Steve Pond

The film makes a good case for [Cohn's] legacy being entirely negative, leading to today’s cutthroat, divisive and lie-packed politics. But it also, crucially, makes a case for Cohn being a fascinating subject, a bundle of contradictions in a slick and soulless package.

As much as the film celebrates his creativity and gazes unflinchingly at his failings, it also functions as a valedictory, almost a requiem of sorts. Think of it as the film version of the final albums made by Leonard Cohen and David Bowie, who made wrenching final statements that they likely knew would be their last.

Blinded by the Light is corny, silly, as overblown as one of Springsteen’s grandest anthems and damn near irresistible.

Miller is after immediacy, not reflection or explanation.

On the whole After the Wedding is a touching journey through a world where even those with the best intentions leave some wreckage behind, and where forward motion only comes with hard looks into the past.

In the end, Donnersmarck has it both ways: He’s sentimental and he’s provocative, a craftsman who has something to say and it going to take his time saying it.

Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy is a lukewarm examination of what might have been a hot topic — and that means it risks being overshadowed by the real-life soap opera playing out around it.

Woman at War is a beautiful hoot.

Sprawling where “Son of Saul” was focused and frustrating where it packed a punch, Sunset is nonetheless an audacious step for a director who prefers immersion to exposition. It’s not easy, but it’ll get under your skin.

While it sometimes feels as if it’s just not enough fun, once you get to the twin switcheroos and then the insane ending, you have little choice but to buy into horror-audience protocol and embrace it for the bloody hoot it is.

Minghella, to his credit, makes it an entertaining ride even when we see where it’s going, and Fanning turns out to be a terrific singer well suited to the alternative-rock playlist she’s given.

You can love “Gloria” and still think that Gloria Bell is an admirable reimagining that stands on its own while paying tribute to the original.

While Widows can be powerful and dramatic, the director doesn’t seem all that interested in the complicated heist that is theoretically driving the plot.

In this time for movies about teens in trouble, it’s the mom in this one who packs the biggest punch.

To say that we know where the characters in Green Book are going is not to cheapen the undeniable pleasures of the ride.

Beautiful Boy is family calamity writ large, a harrowing and horrifying (and yes, overly-long) exploration of the depths of addiction.

Fahrenheit 11/9 grows slowly from an exhausting movie that is all over the map to a rousing one that makes a call to arms in troubled times.

Three Faces is typical of the canny director’s output in the way it’s modest but profound, leisurely but urgent, a portrait of a country disguised as a meandering road movie.

It is a quiet movie until it isn’t, a gentle character study that goes into extreme territory, a wrenching drama that you think is about finding acceptance until it threatens to become about the impossibility of that very thing.

Kahiu gives the film a brightness and vibrancy that works to counterbalance the perilous waters into which Kena and Ziki are venturing.

Rady Gamal, who plays Beshay, gives an affecting performance of playful charm with an undercurrent of deep sadness. He and Ahmed Abdelhafiz as Obama are a pair to root for, and Shawky gives them plenty of perils but also abundant moments of grace.

Part fond remembrance of an early-’80s Leningrad rock scene and part glam-rock fever dream, Leto asks an audience to surrender to excess and at times to silliness, and it richly rewards them for doing so.

Make no mistake: This is an angry movie, both in form and in content.

If you can surrender to her peculiar vision, its beauty is undeniable; if not, impatience may set in long before the film winds down just past the two-hour mark.

Border is dark and unsettling and proudly deranged.

There are moments of real beauty in the film, which is an unassuming and contemplative excursion into how we love, and why. But like the fireworks that greet Asako and Baku’s first kiss, its pop is a modest one.

If it doesn’t feel as fresh and bracing as “Ida” did, that film may have been the perfect combination of form and content. Cold War, which is Pawlikowski’s first entry in Cannes main competition, is in some ways more familiar, but the spin he puts on it is distinctly and beautifully his own creation.

The House That Jack Built is kind of a bore. As much as von Trier loves to push our buttons with graphic imagery, he also wants to get under our skin by talking, talking, talking. And while the gore got the headlines, the talk is what sinks the movie.

Pope Francis is a healer, not a proselytizer. And Wenders knows enough to stand back and let him say his piece and make his peace.

This is not Farhadi doing a genre exercise; as is most of his work, Everybody Knows is a quietly gripping examination of societal divisions, of class, of secrets that bind us together and pull us apart.

For its combination of ambition and audacity, this is a glorious piece of cinematic insanity.

The beats are too predictable — and even though the film tells a story we may not have known until now, the storytelling is too familiar.

On the surface a tense investigative piece with Renner as a regular Sherlock of the snow, it also slips in cogent and damning points about the limitations and dead ends virtually forced on many residents of Native American reservations.

Its powerful moments are too often swamped by melodrama that undercuts the director’s skills as a storyteller.

It escalates past the point of absurdity, but all you can do as an audience member is shake your head and laugh.

This is a gentle, genial update, consistently amusing and always likable; it may not break new ground, but it finds enough of new jokes, and Morgan’s obvious love of language gives it an extra charge.

Spicer has a deft touch with his story, and his cast marvelously fleshes out a bunch of people we care about even though, in most cases, we know we probably shouldn’t.

It’s a strange, sad, fragile little thing that should make us snicker, but instead it fills the screen with grace and beauty.

From “Body Heat” to “Fargo,” women have driven the action in noir films before — but the way this one plays out, with AARP-age women holding all the cards in a setting we usually associate with rugged men, feels like a genuinely fresh take on a time-honored genre. And the ending, all cagey glances and serene indifference hiding some seriously twisted stuff, is downright delicious.