Noel Murray

I Wish is still amply Kore-eda-esque, full of life, heart, and funny little details about daily existence, as it meanders its way toward moments of real profundity.

This is a rom-com with heart, wit and style. But it also shows a clear-eyed understanding that one dreamy day — no matter how epic — is really just a good start.

Unlike most rock docs, “Life in 12 Bars” isn’t a look back from a distance. It’s like living through one man’s pain.

This moving, probing, beautifully written film doesn’t completely eschew nostalgia, but like Ernaux’s books, it treats the past as a prism, casting varying light depending on how, when and where it’s held.

In spite of the three-and-a-half-hour running time and the stark southwestern landscapes, Giant studies little moments more intently than monumental ones, and dwells in drawing rooms as much as on the range.

The larger point of this movie is that our own pasts sometimes seem like a fantasy — a dream we half-remember — where what actually happened and what we merely imagined both now seem equally impossible.

Pig is a rich character study, marked by several riveting Cage monologues.

The multiple perspectives in Hold Your Fire add up to a fascinating look back at a still-raging debate over the true purpose of policing.

What emerges is a rich portrait of one of 20th century pop culture’s great facilitators, whose keen observations, quirky personality and natural affinity for the outré helped greatness happen.

Movies can't exactly replicate the feeling of reading a book, but Jun Ichikawa's adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story Tony Takitani comes remarkably close.

Collectively, the mixed approaches illuminate a complicated man, at once spiritual and temperamental.

Mary Poppins is a near-masterpiece. It’s the best of the first wave of Disney live-action features, and the most complete and satisfying musical of any kind that the studio produced until Beauty And The Beast came along.

Gets most of its legs from the acting and the dialogue, which has such a rhythmic grace that scenes from the movie can be played and replayed with no loss of thump.

The film is best treated as a one-of-a-kind wonder: an ingenious contraption that dazzles, teases, attracts, and repels with all the mystery and sublimity of a miniature world.

This at once deeply creepy and strangely moving movie is ultimately about a girl in distress, unsure of what to do when the change she’s been desperate for turns out to be worse than the misery she’s already learned to handle.

From the shockingly raunchy dialogue to the ironic yuletide pop songs, this movie is a fun kind of nasty.

What makes Super Dark Times one of the most exciting American filmmaking debuts in recent years is how well Phillips and company grasp both the intensity and ephemerality of adolescence.

About 30 years ahead of its time, Blast of Silence follows a hit man (Baron) who heads to New York over the holidays and finds the Christmas spirit interfering with his killer instincts. [13 Apr 2008, p.E10]

Even the breeziest Miami Blues scene can suddenly turn chilling.

Great use of an eerie Southern California landscape and some fine, naturalistic acting emphasizes how the ordinary can sometimes seem threatening — and vice-versa.

The extraordinary achievement of Under The Skin is that while Laura develops some human qualities, Glazer resists the temptation to turn this alien’s story into the story of what it means to be human.

This movie is uncompromisingly discomfiting, meant to remind people of all those drunken nights where they overreacted to every well-intentioned joke, and woke up choking on the stench of burned bridges.

Piggy is a masterful mix of dark comedy, social commentary and raw suspense.

Seems Like Old Times is some of the best work that all of these people ever did on film.

All That Jazz is one of the most self-indulgent movies ever made—but blessedly so.

The digressiveness of Y Tu Mamá También is its masterstroke.

This is a different kind of monster movie, no doubt. It’s beautiful and magical, and as aware of the real world as it is of classic Hollywood. Good Manners is a haunting tale of love — and the burdens that come with it.

The sociological angle of Festival Express is a narrow one--perhaps too narrow--and doesn't overwhelm the film's real selling point, which is some of the best-looking and best-sounding footage of counterculture icons ever screened.