If it's not perfect, it still gives pleasure to the eye.

While Saved! initially gets in some good gags at the expense of religious hypocrisy, it eases off, opting not to skewer religion but rather to poke it gently with a stick to see what happens.

Theroux (who co-wrote with director Dower) manages to dredge up some new, albeit not particularly revelatory, intel on the litigation-happy group, and the tack they take to get there is interesting in and of itself.

It's inoffensive and sports a positive "be yourself" message that’s obvious enough to be seen from space without benefit of hero-vision, but really, there's very little that's super about it.

Yakuza Apocalypse is Miike at the top of his game, breaking cinematic rules at every chance while crafting seriously subversive cinema that defangs both the real-world Yakuza, the Japanese government, and, heaven help us, Sanrio, too. Knitting, I tell you! Knitting!

Ozon's take on this marriage in particular is notable – apart from Freiss and Bruni-Tedeschi's bracing performances – for his unwillingness to let things spiral out of complete control.

This Romeo & Juliet is a rich visual feast, besotted with the fervor of its acrobatic camerawork and kinetic staging and its mind-bending aggregation of unrelated but resonant fragments of 20th-century iconography.

It’s the commonality of Lucio’s story and case that makes Van Tassel’s documentary more impactful.

Stoller and Segel don't shy away from rational, relatable adults, which may be an unsexy selling point for a romantic comedy, but that attention to authenticity elevates the likable, low-stakes The Five-Year Engagement.

Free Guy takes the time to create something unique and grounded and make us care about the future of these NPCs. With every reason in the world to fail, Free Guy succeeds. It’s a welcome reminder that sincerity can still play as the basis for a Hollywood blockbuster.

It’s the funniest, friskiest date movie in a good long while.

If Red Hill isn't quite a classic, it surely is a work of genuine passion for a genre that's unmistakable, and unkillable.

Löwensohn's Luce is an amoral fury, as much death goddess as aging libertine, a figure who drives the imagery as much as she is captured by it. In a world where boredom is the only sin, every act of violence or lust is all at her pleasure.

What I Want You Back really has going for it is Slate and Day. The set-up may be a Ryan deep cut, but their awkward energy, and shared ability to scattershot subtle one-liners without them getting buried by the sillier antics, harks back to another of her classics: When Harry Met Sally.

Jeunet's Micmacs resembles a live-action cartoon, one in which the set-pieces, the characters, and their actions all have the flavor of physical impossibility and unfettered imagination.

This is the hot-button topic of the moment and audiences will be divided, but there can be no denying the gut-punch power of Andrews’ directorial debut.

While the documentary offers a few delicate glimpses of a self the writer did not openly share during her 74-year lifetime – she lived as a lesbian, albeit privately – it falls short of conveying the vital essence of this modern and enigmatic woman of her time.

It ain’t Shakespeare, but if the bread-and-butter movies of Butler’s career were as compactly entertaining and as plausible (granted, a relative term) as Plane, he might get a little more respect

Even its flaws and occasional moments of repetition between authors cannot detract from this fascinating collection about one of the great filmmakers of our era.

Still, as a reminder of the banality of evil and the way a country can conveniently “forget” its casual barbarity (did someone say Guantánamo Bay?), Labyrinth of Lies is a more chilling tale than you’ll find in any horror film this season.

Finney's portrayal of Alfie is heartbreaking in its naïveté about his own desires, yet he also brings to the character an unbridled joy in life's basic pleasures.

Deli Man needs more meat on its rye.

The Help may be more interested in the moral at the end of the story than the story itself, but what saves the film from its meticulous one-dimensionality is that nuanced, deeply moving cast.

Counselors and campers' moms tend to tear up when they talk about the lessons these girls are learning, lessons that go way beyond how to tune a bass, but this isn't exactly a "rah-rah" film.

This is no Disney mermaid, not least because the conventions of creepy in Japanese culture are very different to what would pass standards and practices in the U.S.

There's so much ache in this plaintive little film that it almost makes you believe that the entire world is composed of estranged parents and children searching in vain for one another.

It’s maddeningly unclear sometimes, the whole doll/possession/ghost story, as the filmmakers play extremely loose with the film’s internal logic. Couple that with the stale scent of well-worn dialogue. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Damon, particularly, stands revealed as a comic ace.