Sam Weisberg

Wang favors static, wide, one-take shots, to underscore the relentlessness of his characters’ suffering. But — like Jost — he also has a knack for primitive in-camera effects. The final shot is a triumph of both economy and feeling.

The cast is intoxicating.

As demonstrated by this exquisite documentary, the preparation of Japan’s national dish is an arduous affair, with the most celebrated chefs — variously referred to here as “ramen gods” and “ramen demons” — toiling fanatically to retain the color, richness, and viscosity of their dishes.

Above all else, November, shot in gorgeous black-and-white by Mart Taniel, is a smorgasbord of deliciously grotesque imagery.

Most hilarious is the revelation that the first director assigned to the film Lumet eventually made, the manic John G. Avildsen, wanted the eccentric, bearded hipster ex-cop to play himself. On the basis of this exceptional portrait, he very well could have.

Whenever Plummer is onscreen, The Exception is scintillating entertainment. Unfortunately, it gets bogged down.

While the film, to its credit, doesn't become a trite morality play, the ending is thin and contrived nonetheless.

Whether the real-life Martinez is this hotheaded and quick-tempered is left a mystery, but it matters not a whit, because even five minutes in the company of this Martinez is excruciating.

Nakom is sometimes slow-moving and occasionally succumbs to heavy-handed symbolism, contrasting images.... But the movie is commendable for centering on an atypical hero.

The film is not without its trenchant moments, most rooted not in peace but in science.

This gripping movie is essential viewing for any Irish history buffs who found In the Name of the Father a tad corny.

It's workmanlike and impassioned, but ultimately preaching to the choir.

All the ingredients for a gritty — if familiar — coming-of-age story are here. But London Town, though spirited, is consistently tension-free.

This is a maudlin, manipulative film, and while it's never aggressively annoying, that's only because it severely lacks energy. It registers like a pesky little sister who's doped out on Vicodin.

There have been upbeat coming-out films (But I'm a Cheerleader) and tragic, infuriating ones (Boys Don't Cry, Brokeback Mountain). Andrew Ahn's Spa Night is executed on a significantly smaller scale, a deliberately anticlimactic one, which makes it all the more doleful.

Andersen's restless yet scholarly methods are contagious: He makes you want to become more well-rounded.

Sex and Broadcasting is at once heartfelt, gritty, and informative, and you don’t really want it to end.

This anti-war movie is more passionate about CB radio communication than the horrors of bloodshed.

There are two rules that no version of Point Break should disobey: Don't skimp on surfing and never be boring. That’s two unpardonable strikes against new helmsman Ericson Core, who also photographed this stiff, humorless, tension-free remake in drab 3D.

Heartrending throughout, Iraqi Odyssey is everything you want in a documentary — informative, involving, and eager to decipher complex, often paradoxical historical conundrums. Everything, that is, except visually interesting.

[A] vivid and enlightening documentary.

Bialis's growing immersion in the town is poignant, even admirable.

If Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna's exhilarating documentary, Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, were merely a testament to McQueen's stubbornness and irascibility, it would still be a damned entertaining portrait.

While Spender spends enough time with both new and retired jockey legends to collect a gold mine of macho, bullheaded rapport, you wish she delved deeper into the more sinister, behind-the-scenes wheelings and dealings.

Rose is a pleasant affair, but you might want to know far more about Blank and far less about, say, pot-au-feu.

Shrewder documentarians than directors Brent Hodge and Derik Murray would have balanced out the sentiment with grit. The movie is saccharine.

This is essential viewing for those who prefer their documentaries nearly 100 percent tension-free.

Terrific documentaries are a dime a dozen; ones this multifaceted are to be cherished.

Kim Seong-hun's riveting if empty-headed A Hard Day will be remembered for its increasingly ominous jump-cuts to mobiles ringing, vibrating, and flashing profane messages.

That Bradley King's debut Time Lapse half-succeeds is a small miracle.

Most of this frantic moviemaking is more disorienting than riveting.

This is, of course, a movie about affliction, and it ultimately succumbs to the bland, sentimental uplift we've come to expect from such outings.

It will only be criticized — rightfully — for its skirting over the resulting plight of Palestinian refugees, but Grossman is surely capable of making an equally absorbing, entertaining film on that subject.

[A] dour, dreary drama.

Scott Cohen's Red Knot exhibits such spot-on, heartbreaking honesty about behaviors that tear many couples apart — passive-aggressiveness, career obsession, seeking validation to soothe one's inadequacies — that it's easy to forgive Cohen his metaphorical excesses.

The tension never lets up.

By the Gun is a gangster film wholly devoid of suspense, atmosphere, or grit.

Theo Love's mesmerizing documentary Little Hope Was Arson is as evenhanded as it is unsettling.

It's an unsolved mystery in Hollywood why so many based-on-true-life polemical films end up so unremarkable.

While not as kinky, dark, or schizoid as debuting director/screenwriter Michael Medeiros intends, Tiger Lily Road succeeds on its own small, claustrophobic level.

In the end, Relationship Status is wan when it tries to be scandalous.

The result, despite a few stellar moments, is a not-quite-tragic-enough meditation on mourning and self-healing, crossed with a not-quite-gritty-enough portrait of indie rockers trying to break big.

Shirinian has made a swift, moody film, with impeccable art design — Abner's diorama of the car wreck is a kooky marvel — a scarily convincing feel for recurring panic, and a thunderous, heart-rending performance at its center.

Mortensen is a pro at the slow burn, and he adds genuinely frightening layers of impulsiveness to this tempest-in-a-teapot scenario. The freshest twist is that each man has a notable advantage over the other.

Nothing wrenching happens, just unforgettable moments of piercing isolation and sadness.

The performances often enliven the stale material... But the script's naïveté is galling.

Sharon Greytak's Archaeology of a Woman is a decidedly well-made, unnerving film.

The Man on Her Mind has a terminal case of the cutes.

Without characters whose fates we care about, nor fully comprehend, even the most visceral shocks are just that: impressive moments with no lingering terror.

Coldwater is almost boastfully grim.

As it stands, Child of God is brazenly, outstandingly bad, as vague, pretentious, and pointless as its sorry title. But it's certainly memorable, full of inadvertent howlers and destined to create a whole new subgenre of burlesque, audience-torturing cinema.

Under the Electric Sky manages to be amusing even while it’s annoying you.

This film is numbingly dull.

Equally seductive as it is inert, Terry Miles' Cinemanovels manages to cast an alluring spell, despite not amounting to much. It sticks in the memory, mostly due to the playful lead performance by Lauren Lee Smith.

What's fresh is Weinstock's interweaving of flashbacks, slightly altered versions of flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, so that viewers must work as hard as Lee to determine past from present.

[Ramsis] achieves many poignant moments, especially when his subjects express that they have never felt at home anywhere outside Egypt.

Even at its well-meaning best, Refuge is listless.

This needlessly incoherent thriller treats its convoluted nonsense with grave seriousness. It's mawkish, maudlin, and tongue-tied — countless scenes end with characters excusing themselves to go to bed, and you may want to join them.