It is a Kafkaesque story, in which ominous things follow one another with a certain internal logic but make no sense at all.

I got a little lost while watching Mysteries of Lisbon and enjoyed the experience. It's a lavish, elegant, operatic, preposterous 19th century melodrama, with characters who change names and seemingly identities, and if you could pass a quiz on its stories within stories, you have my admiration.

If there’s one thing you can count on from indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, it’s a keen and unwavering ability to bring the viewer into the world of the outsider as few other filmmakers can.

It’s a tribute to the amazing and fantastically perplexing and singularly mind-blowing Hulu film “In & of Itself” that even though a few of the feats performed by magician/actor/storyteller/performance artist Derek DelGaudio in his one man-show could be explained away by the use of special effects (which DelGaudio does NOT employ, as far as we can tell), most of it just seems ... Magical.

Sometimes two performances come along that are so perfectly matched that no overt signals are needed to show how the characters feel about each other. That's what happens between Melissa Leo and Misty Upham in Frozen River.

Superman is a pure delight, a wondrous combination of all the old-fashioned things we never really get tired of: adventure and romance, heroes and villains, earthshaking special effects, and -- you know what else? Wit.

Drugstore Cowboy is one of the best films in the long tradition of American outlaw road movies - a tradition that includes "Bonnie and Clyde," "Easy Rider," "Midnight Cowboy" and "Badlands."

Whether there was a murder isn't the point. The film is about a character mired in ennui and distaste, who is roused by his photographs into something approaching passion.

This is a wonderful film; the kind of exploration of doomed young sexuality that, like Elvira Madigan, makes us agree that the lovers should never grow old.

We are captivated by the beauty we see, lulled into a sense of bliss. We are jolted by bursts of vengeance and violence, and even those are stylized beyond all comprehension. Hou is a master indeed.

The most important sequence in Late Marriage is a refreshingly frank sex scene involving Zaza and Judith. -- Watching this scene, we realize that most sex scenes in the movies play like auditions.

Grips the attention and is exciting and involving. I recommend it on that basis--and also because of the new information it contains.

This is a good film, but it would not cheer people up much at a high school reunion.

Seibei's story is told by director Yoji Yamada in muted tones and colors, beautifully re-creating a feudal village that still retains its architecture, its customs, its ancient values, even as the economy is making its way of life obsolete.

Even as Greengrass’ signature kinetic style renders us nearly seasick and emotionally spent from the action, it’s the work of Tom Hanks that makes this film unforgettable.

A Hero runs a bit long at 127 minutes and is at times frustratingly ambiguous, but Farhadi has delivered another insightful slice of life and Amir Jadidi turns in a remarkably intriguing performance as the never quite heroic Rahim.

Some kind of weird masterpiece...one of the best movies of the year.

The Northman is often insanely over the top and there are moments when it feels as if Eggers could maybe ease his foot off the pyrotechnic pedals, but still, this is one of the most strikingly original and brutally effective movies of the year so far.

Calderon and Larrain (also director of the Golden Globe-nominated “Jackie”) have taken great dramatic license with Neruda’s story, and the payoff is more than worth the risk.

It is a full-bodied silent film of the sort that might have been made by the greatest directors of the 1920s, if such details as the kinky sadomasochism of this film's evil stepmother could have been slipped past the censors.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan, one of Turkey's best directors, has a deep understanding of human nature. He loves his characters and empathizes with them. They deserve better than to be shuttled around in a facile plot. They deserve empathy. So do we all.

I was fascinated by the face of Emmanuelle Devos, and her face is specifically why I recommend the movie.

To see this film's footage from the '70s is to see the beginning of much of pop and fashion iconography for the next two decades.

What makes Sick bearable is the saving grace of humor. Apart from the pain he was born with and the pain he heaped on top of it, Bob Flanagan was a wry, witty, funny man who saw the irony of his own situation.

It’s an unusual mix of big-picture issues, grindhouse pulp and pure, rough entertainment, bolstered by one of the better ensemble casts of the year. This movie is not, um, fussing around.

This movie is one amazing piece of work, not only for the Hoskins performance but also for the energy of the filmmaking, the power of the music, and, oddly enough, for the engaging quality of its sometimes very violent sense of humor.

Like Malick's "Days of Heaven," it is not about plot, but about memory and regret. It remembers a summer that was not a happy summer, but there will never again be a summer so intensely felt, so alive, so valuable.

Leigh's Another Year is like a long, purifying soak in empathy.