Beyond surprising thematic depth, The Old Ways is an exercise in putting every cent on the screen, and hiding what you don't need.

Submarine pulls off the difficult trick of being bittersweet without being saccharine and does so with a quietly riotous aplomb.

For the most part, it works well at this level with the added bonus of some unexpected intellectual twists. The predominant thing that bogs down SWF is the script. It has too many plot holes to be fully believable and too little psychological background on our unbalanced roomie (and when it is revealed, it's revealed all in one stroke).

Cumming presents a natural world red in tooth and claw, yet the inevitable lessons learned in this moss-covered and frost-blasted wilderness still have modern resonances – about fear, bigotry, superstition, survival.

One of the more intelligent comedies out there this summer -- it's not Brooks' best.

Night Is Short doesn't make a lot of sense, but then it's not supposed to. It's a series of crazy scenes with a daffy logic all to itself, and it is endlessly and effortlessly charming.

It's the tortoise and the hare, Nepalese-style, and it's surprisingly dramatic.

There’s a rumbling, inconsolable guilt at the heart of Clean, the latest from fascinatingly flexible writer/director Paul Solet.

Its gentleness and incremental increases in weirdness are a feature, not a bug.

Shrek, DreamWorks' big green cash machine, has finally run dry, perhaps not of box office power, but most assuredly of the caustic, fractured fairy tale-isms and the wry, snarky wit that made the first film, and to a lesser degree, the first sequel, so winning.

Lady Chatterley is the recipient of six César Awards, France's equivalent of the Oscar. Although the film is capable of sustaining our interest throughout, the viewer may find it lacking in some of the transcendence Lady Chatterley's lust is supposed to inspire.

Penn's Bicke is often so pitiable it's hard not to want to look away – but what else to expect from perhaps our most compulsively watchable contemporary actor?

For those who only remember Houston as the train-wreck spectacle she devolved into during her latter years, this documentary will do a good job of providing the basic outline of her life.

Though The Express may stretch the limits of probability, holding up Davis as an athletic superman incapable of losing, it's also that rare sports film that isn't afraid to dabble in personal and social ambiguity.

That's the joy and frustration of The Booksellers. The overall experience is like wandering through an antiquarian book store, picking up a volume, starting to flip through in a leisurely fashion, and then having your arm jostled, losing your place, and picking up another tome.

The premise works despite its inbred hokiness due to Anderson's sure direction and the lovely central performances of Hope Davis and Alan Gelfant.

Less can sometimes be perceived as more, but in the case of The Myth of Fingerprints less is simply less.

It's not all fun and games, and that's where Scotty can feel a little strained.

Junger has a deft touch with light comedy such as this; he manages to keep the film's convoluted plot spinning without resorting to too much gimmickry or descending to the level of so many teen comedies.

A surprisingly engaging character-driven picture: not quite Ingmar Bergman, of course, but not Michael Bay either.

As much as Øvredal tries to evade all the modern blockbuster conventions that are bound to keep the Demeter from its best destination, it’s too bumpy a journey to ever feel quite on course.

Its parallel stories of two lost souls seeking each other across geographical divides is never more than one small step away from mawkishness and cliché, and oftentimes less.

There's absolutely no shortage of stunning eye candy in this spiffy, sexy, and frequently thrilling sequel to Disney's 1982 game-changer Tron. There is, however, a certain lack of connectivity between the digitally enhanced characters onscreen and the user – excuse me, "audience" – in the flesh.

It's a lot more than simply a string of names and dates and anecdotes, but after this many hours that's what it starts to become.

Director Patrice Leconte (The Hairdresser's Husband, Monsieur Hire) again displays his keen observation of the minute details that transpire between people, though Ridicule doesn't share the same mordant perversity as his previous American successes. It does prove that certain games that people play never go out of fashion.

That is the heart of what's missing here: the buzz that unites these games and players, the seductive lure that excites as it also placates. The dramatic throughline is murky as well...Undeniably good are the performances, however.

With Seraphim Falls, Brosnan shows himself, finally, to be an actor of real skill – rather than just a pretty face, a great head of hair, and a buttery British accent – capable not only of playing a real human being but one with a tortured soul and a dodgy past as well.

At 2 1/2 hours, the film is too long in the telling and too short on suspense.

Zealously nasty fun which, surprisingly, ends on something of a note of upbeat grace and familial redemption, Middle Men is more entertaining than 99% of 37% of the Internet.

After a sparky first half greatly aided by Kristin Scott Thomas' devilish turn as an unsentimental press secretary, Salmon Fishing grows soggier. It's such a pretty, witty gloss of a picture, it hardly knows what to do with real-world terror, hence the Snidely Whiplash-like limning of Muslim extremists.

Rumley has assembled a fine cast; there's not a false step in the film, and while obviously this isn't a film for everyone, these are characters that we come to know, respect, and fall hard for, doomed or not.

Maddeningly, A Ghost Story can seem more like a creative exercise than a fully formed narrative construct.

It’s deranged, but also at times curiously defanged. At least it’s still a fun, bloody watch, even if it frustrates along the way.

Plays like the Brothers Grimm meets "Cloverfield" with a hint of Monty Python-esque ridiculousness. For a small indie film from Norway, Trollhunter rocks it gargantuan style and then some.

A living artifact that does what movies do best: exist in time.

Daniel Radcliffe cleans up nicely as Igor, the man behind the madman who makes the monster in this, the 60th (thereabouts) film to adapt or riff on Mary Shelley’s prescient 1818 sci-fi/horror novel. Happily, director Paul McGuigan, working from a script by Max Landis, takes the story in some new directions by choosing to retell the tale from the perspective of the famed hunchback.

Ultimately more bleak and furious than most Hollywood tales of this sort. Man on Fire plays it out to the bloody end, like there’s no fire extinguisher in Mexico but for the oceans that hold its borders.

Marshmallow nation, you may now exhale: Rob Thomas did ya right.

From a soundtrack of First Nations artists – including a score by the award-winning electronic group the Halluci Nation (fka A Tribe Called Red) – and stunning landscape cinematography by Guy Godfree, there are so many dynamic elements in Slash/Back that cause the film to punch way above its weight class.

At a time when everyone is complaining about superhero fatigue, it seems almost perverse to say that maybe the Fantastic Four should have had another film first. Instead, they rush to an ending that bolts them so neatly into the greater continuity.

With a running time of only 84 minutes, Rize frequently feels padded. However, there’s no denying the fascination of watching these bodies in motion, and perhaps the ascendency of a new, American-born art form.

Everybody likes to watch the messy guts-stuff of other peoples' lives, if only because we know then we're not alone in our weird ways.

Nobody's going to give this one an Oscar, sure, but as far as the venerable teen sex comedy goes, this one actually makes it to third base.

While the cabaret performances are the documentary’s draw, the movie comes most alive in the interspersed interviews with servicemen and women willing to speak their minds, whether it’s about institutional racism in the military, the imperialistic siting of bases in Asia, and, of course, the ugliness of the war itself, in all of its manifestations.

Writer-director McKee’s arch comic dialogue (i.e., "We’ll hang out and eat some melons or something") is out of synch with the creepy horror he wields.

Amidst the rubble of political rhetoric that underlies Arlington Road, one thing is clear: The enemy is us.

The film itself tends to wander as it pokes around uneasily for its tone. Yet this is also, undeniably, the source of much of the film's charm. Afterglow bathes the screen with a warm amber light.

If nothing else, the film provides an enlightening look into the Karen diaspora, and a healthy reminder that God’s work is not contained by a sanctuary’s walls.

Far grislier than one ordinarily expects from black-and-white, Habitaciones Para Turistas is a real homemade fright.

Thanks to Haggis and the cast, who are convincing, often bitingly so, in their willingness to dive into the dark and unknowable depths of the modern American romantic relationship, The Last Kiss mirrors reality with remarkable faithfulness.

Supremely goofy in tone, the film pits Wayne (in his last Ford film) and Marvin as drunken pals who careen from one friendly brawl to the next. A Pacific island paradise becomes their silly playpen.

Whatever your perspective, there’s one thing for sure: The Red Turtle is unlike anything else you’ve seen in a while.

Marvelous not in its evocation of horror but in the way it slowly chips away at the mundanities of day-to-day urban living.

There are worse accusations to hurl at a filmmaker than that she has too much empathy for her characters, but in the case of Oh, Hi!, it stymies the potential in its provocative premise and holds a pretty good movie back from greatness.

She knew what "it" was going to be before anyone else. Or maybe she invented "it," and the magazine-buying public simply did as they were told.

All in all, Imagine That is an amiable detour from its star's usual scatological skronk. Kids will empathize, parents will breathe a sigh of relief.

AJ Goes to the Dog Park doesn’t feel like a movie so much as two creative friends getting together and having fun exploring a comedic person.

All those elements are a blast, but distract from where Ne Zha is most fun and most endearing, with the demon-child's loyal parents trying to work out how to keep him from darkness and eventual electrocution, leading to some sweet child-friendly message about fate and friendship. Plus Taiyi and his flying pig are just plain adorable.

In a year when there's been great discussion about unlikable protagonists, Colman's creation of Leda as a living, breathing, deeply flawed character who can be both wounded and cruel – and the way Gyllenhaal sympathetically frames this unflattering portrait – is a fascinating reminder that not every film needs to leave us feeling comfortable.

Sleepwalk With Me is never anything less than awfully likable. But I so wanted it to be more.

As small town crime stories go, Blow the Man Down is intriguingly low-key, but it's in the filmmakers' quietly bold decisions that it swells above most of its ilk.

Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down is a film about grit. It’s a film about feminism, change-making, and defying adversity.

The combination of high animé style and old-school heart gives the film a broad enough appeal to merit a wide release. Not that it isn't quirky.

Graduation may not occupy a place at the top of the class of contemporary Eastern European cinema like some of Mungiu’s other films, but it definitely sits above the curve.

Adults can enjoy the way these youngsters spout grown-up chatter and all ages can delight in the old-fashioned slapstick. I won't claim this film's great, but it is fun, and remarkably innocent and playful.

Carrey is in top form here, giving a wildly confident, physically draining performance with all the stops pulled out.

What Rana and Warin have also created is a quiet warning. As a new tide of fascism and monomaniacal cultural oppression looms on the horizon, they make Salomon’s story a tragic reminder that fleeing a nightmare may mean more than just keeping it in your rearview mirror.

DiCillo has always had the laconic, funkified, vaguely surreal air of a Woody Allen on cough medicine (or a Jim Jarmusch on Jolt, for that matter), but The Real Blonde is just so much ado about nada.

Green and Henson make an inspired comic team, Sawa has the befuddled stoner thing down pat, and Alba is, in a word, yummy.

For a movie about happiness, Thirteen Conversations is terribly joyless. Thirteen Conversations tries hard and its ambitions are provocative, but its conversations often fall like that Zen tree in the forest.

A thoroughly preposterous movie that's as outrageously entertaining as it is relentlessly chaotic.

Green wisely gives his actors lots of room to work, all the while putting the emphasis on the characters and their relationships instead of the blurry hokum of the narrative threads.

The plot is negligible, but that's fine since it's really only a way to get from one set-piece to another.

Even if you have zero interest in “Crimson” or Crimson, see this lovely film to check out an unbelievable badass who never let the specter of death win (and an extremely cool nun).

And even if this all seems a little absurd for you, just take a degree of pleasure in seeing neo-Nazis getting brutalized by a teenage girl. That never gets old.

It’s a vivid indictment of the way in which we all stumble along, yet the film never musters full-throated chagrin at our dull complacency.

The slowness of the film's first half will be off-putting to many, but the film's turns and final twist will reward the patient.

If you’re a fan of the two leads, it is worth your time, but if you’re a fan of the original film, it becomes more of a curio, an interesting comparison of filmmaking in the Seventies to what contemporary cinema gives us today.

Never less than good but it's also never quite great.

We bear witness, via Brügger's film, to the slow-motion train wreck that high-echelon, African graft becomes.

It's delightfully frightful fun, a fine addition to the venerable and febrile tradition of Australian comedy-horror.

There is much pain, and any number of deeply philosophical questions posed, if not answered. This is very powerful stuff, but what you ultimately make of it will have a lot to do with the politics you bring to watching it.

Hit the Road is stuffed with thoughts, ideas, and metaphors, which can leave the film feeling weighty and thick, but for those willing to dig and see past its simplistic charms, it’s quite an ambitiously layered debut.

Even for its flaws, Captain America: Brave New World feels like the series may be finding its soul again.

The opening act, I’m sorry to report, is a mess.

Armie Hammer slyly steals the show as Ord, a very chill American arms dealer.

The film’s simplest pleasure is its naturalism – the illusion it creates of observing the animals undetected.

In the end, your appreciation for horror-Westerns will determine where you stand with The Pale Door. If you are willing to look past the film’s genre shortcomings and find happiness in the little things – such as Sage’s Creole accent, or several cinematic nods to iconic entries in the genre – you might find the film to be worth your while.

While Figgis gets this extraordinary and unrestricted access, there’s a real question about what he does with it. Coppola is infamous for finding his films in the edit, but it’s hard to see that Figgis found that much more than he had in the camera.

The end result? Compassion for the (literally) poor schmuck conjoined with a genuine sympathy toward his right-minded bunglings, noodle kugel and all.

Cherry is a small-scale tragedy, one repeated over and over again in broad sweeps, but still specific to this one instance. The issue is that, when the audience knows the inevitable path, there are limited opportunities for surprises – especially since the Russos set the entire story as a flashback.

Falling in love with the wrong person makes for a far more toothsome melodrama, a fact this small, satisfying picture rightly recognizes.

It’s in how Harris depicts the seemingly psychic bond between the sisters for silent conversation. In those sequences, she plays the same kind of cunning games with layout and design that she did in the published text of the script, showing a raw ingenuity that adapts the stylistic possibilities of the stage for the more realistic setting of the screen.

Before I Fall puts all its excellent elements in service to a story that’s well-told and has a valuable lesson.

It may owe much to viral shockers like "28 Days Later," but its political and personal insight elevates The Cured alongside the best of contemporary European realism.

It's less an examination of the psyche of one man than a PSA about manipulators. As a judge is quoted as saying: If you see Michael Organ coming, run.

If von Boehm adds anything to what's known of Newton's life, it's to explore his iconography, about which he was very honest. His dismissiveness of photography as insightful, his enigmatic storytelling, and the great contradiction of his work, of how a young Jewish boy who was almost murdered during Kristallnacht absorbed so much of the imagery of the Reich's most artistic propagandist, Leni Riefenstahl.

The performances are superlative, as is much of the film's Jewish flavor. The ham is barely noticeable.