Thereare moving moments in this over-hyped satire by the Israeli-Arab writer-director-actor Elia Suleiman, and it's fascinating to get a picture of daily life in prosperous Palestinian neighborhoods.

A pleasingly low-key effort pitched at fans of the first couple.

If the director had more gospel and less blues in him, it might have brought him closer to really understanding these talents. Still, I can't wait for "Rize 2: Electric Boogaloo."

While the off-kilter film is a fine showcase for the personalities of two of our best emerging comedic stars, Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”) and Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”), the humor falls short of being very funny.

Laura Dern — only nine years older than Witherspoon’s fresh-faced 38 — could also net a Best Supporting Actress nod for her outstanding work as Cheryl’s spunky and nurturing mothe.

Ends up feeling familiar.

An acid trip of a movie about a piece of Los Angeles history that exists no more: the Ambassador Hotel.

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

Raya doesn’t have any coming-of-age experiences, she doesn’t sing, she’s not trying to please her father, there’s no romance subplot, nobody helps her get dressed. What there are are crossbows and swords. And on that front, it is a success. The battles and missions in each separate place are visually exciting.

Few kinds of art are more boring than the insistently transgressive, and few movies are more boring than Humpday.

A group of inmates are turned into theater people. Haven't they suffered enough?

A thoughtful, provocative film that understandably ruffled a few feathers in its native Italy -- the portrayal of the church is far less than beatific.

While never exploitative, Polisse can be extremely disturbing. Is it possible for a parent to mistreat a child in the ways shown here? Sad to say, the answer is yes.

Bardem gives such a brilliant performance in The Sea Inside, it's a crime that the film itself drowns in tears.

What Amenabar offers here is an unconvincing, pretentiously artsy pastiche of just about every hoary old gothic thriller you can think of.

Talking heads include friends, fellow artists, art dealers and former girlfriends. One contributor is Julian Schnabel, the painter and filmmaker who directed the 1996 biopic "Basquiat."

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.

Dunham has made a really attractive and cohesive film, merging her modern, punky sensibilities with the dirt-and-stone drear of the time period.

French director Stéphane Brizé films in lingering takes, with Lindon in almost every shot, and the actor is wonderful, able to convey Thierry’s conflict even when his back is to the camera.

Ninety percent of the movie is a very pleasant watch. All “My Old Ass” needed was a few more conversations with Elliott’s family and friends to provide more closure for her and the film.

Seems afraid to cut loose in the manner of Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson, so this labor of love suffers from an overly earnest and morose tone. Which, given the cast in Thirteen Conversations, is a real shame.

A hilariously deadpan black-and-white slacker comedy, Duck Season is sort of like "Wayne's World" directed by a Mexican Jim Jarmusch.

Nolan blurs the distinction between dreams and reality so artfully that Inception may well be a masterpiece masquerading as a summer blockbuster.

If you can't be original, why not borrow from something no one has seen, like Ben Affleck's last five movies?

Even for a mumblecore film, Computer Chess is weak stuff, a punitively dull chunk of quirk that is about, and feels like, being stuck in a motel with a gaggle of programming nerds for a weekend.

The Last King of Scotland is a parable shocking in its truth, jolting in its lack of sentimentality, Shakespearean in its vision of the doctor's catastrophic flaw.

A really classic adventure yarn with one of Hollywood's great actors hitting one out of the ballpark. If you're seeing only one movie this season, this is the obvious choice.

Exploring the lives of several wrongly convicted men exonerated by DNA evidence, the documentary After Innocence makes a reasonable case that compensation is due them.

A pre-pubescent "Boys Don't Cry" with a much sweeter tone, this thoughtful French comic drama follows Laure (Zoé Héran), a 10-year-old girl who yearns to be a boy.

Carion gets excellent performances from Emir Kusturica as the Russian and Guillaume Canet as the Frenchman. Each is a filmmaker in his own right -- Canet's directorial résumé includes the thriller "Tell No One" and Kusturica's lists the Serbian black comedies "Underground" and "Black Cat, White Cat."

The acting is uniformly superb, the camera work and set design are haunting, and The Orphanage delivers well-earned tears at its beautiful conclusion. Go see it already.

Bones and All is a surprisingly effective and affecting cannibal love story.

A well-researched picture of how racism led to nine men being falsely accused and wrongly convicted. One only wishes that the filmmakers had more than 84 minutes in which to tell the story.

An elegant, quietly comical but slightly constricted period piece whose stately pace is all but offset by several impressive performances.

In an attempt to understand this phenomenon, Ziv interviews leaders of terrorist groups like Hamas, failed hit men now in jail and relatives of those who died carrying out these attacks. The effect is frightening.

Soderbergh -- helms a much tighter and arguably cooler film -- even if the only thing audiences are likely to remember about this Ocean's Eleven is that, while they were watching it, they enjoyed it tremendously

Raja, which is basically a dark comedy about how this odd couple manipulate each other, is extremely well acted, though the direction by Jacques Doillon is on the leisurely side.

A true fan's nirvana.

Somewhat leisurely paced, by American standards, especially in the beginning, but it's well worth sticking around for the payoff.

Garrel’s ideas on both are pretty old-fashioned. But he wraps it up with a pleasurable O. Henry-like twist, and a moment of what feels suspiciously like true love.

The smartest movie to come out this year, and it could hardly be better cast.

Rip Torn gives his best performance in years.

Not for the squeamish, but it is a beautifully crafted and thoughtful film that genuinely provokes.

Rush, though it will win no trophies, is fine filmmaking, a smart, visually engorged, frequently thrilling tale of boyish competition — inspired by a true story. At heart it’s “Amadeus” on wheels, only this time Salieri is the Austrian.

Don't expect guffaw-inducing comedy, but rather deadpan humor in the style of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati.

Many indie films about adolescents these days - like Gus Van Sant's "Elephants" - are willfully amoral. Mean Creek isn't - and it's the first indie since "Thirteen" that parents should make required viewing for teens.

It's powerful stuff, and probably a more effective approach than a series of talking heads decrying bullying, which is estimated to affect 18 million American children.

You're either going to love this film and run out to see everything Majewski has directed, or you're going to be bored silly. I'm hoping for the former.

Mongol really isn't worth leaving your yurt for.

This is all as pure and sunny as lemonade.

Masterful, atypically political - and flawlessly acted.

With its gray skies, moody ambience and ominous orchestral score, Thelma fits the cliché about Scandinavian entertainment being dark as hell — in the best way. It’s also gorgeous.

The story isn't exactly new, but Bollain, an actress in her own right, keeps Take My Eyes from sinking into clichés.

The fight scenes are remarkably exhilarating and spontaneous for being, well, animated. And all of the jokes — written by Rowe, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, among others — are truly very funny and witty while still making sense for this vision of the five boroughs. They’re spoken by a genuine, young cast, who sound like they’re having a party after school instead of the usual stiff, one-day-in-the-studio delivery.

Give Boyce and Boyle credit for daring to be strange, but this enchilada is so overstuffed, it's falling apart.

McAdams gives one of the best performances of her career as her character wrestles with the enormous question of whether, and how, to give up everything she’s ever known.

Chan at his high-kicking best. Some sequences are simply amazing.

Boasts several fine performances and some elegant, eerie black-and- white photography.

East Is East is "The Full Monty" of 2000, a fresh, funny and poignant film filled with sparkling performances.

As we learn in director Jonathan Berman's fun documentary Commune, the ranch was financed by people such as musician Frank Zappa and actor James Coburn.

Quotable, controversial, anarchic, charismatic and handsome (in an ugly way), the zany avant-garde rocker Frank Zappa had everything one needs to be a star, except talent.

Hollywood loves nothing more than a true-crime story about a serial killer, but a new movie directed by Anna Kendrick does a number on that familiar genre.

At its best, Love, Gilda intertwines the comic’s own narration — drawn from audiotapes, interviews and journals — with reflections from her current-day admirers.

A triumphant and heartwarming film, not an angry and scolding one, that carefully maps how excellence and determination win over the doubters.

With one slight wobble toward the conclusion, Ashe’s screenplay is terrific at letting its characters speak and act honestly: His dialogue is heartfelt and realistic. “Sylvie’s” is a love letter to the delights of a well-told love story.

A Woman in Berlin, which is based on an anonymously written memoir of the same name, serves also as a testimony to women who put men in their place.

Spanning two decades in a little under two hours, Higher Ground is a well-acted if slow-moving drama that will reward adventurous audiences with fine performances and a thoughtful approach.

The acting is superb, especially the always alluring Charlotte Gainsbourg as a mysterious Englishwoman taking the ship to America. Agnes Godard's lensing is painterly, and Crialese's direction is seamless.

The film takes awhile to get going -- the depiction of homophobic 1950s suburbia has a familiar feel. The movie hits its stride only when eyewitnesses to the events at the Stonewall tell their stories.

An exciting and extremely well acted film. Even a nearly unrecognizable Blake Lively impresses in the key role of Jem's sister and Doug's sometime girlfriend.

In mashing together story elements from Terrence Malick’s “Badlands” with the look of Malick’s “Days of Heaven,” Lowery put 90 percent of his energy into the atmosphere and 10 percent into the script.

Holland has said that she wanted her harrowing and rewarding epic to run long so it would make viewers feel that they're in the sewers as well. In this, she succeeds.

John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill give such wonderfully satisfying, full-blooded performances in Cyrus that it seems almost churlish to wish this creepy little Oedipal comedy were a little more well-thought-out, and handled its wilder shifts in tone with more finesse.

An indie gem.

Director Frears, in a radical shift from "High Fidelity," again (as in "Dangerous Liaisons") shows he's a master of period detail and subtle storytelling -- and the performances couldn't be more on the money.

Subversively funny, it's a welcome alternative to the big-budget movies flooding into theaters at this time of year.

Yu presents a compelling, somewhat disturbing portrait of the artist, who in 2000 was the subject of a major exhibit that toured the world.

A delightfully immersive look at how a ballet is created, Jody Lee Lipes’ documentary is a stark contrast to the psycho theatrics of something like “Black Swan.”

After Tiller is groundbreaking in giving voice not only to the doctors, but to those who always seem to get overlooked in the high-volume political debate about this topic: the women themselves.

As directed by Ole Christian Madsen, the thriller features well-choreographed shootouts and assassinations. But the script is too melodramatic and complicated for its own good.

At its heart, this is a thrilling tribute to a modest hero who rose to an extraordinary occasion.

Breakneck, raucous and thoroughly exhilarating.

Werner Herzog looks at the death penalty in Into the Abyss, and as is almost always the case, to look through his eyes is to marvel.

Genius director Christopher Nolan reaches for the stars in Interstellar — and delivers a soulful, must-see masterpiece, one of the most exhilarating film experiences so far this century.

Has buckets of gentle sincerity. Since there aren't any dumb jokes or hip visuals, it's easy to get caught up in the simple messages: Be good to your sister, don't be a bully, use your imagination in a pinch.

Despite a remarkable performance by Suliman, who’s almost never off-camera, events become increasingly pat and implausible, with one explanatory scene played like a shadowy variation on Kevin Spacey’s monologue in “Se7en.”

This distaff "Hoop Dreams" is less of an epic than the earlier movie, and less deep, but it's got more sunshine, too.

The film is both elegiac and amazingly retro, like the nature specials that baby boomers were weaned on - although it's not for animal lovers, unless you have a specific grudge against sables. "Happy People" is the title, but it's virtually all men.

The film has a nice sense of female friendships’ emotional depth. But as a woman, Duris (while amusing) is not much more convincing than Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in “Some Like It Hot.”

Cannily weaving cross-cultural comedy with we-can-do-it humor in the spirit of "The Full Monty," the film builds to a rousing climax.

An expertly crafted, deeply moving film.

An uplifting, crowd-pleasing film in the tradition of "The Full Monty" that could easily win Oscar nominations for both its 11-year-old star, Jamie Bell, and first-time director, Stephen Daldry.

Kim Rossi Stuart gives an excellent performance.

Sergei Puskepalis (Sergei) and Grigory Dobrygin (Pavel) give powerful performances, but the real star is Mother Nature.

The on-camera experts make intelligent, earnest points, but the Web means there’s no such thing as a real ban. Indeed the movies have always been available, as two former neo-Nazis point out.

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

The rom-com ain’t dead yet. Crazy Rich Asians is a defibrillator for a genre that flatlined ages ago. This heartwarming, well-acted — and decadent — film takes you back to the greatest hits of Nancy Meyers, Richard Curtis and Nora Ephron.

Though it preserves the terrific lead performance of Richard Griffiths - best known to film audiences as Harry Potter's evil stepfather - The History Boys is essentially filmed theater, with minimal, and usually clumsy, attempts to take the action out of the classroom.