Marc Mohan

Fleck and Boden point out the absurd humor inherent in mental illness without trivializing its causes or consequences. This is not an easy trick, and it's largely thanks to Galifianakis' amalgam of wackiness and awkward sorrow that it works.

This combination of fatalism, nostalgia and willfully naive optimism captures something essential in the Russian soul.

His life stands as a testament to the idea that an average-looking bloke with a can-do attitude and a dream in his heart can rub shoulders with the folks the rest of us only get to read about. And he's got the photographs to prove it.

Plot takes a back seat to style and attitude, as it often does in Jarmuch's world, which can make the last half-hour of the movie drag a bit. But when that means getting to hang out with two fascinating creatures of the night, played by two fascinating performers, that's a perfectly valid trade-off.

My Summer of Love, with its lush, sunlit landscapes, may occupy the opposite end of the visual spectrum, but it reinforces the sense that this director knows his way around the range of human emotion as well.

The cinematic gloss serves to heighten our involvement in the tale, and to mark Fukunaga as a talent to be reckoned with.

Director Matthew Vaughn has provided an imperfect but still wickedly hilarious take on Mark Millar's deconstruction of superhero mythos.

The Summit does an amazing job of putting you on the mountain, making it one of the most terrifying horror films a climber or an acrophobe could ever see.

These three central performances, and a solid script by Anders Thomas Jensen and director Susanne Bier, ground a potentially overwrought story in genuine feeling.

Ultimately, though, this is a story about a conflicted, intelligent, flawed, moral woman making her way through her life.

Controversy aside, there's no denying that Kinsey was a pivotal figure in 20th-century America, and one whose fascinating story makes for a fascinating film.

The results are inspiring, demonstrating that an artistic eye is an innate thing.

As fascinating as all the film history is, the movie's core is the dynamic between a famous but distant parent and his child.

It's hard to say what's more fascinating: The engaging explication of various paintings by the remarkably articulate docents, the behind-the-scenes looks at the preservation and restoration processes, or the boardroom discussions about the appropriateness of marketing efforts. Actually, that third one probably isn't the most fascinating, but I still wanted more of it.

Just as austere and demanding as you'd expect a black-and-white film about a Polish nun to be. Don't let that scare you, though.

Social critique isn't the main concern of director James Ponsoldt ("Smashed"). What he does is take us inside an unexpected, but not unrealistic, high school relationship and provide a splendid stage for two young and very promising actors.

It mostly manages the impressive feat of mixing jaw-droppingly gross jokes with characters that are worth caring about.

Hold onto your hats, True Believers! This one's got the most massive, momentous montage of Marvel's merry mutants ever mashed into one movie!

The first to take a big-picture view of just how the plans for postwar occupation went so far off track.

If the presence of Cheadle and his handsome pal George Clooney can entice otherwise resistant viewers to learn about the ongoing travesty in western Sudan, then Darfur Now has done its job.

The word "hermaphrodite" is never actually uttered, for instance, and the whole topic is revealed obliquely, mostly through the puzzled eyes of Alvaro. Most impressively, a tale that could have been handled with condescending simplicity becomes a testament to the flawed but noble humanity of both parents and children.

Ultimately, it's an instructive and entertaining examination of both the overlooked environmental costs of everyday life and the possibilities for change.

An unrelenting and important exposé of a system that, as depicted here, has no place in the modern world.

Parents who want smart, harmless movies that don't condescend for their school-age kids -- a rare thing these days -- should be grateful for Nancy Drew.

If there's one thing missing, it's a sense of purposeful, immediate outrage. You can't help but wonder why this film wasn't made 20 years ago, when it could have saved these men some time behind bars.

The parts of "Run Ronnie Run" that advance the minimal plot can be painful to sit through, but the jokes scattered along the side of the story often are hilarious. [19 Sep 2003]

With limited means, Westby makes excellent use of Portland locations and cinematic references to make Film Geek a mostly spot-on, sometimes hilarious character study. His greatest asset is Malkasian, who gives Scotty the prototypical geek attributes.

What makes the Dardennes' films so powerful is their refusal to judge, positively or negatively, their characters.