

Rigorous and outrageous, Greenaway's defiant approach to narrative only offers insight into his character, not Eisenstein's.

Cohn is clearly on the right track toward making the kind of nuanced grown-up dramas that sadly are no longer in vogue.

The filmmakers blend tones like a child mixing fountain drinks into one unidentifiable flavor.

Viko Nikci's undeniably poignant doc surprisingly chooses to follow threads of hope and forgiveness over the angers of injustice.

It's an exploitation film that never gets its audience off, even with cheap thrills — what a dud.

Elegantly shot to emphasize the suffocating atmosphere of its believably frightening scenario, the film speaks clearly about generational expectations and the disintegration of the middle class, even when the brothers communicate without using words.

Lazy, schmaltzy, and on-the-nose from its Hallmark-friendly production design to its rancid pop-music cues and naive dialogue.

Overlong and slack in suspense, the film is most noteworthy for its patchy accents and the late Ellen Albertini Dow (the "rapping granny" from The Wedding Singer).

The narrative strikes a mostly sensible (if overly earnest) ratio of inner-turmoil human theater to B-movie monster hunt, before ultimately tilting toward the classic drive-in with climactic siege action and old-school effects.

Appropriately hunky but neutered of the brute sexuality he exhibited in Bullhead and Rust and Bone, Schoenaerts and his lack of bodice-busting tension with Winslet mirrors the film's transparent, often anachronistic inauthenticity.

Criticism mutated long ago, after the internet's floodgates opened, and that outmoded disconnect between The Film Critic and today's film critics underscores how the persistent references to cinema and film writing are self-awarely mimicking clichés but not subverting them.

The film's convoluted moral trajectory to hell may be as unoriginal as quoting Taxi Driver, and the pervasive violent menace can be needlessly punishing (including a drugged sexual assault), but as stylish, scorched-earth entertainment, it'll get you in its teeth.

Director Teddy Chan's glossy thriller pays tribute to martial-arts cinema by casting enough Hong Kong industry legends to rival the cameo count of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It's a pity, then, that it's an undeniably bland film in style and story, despite a few elaborately staged fight sequences.

The film is undeniably elevated by its exotic milieu. It's a shame, then, that it's stuck with such a familiar coming-of-age call to adventure.

As the waves of this cinematic dream break, the profundities left behind come not from character arcs, but observed states of being that feel subjectively experienced.

The film is as shallow as its characters' oversexed conversations.

It's a tough, gripping watch made emotionally rewarding through trenchant plotting and Gosheva's tight-lipped expressiveness.

Jim Sturgess, Sam Worthington, and True Blood's Ryan Kwanten co-star in this glossy, lifelessly paced edition as three of the criminals, though their underwritten personas and motivations are fairly interchangeable.

Bernard Rose's elegantly staged but tonally flat biopic embraces the myth, even underscoring Paganini's rising fame, scandalous hedonism, and womanizing as an anachronistic form of rock-star fantasy.

This blatantly big-hearted product isn't half as vibrant as the original 2005 Wired article on which it's based, and myopically neglects to address Arizona's troubling anti-immigration legislation through even a splash of hindsight.

All the secrets, lies, and consequences feel as authentic as the Appalachian milieu, but the film lacks the memorable idiosyncrasy of a River's Edge, or more fittingly, the myth-making lyricism of Matewan.

Canadian comedy hits rock bottom in this abhorrent meta-infomercial.

Despite Wilson’s early control and aesthetic confidence, there isn’t a single scripted idea of weight or emotionality that pays off.

There are too many vaguely defined interpersonal dynamics and marginal characters (hi, Liv Tyler and Judy Greer!) that distract needlessly from the earnest tone of an outrageous set-up.

Attempts to offer the white-knuckle gratifications of a studio procedural with a conspicuous lack of production values, screen talent, plausibility, originality, or a lick of aesthetic flair.

Come for the cult of personality, stay for the nostalgia of a dirtier, dodgier, far cooler scene.

There's no bite to the criminality, the motives, the acting, or filmmaking to make us care.

It's the very definition of direct-to-video schlock.

Mostly due to the assured polish of cinematographer Sean Stiegemeier, Chapman punches above its featherweight budget, but the punch is ultimately pulled as both strands of the narrative intersect with one last reveal of unresolved melodrama that feels coldly calculated in its cause and effect.

There's no drama illustrating the thanklessness of their jobs, and potential wisdom about fiscal instability, animal welfare, or GMOs waft by without much argument.

No bodices were harmed in veteran French filmmaker Patrice Leconte's chaste and bloodless English-language debut.

Equally lionizing but richer in detail than the recent Michael Peña-led biopic César Chávez, this occasionally stirring doc portrait of the late Latino labor organizer and civil rights icon frames his legacy around a single act of protest.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean your speculations are sound, your writing and filmmaking skills are passable, or that you're preaching to anyone but the fearfully converted.

There's very little to distinguish this from every other characterless rom-com with a demographically marketable hook.

The film takes one entire act too long to shake its mopey fog and get crackling.

The overall comic premise is both clumsy and truly icky, because how exactly do you make progressive good on a "parody of violence against women" logline?

Self-taught Kurdish-American filmmaker Jano Rosebiani's mostly English-language drama...is deadened by milquetoast characters, uninspired landscape photography, and no perceptible stakes.

Amalric's impish dexterity and Del Toro's mild catatonia make for a memorable mismatch, but Jimmy P.'s profound slow burn might be too clinical for some to consider dramatic.

Kazan holds together a decent coming-of-age script that's emotionally sincere if tonally unfocused.

Gilsig's transformation is quietly convincing, but the film itself is flatter and less cinematically gratifying than most television dramas.

Vertigo this ain’t, but there’s some quasi-Gothic charm in the baroque premise and eccentric marginal details, including a mathematically gifted dwarf.

Doesn't try to be anything more than a soft-serve pull of treacly pandering.

If the banality of life within the Bordeaux gentry is the point, then the ensuing oppressiveness is immaculately depicted through precise performances and camerawork—just don't call it emotionally engaging drama.

Too madcap or not self-serious enough to be called transgressive, Moritsugu's degenerate romp splits the tonal difference between Nick Zedd and John Waters.

Don't discount October Country filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's tragicomically beautiful art-doc, which sensitively favors unflinching testimonials and visually impressionistic observations over journalistic activism.

Director-producer Florian Steinbiss's German-set, largely German-cast comedy mixes genres with all the quality control of a fourth-grader dispensing every soda flavor into one cup.

The line between creative ambition and risky obsession is sharply drawn—or rather, carved out of New Mexico sandstone—in the life and work of wholly motivated artist Ra Paulette.

A rich, artful quartet of shorts mirroring the diverse idiosyncrasies of four significant auteurs.

If cinema's most narcissistic actor-filmmakers were swimming in a talent pool, with Vincent Gallo confidently backstroking in the deep end and Eric Schaeffer wading in children's pee, Hendrickson's dipping his toe near Tommy Wiseau.

So far the funniest, headiest, most playfully eccentric American indie of the year, Bujalski's perceptive avant-garde comedy...teases out unanswered existential and behavioral questions about mankind's curious obsession with artificial intelligence and automation.

Since the conversation is unfocused and there's no real thesis, we get a girl and a gun but not really a movie.

The retro photos and footage are also bountiful and, natch, jazzily edited enough that the standard talking-head techniques are instantly forgivable.

The final leg of director Cathy Garcia-Molina's exceptionally broad, partly English-dubbed cockles-warmer of a trilogy outright apes Hollywood rom-com formulas with a personality so affably lobotomized it wouldn't dare frighten delicate tastes.

Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos's variation on the too-familiar subgenre (the rising inner-city superstar here is a Latina tomboy) is more heartfelt, humanistic, and entertaining than such a clichéd showbiz cautionary tale has any right to be.

Attempts to transform meet-cute romance into an absurdist fatal-attraction thriller, but ends up neither fish nor fowl.

Shallow, witless but pretty enough French ode to Woody Allen.

Filmmaker Maria Ilioú's uninspired flake of talking-head Wikipedia cinema focuses on the forgotten Anatolian port city's post-World War I years.

Filmed in 2005, the first of two Cusack widower flicks this season (the weepier and more indie "Grace is Gone" hits theaters in December) Martian Child is also a Franken-schmaltz monster of cobbled-together Cusack movie parts.

De Niro is constantly upstaged by the showstopping, sunburnt duo of Streisand and Hoffman, but even their material is so recycled (more Focker puns, etc.) that it doesn’t matter who steals the most chuckles.

Marker's even-handedness and playful spirit tries to show that innocent art and activist politics are two sides of the same culture, even if deviant government duplicity threatens the balance between them.

Jersey Girl may have come from his soul, but it contradicts the charm of a Kevin Smith movie.

Directed with little flair, a one-sided perspective and a questionable sense of moral responsibility by Dan Klores (his negligent lack of an editorial voice in the couple's lunacy reeks of train-wreck exploitation), Crazy Love is a disturbingly captivating tabloid horror, but that's not Klores' doing.

A sadistically bland entertainment that oversells its reveals and lets its suspense drip so long that it would be nice if something (anything!) happened.

So go on, pay your ten bucks and get your hate on.

An enjoyable mess that aimlessly goofs like "Men in Black" when its script calls for "Black Adder."

The Aristocrats lies halfway between two potentially great films: it's neither a smartly austere succession of jokesmiths with all the critique left to the audience, nor a deconstructionist essay on "crossing the line" and the language of comedy itself.

A truly remarkable and compassionate debut from a savvy, self-confident filmmaker. No bull.

Anchorman is the kind of wonderful, cotton-candy escapism that should leave you with the right kind of stomachache.

The mood never droops, however, saved by Mario’s well-studied ability to channel his father, a performance as delicately nuanced and polished as the film is frenetic and raw.

Has masterfully polished mechanics, some of the most seamless CGI effects in recent memory, and the Wells veneration is admirable. However, the film takes far too many creative shortcuts, like bookended narration and aliens that make strategically humanlike mistakes, completely incongruous to their technological superiority.

Open Water may not be a pristine or complex suspense thriller, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anything else as terrifyingly potent in such a tiny package.

It may be a crowd-pleasing escapism, but it's that feel-good shmaltz that ultimately plays the film off-key.

The film's ambitiously eye-opening hypothesis, colorful characters, genuine compassion, and unexpected humor will make for a great vintage in years to come.

For his fourth paycheck-cashing run through “J-Bruck’s” action-hero gauntlet, Cage lazily plays Benjamin Franklin Gates-the first of many overstuffed social-studies references.

Marie Antoinette churns a symphony out of a single note, too light and hermetically sealed in the minds of Coppola and her queen to transcend its artfully cared-for fluffiness.

This is as exceptional as microbudget cinema gets.

When he runs out of material to tickle with, Black dips into his musically tenacious "deedle-diddle-dee" for some sure-fire ridiculousness.

It may not be saying much, but what keeps this movie afloat, aside from solid performances, is the nearly sophisticated dynamic of an otherwise redundant punchline.

This terminally ill, terminally awful dramedy marks a sad cinematic milestone: The Bucket List is the first film in history to feature a truly wretched Nicholson performance -- and we're not talking about the character he plays.

The film stubbornly refuses to fill empty space with dialogue or adhere to any structure other than its own downbeat atmosphere, forcing viewers to be intensely patient or squirm. It's the best film I’ve seen in a while that I wouldn't recommend to anyone.

Unstylized, inconsistent, unconvincing, and familiar to a fault.

Where Dans Paris truly pops, besides its spot-on leads or the slick curation of its fashions and locales, are in its mood-mixing musical moments.