Sean Axmaker

The language and the landscape is French, but the sensibility and style is unmistakably Eastern European.

Despite the raw gut-punch of its direction, its power lies in compassion, not sensationalism.

It's nothing new, but Hawke captures some evocative textures and honest moments.

Best enjoyed by keeping in mind the latest cinematic proposition that apocalyptic disaster doesn't bring out the worst in people, only the stupidest.

If Laurence Fishburne could only have harnessed his fierce performance to drive his directoral debut, Once in the Life might have made something memorable of the done-to-death tale of small-time crooks on the run after a heist gone wrong.

The entire film is shot in split screen. Each of the unnamed characters is photographed separately in their own slice of space, the images sutured together with a purposeful imperfection, with occasional overlap and rare moments of union. It gives them the appearance of dancing around one another, almost touching but never getting past the years of emotional scar tissue, even as they work their way to her hotel room.

An inspired melding of action thriller, satire and biographical drama through the looking glass of a funhouse mirror.

The most pure of Mamet's works to come to the screen.

Apparently there's a fresh generation ready to take this at face value. That, in its own way, is refreshing.

Who is Cletis Tout? Who cares?

Singer deftly crafts a sleek, unusually tight film that balances comic-book adventure, pulp opera and the fear of being different.

This beautifully sculpted poetic naturalism has more in common with the expressive use of words in the great screenplays of '40s and '50s than with modern movies.

It's often funny but it flails around like a chicken with its head cut off, flapping and squawking and making a spectacle, but never really going anywhere.

The result is joyous and exhilarating.

An engaging and generous profile of the fascinating folks who have chosen to live at the end of the world.

More than simply a raw-nerve success-gone-sour story. It's a revenge tale, and the directors come out on top.

All the furiousness doesn't really add up to anything, but there is grungy fun to be had in gizmo-laden art direction and the increasingly bizarre battle of wits of the weirdly warped South Korean sci-fi black comedy.

Like many of Chen's movies, which are so precise and composed and lush, it's not really emotionally engaging. It is, however, a dazzling and dynamic spectacle that risks being ridiculous to create an unreal world of the romantic imagination.

The style is pure Hou: richly textured atmosphere, tiptoeing camerawork and long, languorous takes of scenes full of privileged moments of human activity.

It's all about Guevara's education as a revolutionary and his development as a leader in the jungles and in battle.

Ultimately less psychological thriller than polemic about the effects of living in an atmosphere of paranoia fed by daily threat-level assessments and round-the-clock TV news-channel coverage of fear-mongering speeches.

It's the kind of stunt that gets Oscar nominations and accolades. Theron turns it into a raw, bristling performance that deserves them.

It's a big enough film to hold all the contradictions. Green has an ego and a gift for stealing the spotlight with a wink and a grin. Yet his respect for the kids is genuine.

Scott owns the film from scene one.

The total effect is mesmerizing, an eye-opening tour of modern Beijing culture in a journey of rebellion, retreat into oblivion and return.

John Jarratt is perfectly creepy as the outback loner gone psychotic survivalist who gets his kicks from the systematic degradation and torture of hapless victims. And make no mistake, the ordeal is excruciating.

The poetic justice strains the verisimilitude of a film otherwise grounded in a tough reality, but there is a guilty satisfaction to it all.

Grand and imaginatively designed epic that forgets that the spectacle -- and this is nothing if not spectacular -- is just the flourish.