That the film is animated, yet feels so thoroughly real, is a testament to its vivid use of rotoscoping as well as a solid script by director Ali Soozandeh, an Iranian expatriate.

Hawkes is terrific with a softer-edged character than we’re used to seeing from the actor (“Deadwood,” “Winter’s Bone”). He’s heartbreaking in scenes where disappointment and resignation play across his face. Lerman is a fine foil, energizing scenes with his edgy impatience and willingness to be unlikable for the majority of the film.

Blame It on Fidel is the thoroughly engaging, clear-eyed and charming story of a little girl grappling with the domestic fallout of tumultuous political times.

An excess of levity can quickly become its own kind of leadenness, and for long stretches between its genuinely amusing gags and set pieces, Thor: Ragnarok, credited to the screenwriting trio of Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, is a bit too taken with its own breezy irreverence to realize when it’s time to rein it in.

Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down never fully escapes its branded-content vibes, but as a parallel love story and back-to-battle story, it succeeds.

What this film does is reveal two very different societies — both exhibiting, each in its own way, unmistakable signs of collapse.

Smart and stylish, Disney's Teacher's Pet is one family film that has appeal for adults as well as children.

If it’s too much to ask of Arnold that her bid for heightened naturalism make a ton of sense, “Bird” at least maintains a heartbeat of ache and affection for youth in all its rudeness, revealing a filmmaker who isn’t afraid of losing her claws if she traffics in the thing with feathers.

The pace can feel plodding, but the observations on human frailty and redemption more than make up for it. Despite forays into the head, it's the movie's heart that makes it special.

Lemon Tree is in its best moments a sober-hearted take on the righteous blowback from whittled-away souls, and a movie that invariably rights itself with each return to the beautifully steely gaze of Abbass.

Wildlike is an uncommon and deeply sensitive take on this type of story.

Filled with tension, deception and bravura acting, Breach is a crackling tale of real-life espionage that doubles as a compelling psychological drama.

There’s little that’s not dispiriting about Among the Believers and its measured, direct entrée into a closed world of hopeless boys and girls memorizing the Koran, but forbidden from learning its meanings.

Although this is director Birmingham's first feature -- she has a very sure sense of what she wants out of her cast and the ability to put it on screen. Tully may go against the grain of hipness, but that proves to be very much of a blessing.

Collette is fearless in reaching deeply into her emotions, and her expressiveness as an actress comes across as completely natural because it so clearly comes from within.

At once an old-fashioned freakout and an environmental cautionary tale (mess with Mother Nature and she'll mess with you right back), the film combines two genre standbys -- lethal contagion and the undead -- and gives them a wicked, contemporary spin.

So gleefully vulgar, so eagerly offensive, it's tough not to get down on all fours and beg for more.

Novitiate sure-handedly takes us inside the world of belief with care, concern and a piercing, discerning eye.

It’s easy enough to take this brisk documentary at face value and enjoy it for the well-shot curio that it is. And Oppenheim, just 24, is a talent to watch. Still, this movie shouldn’t preclude — and, who knows, may even inspire — a more definitive documentary about this debatable slice of “heaven.”

All This Panic is a deeply felt tribute to youth but also to growing up; it’s a time capsule of a fleeting, fragile moment when angst is mixed with beauty and everything seems ripe with potential.

A tightly coiled, beautifully acted relationship study that occasionally swerves in the direction of a gangland thriller.

When this movie stumbles, it stumbles honestly and sympathetically, but, when it succeeds, it makes history sing. [11 Sep 1987]

I can't think of a current movie in which every element is in such balance: Martin seems unfettered, expansive, utterly at ease, capable of any physical feat (except possibly drinking from a wine glass without a straw). There's a tenderness to him that's magnetic. Daryl Hannah's Roxanne, an astronomer, is smart and sublimely beautiful all at once, her skin apricot-colored in this mountain sun, her face rhapsodic as she talks about muons, gluons and quarks.

Tangerines is an example of lean, unadorned old-school filmmaking where familiar style and technique combine to unexpectedly potent effect because of the great skill with which they've been employed.

Simple, powerful, made with conviction and skill, 1945 proceeds as inexorably as Sámuel and his son on their long walk into town. It's a potent messenger about a time that is gone but whose issues and difficulties are not even close to being past.

You see in Felix the deadpan anarchic streak that has made Murray a force in American comedy for decades. At the same time, the actor seems to be winking at his own reputation for off-screen mischief — the tricks, stunts and pop-up bartending gigs that have made him a kind of one-man flash mob.

A spellbinding, intelligent thriller that takes its time to get where it's going but is well worth the trip.

Director Rene Laloux and his co-writer, illustrator Roland Topor, in adapting Stefan Wul's science-fiction novel Oms en Serie, have created a surreal nightmare worthy of Dali, one that is filled with seemingly magical phenomena and bizarre and dangerous flora and fauna. [09 Oct 1998, p.F18]

While it may not be formally groundbreaking, this doc is still a treat for die-hard baseball fans, who should enjoy seeing footage from games ranging from the ’60s to the ’90s.

The filmmaking maintains its discretion and unblinking restraint even in its most terrifying passage, shot with an implacable calm that renders it all the more unbearable.

This is a beautifully shot film whose visuals work well with its philosophical approach to life and relationships.

Though Penn's fierce identification with the protagonist is a key source for the film's accomplishments, Into the Wild succeeds on screen because Hirsch ("Alpha Dog," "The Lords of Dogtown") throws himself into the part without reservation, projecting an appealing openness and life force that brings a special poignancy to his fate.

The writer-director Channing Godfrey Peoples, making her feature debut, has a deft way with understatement, and here she casts an affectionate, gently ambivalent eye on the traditions and rituals that have long held sway in a small Fort Worth community.

Inevitably cursory, it’s nonetheless a fascinating introduction to the ways that core components of Americana wouldn’t be eradicated. Or silenced.

An inspired antiwar epic that recently won the Goya Award (Spain’s equivalent to an Oscar) for animated film, Vazquez’s sophomore nightmarish fairy tale culminates with frighteningly revelatory imagery signaling the pattern of destruction that has characterized human history.

With The Party, availing herself of a zinger-heavy script and an unimprovable cast, the director has made not only her most accessible picture to date, but also a shrewd demonstration of the less-is-more principle.

The brilliance of A Scanner Darkly is how it suggests, without bombast or fanfare, the ways in which the real world has come to resemble the dark world of comic books.

The story of the unsolved abductions and the man who might have become the scapegoat for a community is troubling enough. No big-screen trickery is required.

History is not neat and tidy, however much we wish it could be, and Olympic Pride, American Prejudice is more than adept at getting to the truth about perhaps the most mythologized event of the modern Olympic movement.

If this doesn't make you well up, nothing will. [27 Dec 2010, p.D3]

The buildup is undeniably effective; for most of the movie, it provides the same kind of thrills as "Paranormal Activity," if somewhat less brilliantly.

Returning to his roots after a stint in Hollywood, Woo has made the most expensive film in mainland Chinese history, a pleasantly traditional picture that marks a new direction for one of the world's premier action maestros.

A solid genre film that offers the satisfactions of the familiar while deriving its resonance through its specific and telling references to the '60s.

Carvalho's superb cinematography, Antonio Pinto's score and a dedicated cast and crew admirably sustain this poetic and uncompromising film.

A completely charming reality-based romantic fantasy, both sweet-natured and sympathetic, Show Me Love is a leader of the pack.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

There are times when The Tale of King Crab seems like it could have been made in the silent era, so dedicated are Rigo de Righi and Zoppis to the simple, dramatic power of what they choose to show us. Their characters search for love, justice and gold while the filmmakers make clear what they treasure: ageless tales like these.

Romantic but pitiless, fearlessly emotional as well as edgy, Rust and Bone is a powerhouse.

Who We Are, a revelatory, albeit stiff documentary, anchored by Robinson’s personal anecdotes and footage of his 2018 lecture at New York City’s Town Hall Theater, uncovers startling research while surveying the country’s unimaginable racial crimes.

Shot on grainy, often blown-out and distorted consumer-grade video, scored to a feedback distortion-heavy soundtrack that will be familiar to fans and tinnitus sufferers alike, and clocking in at one merciful minute under three hours, Lynch's much-anticipated follow-up to "Mulholland Drive" signals a hale swan-dive off the deep end, away from any pretense of narrative logic and into the purer realm of unconscious free association. I found myself pining for "The Elephant Man," but that's just me.

Truths this scalding and plain-spoken need no such embellishment to be heard.

Kiki often casts a rueful gaze, but it’s also exuberant and alive, and never despairing. It leaves you with the bracing sense that however tough and resilient its subjects might be forced to become, their hope of a better, more tolerant future will never go out of style.

Though the humor and acting in “Concrete Utopia” can occasionally feel broad, Lee’s viscerally monstrous performance grounds a high-stakes drama.

In adding feature-film directing to her formidable list of accomplishments, poet and author Maya Angelou tells first-time screenwriter Myron Goble's absorbing and far-ranging story with simplicity and directness while guiding a splendid ensemble cast to an array of impressive portrayals.

It is a cunningly crafted fiction, full of visual artifice and narrative sleight-of-hand, that by the end could hardly feel more sincere.

That dance of performance and being — mindsets committed artists don’t always manage smoothly — is what makes Val an appealing, at times even touching hodgepodge of the actor’s journey.

Continually jarring. Although the film's narrative thread may prove chronically elusive, Iwai's depiction of what life can be like for far too many teens comes across loud and clear.

Delightful.

However one ultimately feels about Fisk’s reportorial compass, This Is Not a Movie presents a necessary, thought-provoking portrait of a dedicated truth-seeker.

Powered by Kore-eda's innate restraint and natural empathy, Like Father, Like Son takes these characters to places they never expected to be. It's unnerving for them, of course, but watching so many hearts hanging in the balance is a rare privilege for us.

Anchored by Asensio's fearless and gripping performance, Most Beautiful Island directs an unflinching point of view toward an often invisible population.

Instead of sinking into crude, one-night-stand joke territory, Night Owls roots around for the spark of real chemistry and, in the winning turns of Pally and Salazar, finds it.

As a portrait of a man who surrendered his career and much of his life to the service of a master, Filmworker proves compelling, particularly for those with a passing interest in Kubrick.

As the legal proceedings progress, Carracedo and Bahar wisely keep their probing camera trained on the passionate faces of their subjects, allowing their stirring testimonies to take the spotlight.

If Fair Play spends the better part of two hours tracing this newly lopsided romance to its logical, unhappy conclusion, the blow-by-blow machinations are still a chilly wonder to behold. What gives the movie its driving tension isn’t just the glaring imbalance between Emily and Luke as employees, but a deeper incompatibility between the personal and professional imperatives they’ve chosen.

As Colewell sinks in, it reveals itself as the cinematic equivalent of a deep exhale after having attained peace within.

It’s sort of a supernatural thriller; but it’s more of a wry and strikingly poetic vision of feminist retribution.

Watching the elephant work the room, so speak, interacting magisterially with all and sundry, is always a treat.

The happenstance plotting and over-reliance on violence as a plot motor dissipate the film's energy by the end.

A challenging film, one that I suspect can only benefit from multiple viewings. The success of its approaches varies, but its intent is unfailingly interesting.

Is there enough reason for Gary Sinise to have remade Of Mice and Men? You can respond to Steinbeck’s qualities of feeling in the movie, but Sinise, who directed as well as stars as the itinerant ranch hand George opposite John Malkovich’s hulking, feeble-minded Lennie, doesn’t really make the material his own. It’s a “distinguished” piece of filmmaking in that somewhat lifeless, classical tradition where all the actors seem a bit too posed to be believable and all the colors seem too bright and varnished.

Even beyond the lessons learned though, “Wham!” is a treat for fans of ’80s culture. There haven’t been as many eras so filled with big personalities producing enduring work. Wham! walked among those giants, matching them stride for stride.

The film’s representation of how emotions and memories create a belief system and sense of self are indeed useful for talking to kids about how their inner lives and brains work, and the imagery is smart, but it has the feeling of an educational children’s book.

Complexity and personality among key figures keeps Himalaya involving throughout its grueling journey and lifts the film above the merely ethnographic.

A measured, decorous, at times pat film that manages to be quietly moving because it touches on something real.

An absolutely first-rate documentary.

You could say a lot about the very satisfying The Man Who Wasn't There, but what's for sure is that no one but the deadpan, dead-on Coen brothers could have turned it out.

Rarely does pop come with such sizzle.

For all its real achievements, including a stomach-clutching re-creation of the Soviet invasion of Prague, and for all its uncoy acknowledgment of the power of sexuality, the film ultimately adds up to the unbearable heaviness of movie-making.

James Goldman's script is razor-sharp, treating all characters, major and minor, with intelligence and compassion. The movie is shot in subdued hues, making the film more of a motion painting than picture. It is quite simply a film that must be seen -- and once seen, treasured. [29 Jul 1994, p.21]

You expect that the film will boast exceptional stuntwork — and it does. At its best, though, it’s a romantic comedy that coasts on the charisma of its two appealing leads, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.

Coogler and Baylin’s screenplay isn’t all that innovative with the sports movie formula, and it unfortunately tends to rely on characters plainly spelling out their inner monologues, rather than leaving it to subtext. But Jordan’s steady direction elevates the material, keeping a strong hand on the tone and emotional tenor.

The film may struggle to take flight, but when it does, it is undeniably moving, with a message of freedom and defiance that resonates now more than ever.

A vivid, disturbing and rousing picture of specious government intrusion at its worst.

The combination of technique and message is ultimately winning. It’s tempting to think of Biggest Little Farm as the real-life equivalent of an epic pastoral storybook tale, but with the kind of happy ending that suggests a blueprint for saving the earth.

At nearly three hours, it's by turns an extraordinary and exhausting work.

Sollers Point boasts a cool, classically observational tone marked by Sabier Kirchner’s invitingly elegant cinematography that eschews the vogue for artificial shaky-cam edginess, and the naturalistic detail of a lived-in neighborhood populated by at least a dozen instantly memorable characters — by turns stressed, satisfied, curious, weird and sad — just doing their thing.

It's not every day that you end up rooting for a bank, but the story Abacus: Small Enough to Jail tells is no ordinary tale.

Nathaniel, a native of Pakistan, has delivered a stunning, emotive work that takes to task oppressive patriarchy. It's a gorgeous, suspenseful cinematic achievement.

Even if Epstein and Friedman don’t fully document Mac’s vision, they do get across what it was and why it mattered. This movie is a lovingly crafted memento of a remarkable achievement, one that compressed Mac‘s life and much of modern history into 24 hours of wild stunts and show-stopping show-tunes.

Assayas has made a great film from Jacques Chardonne's classic novel. Although far different in tone, time, place and temperament, it brings to mind "Gone With the Wind" in its depth and scope and in its love story, which unfolds over a turbulent era.

Don't mistake a lack of flash for an absence of substance. The story told here couldn't be more significant or more timely.

Young’s vision of quiet middle-class mayhem, drawn from the three-handed struggle between young Vicki and her tormentors, is bold and unflinching.

Though this inspirational movie often cuts away too quickly from its characters' stage performances, it's a significant look at a vital, underreported segment of the entertainment world.

What is finally most compelling about this film is the sense it gives of how passionately the citizens of Ghana believe in democracy, how much it means to them.

[A] crackerjack thriller, at once brooding, claustrophobic and unbearably tense.