Kerry Lengel

The power dynamics between two peoples locked in “asymmetrical conflict” — not to mention two sets of gender codes — set the stage for Alayan’s thriller. In storytelling terms, they are the rules by which the tightly wound plot unspools. But the film’s great strength, in addition to the usual quality-control things, is its care to humanize, not demonize, the characters who are playing by those rules.

The metaphor is plain yet elegant: Ai is the clever cat busily devising ways to push through the barriers physical, cultural, mental -- that make humans less than free. And in China, of course, the biggest of those barriers is the one-party state.

For me, it doesn’t really matter if LaBeouf is letting himself off the hook, or if Honey Boy is the ultimate vanity project of a pampered narcissist. What matters is that he has plunged into the maelstrom of his own memories and emerged with a real work of art — something that feels real, feels true, even though we all know it isn’t.

This is a challenging, brilliantly constructed film that, despite its patience and quiet tone, is engrossing from its first moments, especially an opening scene that encapsulates Jandal's poignant contradictions.

And now with Tangled, a delightfully fresh spin on "Rapunzel," the entertainment powerhouse delivers its first classic-caliber computer animation outside the Pixar family.

The story is captivating from the very first moments.

It's a style of storytelling that leaves the audience guessing, but it also gives the actors room to breathe, to inhabit their characters without having to explain them away in terms of biography or pop psychology.

There’s never a sense the filmmakers are preaching the gospel of legalization, although they are certainly not preaching against it, either.

There are moments when this funny, self-consciously quirky film feels a bit like a Welsh "Napoleon Dynamite."

It’s a movie that maybe tries to do too much, but it does enough of it well to keep you glued to the screen.

The great strength of The Sower is that it doesn’t try to do too much. It zooms in on its microcosm with a tender urgency that offers a glimpse of complex humanity without reducing the story to some sort of pithy takeaway.

The Joker’s superpower is his resentment, his narcissism, and Phoenix cultivates these methodically in his performance, slowly transmuting the character’s awkward fragility into a kind of raging charisma — aided and abetted, of course, by all the tricks of art direction, sound design and editing that a journeyman filmmaker has at his disposal.

It never feels contrived, never panders to our illusions. When the ending comes, it is neither expected nor a twist. It’s just what happens.

“Far From Home” ends up being one of the more entertaining and satisfying installments in Marvel’s never-ending story cycle, thanks to a tautly constructed narrative that packs in plenty of fan service without getting overly complicated.

If Keanu sometimes comes off as another sketch stretched a little thin, that doesn’t put it in too shabby of company. It may not be as great as “The Blues Brothers,” but it’s up there with “Wayne’s World” — and light-years ahead of “Coneheads.”

You can read Emma's affair and its eventual effect on Edoardo as an inverted oedipal thing, or perhaps as a metaphor for decadence, the embodiment of a family that subconsciously realizes it's in decline and must fight to warm its blood.

Purely from a standpoint of craft and storytelling, it’s a good flick, although maybe not well attuned to the bombastic times.

Beautiful Creatures rises above the rabble thanks to an eminently watchable cast and a sharp screenplay by writer-director Richard LaGravenese.

Naharin’s dances, amply illustrated from decades’ worth of film, is visceral, emotional and sometimes shocking.

With a filmography stuffed with masterpieces, the Coen brothers’ greatest trick is balancing the ironic commentary on cinema and storytelling with the dramatic impact of compelling human stories well told. And it’s a trick they pull off again and again.

Waves is definitely not a film for everyone, but it has hidden depths that will reward the patient.

As the filmmakers trace the troubles of his later life -- psychological, financial, marital -- they flesh out a portrait of a reluctant guru whose human imperfections make him all the more inspiring.

It is a quiet but intense and closely observed piece of work.

Offers valuable historical, social and political context, particularly if you aren't an international-news junkie.

More than anything, The Sisters Brothers is an exploration of how far you can take an anti-Western before it snaps out of the genre’s orbit entirely.

The perfect movie for fans of "The Daily Show" who actually stick around for the second-half interview. A cinematic memoir based on the one-man show by Mike Birbiglia, it is the aesthetic intersection of Comedy Central and public radio.

It is intended for an audience that is willing to take a journey without knowing the destination.

Ma is one loony little horror film, and Octavia Spencer has a grand old time being the craziest thing in it.