Mark Jenkins

As is typical of the genre, the plot gets sillier as it unfolds, while the violence gets gnarlier.

If the movie's mix of nihilistic violence and snarky attitude suggests "In Bruges," it's a family resemblance. The writer-director of that film, which also starred Gleeson, is Martin McDonagh, the younger brother of this one's. Despite the similarities, the older McDonagh has a lighter touch. Where "In Bruges" ultimately became a mechanical bloodbath, The Guard scampers quickly through the action scenes, delivering commentary on genre conventions as it goes.

Despite dramatic Hawaiian locations, up-to-date visual effects and a bit of nontraditional casting, the movie feels not especially brave and far from new.

It's a campy rampage that runs a few minutes shy of four hours, dooming what otherwise would likely be a bright future as a midnight movie.

Even ardent Pattinson fandom won’t be enough to convert mainstream American audiences to the art-house director’s dark outlook and elliptical style.

The movie's first word is oishi, Japanese for "delicious," and what follows is a treat for sushi veterans. First-timers, however, may wish for a little more context.

The documentary is powerful, as far as it goes, but would be stronger if the filmmakers had been able to follow the story further.

Mostly gentle but occasionally turbulent comic drama, which is primarily about the ways people fail their families, friends and themselves.

Best of Enemies exists mainly as an occasion to replay the footage of Vidal’s smug taunt and Buckley’s seething response. It’s great television, but it has been available on YouTube for some time now.

Overlong and overstuffed with Southern rock and blues numbers, Burden is not exemplary filmmaking. But for viewers who can endure another spin through white-supremacist malice and ignorance, Hedlund and Riseborough make it a compelling ride.

The House I Live In shows Nannie Jeter as she hopefully watches Barack Obama's 2008 electoral victory, but doesn't analyze the current president's apparent reluctance to significantly alter anti-drug policies.

A Touch of Sin is the most dramatic and even lurid of writer-director Jia Zhangke's movies. The film-festival star hasn't quite become a Chinese Tarantino, however.

Perhaps because he's an actor, Rapaport prefers drama to analysis. And this story has plenty of conflict.

The stories are horrific, if laced with Tarantino-style humor.

Hara-Kiri is formal, deliberate, leisurely almost to a fault. It features the sort of slow-gliding camera movements favored by Kenji Mizoguchi, one of the greatest 20th century Japanese filmmakers - and the one least like Miike.

A waka is a traditional Japanese style of poetry, and this documentary does take a lyrical approach. Although barely an hour long, Tokyo Waka leaves room for offhand observations and humorous asides.

Even the movie's title, or rather the source of it, is a surprise. Not to spoil the fun, but it's neither Assange nor one of his allies who nonchalantly acknowledges that "we steal secrets."

The Kingmaker chills the soul by presenting shantytown residents and school kids who extol the Marcos regime and even endorse its eight-year period of martial law.

The story is carefully constructed, with moments that seem offhand initially, but are later revealed as crucial.

The clinical style doesn't play to the director's strengths. A Dangerous Method didn't have to be another "Naked Lunch," but Freud plus Jung plus Cronenburg should have equaled something a little more dissonant and troubling.

What’s most satisfying about the movie is getting to know Ali and Ava separately. They’re endowed with warmth, depth and believability by Akhtar and Rushbrook, veteran supporting actors who are rarely cast in leading roles. Ali and Ava may not be entirely convincing as lovers, but they’re both exceptionally likable as individuals.

Only the genre's most studious followers will be able to watch Muscle Shoals without being regularly astonished: Even if it sometimes gets lost in its byways, Greg "Freddy" Camalier's documentary tells an extraordinary story.

In Hollywood these days, such epic transformations are rendered with computers and called "morphing." Offering a lesson both to filmmakers and climate-change deniers, Chasing Ice demonstrates how much more powerful it is to capture the real thing.

The movie maintains its sense of style throughout, but that hardly matters as the story just gets stupider and stupider.

Monica is moody, slow-moving and stronger on style than characterization, yet Lysette and Clarkson endow it with feeling. This is a broken-family drama that culminates not with shouted recriminations or smashed crockery, but with baths, massages and gentle kisses.

The movie is a curiosity, of course. Both Marc and Kim have decidedly unusual life stories.

Tabloid spins a heck of a yarn, while implicitly warning viewers not to be so entertained that they believe every gamy detail.

Although the focus eventually returns to Chau’s disastrous undertaking, the asides gradually take over. The film expands into a debate on the ethics of missionary Christianity.