Steve Pond

Its messiness is part of its charm and part of the point; a film that took itself more seriously than this one wouldn’t let a climactic gun battle turn into an almost cartoonish grand guignol splatter-fest.

The filmmakers have managed to make a bracing, scattered and somewhat revelatory look at a period that’ll go down as a misstep in which the Smart Beatle was fumbling to figure out what to do and intermittently coming up with a satisfactory answer.

The film is big, brutal and beautiful — over the top at times and stirring at others.

It’s hard to watch September 5 without feeling some serious ambivalence – but in a way, that’s one of the strengths of the film, because it embraces that ambivalence as a necessary part of the story.

The images are vivid, but the storytelling remains elusive and elliptical, exploring the title character from different perspectives without ever pinning him down.

Time and again, Stewart clams up or shuts down when she’d prodded on sensitive subjects; you get the feeling she’s humoring her filmographer with only slightly more restraint than she might show to a kitchen helper who uses the wrong knife to cut an orange.

Ground zero here – for the characters, for the nations, for the filmmaker – is futility. Nabulsi drops us on that ground and doesn’t let us pretend it’s anything else.

The subject matter is already horrifying; we hardly need to see its fictional illustration staged for maximum impact and set to insistent and foreboding music.

The pacing is far from what you’d expect in a Hollywood movie with this much action, which can make the film feel longer than its 116 minutes. But that rich languor and love of words is earned, and do you really want to tell Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche to hurry up? No. You. Do. Not.

Road Diary takes a Springsteen concert as a template of sorts, which means it mixes joy and dread and love and regret and exuberance and silliness and seriousness; it’s intoxicating and it’s sobering, and it rocks like hell but confronts what’s been lost during Springsteen’s 74 years on the planet.

The film is bookended by quiet scenes between a man and a woman, by beautifully understated performances by Bloom and Balfe. Understatement in a boxing movie? If you look past the savagery of the middle hour, that could be the craziest thing about this new take on an old genre.

It’s unexpectedly touching and even lovely, a grandly sad benediction to people who don’t need no stinkin’ test to tell them who their soulmate is.

There are things to admire in the visual design and in the way a small group of accomplished actors submit to this quiet horror show, but cold, begrudging admiration is about all the admittedly stylish film is designed to elicit.

In a movie whose setup that almost inevitably leads to rampant sentimentality, Pugh and Garfield are enormously charming actors who are also skilled at undercutting their own charm; they commit to the sentiment without yielding to it, making We Live in Time a truly charming and surprisingly rich film.

That’s Hard Truths, in a nutshell: people. People you won’t forget, courtesy of a handful of remarkable actors and a singular director who at the age of 81 remains a true treasure.

In truth, the movie can be pretty ridiculous, too, with its wild ambition sometimes coming across as a little foolhardy. But overreaching might be the whole point of The End, which offers an end-times prescription for living: Hold the fantasy together as long as you can. And when in doubt, sing.

The Friend juggles the happy, the sad and the bittersweet while somehow managing not to lose the lightness that has kept it afloat.

In a movie that is stately on the surface and stormy underneath, Jolie’s drawn, almost architectural features and air of enforced restraint is ideal for Larraín’s vision of Callas. She’s a glorious, luminous wreck, looking for peace but drawn inexorably to a world of grand artifice.

Caught by the Tides is an elegy of sorts, at times angry and abrasive but more often gentle and reflective.

You could argue that Sorrentino is treading water after the deeply personal explorations in “The Hand of God,” but these are rich and mysterious waters to tread. “Parthenope” is a work of casual mastery; you could say that it’s great and it’s beautiful.

A thoroughly fun and provocative time at the movies.

The Shrouds is sober, serious and profoundly sad Cronenberg. It’s still a hell of a ride, but it’s going down a road where there’s a heavy toll.

The Apprentice is amusing at times and disturbing at others, but it’s hard not to think that Ali Abbasi could have done something weirder, wilder and more satisfying if he’d found a way to bring in more magic and less MAGA.

Henson and Howard are a fine match, and the sort of film you’d expect Ron Howard to make – straightforward, skillful, honest and sympathetic – is pretty much the kind of movie you’d want about Jim Henson.

The film can be confusing, but it’s not meant to be pinned down. And despite the occasionally surreal touches, it’s an examination of how the beauty of tradition can also be an opponent to justice and humanity.

Wild Diamonds is a character study both of Liane and of the culture that has spawned her, and a film that manages to be both empathetic and unforgiving. It won’t make you think she’s making smart choices, but you’ll understand why she’s making bad ones.

So tip your the greasy, dusty, battered hat to George Miller, who is pulling off some kind of ridiculous feat by turning these grungy action movies into a grand saga.

The Second Act is little more than an amusing trifle, as meta as that trifle may be.