Glenn Kenny

Miike’s seemingly offhand inventiveness is evident in almost every shot and cut.

The movie’s senses of cinema are never present for self-consciously clever, self-referential reasons. Rather, they’re deeply intertwined with considerations of age and mortality.

Dweck divides his efforts between elegiac tone poem and shaggy-dog ensemble piece.

More than a few moments here are new, and real grabbers.

There’s a lot of crunch and dazzle here. While the overall tone is pitched to a teen demographic, the creative energy and the execution on display is consistently engaging.

The verbal analysis here isn’t always profound — one interviewee trots out the banal phrase “the conversation we should be having” — but the narrative as presented in archival footage (Kaepernick did not sit for an interview for this film) is exemplary.

Even if you are unmoved by Mr. Szegedi’s personal story (I found him somewhat sympathetic), what Keep Quiet tells us about its larger themes is upsettingly pertinent.

The cultural transformation and re-transformation of Miami Beach (specifically its southern tip, South Beach) is a story that’s fascinating, poignant, garish and, in some ways, befuddling.

This is the kind of movie Piaffe is: one that mostly poises its absurd surreality at the edge of what’s plausible in contemporary everyday life until it moves into unprecedented physical mutations.

This movie is a remarkable feat that requires a strong stomach to sit through. I was unaware, prior to seeing it, that it’s based on a true story, and the movie’s coda was that much more powerful for me as a result.

Has a warmth that’s utterly enchanting, and a tenderness that’s genuinely touching. This is a real gem.

Director Julie Taymor's gargantuan all-Beatles-songs musical is that rarest of animals, the perfect disaster that fulfills expectations by defying them.

In the battle of the leading men, Crowe's character has a slight edge, and the actor really makes the most of it, showing us how boyishly mischievous charm and utter venality can exist without seeming contradiction in the same being. But Bale builds to a pretty impressive boil himself after laying back for about three quarters of the film.

Despite its shortcomings, there are things about this film that are hard to shake; the movie’s ultimate wisdom and overarching compassion make it very likely that you won’t want to shake them, after all.

Syriana depicts a system so thoroughly and intractably rotten that the standard liberal how-you-can-make-a-difference solutions--being more conscientious about using electricity, getting a hybrid car, and so on--only look like so much spit in the face of an atomic fireball.

Swartzwelder, going for “thoughtful,” instead achieves “glacial.” A romance wants to sweep viewers up, not bog them down. Still, Old Fashioned is both unusual and intelligent enough that, despite it not being entirely MY cup of tea, I’m hoping that it’ll succeed at doing at least a little more than addressing the converted.

Filmmakers have arguably lost the plot, turning “War is hell” into a “Can you top this?” competition.

Appears at first to take a more macro perspective on gay rights. But it tells a big story indeed.

A Cop Movie, directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, is exceptionally challenging to begin with. As the movie unspools, and the layers of its production become clearer, we understand the challenge is the movie’s entire objective—up to a point.

It's kind of amusing to see slinky Christina Aguilera sing the "Live With Me" line about a score of harebrained children, as she clearly hasn't got the faintest idea of what that means.

Moncrieff’s overriding theme here isn’t empowerment but survival. The movie crams a hell of a lot of dysfunction into its 88 minutes.

An epic treatment of epic themes that doesn't soft-soap its audience, but at the same time provides a terrifically satisfying entertainment.

[Mr. Léaud's] riveting, and a little alarming. As for Mr. Serra, while he often enjoys playing the foppish provocateur in his interviews, his film is sober, meticulous and entirely convincing in its depiction of period and mortality.

It's rare that a picture that deals with as much tragedy as this one also manages to convey as much warmth to its characters.

The character dynamics are recognizable in the way they hew to genre conventions. But the details provided in the writing, and by the two leads’ performances, add distinctive details and dimension here. This makes the film’s harrowing action all the more believable.

As it happens, this movie is an expansion of Ms. Pourriat’s 2010 short film, “Oppressed Majority,” which was a punchier, and not particularly comedic, allegory of sexual assault. That picture can be found on YouTube; I don’t think it’s good either, but it’s more genuinely thought-provoking than its expansion.

Ghostbox Cowboy feels like a William Gibson adaptation directed by David Lynch and Jean-Luc Godard — while not directly lifting from or nodding to those artists. It’s rare that a release so late in the year is so noteworthy, but this is a genuine find.

The moviemakers craft a satisfying narrative while leaving the viewer with some questions; this is a movie that manages to be disquieting and entertaining simultaneously.