Marc Mohan

As usual, the director is a wizard at camera movement and more than willing to plunge his audience into unpleasantness.

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.

Eventually the movie wants to have things both ways: to approvingly entertain mainstream audiences with the glittering spectacle of space battles and to pay lip service to the notion of conscience.

The quality that made her an ideal fan club president makes her an endearing, if unenlightening, interviewee.

The pacing is perfect, and the action, mostly filmed in a studio, is never less than utterly believable. The director’s first feature, “Margin Call,” was full of rapid-fire dialogue, and he shows off considerable range by following it up with this film.

In retrospect, and with no disrespect meant, it may have been a mistake to entrust a story this polarizing to Bill Condon, the filmmaker who most recently made “Twilight: Breaking Dawn,” and “Dreamgirls.”

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.

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

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).

If your tolerance for envelope-pushing crudeness and deadpan delirium allows it, this crass comedy might be just what the gastroenterologist ordered.

It does assemble a compelling collage from the experiences of several real-life witnesses to the event and its aftermath.

Gravity isn’t as ambitious as “2001,” but then, what is? It is, however, absolutely a worthy successor, a masterpiece of hard science fiction, and the movie to beat at this point for next year’s cinematography and visual effects Oscars.

The result is a solid film, but one that remains more interesting than intense.

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.

Even more impressive is young Tequan Richmond (TV’s “Everybody Hates Chris”) as the quiet, intense Malvo, a kid so desperate for a father figure in his life that he becomes putty in the hands of a killer.

The world may not get another Ip Man film for a while after the last few years, but this one and Wong’s masterpiece should be more than sufficient.

The movie looks great, with soft-focus shots of perfectly tailored outfits masking the ugliness within.

Blumberg tries to split the difference and ends up with a movie that wants us to make us laugh and cry, but fails to do either.

It's clear that Fidell meant to craft a nonjudgmental, non-exploitative exploration of this taboo situation. And she deserves credit for avoiding both tawdry melodrama and earnest moralizing. But by refusing to judge or exploit, she ultimately ends up without much of interest to say on the topic.

The Act of Killing is exemplary as a history lesson, a character study and a powerful argument for confronting the past.

Well-crafted as it is, though, The Artist and the Model suffers from the familiarity of its plot, and especially in comparison with "La belle noiseuse," which ran over twice as long as this film but contained ten times as much insight into human nature.

Parts of “Spark” can seem like an ad for Burning Man, but the film digs deep enough into the pressures and challenges facing its organizers and attendees to be a worthy exploration of a unique phenomenon, even for those who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing just glitter and a thong in 110 degree heat.

It’s disappointing that, with such talent and seriousness of intent, the movie ultimately doesn't have much new to say. To paraphrase “The Simpsons”’ Milhouse, it started out like "Bonnie and Clyde," but instead it ended in tragedy.

Closed Circuit ultimately feels like a cynical attempt to capitalize on security-state anxieties while examining them in only the shallowest ways.

Bell does a fantastic job of telling a thoroughly feminist story without being strident or didactic.

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

The Canyons comes across as a desperate gambit for relevance by a group of artists who want to reinvent themselves but don't know how. Fittingly, that's the theme of the film itself.

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.