While Campillo does graceful work — the way he draws focus in a scene is a pleasure — the script drags and the pseudo-romance is hard to believe, especially when one plot point concerns Daniel asking for a bulk-purchase sex rate. Eastern Boys never quite fulfills the promise of those first few minutes.

Struggles to maintain a sober, evenhanded tone about an utterly ridiculous story.

The only possible interest the movie will inspire in anyone comes when Paltrow flashes a breast toward the end, far too late to pump any excitement into an aggressively boring film that gurgles with self-indulgence.

This loopy absurdist comedy is the final work of Andrzej Zulawski, the famed Polish filmmaker who died in February.

This is noir on steroids, cartoonishly ultra-violent and drawing inspiration from Mickey Spillane novels and E.C. comics of the '50s.

The nicest thing I can think of to say about the doc Neil Young Journeys is that at least it isn't in 3-D.

While Rentheads and Broadway fans will certainly connect to it on a deeper level than those who only know Idina Menzel as Elphaba, not Maureen, Tick, Tick is a terrific, moving, propulsive film on its own terms. It’s about New York, art, life and love.

Even on that happy 2005 election day, which was so successful that it led to a December round of elections in which the Sunnis did participate, Poitras takes a break to show us a close-up of someone slitting the neck of a rooster.

Directed by Maria Schrader, the film that’s part of one of the most reliably galvanizing genres — newspaper reporters doggedly chasing down a tough story — is a disappointing, sleepy metronome with made-for-TV diminutiveness.

Instructive, cathartic or just too painful? You decide.

There are also food scenes that will whet your appetite. But somehow a satisfying climax never makes it out of the oven.

An unusually well-written and satisfying multilayered drama that conveys the feel of urban India with more vivid accuracy than anything made in the subcontinent in recent years.

Comes as close to perfect as any movie I've seen lately.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That about sums up the amazing story of Edith Hahn Beer, an Austrian Jew who survived the Holocaust by passing herself off as Aryan.

Metallica brought back the rights and funded the project, and it's their honesty and willingness to front the cameras, warts and all, that makes this well-edited, often very funny, documentary so compelling.

A fun ride of a sci-fi thriller with terrific romantic chemistry between Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan.

David Gordon Green’s Joe largely succeeds in immersing us in a rural world of cruelty, ugliness, decay, neglect and aggression, but if there is a point to it all, I couldn’t find it.

As usual with Majidi, the cinematography is super (best scene shows Karim, disguised as an ostrich, in pursuit of an escaped bird) and the acting is realistic and low-key.

It’s a more somber companion to Marjane Satrapi’s 2007 film “Persepolis,” which explored life under the Iranian Revolution with dark humor: Here, the laughter’s mostly a prelude to tears.

Blame It on Fidel doesn't aim for the profundity of Costa-Gavras films like "State of Siege" and "Z" - but who's complaining?

Waititi emerges triumphant, but it’s a nail-biter.

The animation, supervised by director Timothy Bjorkland, is deliberately crude, but it complements the wacky story line just as well as the excellent musical numbers, one of which is a spot-on homage/parody of Sondheim.

You know a performance has to be special when a Palestinian wins Israel's version of the Best Actress Oscar. But why should politics detract from a stunning performance?

Matsoukas also finds two first-rate performances in Kaluuya and Turner-Smith. Theirs is one of the more carefully paced romances in recent memory, and the subtle way their tension switches from fear to desire is masterful.

A vivacious film that is a treat for eyes and ears.

Though it's being dumped in the wastelands in February, Breach is better than many of the pack of so-called prestige movies that were released at the end of last year.

German guilt gets a vigorous workout in the penetrating and symbolically important documentary Two or Three Things I Know About Him.

Delightfully quirky.