With great clarity, the film conveys how discipline can be directed both inward and outward.
The film is imbued with an airless blend of buoyant comedy and soap-operatic backstage drama that recalls Shakespeare in Love.
It falls back on convenience and contrivance to streamline the thornier specificities of its grand-scale narrative.
It fails to supply an emotional punch to match the grandeur of its Lawrence of Arabia-inspired compositions.
The Cut lives up to its title, creating two sets of strong, sometimes dueling reactions.
The courtroom’s cramped, near-featureless air of bureaucratic stagnation becomes oppressive even for the audience.
Robert Guédiguian’s French resistance drama evinces some interest in assessing the ethical compromises required of those opposing Nazi rule.
At least Melville was smart enough to focus on showing the “army of shadows” sweat while they waited for the other shoe to drop.
In The Wedding Song, director Karin Albou shrewdly links national politics with its domestic sexual counterpart.
Writer-director Sally Potter seems curiously entertained by the most pedestrian performances.
At once snotty and quirky, the winning Persepolis is what french fries are to the Republicans in congress.
The film histrionically explores how government policy and our involvement in the Middle East affects people in America on a personal level.
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s animation is clean, unfussy, and marked by fluid lines.
Finally, a Bond adventure one can enjoy without apology.
Casino Royale is one of the good ones, and not just for the way it wittily recontextualizes several series touchstones.
An intellectual, a feminist, and a socialist, writer-director Sally Potter places her films within the realm of the conceptual.