"Always be good to rock and roll and it will always be good to you," the film quotes Phil Spector as saying, and a more fitting explanation of the Bingenheimer mystique you'll likely never find.

This is the rare movie to acknowledge the impact popular music can have on our lives, particularly during the period of your life when you’re struggling to figure out who you are and – more importantly – who you want be.

The film has lovely moments – Gehry buildings can be extremely photogenic, after all – but it doesn't sink its teeth in the way it probably should.

Of course it helps tremendously that Willem Dafoe plays Pasolini. Just as he did with 2018’s "At Eternity’s Gate," in which he embodied the artist Vincent van Gogh, Dafoe brilliantly captures the essence and a more-than-reasonable resemblance to the real figures.

It’s one of the few narration-dependent films in recent years in which the words don’t get in the way of the story.

Much of Rare Exports is seen through the eyes of its preteen protagonist, which explains some of the story's minor omissions (who, exactly, hired this nefarious multinational mining outfit and why exactly?).

Dyer’s masturbation scenes feel innocent as opposed to titillating, and she charms with her mix of cautious curiosity and wide-eyed expressions.

If overly conventional, the film is so bursting with compassion, I felt like a heel any time I sniffed when the tone tipped toward corniness. Best to meet Bob Trevino on its own terms – with open arms and an unjudgey heart.

This is what great dialogue -- and by extension great movies -- is made of.

Padilha's film offers no easy answers, but the title is a tip off as to where at least his sympathies lie.

The action set-pieces, double crosses, and narrow escapes are handsomely mounted and suspenseful as a Saturday matinee.

Deliciously dry and wry, Lucky Grandma invokes unlikely chuckles because Chin embraces her surly nature.

The message here is clear: You can’t front to your true friends. This clique is ready to take on the world, and they aren’t afraid to fight dirty for each other. What can I say? Squad goals.

The strangest biographical film ever made is also one of the most charming, melancholy and quirkily humorous films of the year.

Pamela Gray's script and the way these actors bring the characters to life are the film's real treasures.

Although Scott Frank's screenplay has more than a few holes in it...they're forgivable, mostly because this movie is so utterly likable. Little Man Tate is a small movie by industry standards, but it nevertheless stands pretty tall.

What Happened Was … dissects the interminable hopefulness of dating. Noonan, who also wrote the script, has an ear for believable dialogue, and Sillas (Simple Men, Risk) allows every conceivable emotion to ripple across her face, which is a landscape unto itself.

For the incomparable Streep, it’s yet another performance in high C.

Much has been made of the fact that Swanberg has cast for the first time bona fide movie stars and not just his mumblecore pals: In fact, it's the making of the movie. If you're going to build an entire film on microexpressions, then a certain innate magnetism is required. Swanberg gets it in spades from his top-shelf cast.

What takes The Theory of Everything into the cosmos is Redmayne’s extraordinary performance. The disciplined precision with which he progressively embodies Hawking’s failing body is nothing short of astonishing.

The Descent may not be everything you've heard, but man, it's also a lot of things you haven't.

The Yes Men’s bravery and unflagging sense of optimistically doomed humor – which comes across as a quixotic version of Monty Python by way of Upton Sinclair – is to be applauded and, wherever possible, acted upon.

A Perfect World is a gorgeous, sprawling road movie, full of unique characters (more or less -- Laura Dern's criminologist seems like some sort of PC afterthought, and Eastwood's grizzled Ranger borders on cliché) and arresting cinematography that reminds us why we live here in the first place.

While Cam feels authentic, it's not a documentary.

Preparations successfully trades narrative authority for a more provisional path, and much like its main character, remains wholly enigmatic.

From the fan's perspective this is sheer bliss, the next best thing to pouring a couple of glasses of grappa and sitting down with a bona fide film immortal (and world-class raconteur) for a long, intimate conversation.

Ultimately one of those sprawling epics best suited for a rainy day.

For better and worse, the story unfolds as the late Brown himself might have related it, scattered across time, told with more impulse than clarity.