Kenneth Turan

The great thing about Hail, Caesar! is that it is fun whether you get all its references or not.

Writer-director Steers has chosen to overload "Igby" with phony archness and forced black humor, making it not the place to look for satisfying acting.

When it comes to unflinching, riveting looks at a compulsive artist who can't be other than who he is, nothing comes close to Crumb.

Approaching the world in his own specific visual way, Geyrhalter also gravitates toward exploring big ideas, and here he takes on one of the biggest, an exploration of, as he puts it, “the wounds we are inflicting on the Earth.”

Fear of retaliation often keeps faculty and administration from speaking up for students or talking at all, and six university presidents declined to be interviewed here. If it does nothing else, The Hunting Ground should make that kind of evasion more difficult in the future.

Master Z: Ip Man Legacy, like any old-school popular entertainment, contains sentimental moments and broad comedy as well as all that action. If you don’t already have the Ip Man habit, it’s a fine place to start.

What is interesting is not how little sense Déjà Vu makes but how little that matters. If you want your films to add up logically, you're welcome to take your calculator somewhere else. But if you do, you will be missing out on some first-class genre fun.

Don't mistake the brief running time of India's Daughter for a lack of importance or ability to involve. Though it lasts only 63 minutes, this documentary's impact is devastating.

Dyrholm, an actress of formidable presence who expertly handles her own singing as well as the acting, gives a strong, truthful, unflinching performance that powers the film the way Christa's energy powered the bands she was in those late days.

Fiendishly researched and smartly constructed, A German Youth is a formidable piece of documentary detective work focusing on a small but significant historical moment that continues to matter.

As a comedy about a young man with cancer, it needs to be serious enough to be real as well as light enough to be funny. Though it falls off the wagon at times, it maintains its balance remarkably well.

A sly and gleeful comedy showcase that pokes clever fun at the American musical, amateur theatricals and anything else that's not nailed down.

This melding of two cinematic sensibilities, though effective at moments, is finally not as exciting or involving as it we'd like it to be.

Not only one of Kazan's richest films and Dean's first significant role, it is also arguably the actor's best performance. [10 June 2005, p.E12]

As unlikely as it is enchanting, The Eagle Huntress tells its documentary story with such sureness that falling under its sway is all but inevitable.

This may not be exact history, but it certainly makes an impression.

These performers are so young, so serious, so full of dreams and so hard on themselves that it is difficult not to be moved by their striving.

Scorsese and his team have created a heavy-footed golem of a motion picture, hard to ignore as it throws its weight around but fatally lacking in anything resembling soul.

A warm and feisty documentary that is as much inquiry as it is tribute.

The pleasure of a film like this is not in wondering where it's going to go, but in knowing its exact trajectory. Getting us to pull for a foregone conclusion as if the outcome was in serious doubt is no small sleight of hand.

This is an intelligent epic told without special pleading, a film able to cut deep enough to reveal a keen specificity of experience.

A wholly enveloping experience. Gentle, ravishingly beautiful and awash in everyday sensuality, it so intoxicates you with the elegance and refinement of its filmmaking that even noticing, let alone caring, whether it has a plot starts to seem beside the point.

There is more to admire in A Beautiful Mind than you might suspect, but less than its creators believe. When the film does succeed, it almost seems to do so despite itself.

Youth is a film that goes its own way. Quixotic, idiosyncratic, effortlessly moving, it's as much a cinematic essay as anything else, a meditation on the wonders and complications of life, an examination of what lasts, of what matters to people no matter their age.

In some ways, Barry the film takes its personality from Barry himself. Always pleasant and companionable but a little pro forma in its early going, it gains in texture and interest as Obama's life and his reaction to it get more complex.

The music is so strong, and such a demonstration of how potent the group was in action, that it alone makes the film worth seeing.

Though not among Melville's classics, Un Flic is a pleasure to experience.

The film's core, anchored by a fine ensemble cast and a controlled, focused performance by Bacon, is completely solid.

Artfully calculated and authentically felt, the unexpectedly effective Summertime combines the conventional structure of classic movie romance with a sensual same-sex frankness that couldn't be more up-to-date.

It is Mulligan and most especially Fassbender that give the film its power. The desperation, hostility and despair he conveys through the act of sex make Shame a film that is difficult to watch but even harder to turn away from.

A genuinely sweet and determinedly inspirational family film that features a charming young actress in the title role. It's a successful feel-good movie, but it would make you feel even better if it didn't push quite so hard for its desired effects.

If Frederick Wiseman's involving new documentary Crazy Horse is any indication, that old rule about how you get to Carnegie Hall - "practice, practice, practice" - applies equally well to that Parisian temple of self-described "nude chic" known to its intimates simply as "Le Crazy."

Escapes is as unconventional as its subject, demonstrating the charming things that can happen when a life in no way ordinary gets documented by a filmmaker most unusual.

Dances on the edge of flat-lining just like the DOAs that are Frank's stock-in-trade.

It deals with friendship, loneliness, abandonment and forgiveness, and though its curious narrative arc means you're never sure exactly where it's going, the film works up a considerable emotional charge by the end.

Without real dialogue and believable connections between actors, Evita is limited in its effectiveness, and all the crying for Argentina in the world can't change that.

A fun and informative documentary.

Elements of its plot have the standard quality of a Hallmark production, and the work of some of the film's costars is a bit too on the nose. But, with Moore and Stewart on the case, we feel the presence of something real here, something that can't be shrugged off or ignored.

It's that the closeness with Dunne, as well as his complete familiarity with the boldface-names life she and her husband led in both Los Angeles and New York, has given this film a quality of personal intimacy that makes it moving and involving.

The movie musical may not have been dead after all, just resting up until this lot came around. [12 Feb 1993, p.F10]

What Surfwise reveals is that the dark side of the surfing doctor was that he could be a terrible tyrant, someone whose controlling, self-centered rigidity limited his children in ways large and small as much as it gave them richer lives.

Brown has expertly captured the exhilarating and terrifying experience of watching surfers attack waves so preposterously large and ridiculously beautiful they defy description.

Mulan has its accomplishments, but unlike the best of Disney's output, it comes off as more manufactured than magical.

The film throws so much ersatz cleverness and overdone emotion at the audience that we end up more worn out than entertained.

If you feel like you've already read quite a bit about the documentary Bully, you have. But that still won't prepare you for the experience of seeing it.

The Silence is an exemplary German-language thriller, a complex and disturbing examination of guilt, violence and psychological torment that chills us to the core not once but two times over.

With a fine piece of work in his hands, Schroeder has brought all his skill to bear on Kiss of Death, and it has made all the difference.

Enthusiastically received at Sundance, "Great World" is an intriguing look at our obsession with being successful and famous.

For what makes this tale something more than a puzzle to be solved is a level of emotional impact that genre exercises don't often provide, emotion traceable to sensitive acting that is similarly rare.

As frigid as its name. Burdened with a story of some of the world's least interesting people going through a holiday crisis, director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus get as close as any creative team could to making matters involving, but the task is finally too much for them.

Like all memorable sports documentaries - Undefeated is really an examination not of how games are won and lost but how lives are lived, how young people faced with daunting challenges come to see, often in the most dramatic fashion, what is important going forward and what is not.

It finally can't transcend the limitations inherent in being no more than a way station in an epic journey, a journey whose cinematic conclusion is several years away.

A powerful, poignant, provocative drama, it gets its strength from its dispassion, from an uncompromising determination to explain rather than justify or condemn, to put a human face on incomprehensible acts.

A roguish and delightful comedy of duplicity that's as entertaining as it is sly.

Exactly written, directed with a surgeon's precision and transcendently acted, Sideways brings emotional reality to a consistently amusing character comedy, making it something to be cherished like the delicate Santa Ynez Valley wines that are the story's vivid backdrop.

Neither flashy nor dishonest, a wizard with restraint, Pearce has a gift for discovering the excitement in honest human behavior, and working from an acute script by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson, he's able to dramatize the story's essence without forcing the issue.

The disturbing, involving, always-complex story of British mathematician Alan Turing is a tale crafted to resonate for our time, and the smartly entertaining The Imitation Game gives it the kind of crackerjack cinematic presentation that's pure pleasure to experience.

An engrossing, muckraking documentary about the retail giant that's been called "the world's largest, richest and probably meanest corporation." But if you're expecting an angry diatribe, you're going to be disappointed.

Their personality types match up splendidly with the characters they play as well as each other, and Mrs. Brown's greatest pleasure is seeing and hearing them spar. Even with the gloves on, this is a battle well worth observing.

Looser and less obviously formulaic in its fresh approach to our hearts, the brash Lilo & Stitch has an unleashed, subversive sense of humor that's less corporate and more uninhibited than any non-Pixar Disney film.

While Maria By Callas is short on facts and biographical detail, it expertly presents an emotional essence of this performer, leaving you both shaken and stirred by the extent of her gifts and the way they connected to both audiences and her tumultuous life.

Lively, imaginative, with a playful sense of humor.

It's a sad love story that's insightful at its core and indulgent around the edges, a film whose instincts are impeccable when focusing on that romance but less than compelling when it wanders elsewhere.

Chappie is a movie about the evolution of artificial intelligence that's as dumb as a post. It also marks the continuing devolution of the work of director and co-writer Neill Blomkamp.

Aladdin is a film of wonders. To see it is to be the smallest child, open-mouthed at the screen's sense of magic, as well as the most knowing adult, eager to laugh at some surprisingly sly humor.

Director Paul Anderson, whose last film was "Mortal Kombat," well knows how to build suspense and increase tension. But counterbalancing all of that is Event Horizon's position as a sci-fi splatter film, intent on drenching the screen in blood and gore whenever possible. [15Aug1997 Pg 16]

It's got an involving, adventurous story to tell and the wherewithal to tell it correctly. And while young adults may think this is intended only for them, in truth it's their elders who are especially starved for this kind of entertainment.

Sweet-natured and unsurprising, about as hard to resist (and as intellectually demanding) as an affectionate puppy, this is one of those Never Say Die, I Gotta Be Me, Somebody Up There Likes Me sports movies that no amount of cynicism can make much of a dent in.

This film feels completely haphazard, thrown together without much concern for organizing intelligence.

Instead of a thriller, war movie or western, the director has turned out a stirring drama about South African leader Nelson Mandela, blending entertainment, social message and history lesson.

This largely Spanish-language film brings on the waterworks because its core story is undeniably affecting. The whole movie, however, would be more convincing if the elements around that vital core were more multidimensional and less contrived.

A very smart and funny movie directed by Jason Reitman, who also shrewdly adapted the screenplay from Christopher Buckley's savagely satiric novel.

Experiencing Pete's Dragon is like seeing something thought to be extinct, a creation every bit as magical and mythical as the flying, fire-breathing beast its named after. That would be the straight ahead, unapologetic family film.

A lively, old-fashioned adventure yarn with just a twist of modern attitude, it's the kind of pleasant entertainment that allows the paying customers to have as much fun as the people on screen.

The result is a surprisingly satisfying film, true to Bukowski and itself, a work that manages to make the man and his profane world more palatable without compromising on who he was and what he stood for.

So clever, so funny, so suavely entertaining that it comes as a shock to realize that it's not nearly as satisfying as all those qualities would lead you to believe.

There is genuine humor and palpable satiric intent underneath the waves of unnerving bad taste and political incorrectness.

Not without its funny moments, much of Birdcage seems pro forma and predictable. What felt original in 1978 is no longer half so inspired.

While the charismatic performances of Damon and Affleck make Good Will Hunting a difficult entertainment to resist, doing just that is not as hard as the film would like to think.

One of the most unfashionable movies of the new year, and one of the more appealing. [19 February 1999, Calendar, p.F-10]

Though its unhurried pace and ultimately sweet nature give Mad Dog and Glory the feeling more of a diversion than a major work, those who get into its eccentric comic rhythms will definitely be charmed. [5 Mar 1993, p.1]

An unconventional film about an unconventional man. Part documentary, part expertly staged readings, it focuses on the unquiet life and unforgettable words of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, someone who, as his son puts it, never had to go looking for trouble because it always came to him.

Petraglia and Rulli once again display their gift for bringing the texture of reality to family drama, for creating people and situations that involve us completely. My Brother Is an Only Child is not the only film that does this, but it's a product that's in shorter and shorter supply every year.

It takes a bit of doing, but when Tangled's core sweetness asserts itself and the film dares to wear its heart on its sleeve in a climactic scene featuring 46,000 paper lanterns, it's been worth the wait.

It's a star-driven mass-market entertainment that's smart, exciting and unexpected while not stinting on genre satisfactions.

A small gem.

Though it takes its time, Wonderstruck — like the best tales of wonder — resolves all its mysteries as the plot's disparate strands come together in a lovely way.

One of the charms of “Blue Note” is the stories the artists tell about each other.

Good-humored and just about reeking of innocence, That Thing You Do! is what a character has in mind when he asks for "something happy, peppy, up-tempo." Leaving audiences feeling good is very much, and very successfully, on its mind. [04 Oct 1996, Pg.F1]

The result is a compelling but chilling film, one that is inevitably disheartening and disturbing as it details both how Ailes came to understand the nature and power of fear and how he honed his craft until he could sell fear to his fellow citizens like it was going out of style.

A quiet powerhouse of a film, an implacable, uncompromising French police drama, both old-fashioned and modern, that underlines the reasons impeccably made crime stories do so well on screen.

Though Holofcener's films invariably make us laugh in rueful recognition of the inane complexities of lives that manage to echo our own, "Steady Habits" also conveys a melancholy darkness, a more somber cast than usual. Everything seems amusing until suddenly it is not.

From Up on Poppy Hill is frankly stunning, as beautiful a hand-drawn animated feature as you are likely to see. It's a time-machine dream of a not-so-distant past, a sweet and honestly sentimental story that also represents a collaboration between the greatest of Japanese animators and his up-and-coming son.

A forced march toward certain disaster, a scenario only passionate believers in predestination are likely to savor.

A top-drawer heist movie that ratchets up the tension inch by careful inch, The Score will remind you of classic caper films of the past, and that is a good thing.

A cool documentary that makes the blood boil, it examines how people can be psychologically manipulated into confessing. Not only to crimes they may not have committed but, even worse, to crimes that may never have happened.

Though the Meru climbing and outdoor footage is spectacular, it is the personal struggle of each of the climbers, and the candid way they talk about them on camera, that give this film its considerable impact.

A documentary experience to savor. Warm, funny and very difficult to resist, this engaging film combines the charm of "Spellbound" with the kinetic energy of "Strictly Ballroom" in a way that will make you want to laugh, cry and do a little dancing yourself, maybe all at the same time.

If you are familiar with his mesmerizing work, nothing more need be said; if you’re not, this feast of dance illustrates why others are.

This film's cold, almost robotic conception of Salander as a twitchy, anorexic waif feels more like a stunt than a complete character, and so the best part of the reason we care enough to endure all that mayhem has gone away.

The Spanish Prisoner is the smoothest and most convincing of Mamet's elaborate charades and features intriguing performances by Steve Martin and Campbell Scott.

At times haphazard but always involving, The Last Laugh confronts a question that sounds anachronistic in today's anything-goes world:

Confident of its emotional effects, Swingers knows how to breathe life into its people, and hooking audiences is its reward.

Emma partisans, fortunately, never say die, and a very satisfying new version of Austen’s sprightly novel has been directed in high style by Autumn de Wilde.

High-class entertainment, carefully controlled, beautifully mounted and played with total conviction. Its lurid soul may have more in common with Jackie Collins than Jane Austen, but its passionate nature and convincing performances can’t help but draw you in.

It's an interesting take, and it always holds our interest, but it's finally too ham-fisted to be a completely winning one.

Smart and beguiling, it manages the impressive feat of believing wholeheartedly in the power of love without checking its mind at the door.

It shows promise but finally hits things so hard, both literally and metaphorically, that it's hard not to feel pummeled yourself by the time it's over.

Ross' missive is earnest and well-intentioned, but it's difficult not to feel that his film both runs on too long and overreaches its dramatic resources in its attempt to deliver it.

When faced as a director with the rudderless screenplay he (Jonze) co-wrote with Eggers, he's been powerless to energize it in any involving way. Sometimes you are better off with 10 sentences than tens of millions of dollars, and this is one of those times.

There is a sense of sadness around Earth Days, a sense that opportunities were not capitalized on, that not enough was done.

Make no mistake about it, this woman is a force, and the great service this clear-eyed and admiring documentary provides is to emphasize not just Ginsburg's work on the court but how extraordinarily influential she was before she even got there.

Telling things through the eyes of a spoiled, precocious, troublemaking 8-year-old narrator is both an overdone device and not a particularly engaging one.

Willem Dafoe's performance in Shadow of the Vampire is so irresistible it not only breaks that cycle but turns an otherwise just adequate film into something everyone will want to take a look at.

As a result of Mann's craftsmanship and concern, Collateral crackles with energy and purpose, a propulsive film with character on its mind and confident men and women on both sides of the camera.

Its step-by-step tragedy is so ruthless in its unfolding, you may find yourself wishing it were less well done, that it left you some room to breathe. But House of Sand and Fog has a story to tell and it means to tell it, no matter what the cost.

While excellent films like Danis Tanovic's Oscar-winning "No Man's Land" and Vinko Bresan's "Witnesses" have dealt with the war itself, few have dealt with the aftermath, and none with the aching power and empathy of Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams.

Clockers, Lee's eighth feature in nine years, demonstrates how accomplished a filmmaker he has become, securely in control of plot, actors and imagery.

Clever and amusing though it often is, “Murder” is also Allen’s whiniest film to date, and your appreciation of its pleasures will fluctuate according to your tolerance for his Angst .

The result is a rich and detailed picture of the particular culture of this particular part of the South.

Though Training Day doesn't resolve itself as well as it deserves and ends strictly cops-and-robbers style, it's given us some great acting and something to ponder. Not every cop show can lay claim to that.

Made by Hickenlooper over a six-year period, "Mayor" is rich in interviews, with comments from rock stars.

The reality of intergenerational conflict is a given for Blinded by the Light, but nothing can stand up to the transformative power of the Boss. You can take that to the bank.

“Giraffes” benefits not only from Dagg’s charismatic presence but also from excerpts of letters she wrote during her first trip to Africa (read by Tatiana Maslany) and 16-millimeter color film she shot back in the day.

As epic as its two-hours-and-25-minute running time indicates, Black Book is as subversive as it is traditional, both enamored of conventional notions of heroism and frankly contemptuous of them.

Turns out to be a thoroughly entertaining if eccentric piece of business, wacky and amusing in a cheerfully preposterous way. [28 September 1994, Calendar, p.F-1]

The Farewell Party succeeds as well as it does because the core dilemma always feels real and the filmmakers take great care to see that the inevitable emotions put into play are never overdone.

Marsh makes the most of McCarten's effective script. There's a real energy to his filmmaking, the ability to be intelligently dramatic without overdoing things that is ideally suited to material that would be so easy to get wrong.

Edgy and provocative but with a weakness for sensationalistic footage.

A rehash of plot conventions from a slew of mismatched movies. A Perfect World will remind you of any number of previous films, but almost everything it attempts to do was done better the last time around.

This is much more conventional cops and robbers stuff, leavened with a bit of sex and sequences of brutal, at times sadistic, violence. What elevates it above the norm is bravura acting by Vincent Cassel in the title role.

Despite the linked advantages of generous helpings of the man's high octane music and a star performance by Chadwick Boseman that's little short of heroic, Get on Up is more frustrating than fulfilling, a disjointed film that suffers from having a more ambitious plan than it's got the ability to execute.

The Great Buster briskly takes us through the stations of Keaton’s eventful life and career, mostly going the expected chronological route with one key exception.

Cinéma vérité all the way, a classic fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows Bannon for about a year as he flies hither and yon on private jets, taking meetings, bolstering supporters and attempting to turn his brand of fervent nationalism into a global movement.

A moving, troubling documentary. Moving because of the nature of the problem it explores, troubling because the film can't help but underline that simple solutions are never going to present themselves, no matter how much we want them to.

Most of all we see what a coldblooded sport campaigning is, and how desperately the people who are good at it want to win.

Just as there will always be an England, there will always be a certain kind of English film: the highly polished entertainment, well-acted, genteelly amusing and impeccably turned out. Mrs. Henderson Presents is the latest example of the trend and an especially satisfying one.

With his wide, hollow eyes, nervous fingers and celebrated big hair, Spector is a haunted-looking figure whose words are always compelling no matter what unexpected dissatisfactions they may reveal.

As directed by Morgan Neville, "Strangers" turns out to be as concerned with emotion as with performance, spending much of its time investigating how so much joyous music was able to come out of exploration, disturbance, even pain.

A carefully thought out and consummately well-made piece of work, a serious comic-book adaptation that is driven by story, psychology and reality, not special effects.

Succeeds by never tipping its hand or losing its equilibrium while its characters often seem to be doing nothing but.

Soon becomes a sadistic experience in its own right. Experiencing this pretentious wallow -- overwritten, under-thought and overdone -- is a very sophisticated form of torture.

With its gift for infusing uneasiness into every frame, Kurosawa's moody, unnerving film continues to spook us even after the lights have gone on.

Features an aggressive, in-your-face romanticism that's noticeably lacking in genuine warmth. While its story of lonely misfits searching for love has appealing moments, more often it turns into an overbearing fable overburdened with fake joie de vivre.

Though Kidman doesn't hesitate to make Grace high-strung and as tightly wound as they come, she also projects vulnerability and courage when they're called for. It's an intense, involving performance, and it dominates and energizes a film that would be lost without it.

A well-researched and iconoclastic documentary that is both thoughtful and troubling, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is indeed a cautionary tale, but what it cautions against is the lure of easy judgments derived from prejudices and ignorance of the facts.

It starts out like a house afire, but by the time it's over we're the ones feeling burned. A slick heist tale with more twists than sense, this is one movie that ends up outsmarting itself.

No matter what is going on, Hansen-Love's talent for bringing us inside a specific world makes Eden an experience we all can connect to.

Focus is really the heart of Morris' unsettling film, which strikes a remarkable balance between art and disturbance, between beauty and pain.

Blessed with clever plot devices and a villainous horde that makes the once-dread Klingons seem like a race of Barneys, First Contact does everything you'd want a "Star Trek" film to do, and it does it with cheerfulness and style.

A gently humorous fable about the power of faith and the possibility of change, Ushpizin not only takes place in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, it was filmed with that media-shy group's cooperation and followed religious law at all times.

It would be swell if all of The Walk came together as beautifully as the computer effects do, but it would also be churlish not to appreciate what we do have. This film may not talk the talk, but it definitely walks the walk, and for that we are grateful.

Bristling but finally surprisingly moving film.

Since Dior and I was made with the house's cooperation, the film is not exactly a slashing piece of investigative journalism, but it does give us glimpses of the reality of this kind of business.

"I am epic, hear me roar" is what the lion-centered The Ghost and the Darkness would have you believe. The reality is more like an acceptably loud noise than a true roar, but so few films venture into the old-fashioned world of historical action adventures that even a loud noise is a welcome sound. [11 Oct 1996, p.F16]

The Paper never stops for breath long enough to be dull. But all this tumult also leads to a feeling of shellshock, of having every contrivance not nailed down thrown at the audience. Part of the problem is that many of these subplots, like Henry’s marital difficulties, are no more than Hollywood serious, dealing with adult situations in a bogus way that would be better avoided.

Long Way North is a complete pleasure, a gorgeous piece of wide-screen animation that is as delightful as it is unexpected.

Real enough around the edges to hold our attention even if it sacrifices accuracy for storytelling ease.

Because Manville and Neeson are such potent performers, they are expert at playing out all the implications of what this experience is like.

Charming, slyly comic and far from conventionally religious.

It's a loving and comic tribute to a musical era Allen knows well.

"Breakdown" gets the music right and has the benefit of strong acting, but its unapologetically melodramatic plot has a tendency to throw everything at you but the kitchen sink.

A deeply personal and unexpectedly poetic film.

The Scent of Green Papaya, a film as delicate and evocative as its name, recognizes that out of illusion can come reality.

As written by Gregory Poirier and produced by Jon Peters, whose credits are mostly of the blockbuster variety, the film is broader and more simplistic than it needs to be, settling more than it should for obvious emotions and situations.

Bardem's performance is so good it tends to mask how lacking much of what surrounds it is.

Simultaneously an art film and a crime film, Mann's latest work may not give you a ton to hang on to emotionally, but the beauty and skill of the filmmaking keep you tightly in its grasp.

It's a film of unexpected, almost indescribable off-center charm that deepens as it goes on.

Inspired in part by the success of "An Inconvenient Truth," the makers of Countdown to Zero are determined to mobilize public opinion to zero out the world's nuclear arsenal. We all should be rooting for their success, because failure would leave no one left to mourn our mistakes.

Final Portrait is quietly involving, amusing in a shaggy-dog-story way and impeccably made.

Audacious, bracing, uncommonly timely, Bob Roberts would seem almost impossible to pull off. So it is very much to Robbins' credit as a filmmaker that he manages to do so while rarely getting preachy and never neglecting the importance of movement and excitement in keeping an audience involved. [04 Sep 1992, p.F1]

As enervating as it is long -- and at 2 hours and 47 minutes it is quite long -- this version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald fantasy short story is a baffling project, an endurance test of a movie that feels like it was made on a dare.

A powerful and empathetic melodrama with feminist underpinnings.

Israeli journalist Amos Elon once wrote that the demands for justice presented by the Israeli-Palestinian impasse exceed the human capacity to administer it. The dramatic, involving The Oslo Diaries details the closest these adversaries have come to proving Elon wrong, a story that is heartening and heartbreaking by turn.

Though Unstrung Heroes' thematic elements are uniformly strong, it is the film's treatment of Danny and Arthur that is especially impressive. [15 Sep 1995]

The film delineates the rise and fall of conventional urban planning, but also lets us know that the battle is not completely over.

An insightful film that takes us on a nuanced emotional journey with a group of friends trying to make sense of the romantic choices they've made, it has the sympathy and psychological acuity we've come to recognize as the hallmark of French cinema at its best. [20 Aug 1999, p.F14]

Starring an ideally cast Patton Oswalt in the title role, Big Fan is a poignant, dead-on character study, an examination of a crisis in the life of the most die-hard of die-hard New York Giants football fans.

With a traditional structure combined with daring flash forwards and a modern soundtrack, Ceddo is powerful and uncompromising.

It's a product of the highest quality, but at the end of the day that's what it is: a machine-made, assembly-line product whose strengths tend to feel like items checked off a master list rather than being the result of any kind of individual creative touch.

Such a smart and savvy piece of work it encourages us to feel we're eavesdropping on history.

Millennium Actress fascinatingly goes where films have not often gone before.

A strange story wrapped in a stranger one, an engrossing documentary about one of the least known and most unexpected aspects of the Nazi war against the Jews.

A striking new documentary that shows the war in a way it's not been seen before: from the ground up.

If you can't place the name, or want to know more, Anita is a splendid place to start.

Ava Gardner in the role of her career (Humphrey Bogart isn't bad either) and writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz at the top of his form. [03 Dec 2006, p.18]

Written, directed and acted with real compassion and sympathy for the humanity of its characters, no matter who they are or on what side of these multiple issues they turn out to be.

Meet The Patels is more than just a hoot. Its candor and empathy allow it to make keen points about love, marriage, family and the unexpected complications that American freedoms can bring to immigrant lives.

Shanley seems to have lost a certain amount of faith in what he'd written. As a director he's ended up pushing the drama harder than he needs to. He hasn't done anything fatal, but he has tampered with and hampered it.

For Liar Liar is marking time through the duller moments of exposition, wishing the film was as sharp overall as Carrey is himself.

Genial mirth and the nightmarish gloom of the Middle East do not sound like natural companions, but the droll and delightful Tel Aviv on Fire has made the impossible possible.

The comic pizazz and bawdy dazzle of this film's vision of gaudy drag performers trekking across the Australian outback certainly has a boisterous, addictive way about it. [10 Aug 1994]

The result is an unexpectedly satisfying fantasia of reality and imagination, a meditation on the nature of lies and deception, on how we come to embrace not the truth but what it suits us to believe.

This beguiling Belgian fable, very much its own droll and delicate little film, has some touching things to say about what is important in life and why.

Stella may be frothy and paper-thin, but it's also another great success for star Angela Bassett, who transforms the film into an infomercial for her considerable abilities.

This is the biggest surprise of all -- it's hard to watch Going Upriver without wondering, frankly, what became of the young John Kerry, who comes off so exceptionally well in this film.

Song of the Sea is a wonder to behold. This visually stunning animation masterwork, steeped in Irish myth, folklore and legend, so adroitly mixes the magical and the everyday that to watch it is to be wholly immersed in an enchanted world.

What makes "Bombshell" intriguing is not just Lamarr's gift for invention, it's also what a fiery individualist she was, someone who had no regrets about her eventful life ("You learn from everything"), not even its racy, tabloid elements.

This enthralling film, based on the book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, is as fascinating as it is horrifying.

It's the best kind of unforced filmmaking, able to make its points with delicacy and tact. And the best thing about it is that it is Bottaro's feature directing debut. We have a lot to look forward to.

It is sweet but not saccharine, an intimate film that doesn't stint on the desperation and anxiety that go along with the search for love.

It once again confuses a kind of juvenile titillation with insight and treats the ability to make audiences squirm as a pinnacle of film art.

Another indictment of pervasive corruption and perhaps Sembene's most celebrated film, it was heavily censored in Senegal on its release in 1974 and it is not difficult to see why. [01 Jan 1995, p.30]

Late Night is that rare thing: a deft and intelligent entertainment that can touch on serious issues because being funny is something it never forgets to do.

Though the politically incorrect language is tough enough to have earned Clerks an initial NC-17 rating (re-rated R on appeal), its exuberance gives it an alive and kicking feeling that is welcome and rare. [19 Oct 1994]

To really understand the zany and surreal comic madness of A Town Called Panic, you're going to have to see it for yourself.

This may not fit any conventional definition of entertainment, but it certainly keeps your eyes on the screen.

It turns out to be an especially warm comedy with a hidden heart. It's a film whose humor has feeling behind it because writer-director Peter Hedges doesn't let his comedy overpower an understanding of how emotionally weighted family situations are always going to be.

Made with passion, integrity and skill, Blood Stripe is American independent filmmaking at its most effective. It takes on a difficult subject and treats it with an honesty that can't help but capture us from start to finish.

Cinderella Man's key emotional moments feel as if they've been predigested for an audience that can't be trusted to feel things for itself but needs to be firmly albeit lovingly pointed in the appropriate direction.

It's got a terrific inside Hollywood sensibility plus an unblinking candor that lets the chips fall where they should. Which, given who made it, is something of a pleasant surprise.

Cronos surprises with its sophisticated and spirited look at a tale straight from the crypt. [22 Apr 1994]

By being so provocatively candid about what for her is small stuff, Madonna understands that the reality of the film, the fact that she has in truth revealed very little of herself, really won't be noticed. What we get is exactly what she wants us to see, nothing more, and, certainly nothing less. [10 May 1991, p.F1]

An intense, nihilistic thriller as well as a model of implacable storytelling, this is a film you can't stop watching even though you very much wish you could. That's because No Country escorts you through a world so pitilessly bleak, "you put your soul at hazard," as one character says, to be part of it.

The creators of this film were fiercely determined not to go so much as a millimeter over the line into sentiment, tawdriness or mockery. It's the rare film that is the best possible version of itself, but "Lars" fits that bill.

Half visual essay, half verbal investigation, “Silence” is thoughtful and informative as well as contemplative and restorative.

Clocking in at 2 hours and 32 minutes, it is unforgivably leisurely, almost glacial, a film that loses its way in the thickets of alternative history and manages to be violent without the start-to-finish energy that violence on screen usually guarantees.

This is a moving and provocative film that initially unsettles, then disturbs and finally haunts you well into the night.

A runaway train drama that never slows down, it fashions familiarity into a virtue and shows why old-school professionalism never goes out of style.

Brave simply doesn't feel as much like the Pixar movies we've come to expect.

Nothing happens you won't see coming, but it's all so deftly done you're more than happy to wait for the inevitable to arrive.

"In His Own Words" is a deeply involving look at the man's entire life, using archival footage, home movies, private letters but most of all filmed interviews Rabin gave, to let us hear him tell his own story just about from cradle to grave.

As directed by Thomas Piper, a filmmaker who specializes in arts-related docs, "Five Seasons" does two things with grace and skill, starting with immersing us in what Oudolf's work looks like.

Encouraged by Mendes' artful direction, his gift for eliciting naturalness, the core of this film finally cries out to us today, makes us see that the notion of characters struggling with life, with the despair of betraying their best selves because of what society will or won't allow, is as gripping and relevant now as it ever was. Or ever will be.

A slick and efficient piece of action entertainment, fast moving with energetic stunt work and nice thriller moves.

Not only is Polanski very much in his comfort zone with this material, he also has cast it impressively, staying away from any of the actors who played the parts in either its London or New York productions and finding players who match up well with Carnage's juicy dialogue.

Once Lion's can't-miss conclusion hovers into view, the film's periodic over-dramatization matters less. A story like this is finally impossible to mess up, and pretending otherwise is beside the point.

Mightily impressive to look at. What it's like to listen to is somewhat different.

Brown's engrossing and poignant documentary on Van Zandt, is filled with appearances by celebrated performers who are simply fans of this legendarily troubled figure with the aching voice and haunted Lincoln-esque look.

A gloss on the disillusion that came with the embracing of communist ideals that is part playful farce, part dark satire, this unclassifiable film, both comic and strange, always holds your attention even when it doesn't seem to know where it's going.

It's a complex, determined look at one of the most pernicious problems facing organized sports on all levels.

A small-scale gem of a movie, both dramatically aware and psychologically astute.

Faucon, whose own grandparents came to France without speaking the language, has a gift for artfully removing the melodrama from potentially overheated situations, leaving behind a scenario that is honest, direct and dramatic without any sense of special pleading or situations pushed too hard.

The result is a show business rush so pure it would be illegal if it were a drug. Though the film’s peek behind the celebrity-curtain love story inevitably falters a bit in the second half, the emotional waves it has already created manage to carry us over the rough spots.

A throwback to the days of old-school caper movies like "To Catch a Thief," Duplicity is just the kind of sophisticated amusement you would expect from filmmaker Tony Gilroy.

The step-by-step examination of how so many smart people with such a good idea failed so badly results in a film which offers up not only a crackling story but also enough lessons that it could be a Harvard Business School case study all by itself.

It's hard to believe a story this serious can be told in such an involving way, but that is one of this expert documentarian's greatest gifts.

A serious film with a lot on its mind, is probably the most intelligent treatment of this period we've had.

Director Spike Lee has made some of the most hard-edged and unsettling American films on racism and its effects. Yet none has been as moving as this. [24 Oct 1997, Pg.F2]

Green Book is a savvy and super effective piece of popular entertainment.

The Vogels' story is a very specific one, at once more unexpected and more moving than it might seem at first.

Whedon is the key reason why this $220-million behemoth of a movie is smartly thought out and executed with verve and precision. It may be overly long at two hours, 23 minutes, but so much is going on you might not even notice.

A completely charming reality-based romantic fantasy, both sweet-natured and sympathetic, Show Me Love is a leader of the pack.

It sounds like a throwback to an earlier, more traditional style of Israeli filmmaking but it instead provides a view of that country that's as satisfyingly eccentric and unexpected as anything we've seen.

Exhilarating and frustrating at the same time... the Coens' skill is such that you're not averse to following them anywhere, but every once in a while you can't help wishing they weren't so dead set against throwing the rest of us at least a hint of what's on their minds. [21 Aug 1991]

Even decades after it was written Beirut is as relevant as it is entertaining, and it is very entertaining indeed.

Its warped, disconnected sensibility makes for an oddly distant piece of work.

"Antarctica" is successful because it operates on two complementary levels, the epic visuals whose grandeur can stagger you and the small-scale personal stories of the people who live and work down there.

The Farrellys here show a gift not just for finding humor where others have feared to look but for presenting it in a way that is surprisingly close to irresistible.

With a formidable presence that mainlines emotional intensity, Devos dominates this film, appearing in almost every scene, but she has key support from another of France's most accomplished actresses: the enigmatic, four-time Cesar winner Nathalie Baye.

Satiric, surreal, unexpected and at times wildly funny, Zero Motivation is a savage black comedy that eviscerates an unexpected target: the Israeli army.

The film's pronounced split between violence and softness notwithstanding, Prince Caspian is finally a more polished effort than "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and squarely in the tradition of the kind of teenage movies the Disney organization used to make before teens discovered horror and gore.

Author Coben, who says he is a fan of "stories that move you, that grab hold of your heart and do not let it go," has gotten a film that does exactly that.

If you ignore the slicker aspects of the dialogue (and with a little effort you mostly can), it's satisfying to find a film that is as innocent and as much visual fun as this one is.

A sports film to remember.

See How They Fall"shows an ambitious director well on his way to being the master of his game.

With Philipe apparently doing a lot of his own stunts, Fanfan is replete with heroic leaps, speedy horse rides, occasional explosions and clashing sabers. If this all sounds like a 1950s version of "Pirates of the Caribbean," that may not be such a bad comparison.

The French, no one needs to be told, take food and food preparation with extreme seriousness. "There are no 'all-you-can eat' places in France," one chef sniffs in this excellent Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker documentary. "The idea is to eat small amounts of the best food."

A bravura act of self-revelation, its vivid portrait of one man's fears, fantasies and neuroses uses a mixture of reality, imagination and comedy to create one of the writer-director's most involving films.

This is finally a film that is better at mood than substance, that has its strongest hold on you when it’s making the least amount of sense.

The Underneath doesn't add up. Made with polish and assurance, capably acted and intricately constructed, its overall impact is less than these parts would indicate. It is good but, against all logic, it is not good enough.

(To be) thoroughly enjoyed as a privileged look at one of the loopiest of late 20th century lives.

Energetic and absorbing documentary.

Sayles' films are always of interest, and even though the partly cloudy Sunshine State is not the writer-director at his best, even his letdowns often have more to offer than other people's successes.

Enlivening things to an unprecedented extent, the songs turn O Brother into perhaps the warmest production in the Coens' repertoire.

British actress Jane Horrocks plays Little Voice, and it is a transfixing, tour de force performance.

The Reports on Sarah and Saleem snaps, crackles and pops. A taut and compelling Jerusalem-set melodrama, it effectively intertwines the personal with the political in a way that is only enhanced by that city’s fraught atmosphere and cultural dynamics.

The Birth of a Nation certainly has the power of conviction, but the grace of art escapes it.

Tears of Gaza is both horrifying and frustrating. This documentary's goals are noble ones, but its execution is something else again.

An elegantly discursive examination of one of the great modern photographers, a surprisingly intimate portrait of an elusive, laconic man.

While the bleak, funny, exquisitely made Inside Llewyn Davis echoes familiar themes and narrative journeys, it also goes its own way and becomes a singular experience, one of their best films.

It's an adult look at the teenage years, an examination of how personal emotions inform political action, a noteworthy change of pace for writer-director Sally Potter and, most of all, the showcase for a performance by Elle Fanning as Ginger that is little short of phenomenal.

Directors Goldfine and Geller tell their story with such engaged confidence that we are swept along to its wild end.

An effective, efficient and quite dramatic examination of the events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and injured 264, Patriots Day is a tribute to people who earned it: the investigators and first responders who ensured that a horrible situation did not become even worse.

Aside from preserving these folks for a presumably grateful posterity and convincingly depicting Austin as an open-air lunatic asylum, Slacker does not offer much to anyone who likes to stay awake.

What unnecessary imprisonment does to families is often written about in abstract terms, but to see what it did to one specific family runs an emotional gamut that the patience of this heroically committed filmmaker does full justice to.

It seems to be doing everything right but still doesn't manage to leave you with a completely satisfied feeling.

With moments of odd, dark humor sprinkled among the violence, this traditional study of psycho kittens in love breaks just enough new ground to be an impressive piece of work.

They both saw themselves, "Dying to Know" posits, as adventurers exploring alternate realities, and hearing where they ended up is a trip all by itself.

Not only is the film that good, it's also that wonderfully, inescapably Czech.

Call this a brooding comedy or a darkly whimsical drama, "Wilbur's" willingness to mix gallows humor and real sadness make it something on which labels do not easily fit.

Though amusing enough to avoid absolutely drowning in schmaltz, it's sad to see a film with potential lose its way in the late innings.

Made with care and conviction as it explores this unexpected relationship, "Our Souls at Night" understands both what changes in people as they age and what remains the same. It covers quite a bit of emotional territory, and it covers it well.

Small scale though it is, this is a film that knows what it wants to do and has thought out exactly how to go about doing it. The same must be said about the luminous nature of Kazan's performance, which won best actress last year at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Because Ihlen was never the public figure that the often idolized Cohen was, “Words of Love” eventually becomes as much a documentary on him as a record of a relationship. But that relationship does have pride of place, and as described by the participants in vintage audio and by people who knew him in contemporary interviews, it does fascinate.

Working closely with master editor William Goldenberg, Greengrass has given 22 July a relentless, remorseless quality, insisting on a matter-of-fact style that allows no escape from reality even while refusing to push anything too hard.

LaGravenese... has understood that the worst of Bridges is not in its dialogue but in the silent musings that occupy its characters' minds. By keeping those thoughts unspoken, by allowing the camera to show instead of having words tell, much has been accomplished.

It's a classic rags-to-riches-to-rage tale about the fatal nexus of celebrity and market forces, a story that is unexpectedly poignant even though it's told to an insistent punk rock beat.

Frustrating yet deeply watchable melodrama that makes you think it's a tougher picture than it is.

It's a display of phenomenal dexterity and nimble grace that's a joy to watch. That, friends, is entertainment.

The problem is that the first half of Infamous is nowhere near as comic as McGrath intends. Instead the picture gives off a tone of arch stylization that plays as artificial, overwrought and off-putting.

Fun but in a careful way, the film lasts just two hours, but it can seem much longer than that.

For while the idea of comparing the Europe of 60 years ago to the Europe of today sounds didactic, the results are anything but. Ferrario turns out to have a delicate, unforced eye for elegant counterpoints, and his style unobtrusively draws you into the journey.

To see this overly schematic movie, is to be made to feel -- inaccurately as it turns out -- that the whole thing is a hopelessly exaggerated fabrication. The taint of the melodramatic techniques used in key segments infects the entire movie and makes us question the truth of a significant historical reality.