Gary Goldstein

The product is more pop vanity project — and one that's a bit late to the party — than onion-peeling dissection.

Director Maurice Dekkers stops far short of shooting “food porn” here, instead deftly capturing the often spare beauty of Redzepi and company’s rarefied concoctions including, yes, ants on a shrimp.

[An] accessible, persuasive, often amusing look at how investments in dubious Chinese companies gave way to crisis-level losses for average American stockholders in the wake of the 2008 financial disaster — and beyond — and made some U.S. bankers and lawyers and Chinese executives a bundle.

Pacino bites off an awful lot here, yet, as our puckish, ebullient and, later, prickly guide on this kaleidoscopic journey, he manages to present an intriguing and passionate view of artistic risk and reward.

For all its flaws and missteps (more nose growing antics, please), the movie gets under your skin and holds interest, if only to find out not if, but how Pinocchio will reunite with his devoted Babbo (dad) and what the future might have in store for Geppetto’s lovingly crafted creation.

Unfortunately, there's a lack of structure, context and point of view to the largely gray, grim, hardscrabble world presented here.

A stirring snapshot of America from 1963 to 1968 and the many rock 'n' roll thrills, cultural and political watersheds, and whirling emotions that erupted in between. It's also deviously smart and darkly funny.

Alexander Sokurov's Faust is a grueling side show of a film, a morbid, mightily uninvolving piece.

It's the candid moments of joy and accomplishment -- Welcker finding out she's an Intel contest finalist, Khan learning he's been accepted to Yale, high school valedictorian Cisneros thanking her devoted parents in her graduation speech -- that really make this one soar.

Kazemy and Boosheri are excellent, and Soheil Parsa and Nasrin Pakkho are also fine as Atefeh's doting, liberal parents. And if Keshavarz is less successful managing the film's sometimes choppy narrative, she is clearly willing to take risks on all fronts. More power to her.

Bye Bye Germany is a deeply felt yet unsentimental, often wry look at a group of Jewish friends — all Nazi-era survivors — who, in 1946 Frankfurt, unite to sell high-end linens to raise the funds to emigrate to America. Not your typical Holocaust-inspired drama.

A muddle of tired themes, bad behaviors and gruesome set pieces.

Feature films these days rarely come as gentle and equitable as The Confirmation. It's a sweet, decidedly low-key little picture starring a deftly understated Clive Owen.

The oddly sympathetic, low-key and funny Phillips gets deft support from his limber costars, including Sarah Silverman, Jim Jeffries, Mike Judge and Mark Cohen. Amusing songs too.

The elder Makhmalbaf, who wrote and directed, puts many spins on this ethereal mood piece — it is by turns poetic, impressionistic, metaphorical and even a bit trippy — without satisfying such genre basics as structure, depth and resolution.

The Rose Maker is a slender but engaging tale about competition, cooperation and creativity.

Writer-director-star David Thorpe attempts to probe the whys and wherefores of what he calls the stereotypical "gay male voice," but he ends up crafting a naval-gazing self-portrait that's unflattering, inconclusive and, at times, a bit specious.

This engaging, funny and frank new film also proves something of a cop-out, especially given the bullet train of a narrative concocted by writer-director Patrick Brice.

A lovely, charming and gently transporting journey.

It's the flesh-and-blood lead performance by Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani as a profoundly conflicted Muslim wife and mother that seals this cinematic deal. She's superb.

[A] highly watchable portrait.

Honest and unadorned though the film may be, it's ultimately just not that involving.

Chittenden and Tzu-yi are expressive actors, but, like the film itself, are hamstrung by the project's self-imposed confines.

Punchy dialogue, sharply drawn characters and excellent performances fuel Glass Chin.

Deeper socio-historical context and a more electric approach could have helped us better appreciate the far-flung impact of this visionary artist.

It’s a film of decided care and forethought.

Bwoy (Jamaican patois for boy), which largely plays like a stage-appropriate two-hander, is ultimately a surprising and cathartic, if often unsettling, film anchored by Rapp’s superb portrayal of a tortured soul desperate to connect. Brooks’ deftly enticing turn is also a standout.

It ultimately seems as if there was a more economical, propulsive and entertaining way for a master such as Bellocchio to recount this explosive and pivotal chapter of Mafia history.