Jason Bailey

It is a thoughtful and intelligent film, and it finds a gifted actor doing some very tricky things quite well.

Mortensen is playing with iconography here, so it’s less about that destination than the journey — and he finds the right, delicate, evocative note to conclude on and holds it exactly as long as he should. “The Dead Don’t Hurt” isn’t your typical revenge Western, but audiences willing to stick with it will find a picture rendered with grace, patience, and artistry.

"Rather” is ultimately a valentine, which is fine. But as such, it’s not as tough on Dan Rather as he would’ve been to such a subject himself.

What is truly, and thrillingly, new here is Morris’s thematic interest. The deeper he goes into the rabbit hole with Cornwall, the more his true subject becomes apparent, as the picture becomes a penetrating investigation of the idea that great artists freely use fiction to work through the very real pain of their own lives—even in work that’s not explicitly or even transparently autobiographical.

Kendrick leans more into the dark comedy and general dread of the situation, winding the picture tighter the deeper she goes, and her work here is ambitious and impressive.

He led a fascinating, complicated, often contradictory life, and Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed does it justice.

Above all, I Used to Be Funny is a fine showcase for Sennott’s considerable gifts.

It’s about as well-acted and enjoyable a version of this particular thing as you’re likely to find.

Johnson and Kendrick are just terrific together — ample chemistry, excellent comic byplay — and the sense of play, the feeling of one-upmanship in their scenes together, immediately cranks the picture up a notch.

Once you get on this one’s wavelength, it’s wildly funny and delightfully subversive.

If we’re being honest, Carney isn’t breaking new ground here, and I keep waiting for him to make a movie that will finally fully exhaust his Whole Thing. But Flora and Son is not that movie.

It’s genuinely thrilling to watch a filmmaker with a specific voice and oddball style taking genuine risks, and the way she successfully navigates these tonal transitions, how she cuts the cynicism with sincerity and vice versa – well, it’s kind of miracle.

The new film most directly recalls “Enough Said,” Louis-Dreyfus and Holfocener’s collaboration of a decade ago, which also concerned the Louis-Dreyfus character hearing things she shouldn’t. This film doesn’t quite measure up to that one — Jeffrey Waldon’s cinematography is oddly murky, and Menzies can’t provide the strong counterpoint James Gandolfini did. But it’s nevertheless smart, warm, and very, very funny.

Barthes’ screenplay is clean; for the most part, it’s brainy but not didactic, and thoughtful but not dull.

This is a movie that barely speaks above a whisper, even when its characters are howling in pain inside.

Return to Seoul begins as an intimately off-the-cuff stranger-in-strange-land story and becomes a sprawling epic of personal discovery. It’s one of the best films of the year.

The film’s key asset is Johansen, and “Personality Crisis” pulls off the neat trick of serving as an introduction for us newbies while providing new insights and footage for the fans – the latter primarily in the form of the mellow concert footage.

The pace drags in the home stretch a bit, and the laughs dry up considerably. None of this matters much. George and Julia spark and sparkle, which is what the trailers promise, and it’s what the movie delivers.

Mckenzie is a good match as an actor, countering Davis’s big emotions with a quieter turn and more introverted but no less affecting. She isn’t afraid of the difficult contradictions of the character, and by the film’s end, we’re struck by how much everyday horror this young woman shoulders and sucks up.

With Emily, Frances O’Connor has crafted a first film that feels like the work of an accomplished master.

The picture clangs clumsily for stretches, particularly in its second half; Selick is trying to merge the doomy darkness of “Coraline” with the high spirit and good humor of “Nightmare Before Christmas,” and they don’t always mix.

Confess, Fletch is an absolute pleasure – the mystery is a corker, and I giggled from beginning to end.

Catherine Called Birdy is delightfully witty, irrelevant, and modern-minded while carefully dodging the self-satisfaction and smugness that those descriptors can conjure up.

In “Glass Onion,” the filmmaker shows absolute mastery of his genre, and his craft. It’s pure, pop pleasure.

Some of Novak’s camera sense, particularly early on, betrays his sitcom roots, and he commits the classic rookie mistake of going on three or so scenes too long, tying up inconsequential loose ends. But he crafts a good mystery, consistently engaging and entertaining, and the thoughtful turns of the last confrontation are sly, smart, and knowing.

Ambulance is absolutely ridiculous, and undeniably entertaining.

Ryan Binaco’s screenplay is full of tiny, keenly observed touches, but its greatest virtue is its attitude towards her addictions, the way it occupies her space with her, looking on passively but not judgmentally. It’s a movie that understands the desperation of alcoholism.

Colin West’s Linoleum is the kind of movie that’s all but impossible to review with any specificity, because so much of its achievement lies in its surprises – how it seems to be doing one thing while slyly doing another, without deception, and then revealing its ultimate intentions with grace and style.

With its shout-outs to horror classics and juicy pay-offs of its own, X feels like the movie West was born to make.

The jankiness of this structure is a bit much, at least on first viewing, drifting into memoir material for so long that it the picture feeling shapeless for a good long while. But then again, that’s our Linklater, and complaining about narrative aimlessness is kind of like coming out of a Scorsese movie bitching about all the voice-over. It’s a new Linklater, is the point, and that’s good news indeed.

Soderbergh’s direction is, per usual, tight and efficient (as is his editing – it runs a lean, mean 89 minutes).

You get a sense of Poehler’s energy in the fast pace and comic timing of film, which moves at a good, precise clip. There’s a lot of material to cover here, some of it overly familiar, but Poehler does it with pizzaz.

Their latest fusion of science fiction, character drama, dark comedy, and overwhelming paranoia, Something in the Dirt, feels like their most personal film – and not just because they wear so many hats, directing and writing and producing and editing and starring.

The whole thing moves like a freight train, its 156 minutes passing in barely a breath, and that breakneck pace, combined with the expressionist aesthetic and candy-colored imagery, reminds us that blockbusters don’t have to be these lumbering processions of greyscaled dreck. It’s a rarity, a big-budget holiday movie with style and pizzazz.

Tom Hanks is such an avatar for optimism and goodness that the qualities of this character – his heartbreak and vulnerability and resignation to a certain kind of hopelessness – land with greater impact, and he’s so good that when the filmmakers go for the big emotional wallop at the end, they almost pull it off.

Even its weakest pieces are still entertaining, and the good stuff is exceptionally so.

Derrickson can build a mood and craft creepy imagery, and he moves his camera with precision. But this feels like a notebook of compelling visual and narrative ideas that never quite fit together, that can’t quite manage to coalesce into coherence.

One can’t help coming away with the feeling that if the intelligence and originality of All My Puny Sorrows matched its earnestness, they could’ve really had something here.

Movies like “Earwig” defy criticism or even explanation. ... Lucile Hadžihalilović took a risk by making a movie this peculiar; it feels like the least we can do is take a risk by watching it.

The Survivor is occasionally infected by the aridness of the handsome, well-made historical film — it feels old-fashioned, in both the complimentary and pejorative senses. But some of that is purposeful and even a little subversive.

Gellar and Goldfine manage the tone expertly, inserting little jolts of humor to keep things from getting too reverent.

That ending, poetic and beautiful, is the chronological conclusion of Days; emotionally, it crests a few minutes earlier, as the two men go on a modest dinner “date” after their encounter.

The complexity of the plotting overwhelms the picture a bit, which gets a little fuzzy in the middle – but it eventually forcefully snaps into focus, mostly by finding its spine in the simple notion that this is a movie about people under pressure.

It’s all so breezy and light that you just want to join them and hang out for a while, even with all the drama they’ve got brewing.

At its best, it does what Bourdain’s work did: “Roadrunner” makes you want to jump on a plane, discover a new place, a new culture, eat a great meal, and make a new friend. What could be more valuable?

Bana is one of the producers of The Dry, and it’s not hard to see why he wanted to act the role, which is uniquely suited to his specific talents – his potent mixture of brusque physicality and barely bottled emotion. Connolly is a patient enough director to let us take in the pain this man holds in his face and the quiet power in his eyes.

It’s rare for a film to simultaneously balance such wildly divergent tones, to interweave big laughs with gut-wrenching discomfort, but Seligman pulls it off.

The pacing is wobbly – it runs a too-flabby 105 minutes – and some of the filmmaking is pretty rickety . . . . But Swan Song is about its performers, and they shine.

Gregg, who wrote and directed, has mostly written for television, and while this is her feature directorial debut, she’s a born filmmaker.

Filled with fascinating yet long-forgotten anecdotes ... "Street Gang" ultimately focuses on the correct subject: the artists and educators who made "Sesame Street," and how much of its power and influence seems an outgrowth of the unique chemistry created by those specific people, at that specific moment.

The revelation here is Zengel, who has says little (none of it in English), yet has the presence and gravitas of a silent film actor, putting across her history and trauma primarily in her haunted eyes and loaded expressions.

In its new form, The Godfather Coda is still not a masterpiece. But it’s a fine film and worthy conclusion, and its alterations – the repositioning of several scenes, the cutting of others, and a new opening closing –genuinely improve the final product.

This is a stunning piece of work and a triumphant fanfare for the arrival of a remarkable new talent.

What Wiseman’s film boils down to, in many ways, is a much-needed dose of competency porn – a snapshot of government officials trying their very best to do better, and to be better. And that might be the story he’s really telling: a reminder that government, for all of its speed bumps and snags, can work. It can help. The people running it just have to want it to.

Enemies of the State is powered by a sense of momentum – it’s a story filled with unexpected twists and turns, and not just in terms of “plotting.” Kennebeck finds herself wrestling with the prickly proposition of unraveling where, exactly, the truth lies; it’s the job of any good documentary filmmaker, of course, but in this particular case, it’s a journey of discoveries and often disturbing ones.

Summer of ’85 is ultimately not entirely successful, because its disparate tones don’t always mesh. But more than that, the carefree, romantic stuff is so enjoyable, and so sincere, that in retrospect, one wishes the entire film had lived there – both in that flush of first love (or at least lust), and in reckoning afterward with the complexities of that emotion.

Class Action Park loses its footing somewhat in the closing passages; Scott and Porges don’t seem to know quite how to wrap things up, and the film’s big tonal shift is a turning point that is all but impossible to come back from.

The conclusion of Bill & Ted Face the Music is pure corn, and by that point, they’ve earned it. It’s a film that’s somehow both offhand and meticulous, shaggy yet crisp, and the apparent joy of its creation is infectious. I laughed through a lot of it, and smiled through the rest. What a treat this movie is.

But what’s especially dispiriting, this time around, is that the film promises more. It opens with a remarkable pre-title sequence of Davidson on the highway, driving with a stern face, and listening to the radio; we’re joining him in the middle of something, and we’re not sure what. And then he closes his eyes and steps on the gas, a move of suicidal recklessness that nearly gets him (and several other drivers) killed, after which he stammers, to no one in particular, several consecutive “I’m sorry’s.” It’s not clear why this opening exists, in the context of ‘Staten Island,’ because it’s not comedic, and it’s not feel-good.

It is, in essence, a two-hour curtain call, a celebration of not only their music but their friendship, and a chance for the duo to have the last word on their legacy.

Its leads deliver, individually and especially together, and Teems somehow manages to sound a note of reserved hope at the picture’s conclusion, without sacrificing the inherent nihilism of the genre.

A gnarly mash-up of midnight movie and social commentary, the picture is overly overt but undeniably effective, delivering genre jolts and broad messaging in equal measure.

Stargirl was published twenty years ago, and its age occasionally shows in this adaptation; some of the story beats and character qualities (particularly those of the rather precious title character) have congealed into cliché. But Hart (who wrote the screenplay with Kristin Hahn and Jordan Horowitz) is such an enchanting filmmaker, her storytelling style so warm and welcoming, that those concerns fade.

“Farmageddon” features plenty of inspired, boomeranging slapstick, executed with clockwork precision. It’s a very funny movie — and an endlessly, refreshingly cheerful one, which is just as rare.

For all the impressive craft, sense of harrowing anxiety and searing performances on display, Lost Girls doesn’t seem to know how to wrap things up and it hurts the picture overall.

The film that follows is, admittedly, a bit of a mess. It’s also compelling, energetic, and well-acted, finding one of our most intriguing filmmakers all but flinging herself outside of her comfort zone.

The value of Downhill comes from merging this story with these two distinct comic personas, and seeing what they do with it (and each other). That’s probably not enough of a reason for it to exist. But it’s not nothing, either.

One of the masterstrokes of Sarah Gubbins’s screenplay is how deftly she underscores the differences in the perception and presentation of the sicknesses within this marriage.

There’s no denying that Fennell is playing with dynamite here, and knows it; the brashness of her approach and style is welcome, and her work is often riotously funny (especially when edging into darker territory).

What an extraordinary film this is.

When Togo gets going, it goes.

The proximity and intimacy of the technique render Schofield and Blake’s journey more visceral, and more frightening. And as a result, at its conclusion, the catharsis lands with the force of a hammer.

The film is undeniably entertaining, it’s fun to see these characters and creators again, and hey, who am I to begrudge them a victory lap? But ultimately, the contrast between the epilogue film and the source material is undeniable.

A confidently crafted, well-acted three-hander ... But some viewers will find the hamster-wheel nature of “Jungleland” monotonous, and it’s hard to blame them.

There are moments in “My Zoe” that are hard to watch, unthinkable in their emotional brutality. That Delpy finds her way to the ending she does—and earns it is—no small accomplishment.

The kind of brainy, absorbing, all-out thrilling cinema that’s in dangerously short supply these days.

In playing a man who was so clearly among his comic ancestors and influences, we see, for the first time in a long time, Murphy’s sheer joy of performance, the thing that made his early work in films like “48 HRS.” and “Beverly Hills Cop” so electrifying.

The picture’s biggest flaw is that it’s so mellow it occasionally veers into inertia.

If White’s wild formal experimentation and narrative cul-de-sacs result in a strange identity crisis for the film — a sense that he wasn’t entirely sure which movie he wanted to make — Gardner’s stellar work unifies it.

This is a filmmaker aware of the conventions, who wields them with wit and precision and knows his audience is on the gag as well. In many ways, The Perfection amounts to little more than a bag of tricks. But no one is pretending otherwise. And they’re good tricks.

An uncommonly knotty and fiercely intelligent story of assault and blame in the social media age.

Paddleton is so busy not doing much, it blindsides you with its honestly-earned emotions.

Hala is keenly observed and quietly powerful, and we’ll be hearing much more from the talented women on either side of its lens.

The director resists the urge to make the family too heroic – in fact, his own character takes an unsympathetic turn near the end, which must’ve been a tough call. But it matters, because it renders his deeply-felt joy and pride at the picture’s conclusion all the more potent.

At its best, it’s a moody, scary, post-Peckinpah meditation on masculinity — and an all too rare opportunity to see Mr. Wright fronting a feature.

Maya is full of the kind of tiny, keenly observed moments that make Løve such a special filmmaker.

High Life feels longer than it is, and is occasionally so squirrely that it becomes off-putting. But in spite of the aforementioned traceable connections, it’s a true original — sometimes strange, sometimes scary, sometimes kinky.

Jenkins captures the humor, verve, and considerable complexity of the prose.

Widows is definitely a good film and one that often has greatness in its grasp. But it often feels like, at some point in the process, McQueen needed to decide if he was making wallpaper or art.

By working in such a deliberately muted key, the emotional payoffs we’re conditioned to require from a story like this never quite arrive, and Van Groeningen never finds a workable substitute for them.

California Split keenly and perceptively captures how someone you meet in a chance encounter can become a best friend (at least for a while) in a few short hours.