Jonathan Rosenbaum

There's plenty of wit on the surface, but the pain of paralysis comes through loud and clear.

The musical value of this footage is so powerful that nothing can deface it, despite the best efforts of Zwerin to do so: all the worst habits of jazz documentaries in treating the music, from cutting off numbers midstream to burying them with voice-overs (which also happens on the sound track album), are routinely employed.

Unprecedented in its intellectual ambition, this is endlessly stimulating; it probably tries for too much, but it shames many other contemporary essays that try for too little.

Cronenberg's follow-up to "A History of Violence" -- starring the same lead, Viggo Mortensen, in a very different part -- lacks the theoretical dimension of its predecessor, but it's no less masterful in its fluid storytelling and shocking choreography of violence.

If you ever suspected that assholes are running the world, this documentary adapting producer and former actor Robert Evans's autobiography, narrated with relish by Evans himself--the cinematic equivalent of a Vanity Fair article, complete with tuxes and swimming pools--offers all the confirmation you'll ever need.

The humor is a bit dry for my taste, but director Bent Hamer and his actors know what they're doing every step of the way.

Writer Petr Jarchovsky and director Jan Hrebejk collaborated on the formidable "Up and Down" (2004), and this 2006 feature, which takes its title from a Robert Graves poem, is equally impressive for its mastery, intelligence, and ambition in juggling intricate plot strands and memorable characters.

Worst of all, the movie's conventional showbiz finale, brimming with false uplift, implies that the traumas of other mutilated and disillusioned Vietnam veterans can easily be overcome if they write books and turn themselves into celebrities.

The film’s sophistication is compromised by the rather dumb plot, but some of the numbers—especially “Think Pink” and “Bonjour Paris”—are standouts.

Based on the real-life exploits of Frank W. Abagnale but played more for myth than believability.

This David Cronenberg masterpiece (1991) breaks every rule in adapting a literary classic - maybe On Naked Lunch would be a more accurate title - but justifies every transgression with its artistry and audacity.

What's most conspicuously missing is the kind of background information needed to assess many of Eichmann's statements.

A finely crafted entertainment that works better than most current Hollywood movies.

Persuasive, intelligent, and provocative.

Provocative documentary.

The main activity charted in the documentary is a kind of adolescent mischief, as Dick and a private investigator seek to uncover and expose the anonymous MPAA employees.

The dissection of Edwardian repression never gets beyond the dutiful, tasteful obviousness of a BBC miniseries.

The film isn't averse to reaching for Hollywood fantasies, but there's a lot of what seems to be hard-earned wisdom here about women in bad marriages.

This 2004 French feature seems concerned not so much with the psychopathology of everyday life as with psychopaths who lurk behind the everyday.

There are fewer jokes this time around, and Moore makes a point of not even appearing on-screen for a good 40 minutes, putting more emphasis on his arguments and less on his comic persona.

Honest curiosity and observation are what make this work, and in this respect Christina Ricci (as Wuornos's lover, Selby Wall) is almost as good as Theron.

This is absorbing throughout--not just a history lesson but, as always with Rohmer, a story about individuals