What it lacks in uniqueness of concept, it makes up for in evocative implementation of the medium.

In the final act, the film embraces some of those larger points, and Herzog ends with a striking final image leaving us to contemplate the transactional nature and true cost of all human relationships.

Weçel’s documentary is aimed at broadening the audience for “Loving Vincent,” yet it is also a wonderful tribute to the vision and craft of independent moviemaking.

The slapstick generally works and the movie milks Bautista’s sheer size and roughness, compared with tiny Coleman’s crafty fearlessness. Much of the story is telegraphed, but it’s not about shocks or surprises. It’s a charming diversion stocked with people who are fun to watch.

Even by series standards, it’s an astonishingly staged and sustained panorama of violence, much of it mediated (and attenuated) by the usual inventive weaponry and bulletproof menswear, and meted out by international action stars including Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada.

Because Ihlen was never the public figure that the often idolized Cohen was, “Words of Love” eventually becomes as much a documentary on him as a record of a relationship. But that relationship does have pride of place, and as described by the participants in vintage audio and by people who knew him in contemporary interviews, it does fascinate.

[An] entertaining, if straightforward documentary.

Listening to the film’s gorgeous renderings will make you a believer.

While the plot following Krypto finding his pack and saving the day is exceedingly formulaic and slightly tiresome with its predictable turns, Stern and Whittington fill the space around the structure with a plethora of absurdist humor and sharply written jokes, as well as the teasing self-awareness.

The emphasis of Armstrong is to demonstrate that while its subject was not superhuman, he did have exactly the gifts and character the task demanded.

There’s nothing particularly sophisticated about the filmmaking in Free Trip to Egypt, but first-time feature director Ingrid Serban succeeds in telling a simple story in a simple fashion, and it’s an effectively moving effort.

There are times when this visual twist confuses rather than elucidates. However, there’s no denying the bracing, honest nature of Mouthpiece, a truly revolutionary piece of filmmaking.

For the Birds is kind to its subject, while recognizing the harm she’s inadvertently doing. Animal hoarding is far more complex than most would imagine, but this film handles it with care.

As a slick, over-the-top action picture, Anna works splendidly. It features multiple jaw-dropping set-pieces, including a restaurant hit where Anna walks in with an unloaded gun and walks out after killing about a dozen thugs. The plot, while fairly predictable, is at least craftily constructed. On its own merits, this is one rollickingly entertaining film, that under ordinary circumstances Besson fans would adore.

It has a cumulative power, as Trobisch focuses on the small details, looking closely at a woman who doesn’t want to be defined by the thoughtlessly inhumane thing someone else chose to do.

The gothic atmosphere and the disgustingly gooey special effects are the main attraction. The existential dread is just an extra.

A lovely closing story about Wyman and his idol Ray Charles speaks volumes.

Through interviews with survivors of the massacre, loved ones and congregants, as well as reporters, politicians and activists, Ivie has made something heartfelt and messy, focused on what’s devotional in testifying about a joy that’s never coming back, and pardoning a malevolence that’s never gone away.

The film isn’t the most cohesive look at startling global transformation. It’s strongest, however, as a dizzying, dimensional tour of scale and time, forcing us to wonder how a sense of earth-centric balance can be restored.

Jawline provides an evenhanded examination of celebrity and loneliness in the digital age.

The film, based on Romain Puértolas’ novel, has clever touches and is consistently engaging, if meandering.

The film, which adeptly touches on then-apartheid South Africa’s thorny intersection of religion, politics and racism, smartly eschews lurking melodrama and easy outs for subtle tension, tender symbolism, stirring musical bits and effective flights of fancy.

To call this movie harrowing is an understatement. It’s a focused — and perhaps necessary — assault on the senses.

The War of the Worlds is one of those movies that many who grew up in the '50s remember fondly as a mix of science-fiction melodrama and crashingly good mayhem. Nostalgia goes a long way toward appreciating it today. [13 Aug 1992, p.15]

Inspired by a 1978 New West magazine article by David Barry, this fine little 1981 film suggests that continual participation in these races represents a refusal to grow up. Dennis Hopper is a long-ago racer desperate for a comeback; it's as if he's the same kid in Rebel Without a Cause, surviving those chicken runs in that film only to grow middle-aged without growing up. [18 Aug 1985, p.5]

Star Fryogeni, who bears a striking resemblance to Frances McDormand, appears in almost every shot, and she carries the film with a bravura performance of a woman at her wit’s end.

Directed by Brian De Palma with an uncharacteristic twinkle in his eye, the film offers such a likable gallery of cement-heads that we're in no mood to carp about the movie's creaky storyline, belabored gags or meandering chase scenes.

The lingering lesson of Soul, a lovely, imperfect movie about life’s lovely imperfections, is that every moment is worth living to the fullest, this one very much included.

Freaks is a wild ride, but it's not the monster-trip some say it is. It is macabre and disturbing, but Browning chose to humanize the deformed characters at the movie's shadowy center, not to demonize them.

Walter Hill's Extreme Prejudice is as red-hot as a Saturday-night special, an ultra-violent action-adventure fantasy so macho that it verges on parody--on purpose. Sensational rather than serious, it is an exploitation picture but one with class: it has style, a point to make that happens to be highly topical and, thankfully, a dry, saving sense of humor.

A surprisingly effective slice of dystopian noir.

The parallel story lines are both about a twisted sisterhood, and come together in a climactic church service sequence that’s equal parts disgusting and grandiose — and kind of awesome, for fans of bizarre, punky horror.

Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable doesn’t offer the technical details about the sport that might have made its subject’s feats even more inspiring, but even someone who knows nothing about surfing can’t help but sit mouth agape at Hamilton’s athleticism, optimism and determination.

For anyone interested in politics, religion, American culture or the ever-overlapping space they occupy, this documentary has the potential to move hearts and minds.

It’s the performances and well-earned character arcs that make Last Christmas a satisfying holiday flick worth giving your heart to.

You walk out in the depressing realization that you’ve just seen one of the more interesting movies Marvel will ever make, and hopefully the least interesting one Chloé Zhao will ever make.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is most enjoyable when it shakes off the tedious franchise imperatives and forges its own path.

In work that emphasizes the unstoppable power of a persuasive performance, Erivo not only convincingly conveys the strength of the celebrated abolitionist’s fierce personality, she creates her as a realistic, multi-sided character, a complex woman of formidable self-belief and not any kind of plaster saint.

The film portrays the ferocious resistance of some people to the possibility that this man had nothing to do with the crime. And that’s when Just Mercy is at its best.

It is a measure of the singularity of the Band’s story, and the way their music remains such a tonic to experience, that “Brothers” still demands to be seen.

Because Manville and Neeson are such potent performers, they are expert at playing out all the implications of what this experience is like.

Chopra and Akhtar have great chemistry, and though the nonlinear storytelling is somewhat unnecessary, Bose deftly manages the challenging tonal shifts within this lengthy film that never drags.

Driven, the year’s second DeLorean-inspired film, veers from glib comedy to character-driven drama to crime thriller, but director Hamm always has his hands on the wheel.

Great Balls of Fire would be an entertaining evening even if it preserved nothing more than Lewis' songs -- rerecorded by Lewis with all the soul and groin-stirring fury that he has preserved during three decades. It also has an often-dazzling comic impersonation of Lewis by Dennis Quaid, a goofy ballet of awesomely confident struts and brags. [30 June 1989, p.1]

This is a deranged nightmare of wildness, as full of laughs as it is arterial sprays. It won’t be everyone’s cup of thé, but its joyously vulgar title probably deters those likely detractors anyway.

McGregor has a good command of horror’s visual and sonic cues.

Less a hand-wringing dispatch from a repressive land than a judiciously glossy nudge toward a better world, The Perfect Candidate isn’t complicated, yet earns its mixed/hopeful conclusion.

Adam Dick makes a solid feature writing-directing debut with “Teacher,” a tense and propulsive thriller with several vital, provocatively rendered thoughts on its seething mind.

The emotion and the horror might have taken still deeper root if the world of the movie felt less hectic and more coherently realized, if the supernatural touches and occasional jump scares welled up organically from within rather than feeling smeared on with a digital trowel.

If Becoming Nobody may dig only as deeply as the filmmaker and/or Alpert chose to go, it remains an inspiring, stirringly meditative portrait of one man’s profound spiritual influence on a world that has surely needed him.

Kallos’ tough, austere, often Bergmanesque debut feature (he’s an admitted fan of the Swedish master) also offers a vivid window into South Africa’s churchgoing, agriculture-dominant Free State region, as well as of several lingering effects of apartheid and the cultural decline of the nation’s Afrikaner population.

Greener Grass is a movie that’s not only immediately destined for cult status — it’s the rare movie that truly earns it.

Scott gets strong performances from his supporting cast and is able to salvage the movie through the alchemy of the striking visuals. [13 Feb 1992, p.13]

There are times when the nonstop visual momentum lends 1917 the feel of a virtual-reality installation, and others when the simulation of raw immediacy slips to reveal the calculated construct underneath.

The movie is exciting, richly textured. But, despite its high quality, there’s something unformed about it, like a poem that doesn’t quite sing, a painting with a color missing...Even if Someone to Watch Over Me is flawed, it’s the kind of film that offers you many subsidiary pleasures.

Convincingly creepy while also slightly thought-provoking, it warns about deceiving facades, because what hides underneath masks is possibly much worse.

A lot of fledgling filmmakers make autobiographical movies or lean on genre, but Low Low follows a different path, empathizing with the worries and woes of some people whose lives are rarely reflected on screen.

What it lacks in irony and suspense, Gilbert Adler's Tales From the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood makes up for in whimsy and cheeky self-assurance. The second feature to emerge from the long-running HBO horror show is a bawdy romp into vampire mythology, an empty-headed joyride into a crypt that resembles a costume party orgy. This is the version of "Dracula" that Bram Stoker would have written with the collaboration of Mel Brooks and the Marquis de Sade over drinks at Hooters. [16 Aug 1996, p.F10]

Returning director Michael Fimognari and screenwriter Katie Lovejoy have made a love letter to all of these characters — not just Lara Jean and Peter — and audiences will find it hard not to be smitten too.

Although deliberately paced and a bit repetitive, the movie contains many lovely subtleties and two superb, swoony lead turns that keep us invested.

It's a satisfying comedy in which the humor actually develops from character rather than plot. [15 Mar 1987, p.5]

While its surface pleasures are dazzling — if a bit protracted, at well north of two hours — it finally suggests that memorable screen villainy and complex inner humanity may be forced into a kind of stalemate, at least when there’s a corporate-branded intellectual property involved.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is big-hearted, with as much desire to put something good in the world as its hero wants to express himself.

Mendelsohn and Davis, among the finest Australian actors working today, are both awfully good at villainy, which is why their characters’ emotional restraint and fundamental decency here feels refreshing as well as true.

This is an appealingly polished thriller, with something modest but profound to say about how selfish choices can ripple across decades.

This visual and aural feast does have a stumble or two on the dance floor, though in the 11th hour, Wright manages to right the ship, with an assist from the ever-reliable Taylor-Joy.

Depraved is smart in its commentary on everything from the evils of the pharmaceuticals industry to the terrors of PTSD, but there’s real heart and empathy here too. Skeptics might question whether Adam has a soul or not, but Fessenden’s film clearly possesses one.

Abel Ferrara, director of King of New York, is a virtuoso of grunge. He may not have all the equipment necessary to make a great movie -- he's not real big on narrative, logic, believability, human empathy -- but he sure knows how to shoot the cinematic works. In technical terms, King of New York is his most stylish job yet. In emotional terms, it's as aggressively wacked out as such earlier opuses as "Ms. 45" and "Fear City."

Polyester isn’t quite up to the low standards of Pink Flamingos, but it’s still a worthy effort by Waters.

If often sad and unsettling, the film is also livelier and less oppressive than it may sound thanks to the fine writing, deft direction by Adrian Noble, and the superb, if painful interplay between Redgrave and Spall.

A solidly assembled documentary portrait.

Like a lot of recent South American and Central American horror, The Whistler is primarily a mood piece, relying heavily on deep shadow and rich sound design to spook the audience. But it’s a richly imagined film, drawing its eerie power from the depths of male guilt.

Black Christmas is a fun film that gets its kicks out of literally smashing the patriarchy.

Swezey’s film is a historical record of this short-lived time and this singularly L.A. scene.

A sincere, sensitive entry in that niche genre of family drama scenarios involving culinary legacy.

The Weekend is as easygoing as its title implies, a loose, lovely complement to Meghie’s more polished studio film “Everything, Everything.”

An eerie, atmospheric horror film. [08 Aug 2004, p.E14]

Where Disappearance at Clifton Hill really excels is in exploring the visual and sonic textures of a decaying resort, and in hailing the plucky resourcefulness of a broken woman, trying to piece her memories — and maybe herself — back together.

But the film isn’t just a well-made TV-style thriller either. It’s on to something--the way upwardly mobile parents, hoping to make their lives more professionally fulfilling, unwittingly bring the danger of the unknown into their lives.

McColm and Day show promise as filmmakers, even if not everyone will be into their off-kilter look at the world. Birds Without Feathers hatches fully formed, though the resulting film’s absurdity will have limited appeal beyond its niche art-house audience.

The impact of hearing Danny Glover’s calm voice reading published invitations to lynching parties remains chillingly undiminished.

The movie could have used a more thorough, gram-for-gram comparison of plant-based and animal proteins. No matter, there’s much fine food for thought.

Cunningham’s beguiling openness, coupled with as many estate-sanctioned photographs from his collection as Bozek can squeeze into the brisk running time, easily overcome a general roughness of assembly.

The film reveals its truest self as a cinematic act of negotiation, acceptance and farewell between mother and son.

[A] brainy, niche, often arcane documentary.

When it's funny it's often hilarious and low-down, but when it isn't, it's embarrassingly grim. On the whole, however, it balances out as an amiable diversion -- provided you're in a suitably relaxed and undemanding mood. [18 Sept 1987, p.14]

In its most rewardingly complicated moments, this absorbing, incomplete documentary reminds us that there is nothing definitive about what we think we know.

Though the narrative often lags or stops outright to revel in Nourry’s art, when the film dives into her struggles with identity in relationship to cancer through art, it’s fascinating, and very emotional.

As metaphors for America go, it might just put a hopeful smile on your face after another stomach-churning political news day.

One of the better old-regime Disney stories. [12 Apr 1992, p.7]

Awash in Christopher Rejano’s neon-hued cinematography and punctuated by Nick Zinner’s eerie synth soundscapes, Reeder’s meandering tale is a fever dream of ideas.

Disney's evergreen, Oscar-winning documentary from 1953, is crawling with the scaly, feathery and furry critters who call the desert home. [12 Aug 1994, p.F27]

Even at its most pulse-pounding, Bloody Marie remains locked on its sympathetically pathetic protagonist.

The Trial of the Chicago 7, smoothly entertaining as it is, may also elude clear consensus. Democracy is a messy business, but an element of real, lived-in messiness seems beyond this movie’s purview.

Although the film dutifully follows a familiar path to the courtroom, along the way, it serves as a solid demonstration of the fissures that can form when the bonds of friendship are tested against those of familial loyalty.

Genre fans may be disappointed that Spell is more of an artful character sketch than a supernatural thriller. But by focusing on despair and regret, the movie is still pretty haunting.

Redoubt is slow going but not uninvolving. Barney’s filmmaking is less about the manipulation of image, or the roiling power of editing to create emotional states, than it is about dutifully documenting what he’s created, what he’s seeing, what’s on his mind.

A Kid in King Arthur's Court, which has a zesty, lilting score by J.A.C. Redford, is enlivened by solid portrayals all around, headed by the likable Nicholas and the veteran Ackland, whose imposing presence and majestic voice make both a credible yet wistful and vulnerable Arthur. [11 Aug 1995, p.F4]