Marrit Ingman

It is an observant and effective study in character and setting, suitably grave and distinctively realized.

No doubt some viewers could find fault with the slack pacing, though it's hardly inappropriate for a film that's fundamentally about emerging from frustration and stasis into a state of grace.

Somewhere between the pop jouissance of Guy Ritchie and the social realism of Ken Loach, this ballsy drama freeze-frames bleak Thatcherite Yorkshire and exposes its racist underbelly.

This is Iranian cinema at its most accessible: a bit slow even in its 92 minutes, with more environment than story, but deeply immersive and thought-provoking, and quite often funny.

Proof that movies don’t always have to be busy to entertain and enrich, this tale of life at a bucolic Korean monastery is at once profound and simple.

The result is total immersion in the moment of the music, sure to send jazz fans over the moon.

While viewers who expect a conventional suspense film may be disappointed in Lantana overall, it does succeed on a smaller, more intimate scale.

Old Joy is an accurately observed slice of that moment between postadolescence and parenthood, when friends cling or scatter, and circumstances force buried feelings to the fore.

Offers more questions than answers. Even the Kurds, who seem the closest thing to a success story, long for a unified Iraq.

This indie rambler was my favorite movie of South by Southwest 05, where it premiered. But before I go any further, let's establish that Mutual Appreciation is not for you if you go to the movies to see things blown up or if you expect such conventional niceties as a three-act structure or lighting effects not achieved by yanking up a window shade.

Too bloodless to satisfy except as a political exercise.

Substantive and imaginatively filmed but is not an off-putting art movie; rather, it's the kind of solid but accessible filmmaking that prevailed in Hollywood's golden age.

It helps that J.K. Rowling’s third book in the series is full of spooky stuff that translates beautifully to screen.

The overall execution add up to a film of beautiful, ultimately heartbreaking honesty.

There’s much to enjoy, even if the funny bits don’t add up to Spinal Tap greatness. And the titular anthem, performed in a star-studded closing jamboree, has a wickedly funny payoff.

Qualitatively different from its cinematic forbears: It doesn't linger on the gothic curlicues of its source material, it moves straightforwardly from place to place, and it emphasizes the emotional development of its characters with dramatic interplay rather than expressionistic, atmospheric gloom.

It's a magnificent film – thoughtful but not distant, aesthetically and technically sophisticated but staged with restraint and delicacy.

It recommends itself best to viewers who can appreciate its novelty and roll with the risks it takes.

Well-considered, beautifully made, and often gripping in its narrative, the film epitomizes the best the documentary format can offer.

The film’s simplest pleasure is its naturalism – the illusion it creates of observing the animals undetected.

Jacquet's penguins are as absorbing and incredible as any man-made phantasmagoria you'll find in the multiplex this summer, and it's all real.

A pleasant and often surprising ensemble dramedy set almost entirely within the walls of a busy, fashionable Tribeca trattoria on a spectacularly busy Tuesday night.

Funny Ha Ha is often offhandedly funny, and Bujalski has a knack for letting scenes build and then cutting out abruptly, duplicating the flow of a life in flux.

Doesn't necessarily make for a crowdpleasing experience, though it is a provocative and uncomfortably authentic one.

If you like "Maxim," you will love The Island. It is glossy. It is expensive. It has lots of slick ads for Aquafina and Cadillac.

The film’s approach suits an audience broader than the usual documentary crowd, though it’s worth mentioning that those pictures can really stay with you.

The film is a sure winner for arthouse audiences enamored of the new Argentine cinema, but it has crossover appeal for venturesome viewers in search of a good mystery, as well.

An intriguing export with crossover appeal.