G. Allen Johnson

Although more Fiennes is always a good thing, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple simply doesn’t have the solid storytelling or enthralling characters that its predecessor has.

Like many first-person medical documentaries — such as the recent “Gleason” — Unrest can be really hard to watch. Brea’s film, though, might be the beginning of hope for millions of sufferers who might see the film, and could be a conversation starter for additional funding into research.

Waves is a movie that tears itself apart halfway through with an unspeakable act of violence, then miraculously heals itself. Whatever your reaction to this ambitious, boldly original and hard-hitting family drama, you could never accuse writer-director Trey Edward Shults of holding anything back. He leaves it all on the floor, as they say in basketball.

Invoking the seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments, nearly everyone has something to confess. In that sense, this new “Knives Out” isn’t just a whodunit, but a who-didn’t-do-it — spiritually speaking.

What makes it brilliant is that it demonstrates how universal this distinctly Jewish musical has become, how it has been embraced by many cultures and how it is still influential today.

Wenders structures the film episodically, so characters, such as a goofy co-worker, a homeless man and a suddenly appearing relative, come and go from Hirayama’s life. Thus the story relies on Yakusho to carry this movie, and that he does.

It is full of joy and laughter, as well as tears. It is about many things, among them sisterhood, the difficulties of parenting, processing trauma in a patriarchal society, and religious extremism. But most of all, it’s filled with life, and all the triumphs and pleasure, pain and disappointments that go with it.

Salles' solid narrative is only deceptively simple; there is a lot of dimension and depth to this gentle, sometimes painful portrait of two wanderers.

Jeffrey Wolf’s exceptional documentary Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts seeks to tells its subject’s story in a deeply personal way, while also pulling back when needed to contextualize his work.

Directed with a touch both delicate and muscular by the great Delmer Daves, it's truly a Western for those who don't like Westerns, and will be treasured by those that do. [02 Jun 2013, p.Q21]

It’s a probing, searching movie by one of the medium’s best American directors whose reach, like his protagonist’s, exceeds his grasp.

On the Beach at Night Alone is really Kim’s film. Her performance won her the best actress award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, and she is in every scene, warts and all.

An independent film so enamored of itself it refuses to have any fun.

In the Blink of an Eye proves yet again that Stanton is a dreamer, with an unshakeable faith in humanity. That’s not nothing.

Stolevski obviously wants us to sympathize with these wounded characters who have been shunted aside by a cruel society, but that’s hard to do when they are so verbally cannibalistic.

One of the most playful films about cinema in recent memory, and even with its angst, is more joyful than any film Bergman made on the island.

Although much of the footage is unseen, perhaps the freshest part of Apocalypse ’45 is hearing the veterans debate whether the U.S. should have dropped the atomic bombs, and how America has progressed in the decades since.

Adapted from Justin Torres’ debut novel from 2011, Zagar’s bravura direction, with a visual style by cinematographer Zak Mulligan, is lyrical and poetic in an approach that would suggest Terence Malick, complete with wistful narration by the film’s young protagonist.

Troubling and troubled.

So just showing a glacier breaking off, or a hurricane in full force, doesn’t prove there is climate change. Perhaps if Kossakovsky had provided some context — something to indicate this is happening more frequently, for example — Aquarela might have had more impact. Then it would have been more than just a series of pretty pictures.

The film details how constant propaganda, lies and outright gaslighting can effectively numb and coerce a populace.

In watching Ava, a visually inviting and sharp portrait of teenage life in Iran, one must admire how writer-director Sadaf Foroughi was able to play her own tune in life.

Babygirl likely will divide viewers, but no matter what side one takes — and despite a bit of a shaky denouement — it is more than just a provocative talker.

Midnight Traveler gets the bulk of its humanity from little Zahra and Nargis. The resilience of children is often amazing, and near the end of the film, when they play in the snow for the first time, you get a glimpse of hope for their futures.

Sean Mullin’s documentary It Ain’t Over is literally inside baseball. The film is essentially a Berra family project, an attempt to rehabilitate the professional reputation of someone who often doesn’t get his due as a player.

Bite the Bullet is epic Americana, gorgeously filmed, and a candidate for most underrated film of the 1970s. [10 Jun 2012, p.20]

The real reasons to see it are Barrymore, Barrymore and Crawford, the beating hearts of the picture. [21 Jun 2018, p.E5]

The late film critic Roger Ebert called movies an “empathy machine,” and “Io Capitano” stands as Garrone’s plea for empathy in a debate that sorely lacks it.

It is an important work, and a very good one.

Overall, Dolphin Reef is spectacular. The filmmaking team does an excellent job of detailing the delicate ecosystem that supports these creatures. Although Echo and his fellow dolphins are the stars, there is a vast supporting cast of humpback whales, sharks, razorfish, sea turtles, mantis shrimp, parrotfish.

Like practically every other animated movie meant for mass consumption, the movie gets lost in the chase — the point where story flow is interrupted so that characters get lost as they try to achieve their objective and a manufactured villain is trying to keep them from their goal.

Misses some creative opportunities to really drive this story home, but it's a naturally haunting story nonetheless.

The movie is nonetheless strongly written, with a game cast. Wu is especially a revelation, with a layered and often moving performance that shows off dramatic chops not seen by many of her fans.

There are painful moments in “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore,” and there are triumphs. But mostly, it is a film of grace and acceptance — a necessary portrait of a groundbreaking artist.

For the most part, The Painter and the Thief seems authentic, a very real portrait of two unique individuals. It not only explores the artistic impulse, but also issues of relationships, addiction and rehab. It also provides an interesting glimpse into the Norwegian prison system, which is geared toward rehabilitation rather than punishment.

While “André Is an Idiot” serves as a great reminder to schedule some basic health screenings, it also explores how best to find the quality of a life when its quantity is clearly defined.

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie is irresistible. While his Alex P. Keaton of “Family Ties” and Marty McFly of “Back to the Future” are beloved characters, the actor who gave them life is much more interesting and real.

Sr. is elegiac in tone, often moving, with moments of irreverence and humor.

With “After Yang,” the distinctive filmmaker Kogonada has made a movie that is at once ambitious yet timid, asking big questions but providing no answers, not even clues. It’s a thought experiment, but a thought that meanders.

Price has given us Yelchin’s most complete performance: himself. It is a cinematic gift to contemporary film fans everywhere.

Girl Picture excels at showing how teenage life can be a sensory experience that’s exhilaratingly joyful and unbearably painful, sometimes simultaneously.

The Ballad of Wallis Island isn’t a great film, and it is exceedingly predictable. But like its musician heroes, it plays its notes well, and in a movie landscape often pockmarked with violence and cynicism, it’s a welcome escape.

Bathtubs Over Broadway rediscovers the forgotten world of industrial musicals through rare recordings and film clips, and it is as smoothly entertaining as showbiz set piece, and at times flat-out funny.

Not only a portrait of a great artist, but a sensitive and engrossing depiction of the act of creation and its process.

Bloody good.

If nothing else, The Human Factor demonstrates the tall task that awaits President Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken. Good luck.

The film, “based on the incredible true story” that happened in 2014, is an efficient, fun but by-the-numbers movie that has the distinction of being shot on location in the Dominican Republic, which looks quite lovely onscreen.

If you know the Dracula legend, you know what comes next. “Nosferatu,” which also was remade by Werner Herzog in 1979, is therefore somewhat predictable. But the images and performances are so riveting that it doesn't matter.

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It has a lot of star power: Spielberg, Gloria Estefan, Eva Longoria, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Whoopi Goldberg and her Electric Company co-star Morgan Freeman. But none outshine the feisty subject herself.

Gladstone (“Under the Bridge”), Oscar-nominated for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is the heart and soul of “Fancy Dance,” which in other hands might have been a noirish thriller. But writer-director Erica Tremblay has something else in mind: a finely crafted drama about a woman and her niece who are unwilling to let the hopelessness of her situation define her.

A bleak, at times fascinating but strangely inert Chinese animated film.

A quite interesting and irresistible movie, a sort of cross between Paul Schrader’s recent film of spiritual crisis, “First Reformed,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can.” An impostor as anguished priest.

Still, I’m not sure Kiarostami really intended this film to be a movie. It seems more like an art installation. Of note is the terrific sound design; the sound is credited to Ensieh Maleki, who captures full, rich, peaceful sounds of nature.

Bolt tries mightily to make this weighty subject digestible to the average civilian, with some fancy, intricate animated sequences to show us how CRISPR and DNA manipulation work, and while I can’t say I came away from this film being able to coherently explain it, Human Nature works as a glimpse into possible futures and a moral dilemma that doesn’t have easy answers.

It’s as if someone made a backstage musical without any musical numbers, just the backstage part.

Centuries ago, the heath lands of Denmark were rough-hewn, expansive and notoriously unforgiving. In the new Danish film “The Promised Land,” those words could also describe the face of its star, Mads Mikkelsen. One of the great visages in movies, it has a landscape all its own.

Now "Rod Tidwell," with Jerry Maguire as a supporting character, would be a movie to pay to see.

It’s a masterpiece of a family popcorn movie, with eye-popping hand-crafted production design and outstanding creature design and puppetry work. This is the kind of movie that could have been made in the era of moon landings and space shuttles, when the general public found science trustworthy and wondrous.

Just to re-emphasize, Relic is not a documentary about dementia, or a medically accurate look at the disease in the way that films such as “Away from Her” with Julie Christie or “Still Alice” with Julianne Moore were. It is a film that springs from the id, from deep-seated fear of a disease we don’t fully understand.

Leaning Into the Wind asks us to appreciate art for art’s sake, and that’s not a tough ask at all.

As always in Carney’s films, the music is emotional and lovely, with instruments played by its actors. The songs feel like they’re improvised on the spot, and Dublin is as inviting of a setting as usual.

That’s a strength in this documentary. It becomes clear that it’ll take a strongman to bring down a strongman, at least in this case.

What we get are quirky characters who are such cartoons that they undermine the effectiveness of the scare scenes (Brad Dourif's turn as the weird doctor is an example) and well-composed camera angles that mean nothing.

Girls of the Sun has an air of authenticity and grit that’s convincing, and Farahani, an Iranian-born actress, makes us care.

Even as everyone’s plans unravel, the film does not. The script, by Ed Solomon, is sharp, as is Soderbergh’s direction.

Cholodenko's strategy of having the actors, in every scene -- whether it involves Lucy, the boyfriend or the Frame editors -- perform with an intonational flatness approaching monotone pretentiously undermines the effectiveness of her subject matter.

This movie has everything but Humphrey Bogart, and I'm sure he's sorry he was unavailable.

Call it Buñuel meets Blumhouse, a film that is flawed but so full of ideas that it doesn’t matter.

Deneuve has fun with her best role in years.

Women’s sports owes a debt to Shields. She finally has a movie that gives her deserved flowers.

Every character, even minor ones, is well thought out and cast; the eye-popping visual design is not only inspired and mesmerizing but also functional; and memorable songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and others complement the story perfectly.

It's a more intelligent and dimensional epic than, say, "Anna and the King." Emperor is worth every single penny.

Happiness might remain elusive in Nico’s last years, but after years of loneliness and fading fame, at least she can catch a glimpse from time to time.

No amount of excellent period costuming and brilliant set decoration can substitute for a good story and decent acting.

There isn't a whole lot of fancy subplotting, just a potpourri of funny and engaging characters.

Bring Her Back belongs in the trapped-in-a-house subgenre of horror, but it has a creepy psychological depth and is filled with disturbing but impressively composed images. It really gets under your skin.

Sure to be an instant animated classic as it expertly balances emotion, humor and social politics amid a backdrop of surreal, eye-popping visual beauty.

A film with no context, it is a sporadically interesting, overlong look at the legend as she nears 70, still performing before her legions of fans.

Diamantino is one of those movies that looks super fun to make but is mind-numbing to actually watch.

They Cloned Tyrone can be heavy-handed times and runs a bit long, but the committed performances of its plucky triumvirate of stars go a long way toward the fun.

Despite its outlandish conceits, it is grounded in sisterhood. As bloody as it is, the pain the girls dish out to each other is nothing compared to the trauma they’ve experienced.

In the face of this relentless nihilism, it’s quite an achievement that the new documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste is so darned entertaining and hopeful, as well as informative.

So it’s not my bag, but I went into Jackass Forever with the best intentions.

May be the funniest movie about parental and spousal abuse ever made.

As the documentary was produced by National Geographic with the cooperation of the Cousteau Society, Garbus has access to some fabulous, colorfully restored footage, some of it never before seen, that makes this an eye-popping experience — in theaters especially.

The Val Kilmer we meet has been in the arena, realizes he has been lucky despite the hard knocks, and has now achieved what we hope is a lasting peace. His physical voice might be gone, but his inner voice still has much to say.

A must-see documentary about not just a would-be assassin and moment in American history, but a snapshot of the Bay Area during turbulent times.

The depth of [Thorne's] characters, brought to life by a terrific cast, and tactile world building are what set 40 Acres apart. The setting feels authentic; you could imagine yourself living on this farm with this family.

Ultimately, the film does its job with skill and heart.

It is quite simply one of the great “making of” documentaries of all-time — a short list that includes the George Hickenlooper-Eleanor Coppola documentary “Hearts of Darkness.”

Overall a well-played chess match of a movie.

Will & Harper works best when the serious issues that confront trans people are openly discussed, from acceptance to mental health issues and the simple problems of daily living.

A warm-hearted valentine to old traditions in China that are being obliterated by modern - and admittedly more efficient - technology.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is provocative and irritating — and intentionally so. That makes it particularly annoying, because even as you’re provoked and irritated, you are also aware that writer-director Radu Jude wanted you to feel that way.

The movie is predictable at times, but also winning, with a thumping soundtrack and smartly written characters. Ortega, with his Peter-from-“Office Space”-deer-in-the-headlights look, is the movie’s appealing center.

POSITIVE vibes aside, Down in the Delta is fairly simple stuff, with acting that at times sinks to the dialogue-of-agreement level of those after-school specials a network used to run a while back. But it will go down in history as the first film to be directed by Maya Angelou, and it isn't a bad one at that.

It’s a well-made film in many ways but also frustratingly skin-deep for a news junkie like me.

Climate change is never explicitly mentioned in the documentary The Biggest Little Farm, one of the year’s best films, but it hangs all over the deep, rich story of the Chesters, a pair of hardscrabble idealists who move from the concrete jungle of Santa Monica to start a 200-acre, sustainable farm from scratch.