Marc Mohan

Director Bent Hamer ("Factotum") keeps things drily amusing throughout.

The story of Matt VanDyke, as told in the fascinating documentary Point and Shoot, is a vivid illustration of the ups and downs of reinvention.

A well-acted, convincing portrait of a successful but overworked film producer.

Whether Waddington's film comes across as hypnotic or boring, mythic or pretentious, may depend on the viewer's mood or tolerance for quasi-allegorical storytelling. But, as the women in House of Sand learn, patience can sometimes be its own reward.

Wiig, following the big-screen breakthrough of "Bridesmaids," has dipped her toes into dramatic waters, but for Hader, The Skeleton Twins is a revelation.

The politics of the story come to life through the vivid characterizations of a uniformly excellent cast.

Liman stages the chaotic action scenes, including several iterations of the beach assault, with clarity, precision, and wit. This is his best movie since 2002's "The Bourne Identity."

van Dormael’s vivid visual sense and genuine curiosity about the nature of love and life, time and death, make it well worth surrendering to his imagination for a while.

As the relationship between Theodore and Samantha evolves, it hews too closely to the expected arc of a romantic drama. In a desire to show how such a pairing could produce the same joys, sorrows, jealousies and insecurities as a human-to-human one, the movie edges close to parody, which it doesn't want to be.

Viewers looking for a propagandistic take will be disappointed, but even those who doubt the overall framework and existence of the so-called War on Terror should appreciate this thrilling tale of the hunt for the world's most wanted man.

Only in its final moments does Breathe extend its reach beyond experiences that most, if not all, teens (and ex-teens) can relate to. When it does, it might just leave you breathless.

The film verges on hagiography as one interviewee after another testifies to Dominique's positive influence on his nation, but in this case the cynical notion that there must be another side to the story is easy to tamp down.

Overall, though, the combination of Gondry’s whimsicality and Chomsky’s stoicism creates fascinating oil-and-water patterns that reveal more the longer they’re contemplated.

Historical resonances aside, Coming Home functions well as an impeccably crafted, compellingly acted tale.

This is a movie that, off-putting as it can be at times, deserves to be seen and heard in a theater, if only to observe the reactions of others to the hilarious gutter talk coming out of Winslet's mouth.

The most telling moment comes when his mother reveals that, despite all the subterfuge and false promises, she wouldn't have had it any other way.

A crowd-pleasing import that would leave only the most steadfast curmudgeon unmoved.

Compelling both as a chronicle of guerrilla filmmaking and as a son's movie about his father, it presents a clear-eyed, warts-and-all view of artistic obsession.

Collette proves herself worthy of carrying a movie with a performance that runs the gamut of human emotion without striking one false note.

A second helping of a satisfying dish.

Oswalt sells Auferio's pasty indecision and makes him a more sympathetic figure than he has any right to be.

Whishaw's oddly charismatic performance makes the despicable Grenouille into an almost sympathetic antihero. The rather astonishing finale will likely have audiences either howling in derision or ardently dissecting afterward. And it must have given the bluenoses at the MPAA fits.

Nothing more and nothing less than a savvy and talented cast having its way with a clever, hilarious script, with absolutely no weighty issues at stake.

The credibility of these theories ranges from faintly plausible to frankly ridiculous, but Ascher isn't interested in judging them; his movie is more about the joys of deconstruction and the special kind of obsession that movies can inspire.

The Missing Picture feels akin to last year's great documentary, "The Act of Killing."

It’s possible the movie’s actually too unflinching; there are moments where your nose is dangerously close to being rubbed in this pile of emotional trauma. Then again, when you come from the same country as the Dardennes brothers, you’ve got to pull out all the stops to compete in the misery department.

The star's innate vulnerability (and his ease with Dom's colorful but expansive vocabulary) makes the character more sympathetic than he has any right to be. And that, in turn, makes Shepard's film more entertaining than the Guy Ritchie ripoff it initially resembles.

The octogenarian pianist Seymour Bernstein is the charming, inspirational subject of this appreciative, occasionally fawning documentary.

The title is too cutesy and clever, but it's about the only unsubtle aspect of this poignant, humble drama that'll probably get lost amid the multiplex bombast, but shouldn't.

Digitally shot, the film looks great, and the performances ooze charisma. The biggest star, though, may be Kinshasa itself, a roiling, barely cohesive sea of humanity that seems as if it could serve as a backdrop for some fascinating films for years to come.

As usual in Le Carre's world (and the real one), a measured, rational approach faces an uphill battle against the philistines who really run the show. That predictably weary attitude is both the best — as embodied in Hoffman's performance — and worst — in its weary predictability — things about A Most Wanted Man.

Warmhearted lesson in tolerance.

Thor meets the elevated expectations for superhero movies today, but doesn't exceed them. There's some sloppy plotting, which always shows a certain disregard for the audience's intelligence.

When the camera glides down a pier to settle for the first time on Gatsby's face, it's a movie-star moment of the sort we don't often get anymore, and there aren't many actors who could pull off Gatsby's mixture of confident charisma and pathetic vulnerability.

As with many Iranian films, reality and fiction collide (the lead actor really is a pizza deliveryman), and the moral of the story is a surprisingly blunt critique of the growing inequality of wealth in the slowly Westernizing nation.

Her film is just as effective as a portrait of two unknowable, individual souls caught up in events of global scale.

A mental workout of the most invigorating sort.

In addition to providing a fascinating, agenda-free look at an unseen way of life, the film presents a lesson that should be welcome among people of any faith or none at all.

With less intelligence behind it, this could have easily been one of those films that seem like they were more fun to make than to watch. Instead, it's a thoroughly good time at the movies, from humble beginning to cosmic, surprise-cameo-featuring end.

The edited footage has an intensity and immediacy you won't find on cable news networks.

Manages to excavate enough universal pathos from the mundane to find something truly extraordinary in the ordinary.

Despite familiar elements, including the classic family-versus-work conflict faced by almost every movie cop in history and the equally hoary discovery of corruption among Michel's colleagues, The Connection remains tense and believable.

In this involving if slightly unfocused documentary, director Daniel Karslake takes a two-pronged approach in examining how religion has been interpreted -- some would say twisted -- into, at its worst, monomaniacal homophobia.

The resulting documentary is a fascinating meditation on the different ways nature can be experienced, as well as a fatalistic take on the process of our planet's seemingly inevitable change in climate.

Consistently surprising, Seven Psychopaths ultimately plays like a combination of Quentin Tarantino's self-aware, savvy ultraviolence and Charlie Kaufman's reflexive head trips. And that potentially awkward combo goes down like a chocolate-vanilla swirl cone, only with more guns.

Even the tiny roles in this Rockwell-meets-Breughel panorama are perfectly, although almost cruelly, cast.

To top it all off, the movie ends with one of the best covers of "I Shall Be Released" you'll hear, courtesy of gospel singer Marion Williams.

The Harvey Girls isn't really anything special, cinematically speaking. This run-of-the-mill Judy Garland musical is notable mostly for its Oscar-winning song, "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe."[10 May 2002]

There's something in this nostalgic, lovingly photographed film about the transition from the classical art of painting to the new art of the cinema, as embodied by one of the greatest practitioners of each. The independent-minded Andrée, who would go on to marry Jean Renoir and star in several of his early films, is presented as something more than a mere muse, if something less than a full-fledged character.

For most of its running time, How to Make Money Selling Drugs is a cheeky, moderately interesting look behind the curtain of the trade in contraband substances, from the corner dealer to the cartel-topping drug lord.

Land of the Dead is huge. It's Romero doing what he does best: using zombies to create a lowbrow social parable. It shows up junk like "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" for the brainless pap it is. And it's got something that even the best previous "Dead" films have lacked: good acting.

This being an Italian film, and Gianni being such a hapless, kindhearted aspiring Lothario, make this perhaps the sweetest movie ever made about a guy trying to cheat on his wife.

It's a sad commentary on the independent film business when a proven filmmaker like Hartley has to go hat in hand to the Internet for his budget, but at least he got to make the movie on his terms. It turns out to be the best thing he's done since "Henry Fool."

C.O.G. is probably of the most interest to Sedaris fans curious to see how the humorist’s unique tone translates to film (the answer is moderately well).

Today, Randi's stooped, gnomish gait and expansive white beard give him the appearance of a Tolkien wizard, but the man's passion for rationality and for exposing fraud and misbelief are stronger than ever. An Honest Liar is a fitting tribute to a figure whose stamina and wit only appear to be magical.

Cheadle's performance elevates Hotel Rwanda, making it a film that does justice to the tragedy it commemorates.

World War Z manages to be scary without descending to in-your-face gore -- it wants to frighten its audience, not disgust them.

Weitz does it again here, turning what could have been another manifesto of liberal guilt into a genuinely moving tale of a father and son banding together in a hostile world.

Like Brad Pitt and Robert Redford, Gere's good looks have made it hard sometimes to recognize his acting ability, but it's on full display here in what is anything but a vanity project.

The documentary's soundtrack is composed entirely of Source Family music, and some of it's not half bad.

If film's rapturous reception is due in part to the rarity of filmmaking this skillful within the horror genre, it's hard to begrudge this near-masterpiece of unease any of the praise it's gotten.

Director Hirokazu Kore-Eda ("Maborosi") brings gentle irony to the samurai genre with Hana.... It's a winner. [4 May 2007, p.38]

Shaun the Sheep Movie delivers exactly what it promises: The cutest, most innocuous entertainment this side of Internet panda videos.

The movie wobbles as it approaches the home stretch, but, thanks to its leading man, manages to stick the landing.

While this sort of thing can easily devolve into bourgeois comfort food, Thompson, a veteran of the genre, knows how to serve it up just about right.

Whatever the interpretation, Stoppard and Wright have demonstrated that Anna's saga has lost none of its power.

The only danger with a movie like this is the inevitably disappointing return to more humdrum reality once it ends.

It's no "Fantasia" or "Sleeping Beauty," but it's no "The Rescuers Down Under," either.

Thanks to a slew of engaging performances and a script that finds the sweet spot between crass and curdled, it's a winner.

Despite too stately a pace at times, and some fairly predictable plot resolutions, the film succeeds thanks to empathetic performances (from Walken and especially Hoffman) and an evident affection for the music and musicians it depicts.

There seems to be less acting going on and more being, which not only makes this an enormously affecting penultimate performance (Gandolfini’s final film, “Animal Rescue,” will be released next year), but reinforces the brilliance of the darker work for which he will no doubt remain best known.

Kaurismäki is a master of expressive stillness for whom inaction often speaks louder than words, and the performances he elicits are perfectly pitched, including young Miguel's.

Hers is a sad story, but the fact that she never received recognition during her lifetime isn't part of its sadness.

Solid acting, especially from the women, and a few good Colin Farrell jokes make this familiar tale better than it probably should be.

Nguyen reportedly worked on War Witch for a decade, and it shows in both the immediacy and authenticity of his tale, and the meticulous craft with which it's told.

Starring in, directing and writing (in collaboration with Michel Marc Bouchard, on whose play it's based) a movie at Dolan's tender age is certainly a Wellesian accomplishment. All three actors are convincing, especially Cardinal as the cruel, manipulative Francis, and their characters' behavior feels authentic even when it's not logical.

Canadian director Richie Mehta ("Amal") based Siddharth on his own random encounter with a father searching for his missing son, and the film never feels less than utterly real in its depiction of both everyday Indian life and the hopelessness that comes so naturally in this sort of tragic situation.

It's the kind of story that can look pedestrian on paper, but when brought to life this skillfully, proves to be genuinely inspiring.

Fortunately, their story is just as compelling here, and the film's subjects display impressive adaptability, as well as a desire not to forget those they've left behind.

Really, though, the most surprising thing about this system is how it disregards some of the basic tenets of conservatism.

Telling Northrup’s story, McQueen gives a grand tour of the institutionalized sadism and astonishing inhumanity ubiquitous in the slave economy.

What makes Miss You Already work (when it does work, which is most of the time) is that it shows imperfect characters dealing imperfectly with situations ranging from the maritally frustrating to the existentially overwhelming.

It's a fun and attractive ride.

The always thin tightrope between "laughing at" and "laughing with" is negotiated with success in the low-budget comedy The Foot Fist Way.

Political machinations, emotional revelations, and a few well-choreographed fight scenes ensue, but Hou focuses less on the satisfactions of plot and action than on crafting, if not quite bringing to life, his auteurist vision of the past (both historical and cinematic).

You'll suspect, and even hope, that what's on screen is a hoax, but it seems to be at the very least one version of the truth.

The period details are spotless, kindling memories of those days of yellow ribbons and nightly news updates on the fate of the American hostages.

The well-chosen supporting cast — Anthony Edwards as a test subject, Jim Gaffigan as one of Milgram's confederates, and especially Winona Ryder as Milgram's wife — help tremendously to keep The Experimenter humming along as entertainment rather than dry docudrama.

The Belgian comedy The Iceberg might be a pale shadow of the films of the great French comedian Jacques Tati, but even that's enough to qualify it as an amusing, inventive effort.

There's a Gordon Gekko vibe to Shannon's reptilian, charismatic villain. Like Oliver Stone's "Wall Street," 99 Homes understands that people don't sell their souls because they're inherently evil — they do it because being rich is cool.

It’s a harrowing and impressive accomplishment (especially considering potential government censorship), and it shows how, in its mad rush toward modernity, China has become a land of haves and have-nots, where income inequality and lack of opportunity have made a mockery of the nation’s purported ideals. Sound familiar?

Park is a visual virtuoso, with imaginative transitions and clever use of special effects wrapped around a sly, effective performance from Lee at the center of it all.

While the third act inevitably bogs down a bit in gunplay and chases, there are more than enough moments of visual wonder and storytelling surprise to make it worth the trip.

Difficult to sit through, Our Daily Bread is nonetheless an important record, invaluable for those with the courage to watch it.

Once Greene achieves fame, neither he nor the screenplay quite knows what to do; the first half-hour of Talk to Me is the most fun. But a vibrant feel for its era and a genuine affection for its characters make the whole thing a solid evocation of a time and a life worth remembering.

Inspired by uprisings in the former Soviet bloc as well as, more pointedly, the Arab Spring, Makhmalbaf serves up a surprisingly tense, sometimes poignant parable. It's good to have him back.

William Faulkner's oft-cited quote has rarely been more apt: "The past is never dead. It's not even the past."

Turns out this is a thoughtful, well-acted film that manages to view this most inconceivable of travesties through the eyes of child without being childish itself.