While there are numerous dynamite performance clips, Berg's film is generally more revealing on a personal level than as an appreciation of her music.

It is nonetheless imaginative in a highly familiar and ultimately tedious way.

Mohawk director Tracey Deer, who lived through the violent 78-day conflict as a 12-year-old, has made a film that's eye-opening. Beyond her firsthand understanding of indigenous people's struggles, she's keenly attuned to girlhood growing pains — well captured in the expressive and engaging performance by Kiawentiio, leading a strong cast.

Strawberry Mansion is a movie about the preservation of imagination. There is definitely an undercurrent of anti-corporate messaging that is always relevant in this modern media landscape. But these themes are not presented with a heavy hand. The point that the film is trying to make can be taken as lightly or as seriously as one likes. What Audley and Birney seem to want most is for audiences to allow themselves to be overtaken by their deliberately childlike approach to storytelling.

The result makes you realize how few realistic and three-dimensional date movies have been made in an era of throbbing hook-up encounters and R-rated horny teen gross-outs.

Word-of-mouth should make it one of the best-performing nonfiction films of the year.

The jokes keep coming, but without a meaningful foundation — fleshing out the motivations of the group’s members would have helped — they start to wear thin.

Vallee’s latest offering is alternately harrowing and heartbreaking, but laced with saving bursts of humor.

Whether you call it a relaunch, comeback, return or rebirth, it’s captured in a fittingly down-to-earth, memory-infused documentary that’s a gift to fans — moving, thoroughly engaging, and a chance to see a remarkable sexagenarian at a turning point, doing what she does best.

Not surprisingly, it's a love letter, far more polished and smoothed-out than the genre-defying trio might have deserved in their anarchic heyday, but as warm and reflective as you might expect from the middle-aged men they are now.

It's not wholly satisfying as a dramatic work, which is probably a sign of its honest identification with its two troubled protagonists.

Foulkrod's film is not about taking a political side, though it is clear she is strongly opposed to the war in Iraq. Her focus instead is on the dehumanizing of eager young men and their transformation into killing machines.

Stalwart Iranian actor Ali Nasirian plays Nemat with a thoughtful hubris, uniting the various plot strands by force of character.

Raya and the Last Dragon occasionally crawls, but most of the time it’s got urgency and momentum to spare. Just as impressively, it builds to a deeply moving climax whose resolution is unexpected yet consummate. This is a film that knows how to soar.

Maybe Humpday needed more characters and a less claustrophobic atmosphere. Maybe the film needed to be bolder and break a few boundaries itself. Maybe it could have better explained why these two men still need to be friends. Whatever the case, it certainly needed a better payoff.

A Crooked Somebody is smarter than the usual thriller.

A Faulknerian look at domestic violence, self-destructiveness and faith set in a small Louisiana town, its cinematic style owes something to Terrence Malick — though this spare, 77-minute debut has none of the meandering self-indulgence of that auteur's recent work.

The film is a meditation on its themes, and as such is probably too amorphous for its own good. But Vanquishing nonetheless represents a typically audacious effort from an intriguing filmmaker whose work bears future attention.

It’s not groundbreaking stuff, but Marcello has a talent for making such material come alive through his inventive direction, whisking us away to a time and place that we experience as if we were actually there. It’s not enough to make Scarlet a great movie, but it’s one that manages to puts us in its shoes the way few films nowadays do.

Optimism is indeed at the heart of The Burial, a film that genuinely believes in the ability of the legal system to fight injustice.

Jacobs‘ magnetic performance alerts us to every tiny miscalculation or epiphany along the way.

The film falls into an interesting intersection between documentary and feature, between reality and fiction.

An appreciation for grief’s minor moments coupled with a striking visual language elevate this slender drama. Runarsson is attuned to the details of loss and recognizes the narrative power of these instances. He lingers where others might cut, hordes what, at first, seems disposable and homes in on the familiar long enough to render it uncanny.

It's an engaging, amusing and occasionally jaw-dropping portrait of a world that could hardly be more foreign to most documentary fans. But it's just those fans who are likely to wish it peeled back a few more layers.

Filmmaker-star Maiwenn's socially-minded film is packed with raw, visceral performances from an accomplished cast.

There is more of Fuller’s memoir that might be a source for other adaptations. It is hard to imagine any would be more beautifully realized than this.

The result is a film both poetic and profound.

A thoroughly engaging film about an inimitable New York painter.

Delicious slapstick, droll wit and terrific characters make Aardman's first venture in CG cartooning a great success.

The real star of the show is Dunham, whose sharp dialogue and direction equips every actor with an acidic tongue and knowing gaze.

Director Yonebayashi Hiromasa (When Marnie Was There) returns with a more lighthearted anime feature in Mary and the Witch’s Flower, a stirring adventure most suitable for tweens and teens.

Highlighted by an all-consuming lead performance from Lindon – surrounded here by an excellent cast of non-pros – this third collaboration strays further into Dardennes Bros. territory than previous efforts, although its depiction of an Average Joe scraping by in contemporary France features its own unique voice.

While the pictures have a stark power undiminished by the passage of time, it's the photographer's eloquent commentary that provides the film with its most moving moments

Even though one could argue that Bruni Tedeschi was typecast here, she takes the role and runs with it, beautifully grading the different nuances of her headstrong character, whose outward exuberance clearly hides a lot of hurt and a fear of loneliness.

My Old Ass is a slender film, but it’s so nicely judged and so infused with a generosity of spirit toward all its characters, across the generations, that its sentimentality acquires substance.

Graizer too often seems afraid to potentially offend anyone (but especially straight audiences along for the ride) and too polite to explore the darker recesses of grief, desire and sexuality.

Although far from comprehensive, the entertaining cinematic biography should well please the singer's longtime fans, particularly those who have followed him through his career spanning six decades, and possibly make him some new ones.

Jackass Forever is being released only in theaters, providing the opportunity for its fans who find constant hilarity in its sophomoric antics to share their pleasure with like-minded brethren. The rest of us can only shake our heads and wonder about the future of civilization.

The lovely, unpredictable comedy Duck Season marks the arrival of a fresh talent in writer-director Fernando Eimbcke. His script is vibrant with unforced humanist observations, the performances are natural and endearing.

In a summer of remakes, reboots and sequels comes Inception, easily the most original movie idea in ages.

An appealingly low-rent, if not earth-shattering, 26th century "Star Wars" with faint glimmers of "Blade Runner," "Buckaroo Banzai" and "The Manchurian Candidate" for good measure.

It could almost be described as a slyly playful, minimalist take on M. Night Shyamalan territory, though that risks making it seem more commercial than it is.

Basically the film consists of a bunch of techies in white shirts and glasses laboriously discussing their views, exchanges you get the feeling the filmmaker thought would come off as humorous.

For all its possible precedents, it’s still relatively uncommon to see a film in which actual sex acts are an integral part of the storytelling. Placed right up front like a kind of litmus test for the audience, the sex scenes here are explicit but also unambiguously non-salacious or intended to arouse.

Kitty Green creates something powerful, provocative and dazzlingly original with her second feature.

An imaginative and original picture turns conventional as it ends.

Puts a human face on the failings of the American judicial system and the growing importance of DNA in legal proceedings.

As a document of the American political process, Caucus offers an intriguing if limited snapshot of a specific campaign season, but lacks either breadth or depth.

Hogg achieves remarkable results with the most minimal of means. Camerawork and editing are consistently on the money, while performances and dialogue feel utterly fresh, spontaneous and believable.

Neither the screenplay nor the agile direction insists on neat resolutions for any of the characters, and there's a double-edged charge as the foursome make collective and individual progress, slide back and try again: the women recognizing each other in ways they otherwise never would have imagined, the half-sisters slowly becoming friends.

While the film is too convoluted to stir boxoffice excitement, it offers some rewards for sophisticated moviegoers

This Spanish supernatural thriller begins interestingly and finishes intriguingly. But what lies between drags because the film lacks a driving story line.

Guadagnino has made a kind of emo horror movie. He’s far less interested in the shock factor than the poignant isolation of his young principal characters and the life raft they come to represent to one another as they slowly let down their guard.

The Bleeding Edge is a terrifying eye-opener.

Despite its flaws, Motel Destino has mood, rawness and atmosphere to burn, fueled by Amine Bouhafa’s score, which becomes steadily more disquieting as it ratchets up the urgency.

The storytelling lacks the clean lines to make it consistently propulsive. Paradoxically, given its lofty position in the sci-fi canon, much of the narrative’s novelty has also been diluted, rendered stale by decades of imitation.

Sinuous sequences where one object morphs into another are his stock and trade, and that strength is on ample display in Cheatin’.

It's a welcome human-scale outing for a director who stumbled upon leaping from 2000's breakout debut Girlfight to the would-be tentpole dud Aeon Flux.

The 31-year-old Chemla (Camille Rewinds) is a revelation in the title role and utterly mesmerizing and credible whether she’s playing Jeanne at 20 or at 47.

Adams displays terrific range and an incandescent screen presence as she effortlessly incarnates Shante over a 10-year period, from puberty to young motherhood.

The first half of the film is a by-the-numbers rock docu. But at the halfway mark, the personalities and psychoses of the performers become as interesting as the history, and the documentary morphs into an involving human drama.

A classy and clever French thriller. Jean-Pierre Darroussin's performance as a browbeaten husband is entertaining, and Kahn's script brings wit and imagination to a straightforward story.

Doillon never lets his characters slide into cliche. They act and react from a wealth of contradictory impulses and long-standing prejudices in this masterful tale of frustrated desire.

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal tackle a tricky balancing act in their new feature, celebrating the intoxicating lilt of the bossa nova and also investigating the devastating brutality of state terrorism. It’s a testament to their talent as filmmakers that, for the most part, they manage to pull it off.

Initially somewhat wispy-feeling, this 72-minute feature transforms in its final reel from an ironic divertissement to a work of considerable feeling and intensity.

A drab, minor-key melodrama.

Bunuel is above all a good story elegantly told.

The unapologetic sentimentality doesn’t make this bittersweet comedy-drama any less touching or insightful in its observation of spiky family interactions when end-of-life issues and questions of inheritance cause sparks.

Dull film about pedophilia that fails to shed any light on the topic.

Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl excel as, respectively, British wild man and hedonist James Hunt and Austrian by-the-books tactician Niki Lauda.

Intelligent, universal tale.

An intimate reflection on the bullying epidemic that makes its points quietly and succinctly.

The cast is uniformly impressive in their naturalism, but Lewis, Diemir and Lemire — who have the luxury of actually looking like teenagers — are especially so for their young age.

About two-thirds of the film is good, tough, unromantic period western. About one-third is sentimental nonsense and it bushwhacks the remainder.

Sergei Bodrov's Mongol relates the story of Genghis Khan's early years in a plodding, uninspired fashion that doesn't bode well for the next two entries in a planned trilogy.

Little kids will enjoy it all, while parents, when not checking their cell phones, will be thankful for the thoughtfully brief running time.

An unvarnished family snapshot that traces the seeds from which the artist evolved and the tough lessons about life’s unfairness that helped shape his character, this is a refreshingly understated drama whose gentleness makes it all the more bittersweet.

A mesmerizing, richly nuanced inquiry into Israel's revenge of the Munich massacre of its athletes.

It’s a quiet drama, full of unspoken hurt and free of histrionics, but it’s as raw and painful as a fresh wound.

It’s a good story and Bahrani has made a good film, albeit one with a tremendous closing twist that I felt pointed to what could instead have been a great film.

While the more enigmatic supernatural elements at times veer close to formulaic Hollywood horror tropes, the movie maintains a compelling seriousness, particularly in its consideration of the conflict between sexuality and repression.

This tale of domestic abuse breaks little new stylistic or psychological ground, but it is a searing, well-acted drama that should strike universal chords.

It is an engaging literary coming-of-age story, and one embodied ably by its star.

Flirting with sitcommy high jinks, Clark instead gives us a bittersweet cocktail of soul-weary defeat and unassuming vigor.

Featuring sharp performances from Marina Fois (Polisse) and promising newcomer Matthieu Lucci, the film shows Cantet returning to form...with a story that pursues the themes of his best work while underscoring some of the issues currently facing his homeland.

Adopting a decidedly younger spin toward its teenage heroes, the hugely entertaining and funny film seems destined to reinvigorate the franchise and attract plenty of nostalgic adults as well as young fans.

By avoiding sentimentality, Millions emerges as a simple tale told with sympathy for a child's point of view.

Beautifully acted by Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams and Alessandro Nivola as the three points of a melancholy romantic triangle, this is a deeply felt drama that exerts a powerful grip.

It manages to put a friendly, mostly female face to all the technical exploits and celestial theorizing, underlining how much the desire to uncover the secrets of the known universe is something that's all-too human.

Consistently engrossing as well as informative, the film delivers a richly humanistic portrait of a complex, indefatigable figure who introduced multiple awestruck generations to the wonders beneath the sea.

A compelling gateway documentary that should absorb both fans and novices alike.

Despite Woman of the Hour’s sometimes shaky execution, its story is undeniably powerful.

A warm if not quite comprehensive-feeling biography of a performer who, even for a celebrity, elicited an unusually strong personal affection from fans, Lisa D'Apolito's Love, Gilda tells the far too short story of Gilda Radner.

The fine, spirited work of Taraji P. Henson, Spencer and Janelle Monae as irresistible rooting interests, as well as Kevin Costner’s winningly lived-in turn as the head of Langley’s Space Task Group, deepen a film that’s propelled by sitcommy beats and expository dialogue.

It's a film awash in scrupulously researched vintage production design, costumes and above all music, all rendered in a Technicolor palette that will send grandparents and fans of Golden Age cinema swooning with nostalgia.

Ibarra and Rivera maintain an effortless balance between genre-rooted entertainment and concern for real human suffering caused by governmental policies. They get viewers wrapped up enough in the narrative that it takes a while to appreciate the courage required to set it in motion.

Ryan White crafts a piercingly observant investigative documentary that methodically pieces together a complex collage of incriminating evidence outlining a carefully orchestrated attempt to conceal the sinister implications behind Kim’s assassination.

A film that doesn't shy from the well-known darkness in the star's life but prefers to remind us how funny he could be.