Godfrey Cheshire

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.

By this time in his life, Fischer (who was Jewish) was already into the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that marred his public persona long after his days in the sports limelight had waned. While Zwick and company do nothing to explain this bizarre mania, Pawn Sacrifice definitely conjures the feeling of it, thanks in large part to the movie's greatest asset: Maguire's edgy, charismatic performance.

A documentary that offers some fascinating if glancing insights into a rich and timely subject but ends up being more frustrating than enlightening.

Though the film’s lachrymose gist is conveyed with subtlety and insight into the rigors of loneliness and mortality, it is lachrymose nonetheless. Fans of “Eleanor Rigby,” in any case, should not miss it.

Features some of the worst post-synching seen in any recent movie. If Eisenstein, the consummate craftsman, would have regretted Greenaway’s penchant for pointless and overdone circular tracking shots, he surely would have groaned at how the actors’ lips here and the words they speak are so often on different timetables.

Its narrative and visual approach almost suggests a compendium of the clichés one should avoid in a film like this.

A more accurate title for the low-budget indie Civil War drama would be, “Man (Sing.) Goes to Battle. Eventually. Sort of. For a While. Then Leaves. Other Man Stays Home.” But to avoid that marquee-buster, here’s the concise version: “Mumblecore Civil War.”

These are all cartoon figures out of Frank Capra’s most feverish populist nightmares.

There is a real seed of dramatic possibility in Hannah, but Pallaoro smothers it beneath the lacquer of the film’s fastidiously mannered minimalism.

Of the many things that make A Brilliant Young Mind unsatisfying, arguably the most salient is that the assertion of its title defies dramatization. Nathan is brilliant? Well, if he were a footballer or a spelling-bee champ, we could see his skill as it evolved and played out.

From first till last, this tale of a hard-boiled bounty hunter helping a Scottish lad on his quest to find the woman he loves, who’s on the lam in the old West, is a tissue of creaky contrivances and outright absurdities.

The film misses the chance to offer an original artistic or sociopolitical take on the 1969 riots that sparked the U.S. gay rights movement.

“A good movie is never too long, and a bad movie can never be too short.” That famous quote from Roger Ebert helps me explain why the Canadian indie comedy Sundowners, though it runs only 97 minutes, felt to me like it lasted 14 hours. Longer than “Lawrence of Arabia.” Longer than “Shoah.”

A drama in which belief is reduced to well-meaning but inert treacle.

The result is another vacuous melodrama/thriller that doesn’t lay a glove on the era’s historical complexities.

A rather terrible comedy-satire, bears the DNA of at least two strains of terrible films.

In the annals of historical biopics, Jonathan Teplitzsky’s Churchill stands out as a uniquely awful and tedious caricature of a fascinating subject.