The performances, the writing, the direction, Segel’s D.F.W. impression, everything is just fine. But The End of the Tour is disgraceful. It feels like it’s towing out the real Wallace’s ghost to perform some soppy parody of himself.

Surely the real story of Enron is that so many accountants, lawyers, bankers and politicians were willing to call a dog a duck in order to remain happy insiders in the world's biggest pyramid scheme.

One of Robert Altman's lesser known gems, Thieves Like Us, brings Depression-era rural Mississippi to life with the story of three convicted killers on the lam from prison.

This story of personal redemption tacks drama by the nautical mile. "The ocean is always trying to kill you,” says Edwards, a woman like most who knows about facing high odds and salty conditions.

Reeves keeps the action moving steadily, never letting the film’s 140 minutes feel even slightly bloated, and surrounds Caesar with a visually stunning, compassionately conceived group of side characters.

Constant is the very thing The Constant Gardener is not. Attractive yet fickle, the movie beckons enticingly one moment and wanders off the next.

Short Term 12 is a triumph of modesty.

Parenthood is a charming, amusing piece of work. It doesn't say anything new - Howard clings as tightly to tradition as Norman Rockwell - but it says the old things with enough wit and eloquence to keep them going for another generation. [2 Aug 1989, p.C7]

As visually stunning as it is profound, Two of Us is an incredible exploration of what it means to love and be loved in return. And while Sukowa’s passionate and remarkable performance is heart-stopping, Chevallier’s quieter moments will make an indelible mark on your heart, changing the way you see others and even yourself.

Even those familiar with the legacy of the show will discover new and fascinating things about the history of Sesame Street throughout the film – and anyone who watches Street Gang will come away moved by everything its cast and crew managed to accomplish.

Split into two parts and narrated by Koberidze himself, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is a true magic act, intimate and massive at the same time.

From its quiet opening sequence to its silent final shot, everything about A History of Violence is deceptive, and deceptively simple.

Adds more cosmic cliff-hangers than it resolves, and it's not as satisfying as the original. A star war can be an exhausting bit of business, especially when, in the end, it turns out to be something of a cheat.

Mainly, though, the film's strength is reportorial, sensitively exploring a theme that has grown ever more prominent with the globalization of sport.

This is a war film with an anti-epic feel, best when it forgoes the forced march of plot to hunker down in the trenches of our flawed humanity.

Very light-hearted and glamorous. [09 Nov 2002, p.R24]

The Lobster is a brilliant piece of satire, but largely fails in an attempt to build its wicked wit into a more conventional romance.

Yet, for all that's wrong here, one thing is wonderfully, blissfully right, and his name is Tom Hanks.

Admittedly, near the end, the picture loses some of its energy and compelling ambiguity (about a half-star's worth, I'd say). Still, by then, the big gains have been made. At its best, The Nightmare Before Christmas occupies the imaginative ground held by the likes of White and Dahl and Seuss - that lovely place where, for shining moments, parents and children can travel on the same passport and smile for the same reasons. [22 Oct 1993]

In order to move forward, it’s imperative we look at the past. Black Ice is a worthwhile ice-breaker to that end.

If the kids give the movie its momentum, its fascination comes from a more static source -- the father.

A picture with pop's delicious energy yet none of its attendant risk, a flick that no one will love but everyone will like.

The acting is strong, but the uneven pacing means there is so much to absorb in the end, that it’s impossible to discern.

Smart and youthful, with a well-balanced package of humour, romance, crisp action and character-based drama, Star Trek gives popcorn movies a good name.

You’re so tense you’re almost nauseous, but it’s fun – that’s the place this smart new thriller will put you in.

Nothing much happens in this pleasantly casual 80-minute conversation of a documentary. It doesn’t come to you; you must come to it – like a Jim Jarmusch film, particularly his "Coffee and Cigarettes" from 2003.

Come for Phoenix, stay for Phoenix and maybe also Norman and Hoffman, the latter of whom bounces off of both her co-stars with a nervy charm. But everything else? C’mon.

With its bold screen-filling imagery, this is definitely a movie to be relished on the big screen.

Hunger -- the disturbing, provocative, brilliant feature debut from British director Steve McQueen -- does for modern film what Caravaggio did to Renaissance painting.

Despite a number of plot twists, In the Family is more about its constant blanks and dead time, its silence and inert camerawork, which require a viewer to fill in the gaps with one's own perceptions of what's happening.

For anyone wondering why women don’t come forward to report sexual assault, Black Box Diaries offers a glimpse into the many indignities women can face when reporting the crime, and the amount of personal resolve needed to follow through.

As in "Taxi Driver," the protagonist is a damaged war veteran, an invisible man who travels about the city and internalizes its contradictions until he explodes.

In lieu of sensationalizing the persecution of these young women, Small Things Like These compellingly casts its gaze onto the complicity of the community and the social architectures which uphold abuse.

Surprisingly touching and funny.

Ambitious and brooding, Coogan has the darker nature; lighthearted and affable, Brydon is all sunny-side up. Happily, both possess a devilishly quick wit and the need to go beyond self-impersonation to the more celebrated variety.

From my doddering perspective - rheumy with a view - Volume 3 puts plenty of cinema into the picture but leeches all the charm out of the tale.

The theme could be trite or maudlin in lesser hands. Here, through the Dardennes' judiciously stylized way of telling the story, there is a real exhilaration in the film's ability to capture Igor's emotional dilemma. [6 Mar. 1998, p.C8]

Instead of the typical John Grisham-style connect-the-dots legal thriller, we get a film that's idiosyncratic, with a time-shifting structure, a surfeit of subplots and characters.

The movie itself seems more familiar than fascinating, more innocuous than inflammatory, and, at 2½ hours, more tedious than anything else.

What follows is a dizzy, politically astute murder-mystery comedy that, while not reinventing the genre, certainly hits all the expected beats with flair.

By the end of the The Spectacular Now, you’re not quite ready to let these characters go. Instead, like director François Truffaut did with his character Antoine Doinel in a series of films, you want to check back with them every few years, to see how how they’re getting on.

The result is a genre picture that transcends the genre, that gleefully embraces four qualities alien to the bulk of its noisy brethren: (1) thematic texture; (2) kinetic grace; (3) visuals that toy with the mind even while dazzling the eye; and (3) performers who are permitted to act like something other than human wicks for the pyrotechnical bombast.

Let the Right One In is a children's film, but you wouldn't want your child to see it. It's a horror film, but the gruesome splatter is the least of its scares. And it's a love story, but the prepubescent kind where sex is a distant idea and loneliness a shared reality. A wicked trick, a cinematic treat, this is some Halloween offering.

There’s lots of wisdom here, but in the Icelandic barrens, good cheer has sometimes gone missing. Yes, there’s a price to pay for being stubborn.

Ultimately, Certified Copy – with its unresolved loose ends – is a puzzle box without a key.

Splendidly viewed through Gordon Willis' gleaming black and white cinematography, the story of Danny Rose, narrated by a group of aged comics reminiscing at the Carnegie Deli, becomes a bittersweet examination of dreams that don't come true. [27 Jan 1984]

Relentless, thorough and devastating.

A non-stop, shoestring trip with more adventures and a helluva lot more smarts than you'll find in most American movies...All in all, there's more plain fun to be had here in 10 minutes than in a whole hour on the road with that jerk Indiana Jones.

This is a startlingly entertaining, erotically charged movie that hits its many targets with a kind of ferocious and crazed accuracy that’ll knock the wind, among other things, right out of you.

Director Michael Sarnoski’s feature debut is more like a Nicolas Cage supercut: alternately ridiculous, bare-bones, heartfelt, puzzling and what-in-god’s-name-y. And more often than not, it works.

Because the director weaves in enough scenes to show how deeply this family cares for one another, it never feels voyeuristic in its sadness but true to reality. This isn’t about emotional manipulation or poverty porn, it’s about showing a family as a whole.

Marley the film wonderfully explains its subject's music. As for Macdonald's message, I'm just not sure.

It's also mysterious in fresh ways. Like Hillary, Yates and Simpson climbed the mountain because it was there -- but what strange deity sent down a Boney M song to help Joe Simpson get home?

Not an extraordinary portrait, but it does portray an extraordinary man.

Le Havre, offers the director's usual humour, pitch-perfect acting and compassionate message, with a Gallic twist that should win new converts.

There is a joy watching interesting people change for the better while in a carefully crafted environment . . . and Payne knows just how to balance the sour and sweet.

A movie perfectly engineered for home viewing. Particularly with the best set of headphones that you own.

Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra’s reimagining of the lives of lost peoples is compelling, but, despite many languorous images of river and jungle, this remains a bookish examination of the themes.

It is messy, it is incendiary, and it is frustrating. It may not be what you wanted or were promised by the slick and smooth marketing materials provided by Netflix, the streaming giant that is partnering with Lee here for the first time. But Da 5 Bloods is what you need.

The drama is an endlessly inventive and devastating work, a lyrical ode to a city that has turned its back on its most devoted citizens.

In recounting this conflicted tale, director Rachid Bouchareb displays some valour of his own, resisting what must have been a strong temptation to deal in aggrieved agitprop, and instead, quietly but powerfully, confining his attentions to a small group of indigenous soldiers.

My Summer of Love may sound like the title of a hot teen flick, but it is a truly refreshing grown-up big-screen film, a rare gem in this summer of duds.

Anderson once again creates a uniquely whimsical visual environment; this time, it’s inspired by the classic Samurai movies of Akira Kurosawa and the stop-motion Christmas specials of Anderson’s childhood.

Offers you the ostensible bargain of two movies in one -- a character study at the outset and the crime caper that follows. The first picture is intriguing, the second stinks.

Oh, it's The Return, all right. To any masochist who's been pining for all those clichéd tropes associated with Russian cinema -- ponderous pacing and arcane symbolism shot through a lens darkly -- this will seem a welcome blast from the past.

It's a very sad film to watch.

These are simply incredible performances, captured stunningly on film.

Stewart does an intriguing job creating a paradoxical character who explains herself without giving of herself, her very persona exposing the false promise of personal exposition.

A rare example of a truly independent film, Thai or otherwise, the fascinatingly aesthetic Blissfully Yours.... has a simple narrative and an adoration of nature that lists the film toward the experimental. [10 Sept 2002, p.R4]

The doc drags a bit by the end, but the film's message is sent: "Man's wish to be first induces forms of insanity."

Sensitive and intimate might be the obvious adjectives for such a film, but Bourges is also intent on making Concrete Valley quite funny in parts, the humane humour balancing the ever-present anxiety that exists in many of Thorncliffe Park’s hallways and crowded elevators.

The film's greatest achievement is that it allows us to know Ray.

Estimates of the movie's costs range between $35-and $70-million; whatever the price, it was not too much to pay. As gods go, Superman is one of the godliest; his movie is one of the best.

Throughout, Sachs is quietly observational – the film’s emotional power coming from its rich but unshowy performances.

The detached tone of Tess - contemplative and fatalistic, resigned and melancholy - may be non-romantic and in the end not entirely true to Hardy, but it is full of love and compassion for those who seek both in a world where there is so little of either. [14 Feb 1981]

Every scene is perfectly framed, every symbol lovingly shot, but the story and the characters remain opaque.

Up and down, Late Marriage is definitely rocky, but there's never a point where we lose interest and want out -- as relationships go, that's not bad.

The surprise lies in Linklater's ability to breathe so much fresh life into a tired formula...This is a picture that recollects not merely a period in time but a state of mind.

Decker evolved her project with her actors over five months, and it’s both pro and con that, boy howdy, it sure feels improvised.

Captain Phillips manages to expose us to a few things that are unusual in a thriller, including sympathy for the enemy and, in Hanks’s performance, the frailty that is the other side of heroism.

Cleverly structured and popping with realistic dialogue, The Climb is a bromance comedy of uncommonly high aspirations.

Farhadi wrings two magnificently raw performances from both actors, providing A Hero with its one and only honest truth.

The brutal, bloody and bare-chested revenge thriller is essentially one big, long war cry – a guttural, primal grunt of a movie that is all raging testosterone and incendiary machismo. And I loved nearly every minute of it.

The Killer goes on too long and never properly stitches together into the plot its strands of suspense and romance, but it never lacks for ballistic racket. A few scenes in recent movies have seen the firepower under which that whitewashed church disintegrates at movie's end; a few, but not many. [12 July 1991]

Is Neruda a cinematic play, a poem, a biopic? In this near-perfect homage to a literary giant, it’s all open to interpretation.

While the story, shorn of its supernatural elements, is mired in abuse and tragedy, its effect is sensual and superficial.

If the word masterpiece has any use these days, it must apply to the film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, a mature, philosophically resonant work from Turkey's leading director, 53-year-old Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Climates, Distance, Three Monkeys).

Spare, steely, sexually explicit in a way that transcends mere provocation, Stranger by the Lake is vital cinema.

A rollicking good story set a millennium ago among Australian aborigines, Ten Canoes is one of those cultural-building exercises that genuinely entertains.

A little gem of social realism that makes up in polish what it lacks in consistency.

Two parts pain, one part pleasure, a masochist's life with cystic fibrosis results in a weirdly tender documentary. [14 Nov 1997, p.D4]

Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies) once again proves he can craft a gripping tale that never collapses under its own moral weight. Sicario is not an easy film to watch, but it is a riveting and essential one.

Part siege movie, part rural drama, part gore-soaked freak-out, Bacurau is the one instance where it’s the destination, not the journey, that matters.

Extracting big drama out of small events is Mike Leigh's forte, and with his latest little masterpiece, Another Year, the English director pushes himself to the extreme.

The new film is the rare sequel that truly merits its existence, updating and expanding the themes of the 1982 original to bring them from the 20th century into the 21st. Yes, Blade Runner 2049 is one hard-working and deep-thinking replicant.

The mentors and the mothers are just as important as the dance routines. Step is a story about relationships. And how even the most challenging family ties shape us into the people we are destined to become.

The reality measures up to the rep.

Altman shakes the camera like a two-bit horror director, and it seems a different sort of signature - less masterful than weary, less signed than resigned. Zero-sum, indeed.