Tales of the Rat Fink is an ebullient survey of Roth's life that revs along with the zest a souped-up hot rod.

Harper and Will both come off like good eggs, and the tears wept on both sides – about the decades of deep pain Harper felt denying her true identity, and the terrible realization for Will that he was blind to that pain – are liable to goose sincere tears of your own.

Biller infuses the film with such style, such elegance, such joie de vivre, that I had a smile on my face for the whole running time.

The film is studded with stirring moments of surprise.

It’s the movie’s love story that will grab your heart however. Despite inevitable comparisons to "Away From Her" and "Amour" – other recent films about the challenges of love in old age – Still Mine is distinctive.

Bleak but exquisitely fashioned microcosm of American life during the Depression.

Sinister and hilarious, psychedelic yet grounded, absurdist while still gripping, In the Earth will take root in you.

Its answers are uneasy and disquieting, and the true root of its horror.

The filmmakers have cast their underdogs well: Madhur Mittal plays the anxious, upright Dinesh; Suraj Sharma is the loose-limbed, pizza-loving Rinku; and they’re both funny and endearing, two words that apply to the whole of the supporting cast.

Bridges is another example of Eastwood's remarkable economy of style as both a director and an actor. It is neither his best work nor his worst, though it is a fascinating exploration.

Seeking Mavis Beacon is a dizzying product of our digital age. In its look and energy, which uses a desktop screen as an aesthetic and organizational device, the zigzagging film can have the feel of too many browser tabs open, emblematic of its wide-ranging but sometimes under-explored topics of interest.

Though it’s impossible to know exactly how these two people felt in coping with this untenable situation – they only wanted to get married and raise a family, nothing else – Nichols gives you a damn good idea, even when it slightly wears your patience.

The natural world and the industrialized world are at odds once again. But it is to Da-Rin’s talent as a filmmaker that her political and ideological intent never overshadow this deceptively simple and astute tale of a sick man yearning for his home, and finally hearing the call of the wild.

My advice: Go; see; laugh yourself silly.

All told, The Young Victoria is a very well-made if not especially memorable picture, moving with all the grace and steadfastness of a waltz Victoria and Albert share, but absent any urgency or anything particularly exclamatory.

The larger message of River City Drumbeat isn't just about how important White has been to his community. It's about how important community is.

A bracing ode to the city -- a place of aching beauty and poverty, encompassed by a disconcerting halo of ancient culture and modern nihilism.

Despite the florid trailers' emphasis on bodice-ripping romantic imagery, Elizabeth is above all a political thriller.

Even the most ardent of neoconservatives might find this intimate and nuanced documentary about life in occupied Iraq difficult to shake – all politics aside, it is the human element that ultimately defines a nation as a people.

For once, the Coen brothers' neurotic filmmaking style works to their advantage; it's giddily appropriate for a movie about a man who's losing his mind.

It seems that its depiction of institutional misogyny, police incompetence, and the continued strength of the caste system didn’t sit well with the censors. If nothing else, that’s a sign that it’s served its purpose by hitting the powerful uncomfortably close to the bone.

Frozen River skates matter-of-factly on thin ice.

All too often, in life and in cinema, systems are shown as working simply to oppress: Thirteen Lives reminds us that communal acts can be what literally save us.

There’s a certain spiritualism that inhabits all of Nichols’ films, and I’m not sure that the explanations finally offered to shed light on the specialness of this child are truly sufficient. But in the context of the movie, it all works.

Old-school "Gosh, wow!" sense-of-wonder filmmaking is in short supply in these anxious days, and John Carter (of Mars!) left me with my disbelief in suspended animation and once or twice with goosebumps dotting my arms. And that's enough for me.

Bizarre and beautiful, this French take on the madness inherent in independent filmmaking rivals Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion as the most realistic depiction of the myriad trials and tribulations that accompany the creation of a new film.

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.

Queen & Slim artfully weaves together a lovers-on-the-lam crime story with very trenchant Black Lives Matter thematic content. It is a perfect movie for our times. It grabs you by the scruff during its flawless opening sequences and never lets go, despite some episodic contrivances that occasionally cause it to feel overplotted.