G. Allen Johnson

The issues of aging and familial relationships and the appealing nature of this family would make “Our Time Machine” worthy of a look in any case, but what puts it over the top is Maleonn’s fascinating visual inventions.

The new version excels because it makes its teenage protagonist deeper and more mature — and its monsters extra frightening.

Parasite, Bong Joon-ho’s latest masterpiece and the best film I’ve seen so far this year, is about two families of four at opposite ends of the economic spectrum, and how the one on the lower end systematically takes over the lives of the other.

The film is an excellent reminder of how important soccer is globally. It’s more than a sport.

The film’s writer-director is British-born Sabrina Doyle, who is making her feature debut after spending the past decade in Los Angeles making short films. Her touch is nearly perfect: authentic, patient, guiding — giving her actors plenty of space. And they respond.

A moving, quite amazing documentary.

Aftersun is a film about memory and regret, of finding small islands of warmth and happiness and holding on; a movie that beautifully struggles to say what is unsaid.

Deneuve has fun with her best role in years.

Bad Axe is a raw and stunning work of immediacy, a frontlines report from Trump country on the immigrant experience, family loyalty and community co-existence. It is not just among the finest and most important films of the year, but it will stand as a valuable historical and social document of these times.

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

Kiarostami's genius is elusive. His films may be unknowable, but they are undeniably hypnotic, charismatic.

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.

The brilliance of Dark Waters is that it is able to lay out the case against DuPont without getting too wonky.

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.

The effect is riveting and frightening. You feel you are under siege with the combatants.

Athlete A gives us the story behind the story. It’s a terrific journalism movie, but it’s also a story of young women who persevered and found justice against the odds.

But perhaps the most affectingly weird and most unforgettable performance comes from Penn. There is nothing redeemable about his character, and the actor plays him like Javier Bardem’s unstoppable assassin in the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men”.

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

To watch Ozu's films is to watch elegant simplicity, although they are meticulously complex. It's even a relaxing experience - you can almost feel your heart rate lowering - yet there is much human drama on the screen, and much wisdom.

Hurry Up Tomorrow, is a risk-taking experience, a David “Lynchian” fever dream of a movie that’s as visually marvelous as it is head-scratching. It’s a “Purple Rain” for the “Euphoria” generation, and you can’t take your eyes off it.

The genius of “Skincare” is how it uses Los Angeles and its image- and celebrity-driven culture as a metaphor for empty lives.

It is possibly Kurosawa's most underrated masterpiece, rich in characterization and structure, yet lost in the shuffle among such classics as "Rashomon" and "Seven Samurai." [14 Sep 2008, p.N31]

[Apichatpong’s] films are well-thought-out experiences, unique, disciplined, gorgeously composed and irascibly moving to their own rhythm. What sets Memoria apart from his other work is a new setting: Colombia.

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]

Durham’s direction is sensitive and assured, and he does a great job mixing his location work with archival footage to create an authentic sense of what San Francisco was like during those times. This is not one of those movies that shoots in the city for two days then absconds to Vancouver for the rest of the shoot. This is a Bay Area movie through and through.

An entirely unconventional, hypnotic, meandering 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.

Minghella is an artist and he has painted himself a masterpiece.