Keith Uhlich

The popular view of art is that it belongs to the masses. Wiseman casts a more skeptical eye, questioning such egalitarianism with cold, hard historical context. Yet he simultaneously acknowledges that these works live on far beyond their original purpose, even if, as the film’s bold, brilliant climax suggests, they may eventually play to an audience of none.

Diplomacy’s origins as a play (written by Cyril Gely and starring the same actors) are always evident. Despite Schlöndorff’s attempts to give the movie some pop through widescreen lensing and noirish lighting, it’s a visually staid affair—very “filmed theater.” Fortunately, both Arestrup and Dussolier are captivating presences.

What really makes Rudderless a full-blown affront is a late-breaking narrative revelation (no spoilers here) that’s meant to add resonant emotional depth, but instead comes off as jaw-droppingly repugnant. That’s appropriate, though, for a movie with no sense of direction.

Ultimately, this feels like a hagiographic official portrait that takes the sting out of the proverbial bee.

The early scenes of Gabe Ibáñez’s impressively mounted but uneven thriller do some terrific dystopian world-building.

The movie’s admirable fleetness, however, doesn’t mitigate some of its narrative errors — Alexander’s opening voiceover suggests his family is totally oblivious to his role in their misery, which is disproved by a later scene — nor does it counteract an overall sense of slightness that prevents this from being a family-film classic.

Good God almighty: Not since Edward D. Wood Jr. unleashed a flotilla of paper-plate UFOs on beautiful downtown Burbank has there been a movie as stem-to-stern inept as this adaptation of the bestselling Christian novel series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.

Apart from the devastating material itself, some of Lapa’s aesthetic choices are extremely off-putting.

For all its surface effectiveness, however, The Blue Room never quite makes that intangible leap into greatness. It’s a phenomenally executed exercise that, like its protagonist’s memory, is too wispy for its own good.

For a while it’s a low-key fish-out-of-water comedy (with McDonald’s as one of its many obvious punch lines), then it morphs into a cumbrously sentimental tale of redemption.

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.

Probably the biggest sin in a movie filled with many is turning Fonda into a nymphomaniacal sight gag who makes Barbarella look like Gloria Steinem.

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.

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

The lengthy final two shots (each running more than ten minutes) rank among the best work this inimitable artist has ever done.

The filmmaker’s second feature is an unfortunate sophomore slump, an abrasive and opaque artist-in-crisis story that feels protracted at barely 80 minutes.

Ed Harris is a performer made for Westerns, and he’s perfectly utilized in debuting director Michael Berry’s middling if still very watchable modern-day oater as Roy.

This potent emotional undercurrent goes a long way toward counteracting the movie’s clumsier moments, carrying us aloft to a finale that, in its strange mix of trepidation and tenderness, is truly sublime.

The survey the film provides is bracing, and there are plenty of talking heads to guide us through the kaleidoscope of imagery. Unfortunately, there’s also a public-television vibe to the proceedings that mutes the overall power. It’s essential info presented with little imagination.

It’s another fascinating entry in the director’s ongoing exploration of the sadistic and masochistic facets of human behavior.

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

By using Laura as an avatar, Marker actually helps us see the visuals and their knotty meanings much more clearly. The more we watch, the more Laura softens, until — in a mind-bending conceit — her very status as a fictional creation is called into question. The effect is ecstatic.

You might actually say the documentary itself is Mohassess’s final canvas, so infused it becomes with his alternately infuriating and infectious personality.

These scenes make you wish the rest of the movie had similar bite, but Gibney tends toward that dutiful doc style that mixes talking heads and archival clips into a flavorless stew—a bland complement to Fela’s zesty on- and offstage presence.

There’s a fine line between modesty and inconsequence, and this low-key, primarily improvised feature from mumblecore staple Joe Swanberg mostly blurs the divide.

Winterbottom’s inability to bring off this lurid stew of sex and violence is one problem; his (mis)direction of Affleck is another.

The funny thing about all these sub-"Matrix" shenanigans is that they’re genuinely meant to stoke thought and reflection. Frankly, though, few movies have left me feeling as shorn of gray matter.

The director’s latest—a lighthearted romance set in 1920s Germany and France—won’t do much to sway proponents or detractors from their own perspectives, though taken at face value, it’s one of Allen’s most charmingly conceived and performed efforts.