Ella Taylor

This divinely eccentric movie feels as if it came straight to the screen from one man’s wild and wantonly free imagination.

Ceylan’s departure from his moody sonatas "Distant" and "Climates" into more plotted film noir is equal parts Bresson and Buñuel, a merciless etching of the indiscreet charmlessness of the Turkish bourgeoisie, which sharply raises the stakes on that class’s petty hypocrisy and serial betrayals.

Birth may be the most futile application of cinematic and acting skill I've seen all year. A little "Twilight Zone" flummery would have livened up the proceedings to no end.

The bloom is off the rose due to cynical rehash.

World Trade Center is fatally benign -- an unexceptionable and therefore unexceptional heroic narrative that does little to further the tentative creep of our pop culture toward parsing the significance of that catastrophic day.

This delightful and compassionate romp achieves precisely that rare quality -- grace -- that sets Betty apart from the pack.

Call Lovely, Still life-affirming if you must, but its uplift is designed less to reassure than to honor the difficult process of how we deal when faced with the loss of those we have loved.

Easily the most brilliant of the genuflections bestowed on the American gangster movie by the French New Wave.

Surprises you with a kind of hardheaded romanticism.

Douchebag has the intensity and taut circularity of a short story told with economy and style.

A delicate mood piece that owes much of its languorous charm to the understated intelligence of its two leads.

This highly entertaining spin on eco-catastrophe could turn the most meteorologically challenged among us into Weather Channel freaks.

Though it's not much more than an haute-bourgeois morality play about the inadequacy of bourgeois morals, that's plenty in view of the small but terrific ensemble at Fellowes' disposal.

Meet Joe Black is a hefty three hours long, and just so you know, it is at least two before Claire Forlani, as the Parrish daughter, Susan, unbuttons Pitt's shirt.

Subtle distinctions have not been Costa-Gavras' long suit, but urgency becomes him in this forceful and intelligent evocation.

Far from a spontaneous movie -- the passage of this relationship is mapped from the get-go -- but it is warm and deep, and its visual style bespeaks a new maturity in Leconte.

Isn't much more than a proficient gothic mystery with a final twist that offers a satisfying little frisson before you start counting how many times it's been used before.

Nielsen beautifully embodies the sadness and confused sense of unreality that attend our appetite for the Internet's cheaper thrills.

Gluck, an oral historian, has the magpie eye of a born collector of objects, people and ideas, a cheeky appreciation for the ironies life drops on us, and enough of an open mind to let her odyssey lead her where it may.

More than anything, though, Living in Emergency leaves us wanting to know more about what makes these four people tick differently from the rest of us -- we who balk at anything riskier than signing petitions and joining Facebook protest groups.

There's nothing particularly wrong with this movie, except that it's too nice for words.

Cast for fun, and the whimsy is enjoyable both for its parody of heavy-handed "relevant" updates of the play.

Audaciously conceived, yet at times curiously flat, at others incongruously prosaic in its emotional tone.

Ruiz is so intent on harnessing the painter to his own -- here, rather arid -- relativism that he never manages to convey the unfettered eros that brings crowds flocking to exhibitions of Klimt’s work, even as critics hold their noses.

Slight but immensely enjoyable charmer.

As their extraordinarily brave black female attorney points out, at stake are not merely the rights of this family or indeed of all white farmers, but the future of race relations and human rights in Africa.

Lohan is a warm and engaging presence, but she's completely outshone by the bad girls, and when they're offscreen, Mean Girls is an oddly restrained, barely plotted movie.

Almost nothing comes as a surprise in this stately old fogy of a movie. The pacing is glacial, the screenplay is stiff as a board, and things heat up only in the movie's final scenes.