Noel Murray

For all that Tommy bungles or overdoes, it’s still a powerful experience, musically and visually.

Both State Fair and Oklahoma! exemplify the composers' re-imagining of the musical form, which relied on more subtle vocal techniques, and songs that were catchy without always being hooky. The movies also catch the pair's unique version of nostalgia, which salutes provincial values while suggesting that they may not be enough to satisfy.

What makes Sing Street such a joyously entertaining film (besides the songs) is that it thinks the best of its characters, and it presents them the way they’d like to think of themselves.

Most vitally, the filmmakers never let the audience lose track of how cool it would be to cruise the bottom of the ocean in an elegantly appointed super-boat. The secret of good escapist fare, as Disney's crew knew, is giving the audience someplace remarkable to escape to.

At times, Treeless Mountain almost feels like a fairy tale--but without the magic.

Return is unusually attuned to its protagonist's alienation, which is especially painful because its source isn't some horrendous event she witnessed, but the hundreds of annoying aspects of everyday life.

It’s an approach that works well when the audience enjoys the company of this person who’s become a permanent fixture on their TV. But it’s also one that enrages opposing voters, who can only ever see the maddening fakery.

There’s a certain flat indie artlessness to “The Big Sick,” but it’d be shortsighted to discount how well-written and well-acted it is. This is a very funny movie, yet always plausibly so—never throwing in jokes just for the sake of a laugh.

A beautifully choreographed and photographed story about tradition and modernity in rural Asia.

Remember My Name still works magnificently as a tragicomic character sketch.

Blow-Up defies analysis by design, given that it's about an artist who makes messes and cleans them up only in part, leaving behind the splatter that interests him. Antonioni follows a similar methodology, making strict interpretations of Blow-Up pretty pointless, and certainly less enjoyable than soaking up the mod decadence and ennui.

As always, Kurosawa masterfully controls his film's framing and sound design, and as always, the painstakingly precise mise-en-scene can feel a little overdone at times.

The big difference is that We Come As Friends is observational, while the institutions Sauper is watching here are actively tampering with Sudanese customs, in the name of improving their economy and living conditions.

Whenever the story starts to drag, Berg cuts to a scene like Big Brother’s era-defining performance of “Ball And Chain” at Monterey, which had even Los Angeles’ prematurely jaded rock superstars gaping in justified awe. They knew they were watching something explosive, in a package too fragile to contain it.

Arijon's choice to film the survivors returning to the Andes with their children pays huge dividends, leading to an ending that puts the real meaning of their ordeal in moving terms.

The Day He Arrives is a talky movie, full of long, boozy scenes and cosmic coincidences - and in that it echoes Allen, as well as Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, and the best of British kitchen-sink drama.

It’s that intuitive fusion of whiplash-inducing plot twists and political anger that makes The People Under The Stairs so fascinating, even when the humor’s too blunt or the scares too soft.

As always with Hong's films, Oki's Movie goes through stretches where it seems aimless and self-indulgent, followed by stretches where it's sharp, funny, and poetic.

Attempts to look beyond the hysteria and consider exactly how and why a culture that values physical power has internalized the idea that steroid use in sports is a scourge.

Ultimately, this isn’t a film about goat balls at all, but the willingness of millions to believe that some slick-talking demagogue knows more about what’s good for them and their families than someone with actual qualifications.

More horror movies set in the 21st century ought to integrate technology into their scares as well as Nicholas McCarthy's The Pact.

The emotional reserve of 66 Days can make the film feel a little dry at times, given that it’s about something as visceral as a man starving himself to death. But Byrne does a fine job of juggling a lot of information.

This is a crime story with little to no interest in the who or the why, but only the what and the how. It's a reverse-procedural, tracking not the solution of a crime, but all of its awful particulars.

What's most valuable about Side By Side is how comprehensive it is in documenting how the art form changed.

It's more clever than funny, but it's very clever.

Most likely, The Autobiography Of Nicolae Ceausescu will mean the most to actual Romanians, who will recognize the locations and fashions, and may even know what the government's documentarians left out of the picture. But the movie offers plenty to captivate even outsiders.

I Care A Lot isn’t some brilliantly subversive social satire. It’s a tightly constructed, masterfully acted, lightly stylish little caper picture, which revels in just how mean it can be. It’s not essential, and it’s not for everybody. But for those who prefer their pulp to carry the faint aroma of moral rot, this movie is a real treat.

It’s intense as hell, and a supreme example of how the morally repugnant can be made to look weirdly beautiful.