G. Allen Johnson

Young Hearts is a film that doesn’t traffic in big plot twists or dramatic reveals. It’s a film that treasures fragile thoughts and feelings, rare in a film these days.

Visually, Bi is already a master. There are amazing shots that recall Tarkovsky (especially “Stalker,” an acknowledged influence), or early Wong Kar-Wai.

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

About as warm, pleasing and inviting as a film about divorce, infidelity and terminal cancer can be.

Still, I Am Woman, while it doesn’t roar, effectively tells Reddy’s story and speaks strongly about the women’s movement and the struggle that continues.

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.

The strength of Fauci is its underlying theme, which is really not about Fauci at all. Hoffman and Tobias jump back and forth in time, from the AIDS to Ebola to the COVID years, and surreptitiously a portrait emerges of the uneasy relationship between the scientific community, the general public and the political establishment.

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.

After watching Spaceship Earth, which was completed before the coronavirus pandemic, one can’t help but think about the current experiment conducted by Biosphere 1. As smog clears across urban landscapes due to stay-at-home orders, the vision — and the warnings — laid out by Biosphere 2 remain relevant.

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.

This is a funny and moving crowd-pleaser — a South by Southwest and Sundance selection, it won the audience award at the Napa Valley Film Festival and was an opening night film at S.F. IndieFest — and it goes down easy.

Directed by Everardo Gout, The Forever Purge is non-stop action, which is fine because the script by series creator James DeMonaco, who directed the first three films, never plumbs the depths of its clever concept. The intense, appealing performances by the lead actors get us through.

Polly Findlay’s adaptation of Bernard MacLaverty’s 2017 novel is a serious attempt to delve into a complex marriage, and fortunately for such heavy material it contains two winning performances from Manville (so delightful in “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris”) and Hinds (“Is This Thing On?”).

Bong has an original vision and a distinctive style that’s not to be dismissed. He’s our era’s Terry Gilliam, where hope pushes through the tragicomic nihilism.

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.

The weird thing about the films David Mamet has directed is that they have about as much emotion as a cyborg in a science fiction movie, yet by the end of the picture it isn't necessary; by then the audience has supplied their own.

The Space Race is an illuminating, absorbing film about an underreported storyline in our astronaut programs.

There is a point of view here, a rather strong one. It may sound like slight praise, but Love Jones is a movie that is exactly what it wants to be, and that's an achievement in a homogenized, test-marketed vanilla-movie landscape.

Co-directed by Emily Kassie, “Sugarcane” – which won a directing prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January and won the Golden Gate documentary award at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April – contains stunning natural beauty and painful revelations.

The Thursday Murder Club is solid entertainment, as sweet and sugary as one of Joyce’s irresistible cakes.

The emphasis is on comedic interaction, not plot - too bad, "48 HRS" had both - but the pair adds spice to the predictable opposites-detract gags.

The wordless, elderly Kiefer is enigmatic, and a bit intimidating. His work is impressive, though, especially in 3D.

One can’t but admire the resilience of the film’s subjects, and when the story turns to the dedicated army of teachers in programs such as the Children’s Literacy Project (teachakidtoread.com), it becomes downright positive.

There's not a whole lot to Waking Ned Devine, but it may be enough for those who like their quirky comedies from the British Isles - a burgeoning genre now - both atmospheric and gentle.

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

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

Petra Costa’s documentary “Apocalypse in the Tropics” — which not only details Bolsonaro’s rise and fall but how democracies can be subverted and dismantled — is pretty timely.

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.