Walter Addiego

It's impossible to listen to Francesca's parents, deadly serious about art as a higher calling, without feeling both saddened and disturbed.

The film's grungy, ultra-low-budget look, thanks to the Safdie's handheld camera, is just right for catching the crummy, hardscrabble, rat-infested milieu.

With more than a hint of the magazine’s trademark insouciance, the film gives us a close look at how the selection process works and introduces us a to a handful of younger artists, as well as such stalwarts as George Booth and Roz Chast.

A potent social allegory told with humor and mystery.

This affecting documentary focuses on their 2004 production, a play whose themes of forgiveness and redemption certainly ought to have some resonance for the inmates.

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.

Some of the movie probably will mystify viewers not steeped in Middle Eastern history and culture, but a good deal of the humor can be appreciated by anybody.

In general the film is so impressive that we can't leave the theater without wanting more.

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

It's a life worth remembering.

Though the material might lend itself to heavy-handedness, director Ole Christian Madsen is steady, and he gets fine performances from the two leads and Stengade.

What stays with the viewer is a sense of a man unraveling from his own mistakes and weaknesses.

This easygoing movie fully captures the couple's charm and offers a unique look at the '60s and '70s New York art scene.

It's a testament to what happens when all the right ingredients come together. Wag the Dog is the best political satire in years.

A sobering documentary.

The story, based on a real incident, may be simplistic, but that's the nature of fables.

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 film is dazzling and bewildering in equal measure.

The director takes an unpromising premise - the switched-at-birth plot - and gives us something that's touching and unexpected.

This is a timeless, and nearly plotless, look at the day-to-day life of a nomadic Mongolian shepherding family. Yes, it moves deliberately, and impatient viewers will find it intolerably slow. But those who can get in track with its serene rhythm will be rewarded.

This film doesn't feel obliged to pick a winner or lob easy answers; it aims to observe, with humor and humanity, with penetration and without oversimplifying.

Besides some fine dogfight sequences, it often feels threadbare, just an exercise in recycling.

This documentary has no bells and whistles; Bill Haney, the director and co-writer (with Peter Rhodes), sticks to the facts.

Speaking of bangs, the special effects include one of the better mega-blasts in recent memory: vast fireballs tear through the busy tunnel at dizzying speed and with devastating results. This is the money shot, what the Stallone audience is paying for. It remains to be seen if they'll buy a Stallone who's been downsized and reformulated - about a teaspoon's worth of added complexity.

Nye’s focus on work has had a deleterious effect on his social life. Some of Nye’s issues are no doubt the result of lifelong fears that he may be struck by a neurological condition called Ataxia that runs in his family, but which so far has not affected him.

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

Capably made but simplistic story.

The film is beautiful but troubled, achieving in stretches the director's signature dreamy mood but dragged down by narrative confusions.