Marc Savlov

An anime version of "Mr. Mom" this is not. Director Hosoda’s clear-eyed story allows for comic moments of fatherly ineptitude but focuses just as often on the marital and familial stress this sudden role reversal causes.

The end result? Compassion for the (literally) poor schmuck conjoined with a genuine sympathy toward his right-minded bunglings, noodle kugel and all.

Blomkamp and his entire cast and crew have created an instant genre classic that transcends the self-limiting ghetto implied by the term "science fiction" and instead, like precursors such as Robert Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still," engages not only the mind but the heart as well. It's magnificent.

You get the impression that Herzog believes wholeheartedly the planet will be better off without us. Nosferatu that we have proven ourselves to be, he may be right.

Midway does a decent job of cramming in not only the eponymous three-day naval battle between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy but also treats the audience to a wealth of other, related Greatest Generation’s greatest hits.

As if the dazzling performances and audaciously intertwined storylines weren’t enough, Waves is a visual stunner, too, thanks to director of photography Drew Daniels, whose restless, reckless camerawork paints a family tragedy in dizzying, near-psychedelic hues, mirroring the increasingly frenetic storyline.

Fiennes assumes the character and recites shocking revelations that Amirami’s obsessive research has disclosed. It sounds like a cheap trick, but the actor pulls it off flawlessly.

Although not directed by Hiyao Miyazaki (though he executive-produced and co-wrote it), the film retains the look and feel of the "Spirited Away" master's best work, allowing for huge emotions amidst a world of Lilliputian scope.

Sergio Leone and John Ford would likely both recognize Nowar’s film as an echo of their own Monument Valley adventures.

Less a film than a lyrical, naturalistic tone poem.

The good news is Craig, who was riveting as a London pharmaceutical salesman in the recent Brit import "Layer Cake," is equally mesmerizing here.

A pure distillation of the great director's ongoing themes of the frailty of the human psyche and mankind's willful inability to accept the inevitable, whatever that may be.

Diehl’s performance is a model of restraint; he more often imparts information by a look, a glance, the slump of his shoulders, than he does with a spoken word.

Still, as a nostalgia trip that knows exactly what die-hard Star Wars fans want and then layers in some memorable new characters, The Force Awakens is exactly what it needs to be: an old-school Saturday afternoon sci-fi matinee writ big.

Its adult themes of familial separation and societal betrayal are head and shoulders above much of the director’s previous popcorn work -– more hurt, more heart, more unassailable hope.

Castle-Hughes and Paratene are nothing short of remarkable in their roles.

Lean on Pete is a methodical and memorable film primarily because director Haight, adapting from Willy Vlautin’s novel, keeps a distance from his characters, never taking the easy route, and never, ever letting the movie enter the killing fields of the corny or cliched.

It's not the crowning achievement in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre, but Minority Report stands on its own sturdy sci-fi legs, and there's no sign of that little imp Haley Joel Osment, to boot, thankfully.

Perhaps the best way to sum up Boy and the World is by saying it is what it is and what it is, is absolutely remarkable.

Bizarre and beautiful, this French take on the madness inherent in independent filmmaking rivals Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion as the most realistic depiction of the myriad trials and tribulations that accompany the creation of a new film.

Director Miller, thankfully, keeps his pacing quick and his touch deft -- Lorenzo's Oil rarely becomes bogged down in interdisciplinary conundrums or the unwarranted heartstring-yanking that so often occurs in Hollywood MedFilms.

Human Resources, which gets my vote for most sarcastic title of the year, isn't a stand up and cheer kind of film.

The Polish/Israeli co-production picked up the Best Horror Feature award at Fantastic Fest 2015, and it’s a shame that Wrona is gone, but at least we have this superlative example of his cinematic brilliance.

Like the character of Rocky, it's got heart to spare, and is by turns one of the sweetest of the sweet-science pictures as well as one of the most doleful. Fighters fight, it's what they do. And Balboa, god bless him, fights on.

Falters in small but important ways -– the suspense, carefully ratcheted up throughout, just plain goes busto in the film’s final moments -– while Malkovich stays resolutely behind the camera, a consummate professional who, this time, misses his mark by the merest of degrees.

Both interesting and insufferable.

Michael Lehmann's "Heathers" followed the same sort of story line to much better effect in 1989, and Clueless leaves you itching to race over to the video store in search of just that.

Morrone is superb in the part, exuding a sort of saintly solitude while caught up in the midst of turmoil from within and without. Even at its most dire, Mickey and the Bear is tinged with an almost holy hope for all involved, a rare and remarkable feat to pull off so well for a first-time director indeed.

The spirited interplay between Goodman and Crystal is both wacky and, dare I say, charming.

Ultimately, I’ll Be Me is both an unconventional tribute to this American icon and a deep-down cri de coeur for more research on viable ways to retard the progression of Alzheimer’s and perhaps one day find a reliable cure. No one’s getting any younger, after all.

It is with immense pleasure that I can report that Disney's Muppet reboot movie is an absolute delight.

The real star of Red Rock West is the convoluted plot, as twisty as any backroad out south of Bakersfield and with a hell of a lot fewer p(l)otholes.

Scrappy, powerful, and shocking.

Some people might find Chunhyang a chore to sit through, including me. Despite all of its accumulated period gorgeousness, or perhaps because of it, the film moves at a snail's pace, telegraphing plot twists miles before we actually arrive at them.

Immensely entertaining, Coriolanus is chock-full o' gore and the contemporary trappings of a man and a land divided, both from without and from within.

A fearless sort of melodramaticism that might have seemed silly if it weren't for the impeccable EVERYTHING on display here, from the lush, sexy camerawork of director of photography Yorick Le Saux (Swimming Pool) to the throbbing, atavistic score by John Adams. It's not silly or, at least, rarely so, and Swinton's nuanced, aching performance is downright revelatory.

Fantasies and phantasms aside, Fincher proves himself yet again to be a better cinematic psychologist of (in-)human nature than almost any other director alive. It’s another squirmily excellent date movie from hell, courtesy of contemporary cinema’s most overt nihilist.

It's an audacious, affecting, and unexpectedly hilarious debut, and most definitely the most original film I've seen all year.

The images this war photographer shoots are beyond awful, but there's just no looking away.

It smarts, and shocks, and just for a moment blows your mind.

Even if you're familiar with the details of the game, Rafferty's suspenseful editing draws you to the edge of your seat and beyond, back into 1968 itself.

Mamet's dialogue is still on the mark, rapid-fire, and as cutting as an antique straight razor.

As a documentary on the origins and backstory of the unfilmed film, Jodorowsky’s Dune is unsurpassable. More than that, however, it also allows audiences a rare glimpse inside the furiously creative mind of Jodorowsky, who still, at 84, is a wonderfully mad genius of the moving image.

Riveting, and frankly it's great fun to see Leth best the smirky von Trier five times running.

Is it classic cinema? Perhaps not, but then again, American shores and citizens have never been lacerated by atomic weapons. What do we know?

All I can seem to muster, post-screening, is a modicum of fondness and a probably impermanent relief that the film isn't anywhere near as awful as it might have been in less capable hands.

And Favreau? If you'd told me 12 years ago that Swingers' comic linchpin would end up helming one of the best, most visceral, and downright fun foray of all the comic-book franchises waiting in the CGI wings, I'd have told you to amscray, kid. But what the hell? Turns out irony's good for your blood.

At almost three hours, it's a masterwork of brilliant editing and design; not a frame is unwarranted, not a scene excessive, and it holds together over its lengthy running time in a way few films half its length can manage.

It's an out-of-this-world, real-life adventure for kids of all ages, budding Neil Armstrongs and Ray Bradburys alike.

Unfamiliar to most these days and it goes without saying that Harris performs a great service in the eyes of history with his film.

Let Me In is by far one of the best-looking films of the year, genre or no genre. It's a nightmare, sure, but what childhood isn't?

This is Denzel Washington’s third at bat behind the camera while directing himself and, holy smokes, does he knock it out of the park with a vicious, visceral performance that fairly sets the screen ablaze.

Like an early Clash number, it's by turns lovely and ugly, loud as bombs and quiet as a revolution's first-thrown stone; it acknowledges the legend while uncovering the truth.

High Heels becomes mired in its own best intentions - primary colors and all.

This is highly personal artwork writ in a grand, towering script, and all the more intellectually and artistically legible for it.

Smith's film is a celebration of quirkiness, eccentricity, and certain individuals' tendency to let it all hang out, and damn the consequences.

While 28 Weeks Later ultimately falls shy of classic status (it's no Panic in Year Zero!), there are several hard-to-shake scenes -- nightmare visions, really -- that reveal the infected populace to be far less dangerous to the fabric of a civilized society than, perhaps, the very notion of civilization itself.

Even though we're aware of the tragic trajectory of the singer's life, for a while it almost seems as if reality got it wrong and Curtis might just squeak past the reaper's scythe with no more than a shave and a haircut.

Bad writing, shoddy effects work, and Laser’s nonstop shouting of every single line of dialogue do not add up to a transgressive statement about the American for-profit prison system, but instead achieve the dubious honor of being the most annoyingly in-your-face horror flick of the year thus far.

The third and final chapter in Araki's teen-angst-run-riot-in-L.A. triptych is as gorgeously messy as the first two opening salvos (Totally F***ed Up and The Doom Generation), but this time Araki employs a far broader and more complex character canvas than previously.

It's also and most interestingly about the writing process itself, a difficult feat to pull off on film, which Wagner and co-screenwriter Fred Parnes manage to display with unvarnished realism.

A film for the young at heart and those who still appreciate honor, valor, love, and the earth.

As concert films go, this is heady stuff.

The heist itself is a charm with the kids zipping about in go-karts and eluding klutzy security guards, but the film seems trapped in a strange Twilight Zone somewhere between comedy and drama.

For all its Del Toro touches (Goodwin as a young autistic boy kidnapped by the bugs), Mimic is a surprisingly hollow thriller.

A Better Tomorrow isn't his best film ever -- that title remains securely attached to The Killer -- but it is required viewing for anyone remotely interested in Hong Kong cinema. After all, there might not be any filmmaking in Hong Kong come 1997.

For all its stentorian performances, though, Shadow of the Vampire is a bit much, from the detailed period sets to the final, bloody scene.

At once eerie, picaresque, evocative, and utterly alien to the reality most viewers inhabit, Into Great Silence is a daring and breathtakingly constructed documentary dream. So much so that the more restless among us may find themselves nodding off.

A pure cinematic experience like Monos is a rare and precious gem. Colombian director Landes has created a surreal, sumptuous assault on the senses that’s as lushly beautiful as it is unforgettable.

It's not perfect -- thank Satan! -- but Hellboy II: The Golden Army is by far the most splendidly imaginative and creatively uncorked piece of fantastic cinema since the director's "Pan's Labyrinth" netted an Oscar trifecta in 2007.

As fluid and intellectually stimulating as the man himself, a tragic, heartfelt take on an event some 40 years old that feels as fresh as yesterday's Times.

The East is an unrelenting condemnation of the Netherlands’ misguided attempt to return its colonial outreach to a time long gone while hitting most (if not all) of the “doomed war” niche genre movie tropes without ever actually teetering into cliche. That’s an ever-tricky move that Taihuttu aces.

Nowhere near the Hollywood disaster that was foretold, Waterworld is a near-model summer fantasy: two hours and 21 minutes of loud, expansive fun.

Interestingly, Coppola has eschewed state-of-the-art special effects in favor of a panoply of archaic film-school tricks -- reversing the film, multiple exposures, playing with the shutter speed -- that give his Dracula a stylized, almost hyper-real clarity and a wonderfully singular weirdness.

I said once before that every generation gets the superhero it deserves, and Nolan's darkest of dark knights is surely ours – and no more so than in this current incarnation. (Granted, this doesn't bode well for society, but hey, things are bleak all over.)

While the climax is admittedly something of a letdown after all the build-up, it's a hopelessly, helplessly original film, all guts, no glory.

Easily one of Disney’s more imaginative and detail-oriented CGI offerings in a while, Zootopia uses the classic tropes of anthropomorphized animals and comic references to pop-culture touchstones to slyly puzzle out what it means to be “civilized.”

Sublimely ridiculous film.

In a film like this, timing is everything, and everyone from the stunt coordinators to the crew-at-large seems to have gotten it right the first time.

Has the look and feel of Euro-Altman (vastly superior to Euro-Disney, mind you).

It wouldn't feel out of place on a double bill with "Dangerous Liaisons," given Breillat's unrepentantly nihilistic attitude toward the battle of the sexes in which all are pawns, every knight is errant, and the only queen is Queen Bitch.

Brilliant, wacky, and utterly charming fluff, with millions of mad monkey minions to boot.

Provides that rarest of documentary accomplishments: a glimpse into the artists' sunny, dark hearts.

Unlike any other film released this past year, be it from the aspect of its storylines, of which there are many, or its emotional clarity, which is, quite frankly, brutal.

Seems more like a subtle, elegiac tone poem than an indictment of human banality and the evil that men do.

One of the more surreal docs to come down the pike in some time.

It's a short, sharp, shock to the cinematic system that's virtually impossible to dislike, and if you don't leave the theatre grinning your face off, then buddy, movies just aren't for you.

It's a riveting, nail-biting, two-buckets-of-popcorn return to form for Howard.

It’s bravura, classic Hollywood filmmaking, and you like to think that Hughes himself would have viewed it, if not appreciatively, then at least with a sense of kinship.

Anything but dull, Gibney’s clarion call whipsaws along like a combo Jason Bourne/007 thriller minus all that running. Unnerving and likely to give viewers some bitter food for thought, Zero Days is Gibney’s most important work yet.

This artful documentary about renowned Tokyo sushi master Jiro Ono is not going to help save Charlie the Tuna one iota.