Marc Mohan

The characters are flat, too: Richard Gere plays your typical desperate, embittered war reporter; Terrence Howard is your typical cameraman/sidekick/narrator; and Jesse Eisenberg rounds out the standard-issue trio as your typical nervous rookie, in over his head.

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).

The pace of this Oscar nominee may be a bit contemplative for audiences seeking "Yojimbo"-style action, but it's surely a more realistic and moving look at life in 19th-century Japan.

The pressure cooker atmosphere builds for almost too long, but when the resolution finally occurs, the sense of relief is that much more palpable.

Upstream Color culminates in a wordless final act that is among the most transcendent passages of pure cinema in memory.

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.

It wallows in misery so much that the two-hour experience ends up being about as much fun as a real divorce.

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

Lily Tomlin gives the movie a boost as Portia's radical feminist mother, who would hate this movie.

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

There's an inherent contradiction at the film's core: this sexually explicit motion picture, seemingly made by and for altered consciousnesses, is all about how an innocent newcomer falls prey to gin, sex, and television.

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.

Django doesn't have the razor-sharp chronological complexity of "Pulp Fiction," but it's ably paced. A very funny scene involving a proto-Ku Klux Klan lynch mob and their poorly made hoods nevertheless seems a bit out of place, but there's plenty of well-timed suspense.

Idris Elba exudes the requisite militaristic authority as Raleigh's commanding officer, and Rinko Kikuchi is his determined partner in mecha mayhem.

The style and subject matter recall the films of the Dardenne brothers, ("The Kid With a Bike") and while Sister never reaches the heights of their best work, it earns the comparison.

As an artist who can craft an ebullient postmodern pastiche but maintains links to an idiosyncratic heritage, Amirpour has instantly become one of the most exciting, globally relevant filmmakers working today. Her film is a testament both to her own creativity and the infinite elasticity of the vampire mythos.

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.

With gadgets, girls and globe-trotting held to a minimum, Skyfall, could, for long stretches, be mistaken for just another 21st-century thriller, albeit a well-made and intelligent one.

The experience of psychological depression has been described with a variety of metaphors. William Styron called it "darkness visible," and Winston Churchill euphemized his bouts as "the black dog." In typically grandiose fashion, though, Lars von Trier tops them all.

Most of the time, Goodnight Mommy creates its air of supreme unease quietly, even subtly, but even hardened horror fans might be shocked by some of what goes down in the movie's second half.

Mostly this film is a glorious ode to the culture and family bonds that override all else, and to the expressiveness of both the human and animal actors.

When the movie is funny, it’s very funny.

A funny, believable film about the ability of even the damaged and imperfect to earn a little happiness.

The merits of its arguments can be debated on the Op-Ed pages, but at least the movie makes it clear that they desperately need to be.

A haunting, melancholy fable, Tony Takitani is the kind of film that could seem tedious from a mere description. Approached with the right mind-set, however, it's a hypnotic mood piece on love and loss, one that knows -- at 75 minutes -- not to overstay its welcome.

Z for Zachariah has things to say about the tugs-of-war between science and spirituality, thought and action, men and women. It's just not exactly sure what they are.

A joy to watch.

The first of von Trier's efforts to be certifiably farcical.