The film raises more troubling questions than it answers, but it's fascinating throughout nonetheless.

There is a fair number of gags and wisecracks that will go over the head of many viewers not steeped in the local lore, argot and history. But the film’s infectious energy, use of in-camera effects, animation and all manner of jiggery pokery is as mesmerizing and giddy as it was when Danny Boyle used many of the same tricks for Trainspotting.

A time capsule capturing the flavor of early-'70s bohemian life in Oklahoma and Texas.

Intriguing characters and elements of crime fiction prevent the film from being a dour slog, but there’s not much hope to be found here, especially for victims who, due to payoffs and court-ordered silence, can never share their trauma with an outraged public.

This is a pretty minor film from the filmmaker. It feels like more of an exercise in plotting and movie nostalgia than a story about real people.

For a three-part piece, it gains a gorgeous fluidity from the gossamer ribbon of melancholy threaded through it. Like Paterson, it’s a film whose simplicity, sweetness and unvarnished ordinariness make it seem almost a miracle.

A riveting first feature of startling maturity and intelligence.

There's never a false note in the performances of Callum Turner and Grace Van Patten, who make ideal accomplices for the talented writer-director.

The elegiac Spettacolo is in some ways a familiar story, revolving around the universal tug of war between time and tradition.

Observing how six service dogs provide crucial daily help and companionship for their grateful owners, the ruminative, accessible affair proves as soothing to the viewer as the faithful pets are to their humans.

At a time when the fate of Black men and their bodies has risen to the level of a national emergency, what happens to the characters in Two Gods takes on added weight.

The picture is one part vintage Woody Allen, a few parts Screwball-era comedy of remarriage, and a vigorous shake of Gerwig herself, without whose particular spirit — "so pure," as an admirer puts it here, and "a little stupid" — this scenario might have trouble getting off the ground.

Filipiñana could have benefited from a little more story and a little less contemplation. But some of its images remain embedded in the memory.

With a keen affection for his own formative years, filmmaker Greg Mottola has crafted a funny and spunky amusement

The result is an insightful, exuberant, probing, long-winded and even exhausting look at what it takes for a performer to have a life in the theater.

Striking an elegantly sustained balance between intimacy and historical scope, director James Kent's WWI-set epic Testament of Youth encompasses nearly all of the virtues of classical British period drama and nearly none of the vices.

The film constantly toys with the expectations of both its characters and the audience, transforming a classic three-way tale of mistaken identities into something much more mysterious and troubling.

Though it may not have much of an audience beyond the band's fan base, it offers enough context to serve as a primer on the hugely influential Native Tongues clique and should have life on home-vid.

Presenting an evocative portrait of a now-bygone era in the city's past, The Last Resort delivers plenty of nostalgia as is spotlights the work of two photographers who captured the period with vivid immediacy.

As a teaching and consciousness-raising tool, it will be an indispensable resource.

Lady Macbeth mostly operates within established period conventions, but draws fresh blood from antique material thanks to a sparky cast, subtle nods to contemporary race and gender issues, and a hefty shot of gothic melodrama.

This is the mother lode all action/suspense directors search for and Lee, who usually doesn't work in that genre, has hit it.

A provocative portrait of an artist who seemed hell-bent on destroying his own legacy.

It's a pleasure to surrender to the movie's lush visuals, which are accompanied by wonderful jazz classics performed by Valdes, Estrella Morente, and Freddy Cole (Nat King Cole's brother), among many others.

This is a beautifully crafted work and an acute evocation of its period both in look and attitude, and it’s no less deeply absorbing for being somewhat muted in tone.

Fueling the drama is the quiet ferocity of Zar Amir Ebrahimi’s performance and her tender chemistry with Selina Zahednia as 6-year-old Mona.

Odd, then, that [Brewer and Murphy's] Dolemite Is My Name is such a conventional-feeling biopic, one with its share of laughs and surprising anecdotes but little of the enduring strangeness that kept the 1975 Dolemite rattling around in our cultural memory

Overall, the writers have crafted a well-articulated universe with distinct settings and relatable, compelling characters devoted to a thrilling quest for redemption.