Godfrey Cheshire

The result is a work that—like a whole sub-species of French films of the recent decades—fetishizes its own hyper-naturalistic visual style and performances (all but one by non-actors) while offering no original or striking insights into the world it portrays.

I’ve been trying to think when there was a historical drama I found as electrifying as Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour. It may have been Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” which topped my 10-best list a dozen years ago.

In a sense, Jones’ musical talent and originality, as well as his status as a pioneer of world music, are alluded to more than seriously examined and appraised, and that must be counted as a lack in the film.

The German boys are very well cast, with young actors Louis Hofmann and Joel Basman especially giving the kind of striking performances that should lead to other films.

Afterimage is mounted in a classical, beautifully understated style that throughout conveys the relaxed assurance of a true master. It’s one of those films that doesn’t ask to be liked or admired, but only to be heard.

Alexandre Moors’ film is also so lacking in anything new or compelling to say — either emotional or political — about its subject that it ends up a rather dispiriting slog of a movie.

The word “genius” is heard more than once, and the more the film shows us, the less even hardened skeptics will be likely to demur.

Watching it, the film’s intelligent, well-crafted story and beautifully drawn characters seem to suggest literary roots.

Paris 05:59,’s charms are likely slight enough, and its raunch raunchy enough, to keep it from becoming one of those rare exceptions.

The film certainly registers the dynamics between old and young, haves and have-nots—struggles that characterize societies far beyond Brazil.

For myself, I couldn’t avoid the irony that, in finding it ultimately rather superficial and self-satisfied in that particular Parisian way, I was echoing Antoine’s criticism of Olivia’s writing.

A Gray State captures much of this in one real-life tale that’s as unsettling as it is precisely of-the-moment.

It’s a fairly familiar critique of patriarchy from a humanist and feminist perspective, but one put across with some very impressive filmmaking skills by a first-time director.

Curiously, there’s virtually no mention of religion in the film. For that matter, politics creep into the tale only obliquely, and later. It appears we’re meant to understand that the band’s music and Farah’s lyrics have an edge of protest, but this is registered only as a very general sort of frustration and discontent.

Using skillful, involving storytelling and beautifully executed rotoscoped photography, director Ali Soozandeh creates a world of intersecting urban miseries and challenges.

Easily the most astonishing and important movie to emerge from France in quite some time. While its style deserves to be called stunningly original and rapturously beautiful, the film is boldest in its artistic and philosophical implications, which pointedly go against many dominant trends of the last half-century.

From Afar, in any case, is built on reticence.

While Hood’s film says very little about American policy in this area, it does suggest that its terrible subject is likely to be with us for a long time to come.

For “Full Metal Jacket” there are revealing, entertaining recollections by Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey and others, but there’s no Jack Nicholson for “The Shining” or Tom Cruise or Nicole Kidman for “Eyes Wide Shut.”

Given its loose-knit narrative, the film doesn’t have anything like a conventional structure. Yet it’s steadily engrossing due to Boorman’s surpassing skills as both a storyteller and a director.

[Almodóvar] may share Catholic roots with Hitchcock and Bresson, but this film’s concern with guilt, transference, fate, mystery and (more obliquely) faith connects intricately with his native culture as well as the ideas expressed in his previous films. Building on his previous work while also charting a new course, it is suffused with the casual confidence of an established master.

Dibbs does a fine job bringing a nuanced, realistic visual style to this venerable tale of war’s cruel and colossal wastes, and his actors are all first-rate, with Bettany a special stand-out.

A Borrowed Identity commendably avoids polemics in order to provide a textured portrait of a young man going through a set of personal transitions against the background of ongoing cultural flux that reflects a larger, collective identity crisis. Its evocation of the historical period feels carefully honed and resonant.

While the issues it engages are timely and important, the film’s claim to fame really comes from its terrific accomplishments on every front, from writing and directing to acting and cinematography.

For fans of the genial, garrulous Gold, of Los Angeles culture or of films about food, City of Gold will easily merit four stars and its 90-minute length. For those less enamored of those subjects, its claim on any stars will be qualified by some serious questions about its cinematic worth.

Gibney made his film without the cooperation of Jobs’ wife and their children or Apple, and thus his account doesn’t have either the authorized angle or wealth of insider-ish detail of Walter Isaacson’s capacious biography.

The film is not one for any viewer who’s never heard of Assange. Indeed, it’s best suited to audiences who are familiar with the basic Wikileaks saga and thus prepared for Poitras’ much more intimate and nuanced view of events and personalities that the mainstream media tend to present in more reductive terms.

Author is a particular kind of documentary: a first-person account of the creation of a myth by its creator. As such, it poses all sorts of questions about the intersection of art, celebrity and psychological disturbance in our media culture, but it also gives us Laura Albert as a shape-shifting artist of astonishing talent, resourcefulness and originality.