Ted Shen

Despite its mawkish tendencies, the film is remarkable for the naturalistic acting of its cast, particularly the simple, tenderly expressive performances of the two leads.

Sheer enchantment, this 1989 animated feature is a key early work by Hayao Miyazaki. It exemplifies Ghibli's style of fanciful realism, paying close attention to minute details as well-drawn figures move across a fluid backdrop. It also deals straightforwardly with substantial emotions like fear of death, though at times it veers toward the heart-tugging cuteness of the Pokemon series.

Finkiel (a French director who apprenticed with Godard, Tavernier, and Kieslowski) plants clues throughout the film suggesting that the women might be long-lost relatives but declines to wrap things up neatly. The very uncertainty--and the fading possibility of an end to their search--is what makes the film so eerie and poignant.

The most astounding cinematic testament to flock mentality since Hitchcock's "The Birds."

Despite its farcical moments, Late Marriage leaves an aftertaste as sobering as other recent films that critique cultural conservatives in the Middle East.

Screenwriters Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne stick to Clancy's sure-fire formula -- building tension from the political infighting behind a worsening crisis.

A wily and dogged inquisitor, Broomfield cajoles and confronts a variety of witnesses, charting a web of intrigue that also involved the LAPD, the FBI, and assorted gangbangers and rogue cops.

The fusion of European and Afro-Brazilian elements–dialogue, exquisite black-and-white images, and music by Villa-Lobos–is startlingly original and poetical in conveying the hope and despair of the oppressed.

Timely and informative.

Blitz shows us these kids in all their quirkiness and dorkiness, letting them do much of the talking as he records them and their families at home.

The film is unsparingly gritty, but with a woman's tenderness it also grants the characters an occasional moment of grace.

Pacino is typically excitable but also strangely sad, as if the case could take all he's got; Williams, on the other hand, tries playing against type but still goes over the top.

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.

Behind the camera Belvaux builds suspense with an austere tone and clever false alarms; in front of it he plays Bruno as chivalrous yet ruthless.

Poignant if familiar story of a young person suspended between two cultures.

Smart, poignant, and utterly beguiling.

Honigmann assembles a mosaic of the postcolonial diaspora that populates the crowded ethnic enclaves of Paris, and the emotional, lovingly captured songs seem to turn the City of Light into a bazaar of world music.

Only August's assured direction and the leads' solid performances elevate this above a TV "disease of the week" movie.

The screenplay becomes annoyingly vague--Byler tries to conjure heavy weather out of Charlotte's mysterious past, but the details are confusing and the ending bewilderingly abrupt.

Franky G.'s performance as the protective yet combustible older brother is as real as it gets.

Compensates with a sharp sense of rhythm, using hip-hop and turntablist sounds by Zoel to fuel Anthony Hardwick and Tony Wolberg's aggressive cinematography.

Arcand's fondness for the good old 60s can be cloying, but despite an uneven cast, he finds a tonal balance between sentimental and cynical that keeps the conversations real and heart wrenching.

It's as slick as anything you might find on the Discovery Channel, and the snippets of 3-D computer animation are too cool for words.

The premise provides a fine showcase for the two appealing actresses, who appropriate each other's vocal and physical mannerisms with dead-on accuracy.

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.

Coming-of-age drama is pretty familiar stuff.

Only the epilogue, a happy ending tacked on to counter the cascading disappointments, seems contrived.

Its poignance and urgency are undeniable.