Keith Uhlich

The four leads more often than not transcend the material's calculated moroseness; Ivanir is especially good as a man whose perfectionist facade masks a soul in perpetual turmoil.

As we work our way back to that cliff-hanger of an opening, it becomes clear that the movie is no acid critique, but a hollow endorsement of high living. Guess every generation gets its "Boiler Room."

The film adheres closely to a well-reviewed theater production cocreated by and starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, both of whom get to riff on their prickly "My Dinner with Andre" rapport.

The jarring juxtapositions only heighten the enigmatic air of the film's subject; even when he's right in front of us, he seems to be plotting his next wily act.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is reduced to a crystalline, though still complicated, essence in Nadav Schirman’s alternately tedious and engrossing documentary.

Visual Acoustics goes out of its way to remain as kindly and pleasing as Shulman himself.

Once the rote plot takes over - the tension brought on by the film's you-are-there verisimilitude quickly devolves into soapily overwrought theatrics.

There's not much beyond all the fawning, but the effusively talented Channing more than deserves the gush.

In comparison with near-impenetrable Garrel efforts like "Regular Lovers" (2005) and "Frontier of the Dawn" (2008), Jealousy cuts straight to the heart.

Lynskey has raised the quality of innumerable feature films (as a soft-spoken New Republic reporter in Shattered Glass; a housewife on the verge of a nervous breakdown in Away We Go-that film's sole saving grace). So it's a delight to see this stalwart character actor move to center stage, even when the result is so by-the-numbers.

Too many movies come to us as preordained cult objects - this is the real deal.

Director Nick Rowland couldn't ask for a more magnetically tormented character to anchor his low-key-to-a-fault feature debut.

More stupid movies should leave you with such a blissfully stupid smile.

All the retroactively enlightened symbolism gets monotonous, and reaches an absurd apex with the introduction of a party-line newspaperman played by that scowling emblem of Teutonic depravity, Ulrich Tukur.

There’s no real pleasure in any of the musical performances. And when married to the scenes exploring Hendrix’s tumultuous personal life—particularly his semi-abusive relationship with long-term girlfriend Kathy Etchingham (Hayley Atwell)—you’re left with a monotonously grim portrait that’s more rewarding in theory than execution.

Not a bad setup for a cops-and-robbers thriller, and in the hands of action-movie maestro Johnnie To, the result comes very close to greatness.

Smash & Grab aims to replicate the mesmeric tension of a Michael Mann thriller (the crime-cinema impresario is even explicitly referenced by one of the cops assigned to hunt down the group), though the film is so all over the place stylistically that it often seems like several different movies cut together.

Gould is as much of a mystery at the end as at the beginning. You get the feeling that's the way he'd have wanted it.

Plays like a tiresomely extended evening of channel surfing.

The perfectly sculpted, entirely sure-of-himself Tom ultimately seems more of a construct than a character, his carefree nature shaped almost entirely by the very wish-fulfillment clichés that the movie otherwise sidesteps.

Walken is particularly alive in a way he's rarely been since "Catch Me if You Can," adding untold shades to Hans's mystery-shrouded past - wait until you see what's under his cravat - while still giving his singularly eccentric line readings.

In the end, it can’t help but sentimentalize the better angels that supposedly reside in the land of liberty’s flawed human fabric.

You can’t help but feel all the palpable joy is eliding some darker realities that would lend the copious musical performances a deeper resonance.

Director-cinematographer Steven Soderbergh’s indifference to the material is palpable and of a piece with his deathly dull output of late.

Fans of Moulin Rouge–esque repurposing will be in hog heaven. Everyone else will want to hop that midnight train going anywhere pronto.

Jendreyko elegantly sketches in the details of his subject's life and the historical events surrounding her coming-of-age-out of which emerges a fascinating subtext about the malleable powers of language.

As with many a first feature, Gordon-Levitt’s so-so directorial debut is pumped up with ambition. The early scenes, heavy on caricature, promise to puncture much of the cocky illusions surrounding modern relationships.

Credit the appealingly paired McAdams and Tatum for making this Valentine's-month hokum watchable.