G. Allen Johnson

A penetrating study of the subjectivity of truth and perception, changed cinema forever and inspired the phrase "the Rashomon effect."

Kurosawa pulled out all the stops with Ran, his obsession with loyalty and his love of expressionistic film techniques allowed to roam freely.

A sweaty-browed exercise in precision filmmaking, but one that doesn't cheat you with wisps of tension and the pretense of attitude.

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.

Excited with the possibilities of the relatively young film medium, Russia's Dziga Vertov took to the streets of Moscow, Odessa and Kiev to give us a portrait of an ever-changing world that is more essay than documentary. It's a 1929 silent film that added its punctuation in the lab - jump cuts, dissolves, split screens, etc. - to create an indelible work in cinema history. [13 Apr 2017, p.E8]

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”.

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.

A fascinating documentary that seems to unfold over real time.

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

Ultimately, Marriage Story celebrates life and the journeys all of us are on. Noah Baumbach is the writer-director, and to watch such an incisive, deep-feeling script be given life by actors — Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and those around them — at the top of their game is to rediscover movies as a powerful medium of personal expression.

Blanchett is so convincing, and Field’s approach is so authentic, that it feels like an event, not just a movie.

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.

[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.

Leigh has a gift for demonstrating character from the outside in.

The most passionate love affair in The Souvenir is with film. Hogg utilizes an almost cinema verite style, with a visual look of the grainy kind of 16mm film an ’80s film school student would work with. Her style is reminiscent of early Olivier Assayas or Éric Rohmer’s “The Green Ray” (1986), an acknowledged influence.

The second-half of Burning is allegorical and intentionally obtuse. It’s intriguing, even. But it all leads to an ending that satisfies no one, especially after 2½ hours.

Like Yûsuke’s beloved classic Saab 9000 that Misaki drives ever so carefully, Drive My Car moves ahead with smooth confidence and a fine-tuned reliability.

"The Big Sleep" and "The Maltese Falcon" echo loudly throughout.

Powered by the great Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov ("The Cranes Are Flying") and the unmatched handheld black-and-white cinematography of Sergei Urusevsky, it is one of the most visually hypnotic films ever -- and that's not hyperbole.

The Boy and the Heron is unquestionably a personal vision, with its own internal logic. It has a direct conduit with the mind of its creator, who happens to be a genius and one of the best to ever do it. If this is it for Miyazaki, well, what a finish.

Panah Panahi, making his feature debut with Hit the Road, definitely inherited his old man’s trouble-making genes. His eye for composition is accomplished, but the movie meanders and the pacing sometimes drags. The problem, of course, is the filmmaker holds back the relevant information that would keep a viewer engaged until the end.

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

The first film seemed a fully formed, lived-in world. The sequel leaves Julie on her own; an interior monologue that Hogg, and Swinton Byrne, can’t quite externalize.

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.

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]

A crowd pleaser that caters to our horror of totalitarianism, our love of personal freedom, our belief - justified or deluded - that knowledge is a powerful tool and that access to information is a God-given right.

What a talent Waad is. For Sama is a film made with the instincts of a journalist, the passion of a revolutionary and the beating heart of a mother.

It is not just about the American dream; it is a search for America’s soul.