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.