J.R. Jones

The mesmerizing narrative recounts a media circus of unrivaled malignance.

Jensen's dramatic structure is so visible this sometimes seems like a late Rod Serling teleplay, but Bier has proved highly adept at merging conventional drama with the immediacy of the Dogma 95 movement.

The script, by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, takes a few vague pokes at Wall Street and the financial elite but mainly revives the ponderous psychodrama of the first movie.

Set in the blue gray gloom of industrial China, this cunning noir focuses on two ruthless coal miners.

There's a lot less here than meets the eye.

A beguiling combination of agrarian ode and “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” deepened by Peterson's square sincerity as he struggles to find himself in relation to his family's land.

Reminiscent of the TV series "Northern Exposure," this 2001 indie comedy by writer-director Kate Montgomery smoothly transplants 30s-style screwball comedy to an Apache-run ski resort.

For a filmmaker like Julie Taymor, Shakespeare's language isn't nearly as enticing as Prospero's violent manipulation of the elements, and this screen adaptation of the play-like her egregious Beatles movie "Across the Universe" (2007)-is primarily an exercise in eccentric (and, I would argue, empty) spectacle.

The last act is rushed and soapy, but this is still a singular observation of American life.

Hysterically funny CGI fight sequences, which pit the chubby superhero against a series of creatures so bizarre they'd keep Hieronymus Bosch awake at night.

The movie might have amounted to no more than a sunny eco-parable, but it begins to bite harder when the catadores, captivated by their sudden importance, face the unhappy prospect of returning to their previous existence.

This second feature doesn't resonate with nearly as much power, but its suspenseful story of two generations of career criminals in the city's northerly Charlestown neighborhood has a similarly haunting quality.

But like much of Herzog's work, it's essentially apolitical, focusing on a man at war with his environment -- and no one plunges into the foliage like he does.

Anne Dorval gives an extraordinary performance as the mother, who lashes out at the boy but can't disguise her own suffering when he lands an emotional punch; their scenes together reminded me of Paul Schrader's Affliction for their sense of familial love gone hopelessly sour.

Abysmal thriller.

Director Bob Clark teamed with nostalgic humorist Jean Shepherd for this squeaky clean and often quite funny 1983 yuletide comedy, adapted from Shepherd's novel In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.

Grimly mesmerizing saga.

On paper this may sound like soap opera, but Bier and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen (Mifune) have a good feel for character, and they're aided by a fine cast.

This is a polished, palatable intrigue, with a knockout performance from Olivia Williams as the PM's hardened wife and a highly persuasive one from Kim Cattrall, cast against type as his buttoned-up personal assistant. But the mystery is unraveled a bit too conveniently.

The movie endorses the liberal conception of the Chicks as free-speech heroes, which doesn't quite wash: Maines shot her mouth off to a receptive overseas crowd, then issued an apology as soon as the backlash began back home.

Whenever writer-director Oren Moverman moves past these scattered and admittedly voyeuristic moments into the lives of the two soldiers, the movie drifts into received wisdom and unconvincing romance.

Brain-dead adaptation of a popular video game.

Johnston's childish, repetitive tunes prove that he's no Brian Wilson (or even Roky Erickson), which makes you wonder whether Feuerzeig is examining the singer's exploitation or participating in it.

It's nice to see a high-concept comedy with such a generous concept.

Writer-director Pupi Avati has a such a fine sense of narrative proportion that this Italian feature unspools like silk.

This handsome period drama is the sort of quiet, homespun story that Duvall, who served as executive producer, has always loved.

This documentary profile of poet and novelist Charles Bukowski exploits the writer's counterculture persona but also works to dispel it, revealing a gifted and extremely complicated man.

Producer Ismail Merchant died in 2005, but Merchant Ivory's stuffy tradition of quality lives on.