The film could have been improved if it had been less aggressively limp. But the post-adolescent, pre-adult moodiness is spot on: Everyone's favorite author is a bitter recluse, and the soundtrack heaves with the suicide sounds of Joy Division. Trier's intent is to reproduce a sweet, hazy vision of the agony of youth. Ever so elliptically, he succeeds.

Very slowly builds to an emotional payoff in a devastating scene where the three main characters simultaneously seek relief in sex.

As he did so ingeniously with “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the Spanish Civil War, del Toro explores fantasy, myth and childhood in a time of oppressive fascism; the specks of light that escape the darkness.

Look at Me is on the talky side, but like Jaoui's directing debut, "The Taste of Others," it offers uniformly excellent performances and smart observations on social and family interactions.

Our blockbuster drought is over, thanks to a brilliant sequel set on a sweltering desert planet.

The bureaucrats in Beijing want to get rid of the sex and full-frontial nudity and scenes of cops beating protesters in Tiananmen Square. I would keep all that but cut out some of the flab in the second half of the 140-minute drama.

It's fun, but the script, credited to Hossein Amini ("The Wings of the Dove"), is short on characterization and long on plot twists and wisecracks.

A lively score by Danny Elfman and some of the most dramatic sound-effects work since the Three Stooges only add to the appeal of Deep Sea 3-D.

Pity the boxing movie that thinks it can be both "Raging Bull" and "Rocky."

The doc consists of interviews with the absurdly grandiose Jodorowsky (whose fans include Kanye West) plus acolytes like current director Nicolas Winding Refn and film nerds, all of whom walk us through storyboards and tell us how awesome this “greatest film never made” would have been.

Sure to be a favorite with racists, Beasts of No Nation sheds no light whatsoever on Africa’s civil wars but turns its gaze on black people brutalizing one another with machetes, howitzers, rifles and anything else that comes to hand. I picture Calvin Candie, the plantation owner in “Django Unchained,” yelling, “Yeah! Git ’em!”

No "Crouching Tiger." It lacks the richness of theme and performance that made Ang Lee's film so emotionally satisfying. In fact, watching Iron Monkey makes you realize just how Western and literary the sensibility of "Crouching Tiger" was.

The wry situational humor leaves less of an impression than the near-perfect sense of the heat-drenched wistfulness of summer.

With The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, directors Ethan and Joel Coen venture to the frontier once more, after “True Grit” and “No Country for Old Men.” But this time, there’s only a little grit in this very slow country.

Best movie I've seen so far this year? Hands down, it's Tom McCarthy's superb The Visitor, which turns Richard Jenkins, one of the best character actors in the business, into a full-fledged star.

Patrick Stewart has a blast playing against type as a soft-spoken white supremacist holding a punk rock band as his temporary prisoners in Jeremy Saulnier’s nicely crafted, low-budget comedy-thriller.

With such smarts and outstanding special effects, I eagerly await a second Iron Man movie, which of course is virtually promised in the final scene.

Engrossing.

As is his custom, Reygadas uses a mostly nonprofessional cast; and, as expected, he draws remarkably realistic performances.

Whatever the unanswered mysteries of Jay’s personal life, just watching this magician’s hands at work with a deck of cards is positively mesmerizing.

Legendary hipster filmmaker Jim Jarmusch’s wryly funny exercise in genre bending hits so many grace notes it ends up being his most satisfying film in years.

Never becomes maudlin. Rather, it retains an upbeat air of hope, and even humor, as two brave men battle fate.

My own voice-over would go something like this: “This summer. One woman. Will see this movie. Again.”

Brilliantly acted and directed, Ava DuVernay’s towering Selma is Hollywood’s definitive depiction of the 1960s American civil rights movement — as well as perhaps the most timely movie you’ll see this year.

Summer blockbusters don’t get much better.

The story is ornate but easy to follow. It's the dreamy look and sound of Tabu - half old, half modern - that give the film its haunting strangeness.

Never seen, but often heard bellowing profanities from the other end of Jane’s desktop landline, the boss and his eyebrow-raising closed door meetings dubbed “personals” provide the menacing undertone of this day-in-the-life drama.

For two hours of breathless drama, you forget you’re watching actors grunting like chimps and hope two rival civilizations can work together.