Bilge Ebiri

The way he films Kiefer, Wenders finds more drama in gestures such as these than he might in biographical detail. This is art that dares to live in the world, and Anselm is itself a wonderfully alive work.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is baggier than the original, not as funny, and it drags in parts and is on the whole less memorable. But dammit, it’s still fun, and that’s ultimately what matters.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t demonstrate any kind of interest in, or affection for, its characters. They’re cardboard cutouts, there to represent postures rather than evoke our sympathy or humanity or even curiosity.

It’s all garish, nightmarish spectacle — beautiful, terrifying, and poisonous.

Unfortunately, Wish manages to be none of the things it wants to be. It is neither evocative enough of the past to work as a tribute, nor irreverent or inventive or just plain funny enough to justify its constant but half-hearted callouts. It’s the ultimate cop-out — a lifeless, uninspiring mess of bland brand management.

All in all, one walks away from Rustin enchanted with Domingo’s performance, while feeling that a character as larger than life and momentous as Bayard Rustin surely deserves a film less dutiful and more inspired.

Roth has a talent for anticipation, but not really for suspense. We don’t watch Thanksgiving wondering what’s going to happen next to these people. We watch because we know what’s going to happen next to these people.

There’s life boiling under the simple surfaces, which is both Kaurismäki’s aesthetic mantra and his great theme. At their best, these quiet, cool films tear you to pieces. Fallen Leaves already feels like one of his signature works.

Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario starts off with a rich, surreal premise, and for much of its running time, it mixes playful, cringe-comic energy with an undercurrent of existential anxiety. But it eventually manages to undo much of what made it so tantalizing by turning metaphor and subtext into a more narrow-minded satire.

As a movie, Sly is something of a mess. But as a portrait of a messy man, it can be quite moving.

Five Nights at Freddy’s, the movie, is the kind of hollowed-out exercise in atrociousness that pretty much forces you to mull other things, be they what you’re having for dinner, the decline of American community, or the heat death of the universe.

The Delinquents works its magic on us the way that the promise of freedom works on its characters. It’s a vision of a life unlived — as impossible as it is intoxicating.

It’s not hard to see why Triet’s picture resonates. It has both suspense and intellectual ambition; plot revelations don’t just send the story in new directions, they expand the film’s cultural scope.

Once Within a Time runs 52 minutes, and it’s so lovely, funny, and charming that it feels like 15. But when it’s over, you feel like you’ve seen the world.

Even with its complicated moral vision, Wouk’s ending reoriented the story’s emotional focus; some might argue it clarified it. Friedkin’s ending leaves you unsure of what to think or feel. It sends you out questioning your beliefs — about war, about service, about madness, even about right and wrong. In that sense, despite the lack of ornament and the reduced scale, this Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is pure Friedkin.

What comes through are Vaniček’s expert orchestration of suspense, and the cast’s ability to make their characters’ fears feel genuine.