Ted Shen

Goldfinger touch on many grand issues (theater rivalry, anti-Semitism, child labor, the generation gap, Israelis' hostility toward the Yiddish tongue) but stop short of exploring them, focusing instead on a family that personifies a dying tradition.

The sets are like islands floating in a void, juxtaposed with sepia shots of Rome and extraneous video clips of the singers and orchestra in a recording studio; the technique purposely draws attention to the movie's artifice, but the performances pull us into the story's elemental emotions.

Robin Shou frequently cuts to scenes from one of his recent movies, adding to the impression that this is a vanity reel.

Bennett is also self-indulgent, giving us few clues as to what's behind this destructively hedonist behavior; instead we get shortcut insights as she and the men confess into the camera.

Ethnographic segments about the natives' daily life are bridged by expressive folk songs, though the film digresses to consider colonialism, homosexuality, and the effects of globalization on indigenous cultures. Gosling's schoolmarmish narration betrays the filmmakers' awestruck naivete toward the culture, which they seem to consider some sort of matriarchal utopia.

Saved from bathos by Taraneh Alidosti's performance as the virtuous, wide-eyed girl.

The lovers' seduction in the sand borders on laughable soft porn; later in the film, an act of genital mutilation (part of a prenuptial ritual) injects an unexpected note of terror that reverberates to the end.

Shamelessly derivative and politically expedient.

Most of the confrontations are shot in close-up, dragging us into the melee as the grungy-looking actors spit out their venomous dialogue.

The idea of transposing the story to the macho, greedy world of big-time sports is promising, but director Jesse Vaughan delivers only flat dialogue and predictable situations.

The simplistic drawing is closer to "Peanuts" than "The Lion King," and the dialogue is strangely anachronistic.

The color-coded cinematography is nice but the jokes are obvious and the dialogue drags whenever metaphysics gets brought up.

A hackneyed coming-of-age drama.

Bay Area filmmaker Jon Moritsugu (Fame Whore, Mod Fuck Explosion) is known for his angry, manic energy, but the characters in this video, denizens of the San Francisco art fringe, seem like they're heavily sedated.

Sally Field's direction is pedestrian, though she does manage to get winning performances out of Driver and Eisenberg.

The direction is so muted and sentimental and the pacing so soporific that only Ciarian Tanham's saturated color cinematography of the sylvan countryside breaks the monotony.