Joe Williams

Until a devastatingly effective finale, Monsieur Lazhar is an exercise in delicacy, carried by Fallag's gentle performance and a fine cast of kid actors.

Ajami is neither a puzzle nor a polemic. It's an admirably even-handed portrait of life in an occupied ghetto that is bounded by checkpoints. Everyone we meet is a more or less honorably motivated victim of circumstance. That the circumstances were inscribed centuries ago makes Ajami a tragedy of biblical proportions.

The Illusionist has surprises up its sleeve that are unusually nuanced for an animated movie.

Because Short Term 12 is a small movie about a challenging subject, you may have to accept my word that actress Brie Larson and director Destin Cretton are bright discoveries, but it shouldn’t be long before the wider world can see these talents with the naked eye.

Hogancamp's alliance with director Jeff Malmberg in this artful and poignant film marks a victory in the war against the self.

Gerwig makes us want to believe that in a city where anything is possible, Francis Ha has the last laugh.

Director Lindholm is a graduate of the Dogma school, and he is able to maintain tension with a documentary camera technique, virtually no music and minimal on-screen theatrics.

When the two men compare impersonations of Michael Caine or Sean Connery, Brydon's version is always slightly better - and Coogan knows it.

Killer Joe is one of the most repugnant parodies of small-town stupidity that you will ever see, and Friedkin amplifies the shrill obscenities with blaring cartoon and kung-fu footage from his art director's fever dreams.

There’s much to appreciate here. Like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” which had a stronger sense of its place in the world, this coming-of-age movie should appeal to smart, sensitive young people who haven’t been exposed to the better examples of the genre.

Kids are too smart to fall for it, and any grown-up who thinks that The Odd Life of Timothy Green is funny or heartwarming has a head made out of cabbage.

Although the film has elements of a puzzler by Michelangelo Antonioni and a psychodrama by Ingmar Bergman, it never becomes compellingly intellectual or unnervingly emotional.

Marley is thus a valuable history project but not a definitive or analytical one. For that, we await a film that's less "One Love" and more "Stir It Up."

Starved of sufficient comedy or drama, The Age of Adaline is a pipsqueak.

What makes Love Is Strange so special is that the challenges the couple face are more mundane than menacing.

Despite the obvious mismatches involved, this isn’t a simplistic smackdown. Freighted with weighty issues, Captain Phillips is a film worth debating.

The verdict on Snitch is that Johnson has attempted a career detour on a street marked Do Not Enter.

The kind of working-class, character-driven drama that few American directors would dare to make. It's tough and unsentimental, with a documentary aesthetic that belies the craft of the calibrated tension.

This humane movie is an ode to joy, albeit of the mature sort.

Two things that the British know that most Americans don't: Michael Sheen is the best actor in the English-speaking world; and soccer is the only football that matters.

It's true that the movie is both emotionally violent and sexually explicit. Yet these scenes from a marriage are crafted with such attention to detail and overarching honesty that Blue Valentine touches the heart.

Like a train, I Wish is slow to build momentum, then it carries us away in a wondrous rush.

If you don’t know the true story, we won’t spoil it for you except to say that it’s not the expected outcome. But if you’re willing to be thrown for a loop, you’re in good hands with this medal-worthy cast and crew.

What animates this dramatically constrained film are the lively words and the vitality of nature. An image of butterflies blooming in a bedroom is Keats' worldview in miniature.

What enriches the recipe is that no one is quite as cagey as they seem. Colin is officially thuggish, but he's a blinkered romantic. Archie is a mama's boy, Meredith is gay, Mal is impotent, and Peanut wears dentures.

The virtue of Inherent Vice is that we can stop chasing the tale and just enjoy the sunset of the ’60s dream.

Anyone suggesting that an Italian film could rival the style and grandeur of "The Godfather" might end up sleeping with the fishes. But Il Divo delivers.

Fortunately, Fish Tank feeds us more than crumbs and leaves us feeling like we've come up for air.