Farran Smith Nehme

It’s not a documentary, it isn’t entertainment, and aside from Chung’s intelligent, dignified performance, this sure as heck isn’t art.

Ultimately, this film reveals the Israeli self-image, but not much more. The people with the cameras pass by Arab neighbors, and what the Palestinians’ home movies might look like remains unexplored.

The crime and aftermath (based on a real story) are the best parts by far, but these come well after many overextended scenes of selfish, squalid people treating one another like dirt.

Tilda Swinton narrates this oddball, meandering essay film.

Directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly overload their too-long film with subplots. Yet the actors — including a terrific Aiden Gillen (“Game of Thrones”) as Casper’s no-good father — perform as though unaware that any of this is a cliché.

Directors Matthew Pond and Kirk Marcolina wisely keep this unrepentant charmer, in her 80s during filming, on-camera, save for when they’re interviewing fascinated writers and fed-up prosecutors.

Labyrinth of Lies hits every genre cliché, from the mawkish score to the no-dialogue-montage-of-tragedy. Perhaps inevitably, it’s Germany’s submission for the best foreign film Oscar.

It's never dull though, and the familiar characters and stock motivations are convincingly put across. And there's always Xu, who's turned to acupuncture to suppress his empathy, as you wait for the inevitable moment when suppressing it won't be enough.

Gibran’s book was huge in the 1960s, and it feels fresher here than it has in ages, although the visuals are stronger than the music.

Now, here’s the trilogy’s second installment, in which the jolly Austrian makes it clear that women of a certain age do not have his permission to overdo it with religion, either.

The filmmaking style is practically nonexistent: interviews and static shots of the performers onstage. They are thoughtful and often funny, especially Mat Fraser, a British man whose arms were damaged by Thalidomide, and Julia Atlas Muz, the off-stage partner with whom he often performs.

There are a handful of moments to entrance a non-fan. When the musicians and singers assemble to sing “Proserpina,” the last song McGarrigle ever wrote, with its haunting refrain (“Come home to Mama”), the effect is transcendent.

When The Last Gladiators treats brawls like greatest-hits clips for more than half the movie, then suggests fighting is behind Nilan's decline, it feels like trying to have it both ways.

Somehow, mostly through the impassioned performances of its young actors, the film finds its footing in the third act, as the narration goes quiet and tragedy unfolds with precision, even elegance.

The final scenes, when Mancini meets Kim’s son, have the awkward feel of an “Oprah” episode, with the editing and music suggesting a catharsis that isn’t always backed up by what’s on-screen.

The film has all the incessant showiness that can make Greenaway irksome: split screens, CGI, deliberately alienating performances. But the man loves a beautiful shot and a witty line; those are the things that carry the film.

Things go awry in the last act, as the movie stops dead for more songs and a tragic coda that seems forced and trite, rather than the three-hankie finale we've all earned. Still, Cumming is wonderful.

The movie was always going to be a record of another unique New York institution, making way for another glass box.

There are so many echoes of “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” that it starts to feel like a barely disguised sequel. But those reminders, and the rather trite journey-of-self plot, are just decoration. This tender film works to remind us of how much we still love Deneuve, and succeeds in scene after scene.

This is a handsome movie, rich in period detail, but the stately pace slows to a crawl in the second half.

The first half has erratic pacing, but past the midpoint the film roars into action. Dornan is monotonous, but Murphy is intense enough for them both; side romances for the men feel phony but apparently are based in fact.

The real unflinching truth is that an average newspaper reporter can do a more artful, compassionate job with a drug-war story than this movie does.

The tone teeters between delicate and affected, and there’s only so much flitting around and soulful stares a movie can sustain before an audience starts wanting something more earthbound.

By the movie’s end, the party guests may be ready to dance the hora — or they may find themselves sitting this one out. “Hava” will have its revenge, however: It’s still stuck in my head.

More a tribute to youth and its discontents than a fresh exploration.

This morbid, cruel movie seems leached of all things that might inadvertently give viewers pleasure.

Toward the end, despite the wintry script and chilly acting, some emotion begins to break through. But it’s never a good sign when the art direction offers more fascination than the sex.

The sincerity and simplicity of the film, however, lift it somewhat above the ordinary run.