Gary Goldstein

Director Klaus Härö, working from a script by Anna Heinämaa, deftly captures the grayish gloom and day-to-day paranoia of postwar Soviet life, while infusing this absorbing tale with affecting emotion.

Despite the film’s brief running time, it packs in vital social context, gay history and nostalgic imagery along with some sad truths.

Unfortunately, Berman skips past the darker implications of Hefner's sexual universe and omits discussion of how the periodical business -- and access to erotic imagery -- has changed in the Internet age. Still, the movie remains an involving look at an American icon as well as an adept snapshot of our national zeitgeist from the McCarthy era through the Reagan years.

Despite its need for serious narrative compression, this remains an emotionally authentic, often poignant look at growing up and growing aware.

Thanks to Savage's immersive, often improvisational approach and a compellingly raw, internal turn by Arterton ("Gemma Bovery," "Their Finest") as an everyday woman who seemingly has it all... Tara's claustrophobic world and increasingly checked-out mindset feel undeniably authentic. It's also all a bit grueling to watch.

The doc flags toward the end, but it remains an absorbing snapshot of a daring time.

From the mundane to the eventful, the movie takes a fairly unflinching, yet respectful view of Dina and Scott’s world.

An enlightening, lively, perhaps not unfamiliar outing.

The various sleights of hand are impressive even if we're afforded little insight into their actual execution. Still, it's fun stuff.

While writer-director-star Anna Biller often strikes an uneasy balance between camp and spoof, milks the jokes either too much or too little, and isn't a good enough actress to play a bad one (the performances here are purposely arch or vacuous), she's concocted a curio that's as watchable for its intended awfulness as for the morbid curiosity it prompts about what will come next.

Though it’s often too quirky for its own good and its bumpy narrative structure can be jarring, the film sneaks in quite a bit of depth and emotional punch.

An effective weekend-from-hell thriller with a vital message, a terrific lead performance by Paula Patton and some unexpectedly dimensional storytelling from writer-director Deon Taylor ("Meet the Blacks").

Although I Love You Both never quite pays off on its provocative set-up, it proves to be a funny and endearingly quirky comedy about siblings, love and loyalty.

Director David Gelb, switching gears from his fine 2011 documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," keeps the mayhem moving briskly as an effective host of obstacles pile up in the script by Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater.

The film captures the dazzling beauty of its ocean locales, both above and beneath the surface, while soberly reminding us of the crucial ecological issues — and solutions — at hand.

Quirky, creepy and increasingly involving, the Montreal-set thriller Good Neighbors throws a trio of offbeat apartment dwellers together under one shaky roof as a serial killer wreaks havoc around town.

In its own disturbing, slithery way, the train-wreck watchable melodrama Maps to the Stars is as much a horror show as any that the film's director, David Cronenberg, has helmed over his long and provocative career.

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.

Snapshots nicely shuttles between past and present to tell its affecting, evocative tale of familial and romantic love among several generations of women. But it’s the flashbacks that prove more wholly compelling here, so much so that they could have made for their own standalone film.

The movie has its share of disturbing visuals, but it’s the profound emotional toll taken on the Braudes and their fellow Jews that packs the biggest punch.

[An] enjoyable documentary.

Grace Unplugged proves a far more involving, accessible and enjoyable movie than its peek-a-boo marketing strategy suggested.

The result is an unhurried, visually compelling look at a man and his music - as well as of a bygone America filled with shuttered downtowns and the ghosts of such late musicians as Elvis Presley and blues pioneer Robert Johnson.

Despite occasional dips in energy that usually coincide with the root-worthy characters’ own flailing moments, 7 Days remains a buoyant and involving jaunt.

[A] playful, intriguing documentary.

As might be the case watching any couple repeatedly exchange wedding vows and proclaim their eternal love, things can get a bit mawkish. But there's no denying the sincerity of Pat and Stephen's powerful devotion — to each other and to the vital cause of marriage equality.

Russell, he of the shaggy mane and those twinkly, crinkly eyes, digs into the classic role with a sleighful of energy, humor and gusto, deftly making the character his own with guidance from Matt Lieberman’s inventive, myth-bending script. His performance is a gas.

This ambitious first feature film about the period made entirely by Rwandans (shot in a remarkable 16 days), while hardly an all-inclusive look at this complex conflict, paints a heartfelt, fairly restrained picture of a nation under siege.