Noel Murray

Eventually, The Blackcoat’s Daughter connects the pieces and ends strongly, though Perkins smartly spends more creative energy on crafting creepy situations than on pointing toward the payoff.

Williams has been making taut, gritty genre films and TV programs in the U.K. for two decades now, which is evident in the confidence of Bull.

Buckles’ greatest asset is his subjects, many of whom have never spoken before about the trauma that the adults and authority figures in their lives have expected them to endure, bravely and stoically.

With Mysterious Skin, Araki burrowed into the hearts and minds of his audience, looking to provide his viewers with Neil and Brian’s deeper understanding of how to piece together a fractured life, then go looking for the fragments that are still buried deep.

This is a poignant and poetic film, where the strife just outside the characters’ little bubbles is ever-present and always visible.

Beckinsale’s performance is so funny in fact that it sucks a lot of the air out the room for her co-stars. Whenever she’s in a scene, she delivers so many pithy putdowns per second that it’s hard to pay attention to anyone else. And whenever she’s not around, the movie dims.

It's a hyper-violent, self-conscious throwback, with the sickly plastic aroma of a tape that's been gathering dust in the corner of a video store since 1984.

More essay than documentary—and by no means a monster movie--Jessica Oreck’s Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo takes a closer look at the Japanese obsession with insect-collecting, and considers it as a partial explanation of the country’s national character.

Ai’s approach occasionally tips too far toward aestheticizing a dire situation.

A slim Richard Matheson story that Spielberg padded into a 90-minute feature by artfully assembling a string of insert shots.

There's nothing surprising about the arc of Kold's story, but Matthiesen and his cast have created a believable space, and that ultimately helps give Teddy Bear the tension of a fine suspense film once Kold sits down across the kitchen table from Steentoft to speak his mind at last.

Even though 2 Or 3 Things' central irony is blunt, Ludin's tone remains measured throughout, and never self-serving.

Universe deals extensively with Haring's personal life--his open homosexuality, his regular visits with his family, etc.--but it doesn't penetrate too far below the surface.

On its own merits, though, West Of Memphis is a well-assembled, well-argued documentary that shows how America's advocacy model of trial law can lead to government representatives spinning stories they know are probably untrue, then using their authority to stand strong against any alternate theory, no matter how many millions of people believe it.

Ultimately, Meet The Fokkens isn't a documentary about elderly hookers; it's about two women forced into a hard life by circumstance, who tried to make the best of their situation, and are trying still.

At a certain point, Hammett gets unreasonably convoluted, but since its hero seems just as hopelessly confused by what develops, it's easy to just soak in the rich atmosphere, courtesy of Coppola's ace production designer Dean Tavoularis and a terrific John Barry score.

Martin’s script—co-written with SNL producer Lorne Michaels and songwriter Randy Newman—is full of inspired bits of comic business, such as Martin making a “lookuphere!” bird call to get his chums’ attention, Chase pouring water all over his face while his mates’ canteens are dry, and the Amigos summoning an invisible swordsman whom Chase accidentally shoots.

Stories Women Tell does succeed at what it primarily means to do, which is to take abortion out of the realm of the theoretical and make it more personal.

Cracks stumbles down the stretch, when the melodrama finally washes in and the behavior becomes more extreme.

Roustabout revels delightfully in the arcane details of carny life.

Being Evel’s story is too plain in the telling, but it’s still incredible, and relevant in the way it shows how a person can achieve wealth and fame if he’s willing to leap way high—and to endure the inevitable wipeout.

These characters are still rich, and their potential growth still compelling. Here's hoping we meet them again in another five years.

Throughout Lamb, Laurence makes sure that every one of the character’s bad choices makes sense. That’s what makes the movie so sad.

There’s something widely relatable about the way Barry tries to find somewhere to fit in, and preferably in a place where he can be himself and not somebody else’s symbol.

What Slumber Party Massacre lacks in style, originality, and satire, it makes up in entertainment value. It’s blessedly unpretentious.

Make no mistake: The Trip is a fine, funny movie. But there's no reason why it couldn't have been even finer and funnier.

What's missing from Mozart's Sister, though, is the kind of fervor that made "Amadeus" so memorable.

About A Son may not let in anybody who doesn't already have one foot in Nirvana's doorway, but those people are invited in fully, to experience the contradictions and preoccupations of a man whose music defined his era.