Dennis Harvey

Engrossing as well as damning.

Its modest surface belies the depths of a lovely seriocomedy that concisely lays bare all kinds of uncomfortable dynamics in seemingly casual, low-key fashion.

Hari Sama’s fourth feature as writer-director is something special, and one of the best of its particular subgenre.

Wolff has made a debut feature as impressive in its deliberate modesty and unpretentiousness as it is in matters of psychological nuance and technical skill.

It’s an inspiring picture, particularly given the difficulty of imagining one of today’s sports superstars going so far out on a limb for unpopular beliefs.

Very much in line with his maiden screen efforts "In the Company of Men" and "Your Friends and Neighbors"...ends with a satisfying shudder of recognition at the extreme cruelty possible within human relationships, particularly those conceived by Neil LaBute.

Emphasis on its combustible emotions, suspense and surprising humor should help draw sophisticated audiences who, once lured, will quickly find themselves hooked for the duration.

This terrifically engaging debut feature by playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo is the best kind of “crowdpleaser”: one that earns every emotional beat that might seem formulaic in four out of five similar enterprises.

Princess plays out an unsettling scenario of underage sexuality in enigmatic, almost dreamlike terms.

Though sure to be distasteful for some viewers even to ponder, this giddy exercise transcends mere bad-taste humor to become one of the great jet-black comedies about suburbia.

A riveting account of how a soldier's death in Afghanistan was spun into a web of public lies.

An alarming cautionary tale about how easy it is in the Internet age to ruin people’s lives while hiding behind a cloak of anonymity, the pic boasts a humorously titillating entry hook that soon gives way to engrossing conspiracy-thriller-like content.

The definitive screen chronicle to date of homosexual persecution under the Third Reich.

“Wojnarowicz” is impressive as a tapestry woven near-whole from preexisting materials, amplifying its subject’s own voice in every creative form it took. Editor Dave Stanke merits kudos alongside McKim for their evocative, first-rate assembly.

A luxuriously old-fashioned star vehicle custom-fit to its topliner's strengths, which come across to sensational effect.

Harrowing and ultimately moving.

A concise overview's clarity and an epic narrative shape, with a happy ending to boot.

An impressive and artful cinematic thesis of palpable substance.

Excellent documentary American Hardcore chronicles the short-lived but influential musical moment when a defiantly anti-commercial underground put a distinctive U.S. stamp on the hitherto Brit-driven punk movement.

Anita Rocha da Silveira’s arresting debut feature captures the queasy mix of desire and fear among kids who are sexually inexperienced, yet can think of little else. Pop kitsch, social satire, dreamy narrative unreliability and retro giallo-thriller vibes further flavor a movie at once bold and cryptic.

A slam-dunk entertainment.

If the satire feels familiar, and the dramatics often contrived, there's rarely a moment here when something funny, intense or cleverly interconnected doesn't keep one's synapses firing on overdrive.

Despite its ostensibly depressing subject and a few tough-to-watch sequences, Blood Brother is never less than engrossing, and it’s often delightful.

Intelligent political satire this expertly acted is nothing to sneeze at.

This engrossing documentary focuses primarily on the kids as each grows through some rough developmental patches. But en route a few stereotypes get demolished, most notably the notion that every convict is a “deadbeat dad” or otherwise inherently bad person.

Piscatella and editor Matthew Sultan have shaped the kind of exciting you-are-there narrative that captures the feeling of underdog “naive” idealism transforming into a game-changing popular movement.

[A] thoroughly ingratiating, touchingly heartfelt comedy.

A stirring adventure by any standard.

Hamm’s bleary but still debonair presence, Gilroy’s cynically witty dialogue, and the not-quite-confusingly-large array of colorful characters underline how Beirut aims to be less a statement about Middle Eastern strife than a good yarn propelled by the unpredictable currents of international politics.

This second narrative feature by Israeli documentarian Michal Aviad is a strong drama that eschews melodramatic contrivance, making its points via cool (yet sometimes squirm-inducing) observation.

Though the “Patient, film thyself” concept is starting to risk overexposure...Unrest is a high-grade example of the form that’s consistently involving, with content diverse enough to avoid the tunnel-visioned pitfalls of diarist cinema.

Deftly cramming a terrific amount of history, breaking news, personal drama, culture and context into a trim runtime, The Russian Woodpecker is surprisingly inventive, even buoyant in its presentation of several issues that could scarcely be more sobering.

Picture makes an engrossing case for justice.

[An] engrossing, flavorful document.

Furiously paced -- just shy of the sensory-overload point -- pic duly merits comparison to its spiritual granddaddy "Mean Streets," not in the usual imitative sense but rather in the freshness, character acuity and low-budget high style brought to a different NYC ethnic milieu.

In the end, Fear offers the most beguiling kind of plea for tolerance, via antic suggestion that any other behavior is strictly for dolts whose mob mentality makes them look very stupid indeed. It’s a lesson that goes down easily with this much deadpan charm and skill on tap.

An unbeatably colorful life story.

Pic itself is a long haul, at nearly 2½ hours; yet one needn't be a fan of Metallica or heavy metal to be engrossed throughout.

Crawford’s dominating performance makes David no hick but a sensitive and accommodating man a bit intimidated by his admittedly “much smarter” wife, flailing in his efforts to hold together a family unit he can’t go on without.

Bittersweet, charming yet often very thorny.

Emerges a surprisingly in-depth, wistful look at outgrowing a youth-only subculture.

While at about the two-thirds mark, Under the Sun begins to seem a bit attenuated, its obvious (if only implied) points already made, the ending is a stunner.

When it comes to the film’s overall success, these wildly amusing situations take a back seat to the contributions of an excellent cast.

OC87 serves both its subject and its viewers well by chronicling a process that is actually insightful, entertaining and apparently successful.

Though at first glance this ironically-sweet-and-very-sour mix might seem unappetizing, even repellent, it soon becomes fascinating in its oddball complexity.

There’s an air of authenticity as well as a pleasingly laid-back yet substantive narrative engagement to this polished effort.

Despite occasional narrative gaps, Check It is consistently compelling, with a brisk pace and vivid personalities making up for the occasional unanswered question.

In one of the most accessible versions of Hamlet yet committed to film, Campbell Scott's self-helmed Great Dane is more than ever a man for our time.

This adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner’s heavily autobiographical novel is ideally cast and skillfully handled.

This underground scene makes other "extreme sports" look as harmless as tiddlywinks.

TransFatty Lives is an unusually playful and emotionally involving first-person chronicle of serious illness.

Well-shot and edited, Anvil! is an underdog saga even non-metalheads will root for. It tows that fine line between chuckling at its protags' somewhat absurd situation and celebrating their sheer unwillingness to give up.

As cinematographer and editor in addition to writer, director and producer, Vasyanovych is very much in charge of a vision whose aesthetics are rigidly controlled. The ironically titled “Atlantis” may well alienate some viewers with its austerity, but those willing to tough it out will feel rewarded.

Makes a compelling case for raising him (Bukowski) from cult status to the top rank of 20th century U.S. literary figures -- while providing ample evidence of a very colorful life and times.

Set in the 1980s Midwest with a mix of the drab and the eccentric, Dead Mail is an effective, twisty thriller with a singular edge of off-kilter black comedy.

Jane provides as much insight as we might hope for (in visual media at least) into a personality whose life might seem well-documented to the point of redundancy.

Never less than gripping as an account of what happened and what went terribly wrong.

Corbett Redford’s film channels and sustains the energy of restless youth while communicating the distinctive qualities of a community that carried collectivist 1960s ideals into a new generation, even as it rejected any vestige of their hippie parents’ music.

[A] powerful, well-crafted documentary.

Assembly is brisk and high-grade, allowing for the variable quality of archival materials.

The film makes its case powerfully, and the myriad parallel situations in which private commercial interests continue to trump environmental ones worldwide makes that viewpoint easy to accept as valid.

This is a frequently ravishing film, as attuned to the mysticism of landscapes as prime Herzog, while capable of jolting us with the occasional brutal image.

The short, mercurial, sometimes self-defeating life of professional soccer player Justin Fashanu is so packed with drama that “Forbidden Games,” Adam Darke and Jon Carey’s documentary about him, often feels like a narrative feature — one that engrosses even as its complex central figure defies full understanding.

First-rate assembly has a real dramatic grip as well as considerable lightheartedness, the obvious standout element being the large chunks of startling freefall and helicopter camera footage, both new and archival.

Though too insider-hip (and sometimes sexually graphic) a movie for more conservative viewers, this ingratiating and nuanced tale has plenty to offer those accepting of but not particularly knowledgeable about trans culture.

The endearing, guileless personalities of the two principals constitute much of the film’s appeal.

That writer-director Jeremy Hersh’s debut feature is a screen original surprises, not because it’s “stagy” (though he has written plays), but because its engagingly argumentative virtues aren’t typical for movies anymore, if they ever were.

This unclassifiable miniature involving a man in a trailer in the woods trying to contact the Dark Lord is as funny and distinctive as it is near-plotless.

This finely crafted docu may well long stand as the most balanced among such treatments, as it respectfully examines Sands’ folk-heroic legacy rather than simply amplifying it.

Offers lush and compelling drama drawn from Evelyn Waugh's beloved novel. Purists may blanch at the screenplay's changes to the source material's narrative fine points, but its spirit survives intact.

This small, tough film provides no easy solutions.

Comparisons do not come easy with Luz, an arresting first feature for German writer-director Tilman Singer that is equal measures demonic-possession thriller, experiment in formalist rigor, and flummoxing narrative puzzle-box.

The director shoots and cuts almost every scene so that the most innocuous action seems charged with the expectation that something awful is about to erupt, cranking viewer tension to an unpleasant degree.

Offers radical sexual politics in a jester's surprise package of impudent humor and Situationist-style found-footage monkeyshines.

A surprisingly cogent, entertaining, even rabble-rousing indictment of perhaps the most influential institutional model for our era.

In contrast to the very personal “Prodigal Sons,” Reed’s sophomore feature is straightforward reportage, telling a complex, multi-issue story with a large number of players, in admirably cogent terms.

This hectic pileup of supernatural nonsense is a treasure trove of seemingly unintentional hilarity. Although lacking helmer's usual aesthetic panache, this "Mother" is a cheesy, breathless future camp classic.

Zandvliet’s script and direction avoid milking an innately loaded situation for excess melodrama or pathos, sticking to a discreet economy of approach that accumulates considerable power.

As a self-aware guilty pleasure, The Belko Experiment may not quite seize greatness, but it does give it a playful squeeze.

Journey’s End never feels over-talkative, dull or even particularly claustrophobic. Much of the credit goes to the astute writing and punchy yet understated staging. But primarily, the film keeps audiences engrossed in the personalities involved, their fatigue, disillusionment and residual humanity, as well as the tenderness they extend towards one another where needed.

Good escapist entertainment, and the effect is ingratiating.

A real-life inspirational comedy that should beguile viewers regardless of their operatic taste (or distaste).

Canadian writer-director Stephen Dunn’s first feature treads no new ground in basic outline. But the risk-taking confidence with which he weaves in sardonic magical-realist elements, not to mention his unpredictable yet assured approaches to style and tone, make this a most auspicious debut.

Results may not be Nobel Prize material, but they're zesty and cogent.

There’s no lack of suspense, human interest or unique animal footage in this engrossing feature.

A grim diagnosis of a fast-spreading cancer, Against All Enemies may provide much less reassurance than cause for alarm, but its wakeup call is certainly worth heeding.

[An] engrossing documentary.

Following events over the course of several years, this cautionary tale has an impact not unlike watching the rise of similar anti-transparency policies and politicians elsewhere of late: dismaying, yet with all the lurid appeal and colorful personalities of any juicy public scandal.

Much humor and suspense is wrung from incidents that would be minuscule from anything but a child’s p.o.v., many repeated until they become ingenious running gags.

Acreditable mix of character study and thriller elements, Tim Hunter's The Maker skirts but manages to elude several current genre traps - particularly those cliches surrounding both angstful-teen dramas and hip neo-noirs.

Pearlstein’s very deft assembly manages to raise all these ideas and others for viewer consideration while underlining that there are few, if any, definitive responses to them.

An affectionate but aptly complex view of one of our epoch's great philosophers.

Structured by onscreen markers of the days passed, this nonfiction feature may not have a simple narrative arc, but the director’s unpretentious first-person narration and the intensity of the war-crimes evidence compiled make it riveting nonetheless.

A graceful, touching sampler of dilemmas few viewers are likely to have experienced, even as they become ever-more-common reality for the less fortunate in many nations.

The terrific DIG! offers a unique chance to watch two classic rock band scenarios unfold simultaneously.

This tale of a spaceship stuck wandering the cosmos after being forced off course is both impressive in its scope and intimate in its portrait of human nature under long-term duress.

This one is shorter and has fewer segments, but also earns a much higher batting average. In fact, there’s nary a dud among the four main tales (not including the titled bookends), which each whip elements of terror, macabre humor and the fantastical into a giddy frenzy.

Doesn’t always convince, particularly in the last lap. But it’s an engrossing, unusual, imaginatively executed bit of psychological gamesmanship nonetheless.