Marjorie Baumgarten

The film is hypnotic, which lends it an addictive sensibility that complements the need Adam and Eve have for their bloody fixes.

Ju Dou is a juicy and stylish potboiler that keeps the pilots turned on full blast.

Although Selma is dramatically uneven overall, the film is a commendable historical drama that sidesteps the pitfalls of adulatory biopics and great-man approaches to encapsulating bygone events.

Thunder Road has received oodles of festival awards, including the Grand Jury Award at SXSW. The film is a singular work. Even though it doesn’t always live up to the promise of its opening sequence, Thunder Road is an exhilarating ride.

Complicity is the offense under investigation in The Assistant, the first fiction film of the #MeToo era that indicts the system along with its colluders, willing and unwilling.

The narrative and its attendant lessons about how one rotten ape and/or human can spoil the bunch are engaging, although I found myself drifting during the battle sequences.

The first-time feature director, co-writer, and star of Caramel, Labaki, can be forgiven the commonness of her dramatic setting because of the gracefulness of her storytelling and the strength of her vision.

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that Bergman is finally getting around to asking himself questions he now realizes he should have asked long ago is not sufficient enough premise for a movie. The answers may be news to Bergman, but the rest of us might just want to opt for divorce.

Most important, Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary makes us wonder, in a very human sense, about the various blinders we all adopt to make our peace with life.

Life of Pi, ironically, soars when it confines itself to land and sea; when it grasps for the celestial, the film goes beyond its reach.

That is really the reason to see this movie: the lovely performances of Macdonald and Khan.

Moments of great suspense are sometimes invested with intrinsic humor, moments of trauma can yield great compassion. Often, these seemingly conflicting tones exist all at once, while the oblique mystery never clearly identifies the correct emotion.

It's all pretty involving and sweetly ingratiating in a Charlotte's Web-by kind of way.

Fill the Void is almost more like an ethnographic film than a fictional narrative in regard to our rare observational perspective. Yet Shira also shares attitudes in common with Jane Austen heroines, whose worlds are dominated by their marital prospects and domestic matters.

As long as Sing Street stays on this sweet, sentimental path, the film is an agreeable toe-tapper. Scratch the surface too deeply and you’ll find some historical inconsistencies, idealized events, and a depressing environment roiling in Conor’s familial home and nation.

Lodge Kerrigan is one of the great, though largely unheralded, filmmakers of our time, and with Keane, his third feature, he finally shows himself to be in full command of his uncompromising talent.

Visually inventive cartoon is complemented by clever, whimsical narration and 11 songs from the Beatles.

Its warm humor and love for its characters ultimately wins us over to its side.

At 2 1/2 hours, the film is too long in the telling and too short on suspense.

Overstays its welcome by at least a half hour. But, assuming that cute Camaro stays in the picture, I expect we’ll all be back for the planned round three.

The rush subsides, however, the minute the movie ends, and leaves the viewer with the faint aftertaste of a processed sugar high.

Indignation, however, is not really about sex, but rather, the cataclysms that can result from the most banal of choices.

This biography, to our surprise, is extremely respectful and earnest and lacking Morris' usual transformational touch.

Tsai’s drama is something like a mixture of Robert Bresson and R.W. Fassbinder, as God’s bedraggled souls struggle with the desires of the damned, and nobody wants to go into that good night alone.

At its best, 32 Short Films manages to convey something of Gould’s state of mind, often using the musician’s own words.

The movie is tightly wound and expertly unraveled, resulting in a thriller that you'll remember – unlike the hitman Ledda.

Nolan creates an effective thriller, although he keeps his stylistic pyrotechnics to a minimum.

Viewers unfamiliar with Wharton's novel may have a hard time, especially at first, deciphering all the characters since Davies presents them at a steady clip while providing little background or explanatory material.

The spoof that launched a thousand parodies – this is the one that's 100% funny.

This stirring historical re-creation depicts the experiences of America's first unit of black soldiers in the Civil War and the young Northerner who leads them.

The entire cast is marvelous and capable of conveying continents of emotion with a furtive smile or arched brow.

Part drama, part civics lesson, part entertainment, it sustains our deep curiosity despite the forgone knowledge of how things turn out.

It is certainly the best button-pushing movie of the year.

The saga unfolds in a fairly charming fashion, and only Allen’s abrupt ending breaks the spell. Clearly, the filmmaker has no more ideas than Jasmine about how to resolve her predicament.

A stroll with these characters is a refreshing break from from the usual film exercises.

A devastating portrait of impoverished Calucutta children.

A smart, creepy, violent, funny, and modern vampire movie that benefits from some wonderful performances, a stunning visual texture, and music by Tangerine Dream.

Finds a way to impart this sad history while raising our spirits at the same time.

A fascinating sight to behold.

Reiner abandons his previous movie's sense of farce and satire for much broader and more innocuous comedy.

It's a winning formula, and when done right like it is here, it transcends the clichés and moves audiences.

The film stars “It Girl” Clara Bow and a very young Gary Cooper in a WWI love triangle, but the film’s real highlight is its spectacular aerial photography.

Despite this film's narrative lapses, Malick has a unique way of distilling the poetry from the commonplace -- and for that precious gift we should say amen.

For the iconoclastic film director Ken Loach and his longtime screenwriting collaborator Paul Laverty, I, Daniel Blake represents their most accessible film ever.

The Counterfeiters differs from most Holocaust movies in that the emphasis is on the personal moral choices that are made rather than the overall horror and despair.

Gleeson is triumphant in this portrait of a complex man who is concurrently sensitive, boorish, brilliant, singular, and unforgettable.

Appearing in almost every frame of Blue Ruin, Blair – who previously starred in "The Man From Orlando" and writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s first feature, "Murder Party" – owns this film.

Instead of aiming for biographical overview, this film strives to capture a sense of what makes Sakamoto’s music tick. (Hint: It’s not a metronome, but rather, the sounds of nature.)

One of Hitchcock's very best comic thrillers, North by Northwest features scene after unforgettable scene.

Intends to be a farce, not a drama. The film never quite achieves either definition.

Endless Poetry is an oblique road map as much as it is a guiding aphorism. It is also a pretty decent summary of what this film has to offer.

The details of characters’ internal thought processes are left to our imagination. Still, this movie hits the senses like fresh impact of saltwater air.

The movie's main weakness is the premise that sun, flowers, Mediterranean air and, certainly, castle living, are magical restoratives strong enough to salve all social ills. But these actresses and their mates are all pleasurable to watch as they go through their paces and interact.

The movie occasionally continues on too long with certain scenes and may strain the sensibilities of anybody not caught up in its delirious visuals and melodrama, but The Saddest Music in the World nevertheless beckons with a seductive and unforgettable melody.

Certainly one of the very best films in each of Donen and Hepburn's careers, this devastatingly lovely remnant of Hollywood's anything-goes Sixties (with a script by Frederic Raphael) tells the story of a marriage by showing a couple over the course of successive trips to the south of France.

To my mind, movies about watching nomads walk rank alongside movies about writers writing: The action is dull and endlessly repetitive, and most of the interesting stuff occurs in the mind’s interior.

The movie will not be for all tastes. Its seedy lifestyles, nonjudgmental attitudes, nonlinear narrative, and central character whose problem is his lack of emotions is definitely nonstandard fare.

The effects are reasonably well-created, though hardly transparent. The last 15 minutes of the film spins out into unimaginable realms. Fans of this kind of stuff will leave smitten; those accompanying them to the theatre will have a pretty good time too.

Ageism, sexism, classism, and unabashed snobbery rear their ugly heads in a provocatively told story by probably the greatest film melodrama stylist who ever lived.

Although it’s a pleasant and handsome endeavor, Mr. Holmes hasn’t the consuming drive and sense of inexorability that marks the award-winning "Gods and Monsters."

Never inspires more than an interested detachment.

Technically, Jihad's images and assemblage seem on par for a first-time filmmaker, though the film's message is a moving plaint.

Morse and Caruso provide better reasons to see this film than do Ryan and Crowe.

Hopefully find the audience it deserves.

It's a daredevil's ride that keeps you glued with fascination.

Herzog outdoes himself with Rescue Dawn, making his most popularly accessible film yet and proving at the same time that he is among the most daring of all filmmakers and capable -- like his characters -- of almost anything.

A chilling classic, the movie is a scabrous satire about human deviance, brutality, and social conditioning that has remained a visible part of the ongoing public debate about violence and the movies.

A great piece of advocacy: an elegant movie about one of the world’s most urgent problems, made by an esteemed social critic and cultural figure. Yet, Ai’s film, despite its staggering numbers, seems short on insight and personal consequence.

The constant singing and dancing throughout is charmingly presented, and the CGI recreations of Antarctica are stunning.

A truly provocative essay.

Proves to be a wonderful reality check.

The German film Victoria gives off a lustrous intensity. Filmed all in one take in pre-dawn Berlin, the film is a technical marvel inset with small jewels.

It's too bad the language prevents this independent film from being rated PG-13 because this is the kind of movie that might be capable of realistically reflecting teens' lives to other teens.

The content is enjoyable and informative, a loving tribute even if deeper analysis and insight rarely rear their heads. Yet I dare anyone not to snap to attention and spontaneously follow the sound of that voice.

The details of what went down are fascinating, but the ultimate focus of Best of Enemies is television and this demonstration that it can be both eminently viewable and illuminating.

24 Frames is a classically Kiarostami work, indicative of his life’s curiosities and trademark inquiries, but far short of a culminating utterance.

You can’t stop watching this film, even if you can’t always express in words what you’re seeing. Intuition fills in the gaps.

The film's story is both culturally specific and broadly universal and that duality is a large part of what makes Once Were Warriors work.

The sadness harbored by all the film’s characters is evident. Their passions, however, stem from ginned-up claptrap about love and hate being opposite expressions of one overwhelming emotion which can also substitute for each other.

The Ghost Writer hasn’t the complexity or breadth of such stunners as "Chinatown" or "The Pianist," but it is nevertheless a solidly built little roundelay of intrigue with a veracity that seems torn from newspaper headlines.

Though the advertising plays up the film's Bush-bashing angle, it gives a false impression. This is really more of a backstage drama.

Dallas Buyers Club is an indelible story about one man’s unwillingness to go gently into that good night, and the personal growth he experiences along the way.

The B-Side is not one of Errol Morris’ finely focused film essays; instead, you may feel a desire to “shake it like a Polaroid picture” in an effort to encourage its development.

One of the rare movies that communicates honestly and artfully about the real casualties of war: the surviving combatants.

Equity is a movie about working women that was made by and financed by women, providing a backstory that’s almost as interesting as the movie itself.

Fukunaga's images are striking, and his storytelling abilities are strong, but his screenwriting skills rely heavily on sappy formulas that add nothing to our understanding of the border-crossing experience.

The poverty that is at the heart of the situation is in prominent relief, yet there is a happiness about their lives that defies sheer gloss. Here is a brother and sister who truly love each other and are bonded by their complicity.

Weitz (About a Boy) is a sharp observer, and Tomlin and the rest of the cast are so superlative that any anxiety is quickly quelled. You’re happy to follow this movie over the river and through the woods.

God Loves Uganda and recent events make it seem like the time is right for a 21st century raid on Entebbe.

The horror imagined by Évolution does not depend on the genre’s familiar tropes but instead its arousal of dread and fear, not unlike Guillermo del Toro in "The Devil’s Backbone," in which the peril is intuited rather than defined.

Grindhouse raises the bar for a certain kind of movie lollapalooza (and also for the kind of filmmaker who is also a showman, along the lines of a William Castle or Cecil B. De Mille). It's this injection of playfulness and fun and attention to the entire movie-going gestalt that will probably become Grindhouse's lasting contribution to movie history rather than any on-the-screen content of the movie itself.

Celebrate Father's Day in grand movie style.

What's fascinating is the depth of humanity Cruise finds within the character of Jerry and also Cruise's generosity toward the other actors in the story -- a generosity that allows all the other performers to shine and create vivid and memorable characters.

Although the film is never fully convincing about this rock band’s overlooked potential – despite testimonials from the likes of Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra, and Elijah Wood – the story of Death sure adds an interesting and virtually unknown footnote to the annals of punk rock.

Director Nunez, whose previous films (Gal Young 'Un, A Flash of Green) are also set in Florida, has an ability to translate states of mind into their native environments and vice versa. In this instance, his regional realism combines with Judd's transfixing performance to create a movie that sticks to your ribs.

Chi-Raq constantly shifts tones from comedy to drama and back again, while most of its dialogue is delivered in rhyming couplets. The transitions can sometimes be bumpy, but never when Samuel L. Jackson pops up as nattily dressed and off-color one-man Greek chorus.

Hudsucker Proxy works more like a fairy tale in which all implausibilities are acceptable and none of it has to play by real-world rules. But it's a fairy tale without any lessons, a satire without any targets.

Hepburn brings Truman Capote's Holly Golightly to vivid life. [Review of re-release]