The movie equivalent of a lavish coffee-table book, a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood from one of its foremost students.

For sheer infuriation value, you can't do much better than Kirby Dick's quietly scathing documentary on rape in the US military.

Aa saucy as a belly piercing, Mini's First Time is a black comedy that puts the soul of "Heathers" in Lolita's bikini.

The 34-year-old Meadows has assembled an effective cast, especially newcomer Thomas Turgoose as Shaun and veteran Stephen Graham as Combo.

Hammer, whose blunt name belies the movie's many subtle touches, has his own distinct style. He also has an enormous trust in the audience to sort out this wounded family's miseries without the assistance of narration or even a musical score.

Daniele Cipri's highly stylized lensing and Carlo Crivelli's bold score add to the movie's flamboyant aura. But then, the story of a bombastic dictator deserves a bombastic telling.

There is much opportunity to turn the film into a soaper, but Hansen-Love resists.

Midsommar is no slouch on chills, but they creep up slowly, like a bad trip from one of the Swedes’ festive glasses of hallucinogenic tea, and are leavened with an occasional dash of humor.

Despite Gibney’s best efforts to put a halo on Manning, the enormity of what the soldier did towers over what has been done to him.

A rousing, politically correct, Muslim-sympathetic, $140 million take on the Crusades.

Sparse of plot, Iron Island is visually rich, thanks to cinematographer Reza Jalai. The final scene is especially stunning.

The narrative easily goes back and forth in time; despite its Oedipal subtext, it avoids exploitation. Stellar performances by Rottiers and Cattani help keep the movie on track.

Doesn't always succeed -- the premise is hard to believe. Still, it's an unusual and interesting piece of filmmaking.

The film is still a gripping experience, though, with its circling sharks, its sun-dappled beauty and its agonies of shattered hope. At one point I was convinced that Sandra Bullock would splash down next to our man in her space capsule and Hanks’ Maersk ship from “Captain Phillips” would steam by to pick up both of them.

The magical mystery that is Paul McCartney may never be solved, but for fans (the line forms behind me), the new documentary The Love We Make includes some memorable displays of his world-conquering charm.

Gronkjaer's cinematography is pleasing, with beautiful sunsets and tranquil snowscapes. I won't give away the ending, but it might bring a tear to your eye.

A witty and occasionally wise take on sibling bonds and adulthood — even if the latter only arrives kicking and screaming.

A hilarious, pitch-perfect comedy.

Soundly structured, smart and fast, with a plausible central scenario, several gripping moments and well-wrought dialogue.

Sure, it’s got its horror aspects. But for my money, this movie belongs alongside “Secretary,” “Ginger Snaps” and “Thirteen” in the family of deliciously dark female coming-of-age stories.

What made Ludwig such a great musician? The documentary In Search of Beethoven, directed by Phil Grabsky, answers that question reasonably well.

They take a mundane story and give it emotional resonance.

Gandhi is talented enough, and compassionate enough, that his tour of the human need to believe in something becomes not just mocking, but touching.

The film is most effective when Geier, accompanied by a granddaughter, goes to Ukraine to speak at a school.

The Last Circus features garish costumes, grotesque ultraviolence and plenty of other assorted weirdness. Although not everybody's glass of sangria, it has the making of a cult hit.

The Zipper is a carnival ride, a tumbling cage whose screaming customers are spun around like a Ferris wheel.

Larson shines as an adult staffer assigned to keep these self-destructive kids safe while they work with therapists.

How this thing got made in Hollywood is a mystery, but I laughed at most of it, especially the mean stereotypes about the French and the even meaner stereotype about England's soccer team.

As a horror movie, even one inspired by the kitschy Hammer horror films of the 1950s, it's disappointing.

Po speaks loudly and carries big shtick. Let the rest of the world cringe at our hyperconfidence, our charisma, our pure awesomeness.

Credit Westfeldt, who is also the writer and director, with a classic setup for farce, brightly executed.

On the whole, though, you couldn’t do much better than Monkey Kingdom to get kids invested in learning about, and protecting, the natural world.

After 160 years, this is a story that still grips the heart and the mind.

Sandler, like him or not, is a master at bringing ‘90s heart and sentiment to his dumb schtick, and he’s disarmingly quiet and warm here. And his best jokes have nothing to do with Halloween.

Brings to mind "Working Girl" and "The Devil Wears Prada" -- but it has delightful differences only the French could conjure up, plus a musical soundtrack from jazz saxophone great Pharoah Sanders.

In some ways, it feels like an indie meditation on the eternal “When Harry Met Sally” question: Can men and women be just friends? Here, though, the focus is on the small, often unsaid moments that define a friendship — and a murky attraction.

Some heightened plot lines in writer-director Jared Frieder’s film don’t land as well as the tender moments do. The romance is admirably never overplayed for sentiment.

A tad too long, "Tea" is nevertheless touching and funny, with charming performances. You might say it's as calming as a hot cup of green tea.

The film thwarts any pat expectations you might glean from the town's bad economy and these checkered backgrounds. The teenagers are refreshingly gentle and clean-living; they don't drink, they don't swear and they certainly aren't having sex. All three are religious, a fact that is neither emphasized nor underplayed.

Crimson Gold has been likened to an Iranian "Taxi Driver," but it's nothing of the sort, though it is powerful in a quiet, minimalist way.

This documentary, which begins at a low key, gradually becomes intense and psychologically complicated.

Not exactly as well known as Megadeth or Metallica, Anvil did indeed have 15 minutes of fame back in the 1980s. Then it went into obscurity. Now it's back, trying like hell to be somebody.

Director Susanne Bier's chilly morality play is slow to get started, but once established, its three parallel stories comment provocatively on one another.

A nearly perfect love story/murder mystery that unfortunately falters at the end.

Shamelessly press viewers' emotional buttons. But the film is so well-made and the performances so accomplished that it doesn't matter.

A hard-hitting exposé of a shameful episode.

Grim but worthwhile.

On paper, Ushpizin (Aramaic for "holy guests") looks like a hard sell. It works, however, thanks to a witty script and believable performances from real-life husband and wife.

Fine for people of developing minds, but the story so often stops its forward motion to take us on long detours into the land of CGI effects that it amounts to a $150 million magic show.

It's an engaging piece of filmmaking on its own, beautifully shot and acted.

Sophie Scholl is a powerful story. But it's a little annoying how men become beside the point when the focus is on emotion. Sophie did no more or less than her brother, but he's ignored for nearly all of the movie because it's easier to stir up compassion - it's easier to manipulate the audience - when the subject is a woman.

Given that the opening shot shows the heroine on the toilet, what a nice surprise to find that this is a pure love story, told with elegance and simplicity on a low budget.

A gripping reminder of a brutal chapter of 20th-century history.

A kindler, gentler comedy that's perfect for children and parents to see together.

A charming and enjoyable movie.

If the documentary has a star, it's pony-tailed AES exec Piers Lewis, who had the impossible job of getting Georgians to actually pay for their electricity.

The dirty old man who became a cult poet and author was a true original, and every minute he's on screen, whether it's reading from his brutally honest work or musing on a hard-lived life for the cameras, it's hard to look away.

What makes The Blind Side a Thanksgiving treat is director Hancock's subtle touch and admirable refusal to yield to sports movie clichés, something he did previously with "The Rookie" and "Remember the Titans."

Akerman uses simple long shots and beautiful composition to give the film a smooth, fluid look. She is assisted by understated but convincing acting, especially by Testud, who is also on New York screens in "Murderous Maids."

In the charming new documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, we learn all about the tragedy and comedy of being a bird on the loose in San Francisco.

Daunting though it may be for the aspiring pick-up entrant, this is a fun and worthwhile ode to one of New York’s greatest summer pastimes.

Though Despicable Me is a little ragged on story, it's got a lot of imagination and a heart as warm as a fluffy kitty.

Dispenses with much of the caramel gooeyness of the first two episodes in favor of decent action, some heartfelt tender moments and even a splash of wit. This time they’re actually Twi-ing.

The thing that makes Haneke’s Code Unknown so enjoyable and effective is that that he says it in such a wonderfully restrained and light-handed yet suspenseful way.

For the first half-hour or so, this thing works like white lightning.

The acting is solid, especially Whaley, whose nasty variation on Norman Bates is his showiest role since he memorably played Kevin Bacon's assistant in "Swimming With Sharks."

The film did well at the local box office and has been shown at some 40 international festivals. Eat your heart out, Michael Moore.

A beautifully shot film with a funny French-twist ending.

The season's first guilty pleasure, Shoot 'Em Up is a joyously silly, R-rated, John Woo-in flected Looney Tune, with Clive Owen as a carrot-chomping, gun-toting Bugs Bunny matching wits with Elmer Fudd-ish assassin Paul Giamatti.

Garbus’ film is at its best when giving voice to the female relatives of these victims, who come together to pressure the cops — who’ve been instructed to downplay the possible connection between the killings — to do more.

These are characters with whom it's a pleasure to spend a couple of hours.

Brims with energy, carefully drawn characters and fine acting.

Cool though the skirmishes are, director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s film could use some more visual panache, given the unique historical backgrounds of her characters. The look, by and large, is rudimentary action flick. Still, it’s good fun and has more than a few winning one-liners.

Though the story may be cut from the same cloth as the female-empowering "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," it's never as cute, cloying or overbearing as that movie eventually became.

Provides a fascinating tour of the city's past.

Even at his best, Sharma doesn't have sufficient acting chops - or enough Hanks-like charisma - to hold the screen alone for more than 70 minutes with the CGI Richard Parker (as well as a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a rat who quickly become food for the ravenous tiger).

Filled with affecting moments.

The adventurous souls who stick with it, however, will find head-spinning images and a cumulative impact that does, in fact, amount to a story.

The beautifully crafted Adam offers no pat or easy answers.

The frantic nuttiness of the stylistically dynamic Huckabees is often laugh-out-loud funny, but amid the pandemonium there's a sense of truly rigorous soul-searching.

A witty, well-acted, visually gorgeous ensemble drama.

Pigeon, in its deadpan, hyper-composed way, is often paralyzingly funny, and there is compassion for the gray-faced souls wandering through it.

Isn't great. But I had fun watching.

Seventy percent of black boys in Baltimore do not graduate from high school. They're more likely to land in jail -- or a cemetery. But there is hope, according to The Boys of Baraka, an uplifting documentary.

Good value for the money, a funny, character-driven action comedy with three disparate stars -- who have great chemistry together.

The result is a remarkably beguiling documentary, on a number of levels.

Omar eventually becomes a sun-scorched neo-noir — and the fade-out is an unforgettable jolter.

A loving tribute to cinema by Tsai Ming-liang, one of Taiwan's most accomplished and popular directors.

Full of action and silliness that will delight rug rats, but it's still hip and absurd enough to entertain grown-ups, too.

There is enough detail and psychological nuance in Mattson Tomlin’s clever script to make Project Power more intriguing than most of what Marvel and DC have to offer, even if it could barely match their catering budgets.

Some of the acting feels cardboard; the plot points are never shocking. Eastwood’s love interest is about four decades his junior. And yet, the director casts a Zen cowboy spell that makes it all sort of irresistible.

Making elegant use of the austere landscape and the rugged features of star Jérémie Renier, the film shows how these doggedly practical and nonspiritual men cope with the eerie events, the cause of which is hinted at but never fully explained.

May serve as a useful way to introduce teens to what World War II in Europe was like.

Wong extracts magnetic performances from his two stars, and Philippe Le Sourd delivers gorgeous cinematography.

Solomonoff draws out vivid performances by Valeria Bertuccelli (Elena) and Ingrid Rubio (Natalia) that make up for the script's predictability.

Culkin is superb - he makes you forget that Igby is a spoiled brat who actually deserves the beating he gets.

Shannon is wonderful as a woman pushed over the edge by the death of her pet in Year of the Dog, a very low-key, well-acted dramedy.

How can a movie with such a charming cast (let's not forget Ry Russo-Young as Hannah's female roommate) and believable dialogue (seemingly taken from the actors' real lives) go wrong? It can't.