Kenneth Turan

Georgia is not an easy film, but in the American independent arena, it outperforms everything in sight.

While the uniqueness of the film's Riyadh setting and the disturbing nature of Wadjda's depictions of life for women behind the Saudi curtain are thoroughly involving, the actual plotline of a 10-year-old girl's determination to own a bicycle can be as standard as it sounds.

What “black lives matter” means in essence, one of this film’s voices says, “is that all lives matter,” a point “13th” makes with undeniable eloquence as well as persuasive force.

As violent scene follows violent scene, it is possible to notice how phony even the film's painstakingly constructed macho dialogue starts to sound. And Fresh's willingness to use legitimate social problems as nothing more than an excuse for cheap thrills gets increasingly off-putting. Fresh and his father may be able to push those chess pieces around at breakneck speed, but audiences will want to be treated with more respect.

For all its gifted collaborators, "Film" was not a match made in heaven. But for moviegoers who care about film not just as a title, Notfilm can be unreservedly recommended.

Arrival is really Adams' film, a showcase for her ability to quietly and effectively meld intelligence, empathy and reserve.

The jokes are quick, with clever jibes alternating with double-crosses and the occasional murder, and the streamlined plot unrolls like a colorful ball of twine.

It sounds paradoxical but, if done right, films about a life ending can be the most life-affirming films you'll see. Truman, a great success in its native Spain, is definitely done right.

Few actors can be as convincing as leaders of men, and to see Crowe as Capt. Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is to see a consummate performer doing what he does best.

Teaches important lessons in the most casual, joyful way. How it manages to do that is probably the biggest secret of all.

Though Living in Oblivion may sound like a one-joke movie, the pleasure of the endeavor is that it has no trouble holding your interest without feeling repetitive. Mark it down to the excellence of the acting, including the smallest roles, and the amusing and accurate way the ambience of bargain-basement filmmaking is captured.

Bridge of Spies is a consummate professional's tribute to a gifted amateur, a smooth entertainment with a strong but subtle political subtext that's both potent and unexpected.

Playful, absurd and endearingly inventive, this unstoppably amusing feature reminds us why Britain's Aardman Animations is a mainstay of the current cartooning golden age.

Mendes, in only his second feature (following the Oscar-winning "American Beauty"), has told this surprisingly resonant story with the potent, unrelenting fatalism of a previously unknown Greek myth.

I have a weakness for inside Hollywood films, and this smart and fearless item starring Jean Harlow as an amalgam of herself and Clara Bow is not as well-known as it should be. [03 Apr 2020, p.E1]

Simultaneously poetic, dramatic and realistic, White Material is an altogether stunning work.

Its charming story of the delicate intersection of three highly individual lives is the kind of completely personal yet universal film that the festival and the entire independent movement came into being to celebrate. And it does it all in 88 deft and funny minutes.

A despairing, intentionally disturbing film that draws us into a maelstrom of desperate emotions, it holds up a dark mirror to the American dream and does not like what it sees.

Droll and delicious.

The unexpected thing about Dolores, finally, is that if its political story makes it important, its human story makes it involving.

Masterfully put-together, made with confidence, intelligence and command.

Larraín told his producers he wouldn't do Jackie unless Natalie Portman agreed to take on the role, and her superb performance, utterly convincing without being anything like an impersonation, vindicates his determination.

Solondz's filmmaking style tries to make a virtue out of flatness and distance, and is always more comfortable indicating where feelings would go than actually providing them.

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

Has enough virtues to make it successful, including an unusual story and some fine acting, especially by the powerful Janet McTeer.

This is an unusual venture, both charming and serious, that goes in more directions than anticipated, including more than a touch of magic realism.

One of the most fascinating things about Under the Sun is the contradictory thoughts it inspires.

Simultaneously exhilarating and confounding, dazzling and confusing, this is filmmaking of such verve and style that you likely won't care that you can't follow it completely.

Even if No is not the whole truth — and no film is — its pungent dialogue and involving characters tell a delicious and very pertinent tale. And the messages it delivers, its thoughts on the workings of democracy and the intricacies of personality, are just as valuable and entertaining — maybe even more so.

Nathaniel Kahn is very much a presence in this film, at times too much so. The title is properly read with the emphasis on the "my," and the work itself is a plea, understandable but disconcerting at times in its nakedness, to be linked irrevocably to his father.

Police, Adjective may not be the film you're expecting, but it's one that will stay on your mind.

Not only do Grant, Scott Thomas, Callow and company handle the sprightly dialogue with aplomb, they are also adept at the doubletakes and befuddled looks that make Four Weddings both amusing and irresistible all the way through the not-to-be-missed final credits. [9 March 1994, Calendar, p.F-1]

Guillermo del Toro is more than a filmmaker, he's a fantasy visionary with an outsized imagination and a fanatical specificity, a creator of out-of-this world universes carefully conceived down to the smallest detail. His particular gifts and passions are on display in the long-awaited Pacific Rim and the results are spectacular.

As poignant and pointed as it is funny (and it is very funny), it dresses up familiar forms with modern twists and ends up an assured and amusing comedy of manners. [04 Aug 1993, p.F1]

The film packs in so much information and comedy, it would be fun to see it twice: not just to take in what it has to tell us, but also to laugh all over again.

Fortunately, both the film’s gorgeous look and its meticulously choreographed action sequences keep us more than occupied until the plot pieces fall into place.

Though it is a tale of real-life 15th-century rulers and lords, The King uses superior filmmaking and fully involving storytelling to make it seem very much a modern situation — in which wholly human individuals deal with up-to-date themes including power and its corruptions and the nature of friendship.

Actors as well as athletes have a prime of life, a time when everything they touch seems a miracle. And the crowning pleasure of watching Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh in this rollicking version of Much Ado About Nothing is the way it allows us to share in that state of special grace, to watch the English-speaking world’s reigning acting couple perform at the top of their game.

What “Edge” is especially good at is detailing how Costa gradually began to see things differently, to see the corruption investigation as an attempt by the oligarchy to reassert itself, to take power via a kind of legislative/judicial coup because it could not do so by the ballot.

Filmmaker Leon has deftly structured Gimme the Loot as a picaresque tale, an anecdotal, observational film that introduces us to all manner of eccentric and original characters. Will Malcolm and Sophia get what they want, what they need, or something in between? The only sure thing is that being along for the ride is pleasure of the most unexpected sort.

Tarantino's palpable enthusiasm, his unapologietic passion for what he's created, reinvigorates this venerable plot and, mayhem aside, makes it involving for longer than you might suspect. [27 Oct 1992]

Most of all, Davies proves himself to be a poet of the commonplace whose art is the exalting of the everyday. He may rail against "the British genius for creating the dismal," but his own work is anything but.

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

Every once in a while, a small, unheralded film comes along, so smart and funny, such a pleasure to experience, you can't believe your luck. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is such a film.

A captivating film that truly elevates the spirit, Ballets Russes is the most emotionally satisfying documentary since "Mad Hot Ballroom."

It's not until Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that a film has successfully re-created the sense of stirring magical adventure and engaged, edge-of-your-seat excitement that has made the books such an international phenomenon.

Made under unique and wrenching circumstances, it gained poignancy and a kind of purity from its troubles, and an already affecting film ended up suffused with emotion.

More disturbing than you expect, its story of innocence lost and perspective gained holds us and will not let go.

That’s Entertainment! III is the sunniest of memento mori, a showy tribute to the flabbergasting musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that emphasizes both how delightful the genre was and how inescapably extinct it’s become.

A poetic attempt to re-create a bygone culture as not only a role model for the present but also a positive mythology for the future, the movie's strong visual qualities and epic emotions make it a bracing remedy to swallow.

You might say this magical, intoxicating piece of work does not have an ordinary bone in its body, and what a delight that turns out to be.

With Midnight in Paris, Allen has lightened up, allowed himself a treat and in the process created a gift for us and him.

The Guardians is an intimate French epic, elegantly made and quietly emotional, a family story filled with characters whose lives we sink into, feeling the hope, the sadness, the sorrow and the joy right along with those on the screen.

Master Japanese animator Mamoru Hosoda makes family films, but not in the way you think. It’s not that his films are suitable for all ages, though they mostly are. And it’s not even that the family unit is central to his work, though it is. Rather it’s that Hosoda’s films stretch the boundaries of both style and content within the family film rubric.

Love and Death on Long Island is sharp, sophisticated and completely delicious, a purposeful comedy that focuses on the power of screen images to uproot lives and the poignancy of amour fou, totally mad love.

A War is a film done exactly right about a situation gone horribly wrong.

"Weeping" is a simple tale of animal estrangement and reconciliation that in its own quiet way manages to be soothing, hypnotic, even magical.

As a slice of ultra-orthodox life, Menashe offers an unusual — and unusually sympathetic — look inside a world that is often hidden from view.

A remarkable film.

Watching Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is like experiencing a thrilling unfinished symphony: The story is enthralling, but it's not over, and there's no telling where it's going. Which makes what we see on screen all the more involving.

With a masterful melding of the serious, the comic, the ridiculous and the musical, Woman at War is joyful to experience though difficult to sum up.

A barnburner of a motion picture that mainlines heart-in-mouth excitement and tug-at-the-heart emotion, Ford v Ferrari is made the way Hollywood used to make them, a glorious throwback that combines a smart modern sensibility with the best of traditional storytelling.

A solid, often engrossing film that doesn't engage us overall the way Denzel Washington's work does.

Silver Linings Playbook is rich in life's complications. It will make you laugh, but don't expect it to fit in any snug genre pigeonhole. Dramatic, emotional, even heartbreaking, as well as wickedly funny, it has the gift of going its own way, a complete success from a singular talent.

Smart and provocative.

Being able to hear this kind of playing is a special moment in time, one we don't want to end and one that we're privileged to experience.

Whatever this woman is saying or doing, you want to be there to hear it and see it, and there's no better formula for an entertaining documentary than that.

Small though it is, Kisses evokes all kinds of feelings, and that is no small thing from a film of any size.

Dallaire is not only the protagonist of Shake Hands, he is a compelling reason to see it.

Midway is so square, so old-school and old-fashioned, it almost feels avant-garde. Ambiguity is not its goal, nor is nihilism its motivating philosophy. It aims to celebrate heroism, sacrifice, determination and grit, and if you don’t like that it really does not care.

The Martian is a film that respects the geekiest among us, and that pays off all around.

Communion is a heartbreaking example of a classic documentary genre — the immersive, observational film that takes a bold leap and embeds itself with a small group of people.

If there is one moment in The Language of Music that will thrill old rock fans, it's watching Dowd, his fluid hands moving with a surgeon's grace, remix for the film's benefit the 24-track sub-master of "Layla."

Witty, intelligent and quintessentially French, it is an unusually involving costume drama that takes us into a decadent world few will know existed, a place where “vices are without consequence but ridicule can kill.”

The Wrestler doesn't add up. It's constructed with great care around a lead performance that is everything it could possibly be, but the picture itself is off-putting and disappointing.

A splendid film. It uses all the resources of cinema -- masterful writing, superb acting, directorial intelligence, an enveloping score, top-of-the-line production design, costumes, cinematography and editing -- to make a film whose cumulative emotional power takes viewers by surprise, capturing us unawares in its ability to move us as deeply as it does.

Rejoice provides both a melodic education and a once-in-a-lifetime concert in one soul-stirring package.

It all comes together on election night, as Lears shadows Ocasio-Cortez and captures her disbelief as she nears her post-election party and suddenly realizes she has in fact won. It’s precisely the kind of you-are-there moment, one of many, that makes Knock Down the House so satisfying.

The film's formula of following these four from three weeks before the start of things right through the competition is a tried and true one that can't help but have success.

This engaging and enlightening documentary is stuffed with anecdotes, history and information. It makes excellent use of both new interviews and carefully selected archival footage to reveal the building blocks of all this accomplishment.

Promises takes a simple idea and just about breaks your heart with it.

An exquisite film, as elegant and precise as an impeccably cut diamond. It's small in scale but wholly mesmerizing, holding us captive as it demonstrates how much enveloping richness can be conveyed with a minimalist style.

Perhaps the director's most touching, most elegiac work yet, Million Dollar Baby is a film that does both the expected and the unexpected, that has the nerve and the will to be as pitiless as it is sentimental.

Set in an enchanting locale where the potential for magic is everywhere, this impeccable animated film puts its complete trust in the spirit of make-believe.

Because Sauper views himself as a storyteller first, as political as "We Come as Friends" may be, it is always dramatic, never didactic.

Does benefit from Gibson's charisma...Whether it is quite good enough is another question.

The mellow, serendipitous The Parrots of Telegraph Hill is here to show you just how magical happenstance can be.

Though it would be unrealistic to expect "Incredibles 2" to have quite the genre-busting surprise of the original, it is as good as it can be without that shock of the new — delivering comedy, adventure and all too human moments with a generous hand.

Though the film's final break-the-bank action sequence in Venice is worth waiting for, Casino Royale's 2-hour, 24-minute running time is long enough to exhaust all but the series' biggest fans.

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]

As delicately and deliciously prepared as the dishes it features, Big Night is a lyric to the love of food, family and persuasive acting.

Bergman has never been an ordinary filmmaker, and what he's given us is no genial last hurrah but rather an intensely dramatic, at times lacerating examination of life's conundrums that is exhilarating in its fearlessness and its command.

Though its protagonist is a 10-year-old girl, it is a crackling good tale with a sense of wonder and mystery strong enough to captivate any age group. [03 Feb 1995, p.F1]

A one-trick pony, a movie that has a gift only for making audiences squirm.