Chuck Wilson

In their feature debut, co-writers/directors Juuso Laatio and Jukka Vidgren and co-writers Aleksi Puranen and Jari Olavi Rantala reach for absurdist comedy — the reindeer-blood accident, the projectile-vomit bit, the grave-robbing incident — with a touch so light that the general nuttiness comes to seem a central (and essential) component of Finnish rural life.

A Prayer Before Dawn feels scarily authentic, and may be too much for some. But there are moments of grace amid the setting’s despair.

A Quiet Place is full of fabulous, virtuoso action set pieces, but mere hours after seeing it, what I’m already flashing on the most are the ways in which each member of this family, children and adults alike, tries to carry the weight of their central burden, which isn’t fear and dread, but guilt and grief, two monsters no third act plot twist can ever quite vanquish.

The Strangers: Prey at Night, co-written by Bertino and Ben Ketai and directed by Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) has a slow and rather grim first half, but then, in the home stretch, takes a welcome turn into the seriously silly.

Recognition (and compensation) proved elusive in Lamarr’s lifetime, but in this marvelous documentary, a brilliant woman — “I’m a very simple, complicated person” — finally gets her due.

Both a thriller and meditation on the loss of innocence, Super Dark Times is rich with the minutiae of a bygone era...but Phillips and screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski press hard against the instinct for nostalgia.

Unlocked feels like a 1970s-style conspiracy thriller, which makes it a perfect fit for the 76-year-old Apted, whose wonderfully varied career includes the James Bond flick, The World Is Not Enough.

A bit disjointed but also vibrant and loving.

Writer-director Musa Syeed has conjured a drama rich with incident...but most of the turns of plot feel organic, ours to discover, as long as we're paying attention.

[A] hokey but effective adaptation.

[A] superb coming-of-age drama.

In his lovely new film, Argentine director Daniel Burman mixes reality with fiction in inventive ways.

The new thriller Misconduct is getting kicked to the curb by its distributor, which is too bad, because director Shintaro Shimosawa's debut feature boasts an elegant visual style and a mystery plot with so many absurd twists that the film becomes enjoyable high melodrama.

The Russian Woodpecker is very much like Fedor himself — eccentric as hell, smart as a whip, and, at the end of the day, a heartbreaker.

Despite its sci-fi hook, Movement and Location turns out to be a surprisingly resonant film about how impossible it is for most people — no matter their cosmic time zone — to carve out a life that's emotionally honest.

Thanks to Ashton's brilliant, career-defining performance, we're made to see that the only thing worse than doing evil deeds is being nice enough to feel guilty about them.

With sleek and informative onscreen graphics and thrilling slow-motion demonstrations of game technique, Top Spin packs a lot of information into its 80-minute running time, arguing that a great table tennis player is one part boxer, one part chess master.

Avenged is an action-horror mash-up that's very silly, quite gruesome, and a whole lot of fun.

Flamenco Flamenco is the most beautifully photographed film in recent memory. Come for the dance, stay for the light.

Housebound is a tad long, and its murder mystery a bit of a muddle, but that doesn’t matter. The final third is virtuoso.

The film's finale is wild and daring and so perfectly executed that it marks Wright as one of the film year's most audacious new voices.

The screenplay is built of small moments and minute details that gradually gain significance, as should be the case in a good character study.

This movie is only 75 minutes long, so it's too bad that Hubner rushes the finale -- too much triumph, too little emotion -- but when the grooves are this rich, all is forgiven.

The Belgian Roskam, making only his second feature film, and his first in English, displays remarkable assurance, with both the actors and the film’s very American setting. He creates an escalating sense of dread, tinged with Lehane’s brand of mordant humor.

With a deft hand, Pray juxtaposes a history of Heizer's revolutionary career as a "negative space" sculptor with an insider's view of the insanely complex planning it took to move the two-story monolith.

When Frankie, an understudy in a small dance company, is given his chance to perform, he, and Test itself, come to life.

Chris Teerink's superb film documents the work of artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007), whose legacy lies not only in past accomplishments, but in the work he left for others to complete.

It Felt Like Love is brilliantly, brutally tactile.

Ernest & Celestine -- a contender for this year's best animated film Oscar -- is pure delight.

Date and Switch isn't a gay movie. It's a zippy, happy, buddy flick.

Tucci and the English-born Eve make a riveting team, and although the film's final twist undercuts all that has come before, Some Velvet Morning is provocation of the most artful kind.

In this entertaining documentary, the coolest kids in town sing the praises of cartoonist Gahan Wilson, whose work is a brilliant fusion of the personal and the political.

To use a phrase from the film, The Armstrong Lie is a "myth-buster." It's wholly necessary, brilliantly executed, and a complete bummer.

A vibrant color scheme and the deliciously evil cackle of Christopher Plummer elevate this kid-friendly animated adventure from Canada.

Writer-director Christian Vincent and co-writer Étienne Comar, aided by Frot's quiet intensity, imbue Hortense's quest to pull off culinary miracles with an urgency that's almost absurdly compelling, and all the more entertaining for it.

From cinematographer Corey Rich's beautifully framed footage, Wampler's wife, Elizabeth, making her directorial debut, has assembled a stirring film that's part documentary, and part promotional tool.

This Is Martin Bonner isn't exciting, but it's also never dull.

Lowery isn't a Malick and he's certainly no Kazan, but he's his own man, and a filmmaker to watch.

Athale has a flair for guy-pal banter; here, the talk is funny and profane, silly and profound, often in the same breath.

[A] pitch-perfect, deeply affecting film.

Vibrant cameo performances by two of our most engaging young actors—Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Ritter—along with one film legend—Tippi Hedren—transform this modest comedy into something special.

Always amusing, if never screamingly funny.

Director Ryûhei Kitamura (The Midnight Meat Train) is too talented for material this retro-junky, but he and screenwriter David Cohen keep the action coming hard and fast.

There are some decent shootouts, but the movie's strongest assets are the soulful performances Danish director Kasper Barfoed, making his American debut, draws from Cusack and Akerman.

Papa Cronenberg must be proud, but be advised: If there's a blood test in your future, book it before seeing this movie.

The plotting as a whole feels fresh, as does the emphasis on women strong enough to defend themselves.

First-time director Wayne Blair and screenwriters Keith Thompson and Tony Briggs, adapting Briggs’ stage play, don’t shy away from the era’s social complexities, but they keep their eye on the ball, which in this case is the sweet pull of soul tune harmony.

This very funny, very British movie -- directed by newcomer Garth Jennings -- has sci-fi effects that are impressive yet appropriately cheesy.

Visibly uninspired, Pacino gives a perfunctory performance -- though surely he must have looked over at Farrell and been reminded of himself 30 years ago, all jacked-up and beautiful, like a stallion at the gate.

When movie clichés are presented with rigor and feeling, they can pack a fresh punch.

Engrossing.

Returning director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King) and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) have done a fine job of updating White's dry wit to a new age, led in no small measure by Lane, who could probably make the IRS code book sound funny.

Grounded in the easy rhythms of daily life, this charming little film shows unexpected grit in sequences set in the white household where Lindiwe works, a place so oppressive that it suddenly seems way past time for South African movie characters - and their home audience - to experience a dose or two of Hollywood-style wish fulfillment.

Surprisingly smart film.

Zippy, stylish fun.

Screenwriter Vincent Molina and director Fabrice Cazaneuve are wonderfully calm about the tumult of teen life.

Refreshingly quirky comedy.

For these gifted directors and their fine ensemble, the notion that every life forms into a mosaic of intimate, largely unobserved details is the story most worth telling.

Reynolds, working in close harmony with cinematographer Andrew Dunn (Gosford Park), brings an infectious brio and an occasional sweeping grace to the classic trappings of Dumas.

Despite a midfilm lull of his own, Eisner stages a series of nifty action sequences, nearly all of which feature a moment of surprise, as well as gruesome wit.

Charming, animated retelling of stories from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books.

What's fun is that the road to that climactic Capitol showdown is paved with one ridiculous and relentlessly edited set piece after another.

Unexpectedly gripping horror movie.

Moving and vibrant Italian-language film.

The 1978 frat-house classic "Animal House," starring the late, great John Belushi, is the model for testosterone-mad comedies such as this, and while it hasn't that film's scope or finesse, Old School does have Ferrell, a man clearly in touch with his inner Belushi.

It's fine stuff, beautifully played, but there's no denying that viewers will have to be patient with this 80-minute chamber piece, the first third of which feels cold and false, only to suddenly shift into unexpectedly deep emotional territory.

A surprisingly smart satire around the bubble-gum band that first found life in the pages of the Archie comic book series.

Stuck for years playing young women who are the idealized object of male desire (Portman and Johansson)-- flaw-free and, in Johansson's case, barely conscious -- they come alive in The Other Boleyn Girl, as if being bound up in costumer Sandy Powell's exquisite gowns has freed them from the tighter constraints of their own beauty.

A smooth little comedy deserving of more studio support than it got.

Formulaic but infectiously happy comedy.

By the end of this likely cult classic (only 80 minutes long), when Evie has an amphetamine-induced meltdown during her cable-access comeback show, these divas are as recognizably human as you and me, only sluttier, and with cattier one-liners.

Amusing, beautifully drawn one-hour film.

Millions is an intelligent children’s film that may prove to be a guilty pleasure for adults.

As director, Scott Marshall displays an unsurprising flair for selling a joke, but also a fine sense of dramatic pacing and, even better, a gift for brevity, neither of which, it could be argued, are innate skills of his famous filmmaking family.

Antibodies is fairly riveting, thanks to Alvart's command of craft and tone. He's a director to watch.

These women are smart, funny and wonderfully real, traits that one might safely attribute to Westfeldt and Juergensen, who also wrote the screenplay.

It's the cinematic equivalent of glancing up at the sky and taking a good deep breath.

These young American members of an international group that uses the combative tactics of anti-abortionists to vilify those who’re doing business with a major products-testing company were recently labeled terrorists by the FBI and put on trial. That one can’t quite decide if these charming men are heroes or villains is a mark of Johnson’s calm.

A resonance that is moving beyond all measure.

Mitchell -- gives a harrowing, beautifully conceived performance, the depth and arc of which can't be fully appreciated until the film's final scene.

While it isn't surprising that improv gods Short and fellow SNL vet Jan Hooks, as Glick's wife, Dixie, are brilliant, who knew that perennial onscreen good girl Elizabeth Perkins, playing here a has-been bitch-diva, could be so brittle and sexy?

Unsatisfying as crime drama but haunting as a meditation on marriage.

Although the film is a tad long, Mirkin ("Romy and Michele's High School Reunion") has managed to pull off a classy, gently funny movie in which no one throws up, a rare blessing these days.

Despite the rush to get everyone from place to place, director Frank Coraci (The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy) luxuriates in colorful visual detail and gives the locals their due.

This debut feature from writer-director Shonali Bose has a powerful finale, in which the filmmaker uses imaginative camera angles and a vibrant sound design to re-create the turmoil and terror of the riots.

Undeniably precious, it may make some viewers fidgety, but others will find that the reflective melancholy that overcomes both director and cast (all superb) is a sweet contagion.

Zeiger's superb documentary about the Vietnam War era's GI protest movement is jammed with incident and anecdote and moves with nearly as much breathless momentum as the movement itself.

It's one of many references to the movie-wise, but a resonant one, for Glover's performance turns out to be shockingly emotional, drawn as daringly close to the bone -- within this story's limited thematic range -- as Anthony Perkins' work in Hitchcock's seminal film.

Yu has transferred to her superb film, the hushed awe she must have felt the day she walked into the room - and, in a sense, the mind - of this strange, singular individual.

Looks drab and doesn't take very good advantage of its New York locations, but the neurotic intensity and emotional honesty of its two leads more than make up for it.

First-time director Anahí Berneri, who wrote this involving, if slow-moving, film with Pablo Pérez (based on Pérez’s own diaries), doesn't shy away from the whippings, rope work and carefully calibrated humiliation that make up a good night of dungeon play. Yet A Year Without Love isn't a sex movie (so don’t expect one), but a studied examination of how one man folds jarring events into the everyday fabric of his life.

This is the first Broadway-sourced movie musical in umpteen years, and you should see it, because the score is gorgeous.

The British music-video director Peter Care (making his feature debut) and screenwriters Jeff Stockwell and Michael Petroni have retained much of the wry, teen-wise dialogue from the late Chris Fuhrman's cult-hit novel, while giving his story arc a fuller, more rounded shape.

The true mystery, Red Lights' real thrill ride -- and what seems to interest Kahn most, despite his skill at arranging the trappings of suspense -- is marriage.

Deftly mixing the visual exuberance of “Trainspotting” with the familial pathos of “Angela’s Ashes,” the gifted van Groeningen offers gleeful depictions of drinking contests and naked bicycle races that gradually give way to a sense of moral peril for young Gunther.

The jewel in this well-rounded collection of gay-themed shorts is Alan Brown's "O Beautiful."

The film is being sold as a comedy, and it is amusing. Secretly, though, it's a romance, with Merchant's roving camera discerning the tempestuous love triangle at the heart of Naipaul's novel.

In this lovely film, writer-director Khientse Norbu (The Cup) shifts smoothly between a kind of Buddhist "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and depicting the bonds that form among Dondup and his companions.