Peter Keough

The film at times genuinely touches on the bittersweet magic of first love.

As a suspenseful true crime story, 24 Days succeeds. As a warning against the ever present dangers of anti-Semitism, it is eloquent and disturbing. It’s in combining the two that Arcady mishandles the case.

A sometimes clever but ultimately clichéd comedy.

The film is so bizarre, contrived, manipulative, and meretricious that anything is possible.

It’s an awkward balancing act. The result is more Benigni than Bertolucci, and though Diliberto achieves moments of poignancy and touches on insightful psychological truths, it doesn’t look like he’ll be winning any Oscars soon.

When the two veteran actors team up in Vermont writer-director Jay Craven’s wry, uneven Northern Borders, adapted from Howard Frank Mosher’s novel, they mesh so well they almost hold the rest of the movie together. But their nuanced performances underscore the weakness of the rest of the cast, and Craven’s erratic tonal shifts from the whimsical to the sentimental trip up the episodic plot.

It tries to bridge the gap between pop culture and cultural elitism, between high art and the common commodity that everyone else buys tickets to see. A worthy goal, but it results in a movie that has none of the virtues of either.

Though programmatic in its plotting, “Effie” does aspire to obliqueness in its imagery. In “Mr. Turner,” Leigh evokes the painter of the title in the film’s stunning visuals. In “Effie,” the pseudo-medieval lushness and literalness of the Pre-Raphaelites permeates much of cinematography by Andrew Dunn.

Whether or not Hawke got any answers to his questions about the purpose of being artist, seeking them under the guidance of a teacher like Bernstein resulted in this work of art.

The young cast comes through with appealing, naturalistic performances. But Weber’s programmatic, preachy story and emotional manipulation is so blatant that it verges on the fatuous.

It would violate a taboo to relate how this movie magic, masterfully orchestrated by Weinstein and Measom, is done. Their film is as smooth as Randi’s patter and demonstrates how the documentarian’s camera is quicker than the eye.

As powerful as it is as social commentary, Gett triumphs most as an examination of human relationships.

Has there been a more tormented or intense study of the ambivalence of revenge than Penn’s performance in Eastwood’s “Mystic River” (2003)? Penn might not agree with Eastwood’s politics, but when it comes to probing a killer’s soul he couldn’t find a better model.

In balancing the more objective cultural history of delis with a personal profile, Anjou serves neither well. Perhaps he should have chosen one course or the other.

The vividly realized squalor, cruelty, and ugliness engulf everything, including the narrative.

Churns out dread, suspense, and hellish splendor with its derelict cityscapes and breakneck action.

Almost all mainstream movies steal from other movies, but the better ones get away with it because they possess some distinctive identity. The best that Ken Scott’s Unfinished Business can come up with is Vince Vaughn — as the straight man.

In a way, Lipes’s documentary resembles Jonathan Demme and David Byrne’s “Stop Making Sense” (1984) — in which Byrne goes on stage solo with a beat box and the rest of the Talking Heads gather one by one — as much as it does Wiseman’s films.

The Mauritanian-born Abderrahmane Sissako, one of the great filmmakers of sub-Saharan Africa, does not need to resort to propaganda in Timbuktu to denounce fanaticism. He has poetry. With subtlety, irony, and even humor, he gradually prepares the viewer for the horror to come.

“Shadows” has its share of lines that will be repeated by fans ad infinitum (a favorite: “Yes, now Google it”).

Though it initially shows signs of overcoming its creakiness, “Capital” loses value when its screenwriters try too hard to be clever.

To its credit, despite a rough start (witch burning and all that), Seventh Son does not succumb to misogyny.

If you close your eyes you’d think it was a commercial for a “Great Love Songs” DVD collection.

I have not seen the film “Fifty Shades of Grey” but I doubt that it evokes the mystery, wit, and eroticism that Peter Strickland’s sumptuously claustrophobic fable of women in love does. All without nudity, bad dialogue, or the requisite wooden acting.

One of the advantages of time travel in a found-footage film is that it makes the chronology and causality so confusing that the problem of who’s shooting what becomes secondary. On the other hand, it doesn’t allow fast-forwarding through all the boring bits. For starters, I could have done with far less Lollapalooza.

If nothing else, Beloved Sisters is one of the most visually striking biopics around. Too bad you have to wade through so much verbiage in order to enjoy it.