Derek Elley

Boal's script stirs a little of everything into the pot, which boils down into seven setpieces divided by brief intervals of camaraderie/conflict among the three protags.

A stunning feature -- another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation.

Result is always watchable, occasionally creepy and teasingly pitched halfway between a genre riff and a genuine scarefest.

Despite engaging performances from a cast led by Matthew Rhys and Kate Ashfield and pro direction by first-timer Richard Janes, yarn about art grifters lacks real snap, which ultimately stems from the so-so script and lack of real coin.

Tradition and informality collide -- and mutually benefit -- in the deliciously written and expertly played The Queen.

Superbly cast drama… that looks to be a solid upscale attraction wherever the special chemistry of good writing and performances is appreciated.

The tangled tale of love and disguise is awesome in its action sequences but doesn't touch the heart to the same degree.

Kore-eda sketches the inner, spiritual and emotional lives of the children with subtlety and sensitivity, delivering the goods after a seemingly directionless first half.

An exquisite reflection on personal bereavement.

A family ensembler of utter simplicity, Oliver Assayas' Summer Hours is a salutory (and belated) reminder that, as with his earlier Cold Water and Late August, Early September, some of this writer-director's best work comes in modest packages.

Superbly cast drama, in which the lives and emotional arcs of six people -- four Turks and two Germans -- criss-cross through love and tragedy.

Visceral, torn-from-the-memory filmmaking that packs every punch except one to the heart, Lebanon is the boldest and best of the recent mini-wave of Israeli pics ("Beaufort," "Waltz With Bashir") set during conflicts between the two countries.

A sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie reflecting one man's life journey.

Sports a stronger narrative spine than is usual in Vietnamese rural dramas and a less fragile tone in its deployment of landscape and character.

A dazzlingly lensed, highly stylized meditation on heroism.

A rough, gritty, often scabrously humorous tribute.

Rarely has a book sprung so vividly to life, but also worked so enthrallingly in pure movie terms, as with Atonement, Brit helmer Joe Wright’s smart, dazzlingly upholstered adaptation of Ian McEwan’s celebrated 2001 novel.

Leigh’s gallery of haves and have-nots, of emotional anorexics and exploited deadbeats, carries a strong political charge that’s there for the taking. But the pic also plays simply as a black, offbeat comedy with a romantic undertow.

On almost every level, there's never quite been a monster movie like The Host. Egregiously subverting its own genre while still delivering shocks at a pure genre level, and marbled with straight-faced character humor that constantly throws the viewer off balance.

Strength of Davies’ vision is the crux, and it holds the line to the final, confident fadeout.

Largely thanks to the snappy editing, short scenes and a strong cast led by a matronly Deveuve and Amalric's enjoyable perf as the black sheep of the family, A Christmas Tale never devolves into a tedious two-and-a-half hours of self-examination. But it also never goes very far, either.

Picture more than delivers on the action front -- not in bang-for-your-buck spectacle but in the kind of gritty, doculike sequences that haul viewers out of their seats and alongside the main protags.

A seductively lensed but emotionally uninvolving drama about two male Peking Opera stars and the ex-prostie who comes between them, Chen Kaige's fourth feature, Farewell to My Concubine, reps a stylistic U-turn compared with his earlier abstract parables like Life on a String and Yellow Earth.

Neither pure masala musical nor pure masala meller, Lagaan is an involving, easily digestible hunk of pure entertainment that could be the trigger for Bollywood's long-awaited crossover to non-ethnic markets.

There’s plenty of unvarnished, off-the-wall Irish humor, especially in the ensemble scenes of family life and boozy barroom chat, plus real warmth beneath the rough one-liners.

Though the movie sounds irredeemably depressing on paper, there’s a real warmth to the central relationship that lifts “Ladybird” above similar-sounding exercises in Brit self-loathing.

A treat, a delicious blend of perversity, playfulness and deadly passion concealed beneath the tranquil, moneyed surface of the Swiss bougeoisie.

Opening half-hour has some of the best stuff in the movie, walking a precarious line between black irony and showing the war from a totally German viewpoint, without tipping over into gallows humor or parody.

A powerful, slow-burning portrait of human fallibility.

A movie for the age, and a keeper for the ages, Pride & Prejudice brings Jane Austen's best-loved novel to vivid, widescreen life, as well as making an undisputed star of 20-year-old Keira Knightley.

Though tastily lensed and with a convincing cast led by Cillian Murphy, essentially small-scale picture lacks the involving sweep of Loach's earlier historical-political yarn, "Land and Freedom."

Not so much a Hitler movie as a portrait of a totalitarian machine's spiritual and emotional collapse, Downfall is a cumulatively powerful Goetterdammerung centered on the last 10 days of the bunkered Fuehrer and those around him.

Direction, performances and lensing blend into an immensely satisfying, if almost uncategorizable, whole in Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love.

Engaging chemistry between leads Emmanuelle Devos and Vincent Cassel.

A sustained genre parody that's equally funny but (maybe in deference to the genre) much more pumped up.

The Wedding Banquet slides down easily even if it doesn't leave much aftertaste.

Has almost zero plot but molto mood. It will appeal to the most faithful of the director's camp-followers and no one else.

Precision lensing by Benoit Delhomme, and charming, contained playing by the amateur cast, add up to a tasty package.

Rarely has a veteran filmmaker rejuvenated his career to such startling effect as John Boorman with The General, a fresh-off-the-slab biopic of maverick Irish crime lord Martin Cahill that both challenges and entertains the audience at a variety of levels, as well as reviving the vitality of the helmer's earliest, mid-'60s pics.

Pic's potentially inspiring story too often remains grounded by a problematic script and unshapely direction.

The film spins a beguiling web of detail that builds to a surprisingly throat-clutching finish.

A marked strength of the movie is that it does succeed in making the unlikely central love affair believable within its own universe.

A mildly entertaining but dramatically messy kidpic.

Ultimately, this is a striking-looking film -- consciously recalling the paintings of Edward Hopper in its architectural use of space -- which, like its protag, is a little short on real feeling.

Though there's nothing here that hasn’t been dealt with in other Japanese movies, picture benefits considerably from its pitch-perfect performances.

Combo of some stunning animal direction (courtesy of ace trainer Thierry Le Portier) and exotic period setting somewhere in French colonial Indochina charms when the quadripeds stalk the action but creaks when the bipeds open their mouths.

Slight but sleek, Flirt is still fun.

Despite its merits, is neither an art movie nor an out-and-out, propulsive actioner like "Shiri."

Though it won't appeal to everyone, the concoction actually works, thanks to Huppert and Greggory's powerful negative chemistry.

Often enjoyable, massively uneven Brit ganglander with an almost surreal approach to the genre.

A movie that is utterly engrossing despite being, on the surface, about very little.

Fourth feature by Mainland helmer Lou Ye ("Suzhou River," "Purple Butterfly") shoots for metaphysical drama but ends up saying very little beneath all the poetic voiceovers, sexual encounters and political seasoning.

Key casting is aces, led by a deglammed Kim, forcefully low-key as the mother who seems capable of anything to protect her son.

Often nastily violent, and defiantly foul-mouthed in a realistic but dramatically unnecessary way, this portrait of a ruthless young hood in '60s London has several fine qualities but dilutes them with disorganized direction.

A full-bore zombie romp that more than delivers the genre goods.

Visually detailed but emotionally dry.

Overall, Wong’s movie doesn’t leave as big a wash behind it as the more ambitious “Days” and his “Mean Streets”-like debut, “As Tears Go By,” but it’s an enjoyable cruise.

Has a low-key power that comes as much from its off-handed approach to the dark material as from any manipulative techniques.

A wild, intensely cinematic ride into two men's burning desire to get even.

A warm, often invigorating and ultimately moving ode to community values.

The overall effect simply underlines the central weakness of the pic: that the neo-kitschy futuristic scenes don't add much to the real-life '60s relationships.

Devoid of genuine inspiration or involving character development.

A true original…Beautifully shot, full of droll humor and at 77 minutes never overstaying its welcome.

Immaculately shot and composed as always, and moving at Ceylan's usual measured pace, this one is slightly enlivened by more likable perfs and a trim 98-minute running time.

Triad oozes a confidence that carries the viewer almost without pause to its shocking climax and ironic close.

What the picture most needed was a complete cinematic rethink and, yes, even some action to move it along.

Recognizably Godard with its playfulness and wordplays, but deeply human at the same time.

One of the most highly crafted pics in recent memory, and certainly the most original in vision of the 23 features competing at Cannes this year, Songs From the Second Floor rapidly wears out its welcome after the first few reels to finish up as a perplexing objet d'art.

An epic story of mismatched love shaped in the most intimate terms, the Ingmar Bergman-scripted The Best Intentions packs a sustained emotional wallop that lightens its three-hour span.

Highly enjoyable when all its gears are clicking, but rarely as good as it should be.

Admirably balanced production that pulls the curtain back slightly on a little-charted period of modern Chinese history.

A classic example of a clever idea that could easily have run out of steam halfway. However, co-scripters Pegg and Wright structure it as a classic three-acter (set-up, journey, finale) with enough twists, character development and small set pieces to keep the comedy boiling.

Despite its large cast and complex criss-crossing from past to present, the movie rarely catches fire as an involving human drama.

A deliciously observed, ironic take on middle-class Austrian life through an introverted teen's eyes, "Lovely Rita" reps a strong step up to the feature plate by 28-year-old Jessica Hausner after a couple of well-remarked shorts.

A triumph on the casting side but less so dramatically, Richard Eyre's Iris fails to do full justice to its subject.

A portrait of a contempo British family drifting apart because of generational differences, The Mother ends up an uneasy brew of too many competing tastes and themes.

An ace performance by 26-year-old Julia Jentsch ("The Edukators," "Snowland"), as the quietly determined Munich student who was beheaded for distributing counter-propaganda leaflets in 1943, gives pic a focused dramatic power.

As shocking and deliberately manipulative as the original movie and -- some may reckon -- even more pointless.

A string of striking set pieces hung on a dramatically shaky clothesline.

There's no shortage of disaster stories in the history of film production, but none have been recorded with such frankness, immediacy and aching sense of disappointment.

Pic is superbly honed at both script and performance levels, with character taking precedence over action.

A wildly inventive, highly cinematic director's showcase that looks likely, at least in the West, to enthuse fans of Asian -- especially Korean -- genre movies more than general auds.

This slyly humorous, cleverly constructed comedy-drama wends its way through different takes on similar time frames to a warm, inclusive ending.

Result is far more accessible than Jia's previous two pictures, with moments of genuine emotion by the real-life interviewees.

A haunted-house one-trick pony.

Bright and sassy, The Full Monty is a treat.

Pleasant and engaging, rather than laugh-out-loud funny or emotionally involving.

Makes engrossing viewing for much of the way...but stumbles dramatically in its final leg.

A terrific performance by young actress Patricia Kovacs makes the high-stakes gamble of Down by Love -- a light psychodrama almost entirely centered on one character in an apartment -- into an engrossing 90-odd minutes.

There's no shortage of existing docus on the subject, and Panh's doesn't bring either a fresh enough angle or enough new material to the table to justify its length.

Always imaginative, often arresting, but sometimes just too clever by half.

What makes Serenity refreshing is its avoidance of CGI, which gives the pic a much more human dimension; the evident chemistry between the cast; and a humor that doesn't rely simply on flip one-liners.

A thinly scripted mood piece centered on an estranged fortysomething among vacationing friends in Italy, Unrelated doesn’t carry the viewer along with its protag’s emotional problems.

As in "Divine," there's an uneven quality to Suleiman's often surreal ideas, but in general there are way more hits than misses this time round, some of them laugh-out-loud.

Maintains a bankable charm and innocence even when overdrawn on the special effects side.

A sprightly acted, warm and often extremely funny ensemble comedy.

Highly engaging, beautifully played romancer.

Gotham-based documaker Laura Poitras ("Flag Wars") comes up with a still-timely, quietly hard-hitting look at the Iraqi situation with My Country, My Country, focusing on the lead-up to and outcome of the Jan. 30, 2005, Iraq election.