Leslie Felperin

Even the lush world-building of the visuals here, committed performances especially from Young, and stream-of-consciousness editing aren’t enough to conjure the wry, melancholy, and, above all, intensely literary interior voice of the book’s protagonist.

A gloriously off-the-charts study in perversity.

Like most Sono pictures, too long. But its gleeful humor and dare-you-to-watch aesthetic will help it rack up kills at specialty fests.

A very fine if not exactly groundbreaking film about, as the title hints, perspective and distance.

In the end, Young Ahmed feels like little more than a pained shrug, elegantly made, yes, but vaporous and virtue-signaling an empathy that's more gestural than heartfelt.

This documentary, by the first-time director Jack Pettibone Riccobono, is a deep drink of bleak. But there are incidental moments of beauty or startling surreality to marvel at.

Director Gonzalo López-Gallego creates a strong frame around the characters in both visual and narrative terms, while a lovely score credited to Remate, mixed with well-chosen soundtrack cuts, creates a limpid poignancy.

This directing debut for experienced producer Marc Turtletaub (Little Miss Sunshine, Loving) ticks along pleasantly, driven by an efficient if slightly bland script by Oren Moverman and Polly Mann.

The director and his regular editor Eyas Salman notch up the tension by beautiful degrees as Mohammed overcomes each obstacle with ingenuity, charm and, hokey but true, sheer singing skill.

It’s sort of impressive how much director Simone Scafidi allows Argento’s dark side to show through all the hype about his genius.

It’s all a lot, as they say, but those with a taste for maximalism will swoon over the goods on offer here.

Seductive and repellent by turns, it’s a title that will provoke fierce love-or-hate reactions, but there’s no question it augurs the arrival of a powerful, audacious new directorial talent.

While Paddington in Peru sadly lacks the absurdist wit and decidedly dark edge that elevated the first two Paddington movies, it’s serviceable enough given its limitations.

Without stridency but with a clear sense of purpose, director Tonje Hessen Schei compiles a mix of original interviews and footage and archive material and simulations to explore the history of drones.

Writer-director Attila Till’s plucky comedy-drama isn’t quite the radical representation of disability it seems to think it is, but has its heart in the right place.

Super Hero gamely tries to explain the backstory a bit at the beginning, but trying to keep up as we are plunged into a world of bad guys with outrageous quiffs, super-skilled preschoolers and green-skinned martial arts masters with droopy forehead antennae is quite futile. If, however, you can relax and just let it wash over you, Super Hero’s eye candy animation is mesmeric.

At least Sweeney has good enough comic timing to make the thinly written dialogue sound vaguely amusing; he’s also adept at making his many reaction shots exaggerated just enough to tickle without descending into outright mugging.

The Good Lie is a touching, generous-hearted movie, sensitively directed by Philippe Falardeau (Monsieur Lazhar) working with a smart, sly, long-gestated script by Margaret Nagle (Boardwalk Empire).

This is yet another hyper-competent, boyishly devil-may-care character that offers Cruise, famous for his derring-do on set, a chance to do his own stunts and fly a plane; it’s not a role all that far out of the ageing megastar’s wheelhouse.

In the end, it all feels a bit like a fashion film or some other branded exercise in style — except that the brand is Ortega’s peculiar and unique vision.

Usually anything this many generations into its evolution is pretty exhausted – but this is pretty good, or at least in parts.

This tense dystopian horror-thriller feels geographically non-specific, almost as if it were taking place in some kind of dream world. That touch of hazy vagueness is just right for SA director and co-writer Kelsey Egan’s cracking feature debut (co-written with Emma Lungiswa De Wet).

Taken strictly on its own terms, Saving Mr. Banks works exceedingly well as mainstream entertainment.

It’s a Michelin-triple-starred master class in patisserie skills that transforms the cinematic equivalent of a sugar rush into a kind of crystal meth-like narcotic high that lasts about two hours. Only once viewers have come down and digested it all might they feel like the whole experience was actually a little bland, lacking in depth and so effervescent as to be almost instantly forgettable.

Repulsive and sublimely beautiful, arguably celebratory and damning of its characters, it’s hideous and masterful all at once, “Salo” with sunburn.

What's ultimately very endearing about Swift is her intelligence and self-awareness, qualities that also make her music compelling, sophisticated and capable of appealing both to adolescent kids and hipster musicologists.

An officially sanctioned but pleasingly gush-free cinematic monograph.

In the end, the film is so guilelessly unabashed about its hokum that it becomes sort of endearing in a way, and one can’t but admire the likes of Cox, McElhone and Toby Stephens as the boo-hiss bad guy for fully committing to the corn.