Reviews

These films have always been about the power of words, their ability to bridge gulfs of time and space, the thrill of ideas and opinions taking definitive shape.

Justin Lin strives to approximate something like Ocean's Eleven for petrosexuals, but testosterone outweighs wit and cleverness at every turn in Chris Morgan's starched script.

We Steal Secrets lacks perspective and still feels wrapped in secrets and lies.

Rama Burshtein's film unfolds in unhurried dramatic terms that come to take on an almost fatalistic force.

The film is an ultra-violent parody of unearned self-entitlement, of people who feel tricked into a lifestyle they refuse to challenge for the comforts it still offers.

Its looseness adequately portrays Plimpton as an inwardly conflicted figure, but it fails to make much of a case for his legacy outside of The Paris Review's still-noticeable brand.

Writer-director Nika Agiashvili buys into the concept of the American dream with the zeal of a true believer.

The mockumentary setup indicates that this is all meant to be taken as an exercise in Hollywood-insider rib-nudging, but the proceedings rarely rise to the occasion.

Doin' It in the Park is perhaps the first important film about street hoops, even if the overall product struggles from a lack of focus.

The film is densely plotted, occasionally bordering on the convoluted, but the clarity and inventiveness of the direction keeps the drama and the action constantly percolating.

Noah Baumbach's film feels like too perfect a portrait of quarter-life malady, down to the rushed redemptive endnotes and Greta Gerwig's idealized heroine.

Kim Ki-duk's film makes an exaggerated, undeserved show of its cruelty, indignity, and aspirations of importance.

Layered conflicts mount as this lean film treks on, and they're not limited to gender politics.

Jerry Schatzberg's film embraces sprawl of both the narrative and geographical variety with freewheeling abandon.

The second recent release that aims to channel great, time-honored storytelling without being able to tell a great story.

Minimalist in its aesthetics and soundtrack, quiet and deliberate in its plot, but nonetheless familiar—endearing and a vital addition to the small but growing Tibetan cinema.

Alice Winocour's take on this true story carries the superficial trappings of a period drama, but its perspective is entirely contemporary.

It works as a reminder of the important interactiveness of the performing arts, of actors evoking the drama, action, and emotion that computers and machines cannot.

Pauline Chan infuriatingly glorifies Mei Mei's life-endangering stupidity as a testament to nobility.

It too often feels like just one more aesthetically uninspired documentary that gives way in the end to a special round of pleading for its specific cause.