The first major motion picture to come out of Congo in decades happens to be one of the best neonoirs from anywhere in recent memory.

Alice Rohrwacher's debut fictional feature is an uncommonly insightful portrait of nascent womanhood, assisted in no small measure by Vianello's disarmingly naturalistic performance.

A '60s-radical alternative to the 'flying glass' action pic prevalent in Hollywood, the film is sustained by a personable ensemble who generously trade off each other rather than grandstand.

The closer this parable inches toward tragedy, the more you can feel the gap between good intentions and generic exotica-grandstanding widening into an unbridgeable chasm.

The script seems to lose interest in its latter stages and Witcher never evinces a depth of insight such that you sit up and take notice.

The real drama in Parnassus comes from the troupe of sideshow performers, led by a terrifically morbid Christopher Plummer.

The usually distinctive filmmaker – Black Swan, The Wrestler, Mother! – is in unflashy form for this solid, starry but not very memorable thriller about one man’s very bad night.

Unfortunately, he's retained his previous work's touristy mondo italiano! vibe, all whimsical tunes and postcard scenery, while piling on enough ogling shots of nubile young women to make Hugh Hefner feel uncomfortable.

The tangential artist interviews and constant lionizing of the star couple meander, but given how museums between the coasts rely on collectors for life support, 50x50 still acts as a provocative call to arms: Those who love art must support it.

If you’re on the hunt for a diverting slice of prestige espionage hokum that comes with a side helping of real history, Operation Mincemeat is a satisfying night at the pictures.

There's lots of volume in these tunes--the soundtrack is killer--and at least everyone gets their rocks off.

There's only one thing worse than a leaden moral fable that tackles issues of forgiveness with sledgehammer contrivances, and that's one that attempts to mask its manipulative corniness with an air of trumped-up gravity.

Reisz's direction is panoramic, with aspirations towards the epic, when it should have been closer in and faster. The result is a highly melodramatic and romantic film, for all the veneer of disillusion, whose weighty statement too often swamps the potentially strong suspense.

An engaging, sharply scripted comedy (Elliott Baker, from his own novel), with Connery oddly but not inaptly cast as a poet driven berserk by the frustrations of wage-earning in New York.

As so often with this director's work, the film is craftsmanlike rather than brilliant, but the performances, Robert Surtees' lush camerawork, and Mulligan's solid psychological insights make for thoughtful, sometimes even chilling, entertainment.

How Göran and his new charge bond (party boy Sven quickly splits) is the stuff of time-tested trite melodrama.

With elegant fin de siècle sets superbly shot by Harry Stradling, and the ironic Wildean wit understated rather than overplayed, it's that rare thing: a Hollywoodian literary adaptation that both stays faithful and does justice to its source.

The filmmaker’s second feature is an unfortunate sophomore slump, an abrasive and opaque artist-in-crisis story that feels protracted at barely 80 minutes.

Simon Curtis's watchably third-rate biopic doesn't try to sort out truth from fabrication; that would be like "teaching Urdu to a badger," as the short-tempered Olivier - played by a whole-hog-slicing Branagh - might say. Better to print the legend and be done with it.

Perhaps too deliberately charming for its own good, but this adaptation of a Paul Gallico novel about a 16-year-old waif who falls unhappily in love with a carnival magician (Aumont), thus adding to the bitterness of the crippled puppeteer (Ferrer) who loves her from afar, is actually rather delightful, thanks to Caron's touching performance and Walters' delicately stylish direction.

There’s a heart here, but with all the superficial noise, it’s hard to hear it beating.

Jolie must eventually become a comic-book supergirl impervious to explosions and bullets, all the better to set up a "Bourne"-like franchise by the final fade-out.

People who like their comedies pitch black (we're talking midnight, no stars or moon) should get a kick out of the tale of Steven Russell (Carrey).

You’ll learn that karaoke is an effective rehab tool; that their dad, Richard, the film’s real hero, molded his daughters into fierce competitors; and that Venus and Serena actually do love each other. Anyone looking for deeper insights than that or into what really makes this twosome tick will find themselves at a real disadvantage.

The "bumpkins are people too" message will certainly please the Appalachian Anti-Defamation League; midnight-movie fans, however, will recognize that this mess misses the mark by a country mile.

By the time Nick decides to have an emotionally purgative yard sale-the primary holdover from the short story-all the adult ambiguities have been traded in for facile Indiewood profundities.

The movie might very well have come off as a too-clinical experiment if it weren't for Leo, who maintains a rivetingly mysterious aura even as her character's behavior becomes increasingly bizarre.

Saving Mr. Banks turns Travers’s tense collaboration with Walt and his team of Imagineers into — naturally — a schmaltzy journey of closure, climaxing in a teary screening of the finished musical.