Keith Phipps

Gaghan brings in many more players, but edits the film into the lean, propulsive shape of a thriller. That ends up being something of a problem; some sub-plots never fully untangle and characters get lost as Gaghan rushes toward a conclusion that, taken on its own, is the stuff of a slightly hysterical leftie pamphlet.

Carpenter's grittily convincing New York-in-decay remains the film's best element. Never particularly suspenseful and hampered by a finale that almost literally steers the plot toward a dead end, Escape only intermittently finds Carpenter flexing his directorial muscles. But it may be his most visionary film: Escape allowed him to build a future out of scraps from the past.

Directing his first live-action film since 2000's "Cast Away," Robert Zemeckis paces it brilliantly, slowly ramping up the energy from hungover lethargy to coke-fueled confidence, while creating undercurrents of dread as Washington hits his stride.

Though the film portrays the racism of the South as institutional and inescapable, it’s a little too eager to offer glimmers of hope with increasing frequency as the film nears its end and Tibbs and Gillespie come to understand each other better.

Though High Art has more than a few awkward touches--all the male characters take up less than one dimension, for example--it's otherwise a nicely underplayed, memorable, beautifully filmed movie.

Ubiquitous screen presence Steve Buscemi makes an impressive writing/directing debut in this depiction of small-town alcoholism.

Spielrein's name is less familiar than the others, but the film suggests she deserves to be more than a footnote in the history of psychoanalysis.

Rabbit Hole is a tremendously sad movie, but it's also the furthest thing from a miserablist wallow.

Stillman's arch, clever dialogue is as strong as ever, and he conveys in every frame a genuine affection for his characters, however insipid their actions may be at times. These gifts make it easy to forgive Stillman's tendency to let his story meander, especially in Disco's second half.

That Nouvelle Vague looks like it could have been made alongside Breathless is its most immediately striking feature. From the aspect ratio to the film stock, it’s virtually indistinguishable from a contemporary production. The tone, however, is wry, knowing, and resolutely comic, even occasionally sentimental.

A film of fatally flawed heroes, oversized passions, nation-building, and, inevitably, violence, America follows its characters from childhood to old age by way of the kind of grand-scale filmmaking that wouldn't be seen again until Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York. [2014 re-release]

Set at the intersection of post-Vietnam paranoia and the myopic introspection that became hippiedom's most lasting cultural contribution, the Philip Kaufman-directed Invasion alternates social commentary with impeccably crafted scares. As much an echo of Don Siegel's 1956 original as a remake, it does little to change a formula that worked fine the first time around.

MC5's mix of showmanship, hippie idealism, and brawling Detroit muscle makes it tough to categorize, and A True Testimonial carefully moves through each step of the progression.

It’s the choice to put the voices of the main players front and center that saves Lambert & Stamp from taking the rise-and-fall shape so familiar from Behind The Music and similar projects.

Working from a script by Richard Matheson that spins Poe’s story to feature length, Corman, cinematographer Floyd Crosby (father of David), and composer and exotica icon Les Baxter create a hallucinatory swirl of a movie that has the feel of an especially sharp nightmare.

Muscle Shoals’ story has needed telling, and Camalier packs that telling with memorable stories and music—though the film sometimes substitutes admiration for investigation, paving over conflicts and moving on to the next amazing piece of music to get recorded in town.

The film captures a moment, playfully but without losing sight of the stakes, when the hot political temperatures of the late ’60s and early ’70s made change of one kind or another look inevitable.

It looks like no other movie, Marvel or otherwise, and it’s populated by characters compelling enough to support a more complex, richer story than this one.

There must have been a reason why the real-life Rush could do so much with seemingly so little, but The Mighty Macs never captures it. It lets canned inspiration provide the uplift, instead of something more tangible.

Jones delivers a quietly wrenching performance as a woman who comes to recognize too late how much of herself she’s lost. It’s subtle work in a film that is sometimes content to be a little too subtle.

But much of it, like its subject, is so cryptic, distractingly stylish, and impenetrably posed that it's rough going most of the way.

Henson's characters maintained an essential innocence while sending up the very idea of entertainment. They put on a show with quotation marks around it, but the irony never felt cynical. When it isn't getting bogged down in unearned sentiment, The Muppets gets that right.

Adams' winning performance and the light touch director Kevin Lima (a veteran of animation and live action) brings to scenes not tasked with advancing the plot all suggest that, silly as they may look once you take it apart, irony-free, romantic fantasy--animated and otherwise--still has a place on the big screen.

Like Ang Lee's "Hulk," it's a fusion of arthouse and multiplex instincts, and though it seems unlikely to satisfy anyone, it's just as unlikely that anyone who sees it will forget it soon.

The lovable characters remain, but they never do much of interest in a sequel that's safely above average but superfluous.

The action that follows doesn't stray too far from formula, nor does it come close to Leone's film, but it's stylishly entertaining enough to serve as a passable time-filler, particularly when its second-rate hero takes to wielding an oversized (and anachronistic) handheld machine gun.

A self-crafted elegy starring Cocteau as himself, an artist at the end of his life wandering through a symbolic landscape filled with his own creations (and guest stars Yul Brynner and Pablo Picasso). In the end, Cocteau takes comfort in the immortality of art, and therefore his own immortality, a sentiment that would seem far less moving and far more egotistical if it weren't true.

With its sharp wit and its portrayal of how broken families sometimes fit back together, Lilo would make a fine summer double feature alongside "About A Boy," another film that stays funny while dancing around a tiny abyss.

McAdams is the real show here, playing Lisa as a mouse who becomes a lion as she adapts to an environment that allows her to be herself at last.

It’s a great-looking film--and an impressive use of 3D--but ultimately, the story makes it memorable.

Handsomely shot by Brazilian director Walter Salles and beautifully played by the two leads, The Motorcycle Diaries would amount to little more than a minor, softly politically conscious coming-of-age story, if not for its historical context.

Through quietly fiery performances by Day-Lewis and Watson, as well as novel-like depth and complexity, The Boxer not only avoids these pitfalls but emerges as a thoroughly engrossing movie.

An engaging thriller done in the Cronenberg style is still worth anyone's time. And this one boasts memorable turns from Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Vincent Cassel.

It’s a film that remembers how awful it can be to grow up, and that even those who survive it usually don’t get out without taking a few scars.

A winning mix of humor and poignant character examination, and a satisfying film.

Finley’s debut is an odd, hypnotically compelling film filled with dark laughs and unanswered questions.

It’s a trifle, but a trifle that sticks.

Has a message, which it effectively conveys by succeeding first as an affecting film. Winterbottom's actors give a human face to current events as they proceed along their grim road-movie toward a destination that may not even want them. They may be statistics, too, but their stories stick in the mind.

While Good Ol’ Freda will surely fascinate hardcore Beatles fans, there simply isn’t a feature-length story here.

Working with a miniscule budget, Baron creates charged compositions out of found locations and makes a virtue out of the film's cheapness.

The film’s structure comes with some built-in restrictions, limiting how well we can get to know House of Dynamite’s many characters, who range from low-ranking soldiers to the highest rungs of power. But it also challenges a first-rate cast to tease out their characters’ hidden depths.

Mann takes all the instincts he learned as a Miami Vice producer and trims them of their excesses, and the result is an unsettling thriller whose detached style perfectly complements its psychological intensity.

As history, it's mostly bunk. Flynn's Custer is a heroic, high-spirited, Indian-respecting dunderhead prone to plunging into battle without thought and winning the day in spite of overwhelming odds (until, of course, the odds catch up with him). Dramatically, however, it's much more interesting.

It's an imperfect film, but it's the kind of imperfect film of which it would be nice to have seen Shelly make more.

The atmosphere makes a deeper impression than the drama, which might represent a failing on Nelson's part, but could it be avoided? His film portrays the pinholes of light in a place of otherwise unrelenting darkness.

Not especially gag-driven, May's deadpan style clears the way for some remarkable performances by Jeannie Berlin, Eddie Albert, and especially Grodin, who has to remain likable even while doing stupid, mean things.

As absurd as the situation gets--and the film occasionally launches into surreal asides that only heighten the absurdity--director and star both keep it grounded in the situation's emotions.

His Secret Life's languid pace and general aimlessness keep getting in the way.

The artist's arresting images speak for themselves, even though now only the bystanders are left to tell his story.

The results suggest that Ponoc was guided by a single principle: If Studio Ghibli won’t make Studio Ghibli films anymore, then we will. Which is to say Mary and the With’s Flower is delightful — a visually stunning fairy tale filled with whimsical ideas and warmly realized characters — but also familiar.

Zombie fills The Devil's Rejects with thrilling setpieces, pays homage to his inspirations without outright ripping them off (most of the time), brings back some cult-movie icons (hello, Mary Woronov and E.G. Daily), and works in some profanely clever dialogue.

Memorable, deeply affecting movie.

As for the unfortunates who aren't already in love with The Ramones, End Of The Century should give them a better understanding of what they've been missing, and leave them wondering why they've missed out on it for so long.

Investing a lot of time on each corner of his three-sided character piece, director Ira Sachs (who co-wrote the film with Michael Rohatyn) has created a film as dramatically intense as it is opaque.

Well-crafted, star-driven entertainment doesn't come much better.

A slow, meditative movie-an appropriate choice given the subject matter-that ultimately fails, in spite of clearly heartfelt good intentions, because of its almost inhuman detachment.

While McKellen's sharp performance provides the main attraction, the film wouldn't work without both Fraser, who brings something extra to a character who could easily have been a mere lunk, and director Bill Condon's careful integration of larger themes.

While virtually every shot looks like a work of art, much of the beauty of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints comes from Lowery’s refusal to choose sides.

Interstellar often seems afraid to let any development go unpacked and uncommented upon, except for a handful of points that dive into the action and expect viewers to catch up. The film is at its best in these moments, when it’s unafraid of challenging storytelling, particularly since Interstellar never has trouble finding visuals to match its heady concepts.

Strikingly shot and notable for Seyrig's monstrous, Dietrich-like character, Daughters is a psychosexual horror film that's gripping almost up to the very end.

By the film's halfway point, the subplots have all started to head in the most obvious directions imaginable, which is too bad, since they all have real potential. Ferrera's story of spending the summer as an out-of-place ethnic element in the milk-white suburbs stays interesting the longest, in large part thanks to her performance.

Bielinsky's debut is a fine con picture, but at its best, it achieves even more, presenting the profession as a lifestyle with almost existential ramifications.

Rossi (who is handicapped himself) gives the film a magnetic presence, playing the part as a mix of sweet-natured good intentions and frustrating limitations.

Chandor’s film suggests more than it can explore, and a contrived climax makes the film seem like less than the sum of what’s preceded it.

Without challenging viewers’ notions of how gay men behave, the film shamed its homophobic characters while showing a loving family headed by longtime same-sex partners who are embraced by their community—boas, makeup, and all. Albin and Renato were onto something. It was the rest of the world’s job to catch up.

That points to the problem at Sleepover's heart: It buys into the caste system it ostensibly flouts.

It’s a simplistic, superficial approach to a real-life story that marginalizes most historical details not involving scrums and tackles. It’s also pretty effective, in spite of the gloss.

Before reaching a bittersweet finale that doesn't ring as loudly as it should, The Italian starts to look too much like a neo-realist "Home Alone" sequel, as Spiridonov outwits his pursuers in one scene after another.

The characters are all a little too old for this sort of drama, and they know it, but that makes Two Lovers as much about last chances as new loves.

Sin City draws on the cumulative history of both mediums, creating a pastiche that would have been technologically impossible even three years ago. Its creators invent a queasily intoxicating new world.

For a while it's the rare film that-in the mold of the first "Matrix" movie and "Inception," although on a more modest scale than either-mixes heady puzzles with gripping suspense.

It's important for the film to establish the concentration camp as a hell on earth from the start, but Schlöndorff has more in mind than creating another reminder of the inhumanity of fascism.

Sound effects, disorienting camera work, expert editing, and Humphrey Searle's discomfiting score all suggest, without showing, a horrible presence waiting in the wings. Though parts of The Haunting are talky, even that works in the film's favor, as Tamblyn's glib dismissals and Johnson's calm professorial tone are unable to clear up the mystery at its core. After all, the specters that can't be seen, classified, or otherwise contained are the scariest of all.

When the credits roll and the mood breaks, Japanese Story finally reveals itself as more dewy-eyed than deep, but as long as the mood holds, it holds fast.

When it's on its game, and it frequently is, South Park's portrayal of its foul-mouthed, pre-teen, construction-paper-like protagonists' navigation of the absurd adult world around them cuts as deeply as any other current comedy.

Which makes it all the more frustrating that the film doesn't quite work, and that it drags from episode to episode--some are brilliant, most merely intriguing--with little momentum.

An ingenious, maddening film inspired by the "many lives of Bob Dylan."

It’s a studied movie that gives itself over to bursts of intensity, and between them sometimes threatens to become as spellbound by its subjects as they become with each other.

In the end, it's that reserve that makes it work. Keeping his distance, the director lets viewers see in full the moments in which grief turns the world into a narrow, never-ending tunnel.

In three short scenes, this otherwise linear film unexpectedly slips loose from time, portraying a joyous moment, a tragic revelation, and then a long, slow scene that holds both in the balance, letting viewers tip the scale in whichever direction their hearts incline. It's an effect that could only happen in cinema, and it's made all the more stunning by its appearance in a film taken from a by-all-logic-unfilmable book.

Robin And Marian would merely be an exercise in theory if the actors didn't make it breathe. Their scenes together a combination of easy humor and wistful grace notes, Connery and Hepburn find an easy rapport, playing something between legendary lovers and an old married couple.

Beyond giving a human face to Uganda's crises, Kiarostami attempts to capture the actual place, a swirl of contradictions as vibrant and beautiful as it is troubled.

It's a must for those already enthralled by Rear Window, Vertigo, and the like, but a bit of a slog for anyone else.

The Wings Of The Dove is thought-provoking in a full and lasting sense; it'll stay with you long after its dubious final scene.

Like the character he plays, Kitano directs the film in a style that alternates between tenderness and brutality, making it a relentlessly tense suspense film one minute and a gentle character study the next. Either half would make Sonatine worth seeing. But taken together as the story of a man who regains his soul but whose face remains permeated with the knowledge of its inevitable loss, it becomes an artful gangster film, Yakuza poetry, and essential viewing.

A deft, funny, fearless, and gloriously tasteless mix of horror and comedy, Re-Animator proves that entertainment value trumps virtually every other concern.

The Wachowskis do it so playfully well, keeping The Matrix's potentially confusing plot intelligible, intelligent, and suspenseful, that it doesn't matter.

Shooting in dreamy black and white, Stuhr finds quiet poetry in shots of his character wandering the countryside with his new friend, and deadpan comedy in scenes of the camel patiently watching his new owners eat dinner, his head filling a window frame as he waits for scraps.

Cinematographer Italo Petriccione gives the film a dramatic look, but that never compensates for the lack of actual drama; when so much of the conflict concerns Cristiano's reluctance to betray his father, it might have helped to spend more time on exploring that relationship than on capturing what light looks like when it pours in from a cellar door.

As a sci-fi action movie, the latest Moreau is sub-schlock. As a thinly veiled post-colonial allegory, it's dangerously close to racism. Either way, it's one of the most ridiculous movies in a ridiculous summer.

A lesser filmmaker, and a lesser actor, might have made American Sniper into an unthinking bit of jingoism. Eastwood and Cooper keep finding respectful complexities in Kyle’s story, until the film reveals itself as too simple to have much use for them.

Wong’s usual concerns overwhelm the film, and though his pairing of fisticuffs and longing is sometimes awkward, he surrounds the awkwardness with some of the most beautiful images in his career. In Wong’s world, beauty goes a long way.

As for the 3-D, much ballyhooed in the film's advertisements, it's another muddy conversion that does little but make the film's unconvincing blood effects look a little darker. It's good, theoretically at least, to have Craven back. But why come back for this?

It’s a film about lonely people in an isolated part of the world, the sort of place where people go to disappear and sometimes slip further away than they’d intended. It’s also one of the most suspenseful and uncompromising noirs of recent years.

Though Baumbach lays the groundwork for a satire of Hollywood excess, he instead delivers a familiar but elegant depiction of successful men reflecting on choices they can’t undo, the damage created by those decisions, and the limited time they have left to make right what they still can.

Eastwood directs with his usual relaxed pace and bursts of intensity, a style that's pleasing to watch--and which, also as usual, never fully compensates for any shortcomings of the script handed to him.

There aren't a lot of laughs in Happy Endings, and those that sneak in are pretty wry. There's no comedic snap either, and while that seems not to be the point, humor might have helped with the film's often-sluggish pacing.

A lot goes on, and it doesn't always make sense. But the cast embodies Rendell's ability to incorporate shrewd observations on human behavior into the framework of a crime story, and Miller has a great eye for the places on the Paris outskirts where the lives of haves and have-nots intersect.