Walter Addiego

The overall tone is awed and laudatory, which may rub some viewers the wrong way. Willem Dafoe delivers narration taken from Robert Macfarlane’s “Mountains of the Mind,” which occasionally strays in the direction of the trite or overwrought.

The standard noir trappings are here: the femme fatale, double-crossing, fatalism, broken dreams, innocence betrayed and the rest of it. But Stone pushes it all so far and so relentlessly that it becomes absurdist comedy.

Though not flawless, this is a compelling study, in Dogme style, of a wounded young woman who spends her working life spying on others.

The most compelling footage was taken during the uprising of August and September 2007, which put a bad scare into the government because a large number of Buddhist monks played a prominent role.

An appealing Brazilian animated feature, and it’s conveyed in a handsome, expressive style that’s pleasing to watch.

The overall mood is out-and-out misty-eyed, a feeling emphasized by the movie’s piano score. Ramen Shop has some flaws — the movie jumps jarringly back and forth in time — but voluptuous closeups of delightful dishes like chilli crab make up for a lot.

From Juan Ruiz-Anchia's florid, eruptive photography to the pinpoint editing by Howard E. Smith that enhances it, everyone involved with The Corruptor understands that action is the bottom line - except Chow.

While the film adopts a sometimes jaunty tone, the fact is that gerrymandering is bad news, assuming you believe that elections should mean something.

The joy is in the details - from the animated credits to the perky pop score to the pre-"Mad Man" hair, clothes and general sensibility.

What's unforeseen in Unforeseen, a superior documentary by Laura Dunn, are the consequences of a certain mind-set about mankind's relationship to the world and, finally, to itself.

The documentary Watermark is close to the cinematic equivalent of a coffee-table book. It relies heavily on visuals and offers minimal context. The project has a pro-environment feeling, which comes across implicitly, not through browbeating or preaching.

It may be as emotionally exhausting for the viewer as for the participants.

Among the film's more intriguing revelations is the key role California's almond crop plays in the nation's bee industry.

If you have even a passing interest in outsider art, you owe it to yourself to see Marwencol.

A potboiler but entertaining enough to rise above its flaws.

This nightmarish revenge drama from Korea is grueling, intense, cruel -- the very definition of extreme cinema.

The film perhaps shines brightest when it depicts two telling relationships Nannerl has outside her family. The first is with Louis XV's 13-year-old daughter, Louise...The other relationship is with Louise's troubled brother, the dauphin.

The film bolsters its case with plenty of facts, charts and expert testimony - evidence typical of this sort of advocacy documentary. But what makes the movie compelling is its focus on a handful of victims, who make the statistics painfully real.

The movie deals with themes of secular and religious love, of how they may intersect and diverge, that are suggestive of Bergman or Carl Theodor Dreyer.

A gentle comedy.

This Belgian crime thriller makes compelling viewing out of a "you can't be serious" plotline.

It’s a master class with a director who profoundly loves the movies, and, in his best work, has shown dazzling skill at making them.

Haakon VII is a hero in Norway, and The King’s Choice tells us why.

Doesn't allow the story's considerable nostalgia and sentimentality to overwhelm it.

It is stark, realistic and resolutely downbeat. Yates' work is lean, and he has a nice way with action sequences. [17 May 2009, p.R28]

The film takes its time detailing his mundane activities, often withholding the kind of information audiences usually expect, and it's Puiu's talent to transform it all into a highly disturbing portrait - both of an individual and a society.

If nothing else, you'll surely relish the extravagant rhetoric used by Ali Mahdavi, the club's artistic director, to describe what is basically a tasteful nudie revue.

The acting is good, particularly by Faour, who plays the naive, zaftig heroine as warm and appealing despite her troubles. It's also nice to see veteran Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass ("Lemon Tree"), who plays Muna's sister.

Despite some cumbersome moments, the film delivers a to-the-point message about how the sins of the parents can be visited on the children.

Gook is at its best when detailing the interactions of the three in the shoe store, but it strikes a more urgent note when the riots break out and the store comes under threat.

Intriguing and educational. For partisans of Bertolt Brecht, it's mandatory.

Graizer takes his time and never feels the need to spell everything out, and The Cakemaker is a testament to what filmmakers can achieve when they trust the audience.

The old “Shirkers” is gone, but long live Tan’s new version.

Aronofky gets exactly what he needs from his top-notch cast. Lawrence is appealing and never allows herself to be reduced simply to a howling victim. Bardem, Harris and Pfeiffer are menacing in their own varying ways, with Bardem capable of turning on the charm at key times that makes us wonder if we haven’t misjudged him.

The filmmaker works with economy and has a knack for creating a sense of foreboding, which is good because the plot is simply a working out of the old saw that violence begets violence.

Nothing groundbreaking, but there's an easy charm in the movie.

A mostly compelling documentary about that rarest of breeds, an appealing politician.

In all, it’s a relaxed portrait of a likable fellow.

The film is full of low-key but telling observations, mostly about Gianni's plight but also about modern life in general.

Well-made and modestly enjoyable.

The film is much enhanced by the performance of Labed, whose work capturing Marina's moods and contradictions won the best actress award at the 67th Venice Film Festival.

This is grim material, but director Hilary Brougher -- working from her own script that won a Sundance award -- examines the lives of these two suffering women without sensationalism or preaching.

That's not to say the entertaining Antz" was made by Woody, just that it's full of his personality.

I could have done without the clips from the old "Superman" TV show - strictly sugar to make the medicine go down, and a sign that the director doesn't fully trust his audience.

While there's a certain staid feeling to the production, it does deliver a solid working-over to the era's gentry.

The quiet machinations of this Frenchman and commodities trader helped win the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and bring an end to South Africa’s apartheid system.

It's a handsome and entertaining small-scale picture with nice acting, some crisp (and some crude) dialogue and effective direction.

You can see this Danish offering as a sardonic update of familiar noir material, or simply as the story of the midlife crisis of a guy who wishes - or dreams, or dreads - that he's living out a grand drama. There are pleasures to be had either way.

The nonprofessional cast is convincing, especially Lacej, whose Rudina registers more strongly than Nik.

It's back in a handsome new black-and-white print, and it's still powerful stuff -- you can see why Pauline Kael wrote that it was "probably the only film that has ever made middle-class audiences believe in the necessity of bombing innocent people."

The best of the longer segments is "Steve," a piece of Pinter light starring Firth as a passive-aggressive neighbor from hell who repeatedly turns up at the door of a bickering couple (Knightley and Tom Mison) to register a series of baseless complaints.

In all, it’s an absorbing, straightforward look at a truly alien environment. The film could be nicely paired with Werner Herzog’s “Encounters at the End of the World” (2007), a much more idiosyncratic view of Antarctic strangeness.

With his caustic humor, director de la Iglesia is being billed as "the next Almodovar."

The film boasts an original score by Cuban pianist and composer Bebo Valdés, who was featured in "Calle 54."

At first, the technique seems gimmicky, but finally it's as compelling a perspective as any to understand how these men passed through agony to some sort of peace.

For a while, you can feel like a part of the golden circle.

A harrowing story about the will to survive amid the most brutal conditions imaginable.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice boils down to "The Karate Kid" meets "Harry Potter," with maybe a dash of "Ghostbusters" to keep it interesting.

A simple story told with economy, Wadjda is a notable example of old-school, humanistic filmmaking. It's also genuinely groundbreaking: the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and the first film directed by a Saudi woman.

An intense and chilling documentary.

While amusing and sometimes touching, Pleasantville is far from challenging.

This is compelling stuff, but Lilien is less successful in trying to link Pale Male's story to his own.

If you've sworn off movies about adolescent misfits, I don't blame you, but make an exception for Terri. This modest comedy-drama declines to take the easy way out, unlike many examples of the genre.

Not a great picture but an entirely entertaining one. [02 Nov 2008, p.N34]

One of the charms of The Red Turtle is a chance to savor the joys of clean and simple animation suggestive of the old hand-drawn school, which is part of what makes the film, a quiet, humanistic fable, one of the best of its kind in memory.

This was obviously a labor of love for Soderbergh, and a fitting memorial to the artist.

A liberating experience.

Nunez's style is quiet, simple and deliberate, but the film never drags.

The veteran filmmakers, siblings Lisa and Rob Fruchtman, accentuate the positive, while acknowledging the obstacles. They also realize Rwanda's trauma can't be denied - a handful of women recount harrowing stories of their experiences during the genocide and its aftermath. Some have parents or husbands still in prison for war crimes.

For some viewers, it will be more than they want to know, but for Lynch’s many partisans, it’s required watching.

It's hard to decide what's worse about this feral clan residing in Brighton, England: their unspecified criminal enterprises, their penchant for bloody vengeance or their twisted family dynamic.

Powerful and depressing.

This elegant movie never reduces or diminishes its subjects, and leaves us to ponder a remarkable truth - that Ushio and Noriko have an abiding love that four decades of frustration, resentment and rivalry have battered but not extinguished.

This comic film from Belgium, in which God is shown as a cantankerous slob, is more mischievous than malevolent, likely to offend only the humor-impaired.

A film of stark and galling contrasts.

Artful filmmaking of the old school.

His affable, regular-guy shtick works well here, and he scatters the movie with such gleeful ads for his sponsors' products that, if his documentary work ever dries up, his next career choice is obvious.