In the end, probably the best way to watch Emperor is to pretend that the Supreme Command of Allied Forces in Japan after World War II was Tommy Lee Jones. If you do that, the movie works surprisingly well.

The character moments here resonate, and there are enough stakes to make the final scenes feel meaningful.

One of the nicest things about Hearts Beat Loud, and there are several nice things, is the way that Offerman and Clemons seem like father and daughter. This is the work of the actors, but also of the director.

The filmmaker works with economy and has a knack for creating a sense of foreboding, which is good because the plot is simply a working out of the old saw that violence begets violence.

Polina is spare in dialogue; more is conveyed through painterly wide-screen cinematography by Georges Lechaptois.

It's a broad generality to say that French filmmakers have a particularly perverse sensibility, but it can be backed up by one import after another. The latest, La Moustache, is wonderfully odd in a minimalist kind of way.

Succeeds because of the cast's communal vibe of arrogant stupidity.

It's a straight-ahead adventure with the usual number of thrills, but with the added virtue of being smarter and more sober than one might expect.

Looking back over All the Old Knives, it might be more accurate to call it a spy romance, except that makes it sound titillating. Better to say it’s a movie about the consequences of trying to stay human while working in the spy business.

A pleasant surprise. What looked to be yet another science fiction movie turns out to be one of the year’s few romantic dramas, one which just happens to be set aboard a space ship.

It’s a complicated situation despite how morally straightforward it appears. Scout’s Honor deserves some kind of merit badge for trying to untangle the knotty, awful mess.

Nothing groundbreaking, but there's an easy charm in the movie.

On the surface, Sweeney’s film is a playful examination of sexual fluidity, but underneath the gags, it’s really a universal, sweet movie about the modern complexities of finding a soulmate. It’s also a nice example of how independent films can breathe fresh air into genres like the romantic comedy.

Girls of the Sun has an air of authenticity and grit that’s convincing, and Farahani, an Iranian-born actress, makes us care.

That's why the more you like the Judy Garland film, the more you might appreciate Oz the Great and Powerful. Appreciate. Enjoy. Admire. Be glad to see. Have fun with ... But as for love - well, love will be harder to come by.

Yet something's missing in director Mira Nair's treatment -- specifically, a point of view about the material, a compelling reason for this historical excavation beyond the fact that Reese Witherspoon makes a convincing Becky Sharp.

With apologies to George A. Romero and the impending zombie apocalypse, The Eclipse may be the most realistic film where something dead comes to life and tries to feast on human flesh. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/15/MVST1CTGJ4.DTL#ixzz0lDuetYGS

A mostly compelling documentary about that rarest of breeds, an appealing politician.

The film's ambitions are laudable, and it manages to be touching, funny and true to life. It seems ungrateful to ask for anything more.

Leigh doesn't sentimentalize these tragic, dead-end lives but allows his characters to be ugly and stupid, to make horrendous mistakes. Sometimes they're laughable, and yet there's never the sense that Leigh is mocking them.

The party scenes are entertaining fantasy, but the insider-business end of the picture is occasionally interesting in its own right.

The characters are beautifully drawn in this bittersweet melodrama written and directed by Mark Herman.

A skillful exposition of the pain of pro wrestling, and the high price participants pay in terms of physical and ego injuries.

The glimpses of religious life bumping into secular passion are touching and warmly comic.

Jolie has crafted an intimate epic about a tough war subject that probably would have gone unmade without her humanitarian influence and star power. First They Killed My Father is a much more assured film, even if a bogged-down middle section prevents it from greatness.

Abominable delivers all the notes you expect from family-friendly animation these days. And, thankfully, a little bit more.

Does not end well. But there's a lot of pleasure in getting there.

Everything Melville shows us, he shows us for a reason, and these reasons are never obscure but are rather pertinent to the action and to the moral movement of the world and the characters.