Jonathan Gold is a famed restaurant reviewer who has made career out of exploring the vast number of ethnic restaurants which cover Los Angeles like a crazy quilt. You might not have read him, you might not even be interested in the obscure pod mall restaurant culture of L.A.; but this man won the very first Pulitzer Prize for food journalism, and his influence on American restaurant culture has spread far and wide. I've lived in L.A. for over 70 years, and believe me this man has impacted my life and that of many others with his emphasis on the inexpensive, spicy hot cuisines of my city.

This documentary features Gold doing his eating thing, raising a family, struggling with writer's block. It places him in the context of the vast city he has studied and written about while following him as he drives his gas guzzling pick-up truck around L.A. on his tours of the local dining scene. During his travels he visits several restaurants, usually obscure Asian or Latino places, among which are several of the food trucks that are so important in today's L.A. The way the camera photographs the food is spectacular...don't watch this film hungry. But we also get real insight into Jonathan Gold the man, whose early life was devoted to the cello before he became a punk rock musician in the 1980s, and then almost by accident found his calling as a reviewer for the L.A. Weekly underground newspaper (and later the L.A. Times). But for all his years of fame, I had never really had a clear picture of the man, who turns out to be a hulking hippie type with a nimble mind and entertaining patter.

The film itself is sprawling and randomly edited; but it does provide a native's positive overview of Los Angeles that is an interesting contrast to the "fire this time" view of L.A. that was the subtext of the recent O.J. Simpson documentary. For a simple foodie and biographical documentary, the film bites off a little more than it can chew...but does it entertainingly.

This documentary recounts the 2011 Afghanistan tour of duty of some members of the Oklahoma National Guard. It was mostly shot with helmet cameras during some particularly hairy skirmishes during that war, which lent an immediacy to the fighting scenes...but also presented a shaky camera that was disorienting and even nausea inducing. The battle scenes were intercut with two moving military funerals and some present day round table reminiscences by surviving guardsmen. At the end, the film presented titles showing all 900 plus fatal guardsmen casualties from all states and territories. The film had a powerful message; but as a film its scattered editorial scheme and its emphatic patriotism detracted from my appreciation. If anything, I kept asking myself why, and for what purpose were these brave men on that field of battle...and the film didn't even attempt to answer that question.

[I'm reposting this review from a festival screening in 2004 for reasons explained at the end of this review.]

This mindblowing film is based on stories by J.T. LeRoy, apparently based on his life, that I was totally unaware of. Jeremiah is a 7 year old boy (a truly fabulous performance by Jimmy Bennet) who is taken from his middle class foster parents by his totally unfit mother and thrust into a wandering life of drugs, molestation by her "boyfriends", occasional respites with his religiously fanatic grandparents, and other degrading experiences. The film covers Jeremiah's life from 7 through about 12, and is one of the most unsparing looks at unabating child abuse I've ever experienced. The director, Asia Argento, plays the trashy mother like a junky Courtney Love. She is brilliant, no other word for it. I can imagine how this polarizing film could be hated; but I'm still haunted by the characterizations and imagery. J.T. LeRoy himself was in the audience, a shy waif clearly uncomfortable with his public acclaim. He didn't speak; but just his presence validated the truth of the film.

[In 2016 retrospect, the J.T. LeRoy who stood before us was a literary hoax. The actual author was a middle age lady named Laura Albert; and the young boy was actually Albert's husband's younger sister in disguise. This is the subject of the the fascinating recent documentary Author: The JT LeRoy Story, which I wholeheartedly recommend.]

In the 1990s, Jeremiah "Terminator" LeRoy wrote seminal novels about boyhood and sexual molestation. His first novel, "Sarah," purported to be about his prostitute mother. His second reputedly autobiographical novel, "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" was made into an intriguing film by Italian diva, Asia Argento in 2004. I even personally was drawn into the LeRoy sphere when I watched the film at the AFI Film Festival that year, with the "author" of the book (which I had never heard of at the time) present, a shy waif hiding behind sunglasses.

But by 2006, the pop media was full of the fact that young JT LeRoy had been exposed as a middle aged woman named Laura Albert. And the person whom I had witnessed myself as JT LeRoy turned out to be Albert's husband's younger sister. What might have been the simple case of an author disguising herself under a pseudonym, instead became a literary hoax for the ages.

This fascinating and complicated documentary tells the story of this hoax from the point of view of the real Laura Albert, recounting her life story through home movies, animation, and obsessively taped phone conversations with a gamut of people, some quite famous. All of these reminiscences are intercut with the present day Albert commenting on camera about the hows and whys of her literary rise and fall. It made for a gripping narrative, in sum even more revealing of the psychological makeup of Ms. Albert than she probably intended.

For several years, Gennadiy Mokhnenco has been the embattled pastor of the Pilgrim Republic, an Orthodox church devoted to saving street children in Mariupol, Ukraine. This often inspiring documentary follows the crusading pastor as he energetically pursues his quasi-political ministry, culminating with his battle against the potential Russian takeover of his city. But the meat of the documentary is Gennadiy's struggle to save the kids...from abusive, drunken parents, from drug dependency, and from the gamut of deprivations of a society in ruin. For all the importance of the message, the film itself is organized somewhat confusingly, centering the narrative around a cautionary speech Gennadiy is giving to a group of female prisoners while cutting away to specific stories of needy children presented non-chronologically. Still, the images and stories are powerful indictments of the Ukrainian status quo; and Gennadiy is an authentic hero.

In this wan dramedy, The Hollars were a dysfunctional, middle-American family who came together when the elderly matriarch, Sally (the always wonderful Margo Martindale) was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The story was told from the point of view of the younger son (played by director John Krasinski), returned from self-imposed exile in New York City where his marriage and career were on the rocks. The rest of the family were variously neurotic; but all were dependent on the possibly terminally ill Sally to keep them together. Director Krasinski showed a sympathy with his fellow actors, who made a fine ensemble. But the unoriginal, paint-by-numbers script failed to catch fire.

A 7 1/2 hour slog through the muck which was the life and times of racially divided Los Angeles in the last quarter of the 20th century. Oh, yes, it was also a documentary about a football player, a typically charming sociopath who for a while actually got away with murder.

It took me 3 days to get through the "film" version on DVD, pausing the recording when it became personally too hard to watch. Not that it was uninteresting...however, there was just only so much tolerance I could muster for watching the familiar story over again after having lived through those times. Some parts of the film were extremely well done. The sequence of the Ford Bronco chase was superbly edited. The final section (after the 2nd intermission...and covering O.J.'s life after the "trial of the century") had revealing material new to me. But 22 years after the verdict in the original trial, the emotional trauma for this white L.A. native still is too raw to process in one indigestible lump. Still, I give great credit to the film makers for bringing it all together so comprehensively.

Zero Days is this year's Citizenfour, a documentary that exposes the reality of 21st Century cyber-warfare and should scare the hell out of every viewer. The film starts with the revelation that a mysterious nation state had developed a secret, sophisticated worm virus called "Stuxnet."

Utilizing state-of-the-art graphics and interviews with disguised whistleblowers on and off camera (and one computer simulated "expert"), filmmaker Gibney relentlessly bored into the truth behind this virus...that it was invented by U.S. intelligence organs to infiltrate and destroy the Iranian nuclear program. And then carelessly released into the world by the Israelis who were partners in this endeavor.

But as the details became known through the efforts of the anti-virus companies, cyber-warfare among nations turned out to be a frightening reality. And Gibney's film goes there. Stuxnet opened a Pandora's box of dangers that were intended never to see the light of day. Our entire computerized infrastructure, banking, commerce, the electric grid etc. are vulnerable. The implications of this film are explosive. And our government has attempted to classify the entire affair out of public purview.

Gibson is one brave and perhaps foolhardy filmmaker. But thank god he had the cojones to make this documentary and expose this subject to the light of day. Cyber-warfare needs international treaties similar to those that curbed nuclear proliferation and biologic and chemical warfare. Secrecy is no longer a viable option.

Fritz Bauer was a German lawyer, a Jew who spent WWII in Sweden and later Denmark. Upon returning to West Germany after the war he became chief prosecutor for the state of Hesse. Bauer is played by the fine German actor Burghart Klaußner, with a gruff, convincingly stolid mien. This impressive German language procedural film tells the unpublicized at the time story of Bauer's obsession with bringing, among others, Adolf Eichmann to justice...in the face of opposition by entrenched post-war Germans fearful of disclosure of their Nazi pasts. Bauer was a real person, who in an episode a few years later in his life was instrumental in bringing ex-Nazis to justice (a story told in a previous German film Labyrinth of Lies.) This latter film told Bauer's story through the activities of a fictitious assistant prosecutor; and oddly enough, the present film also presents a fictitious assistant prosecutor whose illegal homosexual dalliance with a drag singer was presented as an ethical dilemma for the supposedly gay real-life Bauer. Despite this overly dramatized sub-plot, the actual mechanisms that Bauer used to involve the Israelis in Eichmann's capture makes for fine, suspenseful cinema.

The action scenes, especially the Ionian Sea battle (and to a lesser extent the culminating chariot race) were extremely well done. The sound design was especially effective, as were the 3D effects. That is obviously why a master craftsman like director Bekmambetov was chosen. However, every time the script delved into the lives of the characters and the saccharine religiosity of the original novel, the film failed to a spectacular degree. On balance, however, it definitely was worth watching on the big screen just to revel in the state-of-the art technical achievements.

Over 50 years ago, the stabbing death of Kitty Genovese on a Queens, NY street, became a cause célèbre. It started with a New York Times article about 38 onlookers to the murder who did nothing, an exemplar of contemporary urban anomie. The controversy and symbolism has lasted to this day.

Only, as this documentary showed with almost tedious repetition, the legend was fallacious. The film follows Genovese's younger brother Bill, Viet Nam war paraplegic survivor, as he attempts to uncover and understand what happened that March evening. Many of the people around at that time are dead; but Genovese does find and interview enough survivors to come to some conclusions, and the evening in question is replayed with actors and animation to some good effect. But lacking a big news smoking gun, the film ultimately falls flat.

The most elaborate, even amazing, use of stop-motion animation ever. The Portland, OR production house Laika utilized 3D printing and computer generated imagery in ways never before attempted to tell this Japanese mythology tinged fantasy epic about a young boy searching for his roots. Give credit to the voice actors, especially Matthew McConaughey and Charlize Theron for bringing their characters, a beetle and a monkey, to life. And nice casting Ralph Fiennes as the ultimate villain, hearkening the specter of Voldemort, which along with the main character's constant use of magic to advance the plot ties this story to the Potter series. However, for all that, the plot is the weakest part of the film, both confusing and predictable. But those visuals...!

This documentary examines the history of gay pornography, telling the story through interviews with four exemplars of men (straight, gay, bi) who work as porn stars. With an editing schema that can only be described as frenetic, the film covers many aspects of the profitable industry. The film goes to great length to eliminate the possible prurience of its theme, carefully fuzzing out any genitals in its examples of actual porn. With its choice of voluble and personable interviewees, it managed to sanitize to a great degree the sleaze factor of the profession. Anyone looking to get off on the porn factor will be disappointed. However, the film did hold my interest based on its honest examination of a profession that usually remains shrouded in unexamined mystique.

This documentary comprehensively takes on the NRA with statistics, interviews, superb graphics and incisive persuasiveness. The slick production values are impressive, the emotional power of its examples and interviews is more than effective. In a rational world this would be the coup de grace for the gun lobby, the film is that good. But the undercurrent throughout the film is that this is simply not a cause for rational debate since the powers that be have been systematically corrupted by the NRA. I guess the final message is that only by initiatives in various states will it be possible to get partial control over our firearms policies nationwide. As a moderate leftist and a Californian, I'll admit that the film is preaching to the choir in my case. Yet I guess I ended up feeling that no matter how effective and truthful the message is in a film with such a firmly stated and persuasive point of view, the dispiriting fact is that nothing is going to be achieved towards any kind of rational gun control in my lifetime. I ended up depressed. This documentary is simply too real for its own good.

This is an awesome and effective documentary that tells the stories of embattled abortion clinics and brave, committed practitioners, mostly in the Southern states of Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. It particularly focuses on a Texas law (HB2) that mandated restrictions designed to close clinics; and the legal struggle to overturn that law. The film ended with a spare, white on black title card reading that the Supreme Court was possibly going to decided on the appeal in June, 2016, which immediately led me to a Google search which brought me to tears (as a 75 year old gay male, no matter how pro-choice I am politically, I must admit to failure to keep up with every struggle.) It's a tribute to the quality of every aspect of this film (cinematography, editing, direction, writing) that I became so involved with the subject (abortion) which has only peripherally affected my life. I would gladly award this film 5-stars; but I can't help feeling that it simply ended too soon...that waiting for the actual SCOTUS decision might have made for a slightly better film. Still, bravo! to all involved, especially those caregivers featured in this film, people fighting in the front line trenches, even at risk to their lives, to protect women's rights to control their own bodies.

Semantha Montgomery was a lonely young lady living in New Orleans with a cell phone. Under the nom de tube of Princess Shaw, she posted frequent You Tube vlogs, including some which featured her singing songs she composed a capella. Meanwhile, a musician living on a kibbutz in Israel, Ophir Kutiel, under the stage name Kutiman, was doing montages of You Tube videos set to music. When Kutiman discovered Princess Shaw's songs on-line, without prior permission he set about to score them instrumentally and create and post the enhanced videos. This documentary covers this process from both sides, leaving the actual chronology somewhat vague. There's much to admire here: Montgomery's blues tinged songs are pretty wonderful, and Kutiel is a fine instrumentalist and video editor in his own right. The feel-good documentary really does feel good, even if it does come off as having manufactured events.

This is an example of a documentary which has an important message to convey, involving multiple examples of abuses of judicial process. However the film making, photography, editing, music, interview direction etc. is so poor that the message is almost lost in sheer tedium. The subject is the history of "shaken baby syndrome," a form of criminal child abuse; and how scientific evidence has debunked the science of the syndrome, how innocent people have served time in prison for crimes that they didn't commit, and how there is a profit motive for the rabid supporters of this false syndrome (particularly three quack-ish physician perpetrators of the false mythology.) Or at least that is what the film purports to do with testimony of other doctors who have devoted their lives to debunking the syndrome...thereby aiding parents and caregivers who have been falsely accused and often convicted and serving prison sentences for non-crimes (or granted hugely advantageous plea bargains to avoid trials.) All well and good. This is a major issue of vital import. Too bad the film is so poorly made that it makes the cause of perverted justice boring.

This inventive and entertaining documentary tells the stranger-than-fiction story of "Dr." John Romulus Brinkley, a clever medical quack from Kansas (and later Texas). Brinkley was a pioneer in using radio in the 1920s through the 1940s to sell his snake oil (starting with a cure for impotency involving transplanting goat gonads into humans.) Director Penny Lane utilizes various animation styles, copious old home movies, recordings from the time, and voice actors to recreate Brinkley's rise and fall. It's a tight, smart script about an amazing, little known piece of American history. It all occurred before my time; but I somehow connected to the story when it was disclosed that XTRF, and ubiquitous radio DJ of my youth, Wolfman Jack, were the remnants of Brinkley's radio empire from decades before.

This Korean documentary follows 15 months in the lives of an elderly couple who had been married at least 75 years. Initially it shows their playful, loving relationship in their rural homestead, then delves into their family (12 children, of which 6 survived). Finally it recounts the husband's gradual failing health. The film was shot verité style, with a silent, observing camera. Yet, this viewer never quite was able to shake the feeling that much of the activities were somehow stage managed by the participants. Still, there were moments of honest emotional involvement; and watching the everyday lives of these nonagenarians gave me (at age 75) a cautionary glance at what may be in store in my own future. Yet I had trouble engaging with this couple, accepting their authenticity, being moved by their plight. Your mileage may vary.

Florence Foster Jenkins was a doyenne of New York society, who famously self-promoted herself as a coloratura singer, despite a singular lack of talent. That is the basis of this tragi-comic period piece, which gets its 1944 era with perfection and contains a trio of superb performances by Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant and especially Simon Helberg (who shines in the role of Jenkins's pianist accompanist with his authentic, live musicianship.) It is a diverting entertainment, watching Streep massacre the music and tug the heartstrings. Kudos to the production design team and the wonderful costumes. All credit to director Frears, who gave the project just the right, light touch of sophistication and frenzy.

This involving biopic tells of the early life and career of famed Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran (a powerful performance by Edgar Ramirez.) The script is written from the point of view of 70-ish American Ray Arcel, who became involved with Duran as his trainer, confident and cornerman during much of his career. Arcel was played by Robert De Niro, in his best performance in years...convincingly earnest and emotionally committed. Weirdly enough, in this role De Niro is playing a real-life character that mirrors the fictional elderly Rocky Balboa that Stallone played in the recent film Creed...and the two roles represent high points in their respective careers (recall De Niro's own boxing film triumph, Raging Bull which parallels Stallone's Rocky.)

The current film absolutely joins the handful of really great boxing films. Venezuelan director Jakubowicz choreographed the fight scenes with furious authenticity (and his casting of Usher to play Duran's ring antagonist Sugar Ray Leonard was inspired.) Duran's career arc, mostly spanning the early 1970s, was just idiosyncratic enough to be surprising and unpredictable, which adds to the appeal of the film. But most of all, this is a character-driven drama, with a flawed, yet inspiring hero. Highly recommended.

This is a reasonably accurate accounting of an important event in WWII that has had scant coverage in film lore (although I knew about it): the assassination of the Butcher of Prague, Rudyard Heydrich. It was carried out by Czech paratroopers sent from the government in exile in London, two of which were played rather low-key by Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan. The action is rousing enough, although the editing during the actual assassination itself is confusing. But the film has two major flaws that bothered me. First, the script was paint by numbers mechanical...insert romance here; time for treachery here, shoot-em-up here etc. Second: maybe it is time to re-invent the filmic convention of having anglophone actors use ridiculously obvious accents when representing foreigners in movies. In this film the Germans spoke German without subtitles, while the Czechs (including the paratroopers) spoke heavily accented English. It didn't work for me, constantly reminding me of the film's artificiality, for the sake of anglophone box-office. Oh, well. The film got its gung-ho, heroic, albeit retro message across...so it is what it is.

In the year 2000, cellist Yo Yo Ma founded a workshop at Tanglewood devoted to ethnic music and musicians. That group was eventually transformed into the Silk Road Ensemble. This documentary follows that group in concerts around the world, sometime in ad hoc street corner get togethers, other times in concert situations. But it also tells the story of some of the musicians, from as disparate places as Syria, Iran, China, Galacia, Japan and the U.S. The film is earnest, the music is fun to watch. But other than its feel-good ecumenical content, it didn't have much of an effect on me.

Somehow I missed knowing much about Mavis Staples, youngest member of the Staples Singers, a family singing group that bridged the genres of gospel and blues in the decades following the late 1950s. From watching this entertaining bio documentary, I'm sorry I missed out. Mavis does intersect with some more famous stars in the film: Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, The Band, Prince. However, the revelations about her innovative guitar/singer dad, Pops Staples, and Mavis's recent career resurgence in her 70s make some very entertaining viewing.

Giuseppe Marinoni is a French Canadian bicycle maker from Quebec. He grew up in an Italian town north of Milan known for its bicycle racing; and he himself raced as a young man. In this documentary Marinoni reluctantly allows young filmmaker Girardin to follow him around as he welds bike frames and trains to beat the over-75 world record for a one-hour solo bike race. The film is something of a slog. Marinoni is a curmudgeon who only gradually thaws on camera. However, his driven quest which culminates in a trip to his Italian homeland to set the world record gathers steam as the film progresses. Ultimately it is a triumph of the human spirit. Too bad the film took too long to get there.

This often fascinating documentary tells of the life and works of the world-class, obsessive, and controversial art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. He was a gay icon, whose work broke boundaries of S&M imagery...but that was only a small portion of his entire oeuvre, which is exhaustively shared with the viewer. The film also delves into his personal life through interviews with people close to him: family, models, ex-lovers, not all of them fans of his. Much of this material is prurient on the surface; but provides an insightful view into the late 20th century New York art scene (and the decimation of that community by AIDS) that is groundbreaking for its veracity and frankness. The film is occasionally hard to watch; but it is an important document about a period of time that has mostly existed in the shadows of rumor and innuendo. [A personal note: I never met the man; but I had a close, first degree contact with him. I can personally attest to the accuracy of much of the scandalous content of this film.]

This brutally honest personal diary type of documentary tells of the lifelong relationship between artist/filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum and her stereotypical nudge of a Jewish mother, Mildred. Normally, such a self-indulgent film might be a waste of time. After all, I, too, had a Jewish mother. But even though, like Gayle, I have hours of 8mm home movies from my childhood, and I'm a documentary filmmaker myself, I would never have the chutzpah to air my family's dirty laundry on film. However, Mildred Kirschenbaum, today an outspoken nonagenarian, is worth the celluloid spent on her. She's a lovable (sort of) monster who has retained all her marbles; and there is much to admire about the way that her filmmaker daughter makes peace with her mother through a thorough examination of Mildred's past, including her parent's marriage, and her two older brothers' points of view of the family dynamic. However, I found the entire process painful to watch.

At the age of three, Owen Suskind (whose father Ron is a well-known journalist) disappeared into incommunicado autism. This beautiful and touching documentary chronicles one family's process of overcoming such a traumatic experience. Owen was eventually able to start communicating through subsuming Disney cartoon movies into his reality. Utilizing original animation, pointed excerpts from Disney films, and years of fly-on-the-wall, reality TV style cinematic coverage of Owen's and his family's lives, the film presents a fully integrated view of how severe autism can be attacked and ameliorated. Owen is like the poster man-child of autism; but this film actually gets beneath the surface of his disability and presents a three dimensional person. Nicely done.

Eugene Cernan was an astronaut who took three trips into space in the 1960s and 1970s. This documentary tells his life story, mostly from the point of view of the in-shape, committed octogenarian that he is today. The film is filled with enough excellent historical footage and present day reminiscences of the space program (by those involved that are still alive) to be consistently interesting and involving. Cernan performed the first walk in space in the Gemini program, circumnavigated the moon in Apollo 10, and then walked on and explored the lunar surface during the last American trip there with Apollo 17. That is enough material to successfully carry any documentary, especially for the many viewers who weren't alive during the moonwalk era. But the film isn't solely devoted to history. In becoming at the end a personal, and often rueful meditation by today's Cernan on his life and mission, the film presented a perplexing mixed message. Maybe that added depth to the film; but for me it lost some of its edge.

A comic book flick like this doesn't have to make any sense...and this one especially doesn't. That said, it's loud, action filled, has an interesting cast that didn't phone it in (mostly), has a dynamite score of songs that are from my era, and to top it off I loved the main titles. Did I say it didn't make a lick of sense? Who cares! I'm not a concerned fanboy; and at least I wasn't bored.

Lacrosse has been for centuries a game sacred to the Iroquois native Americans that invented it. Only for them it is a sacrilege for girls to play the game reserved as a male rite. This documentary tells of a public school in Mohawk country...home of the Salmon River Shamrocks, in a predominately native reservation area of upstate New York. In 2015, despite the lack of phys ed funds, the school mounted a girl's lacrosse team made up predominately of native Americans. The film follows the lives of several of these girls and their families, along with a running filmed record of their memorable season. It joins a familiar series of uplifting sports documentaries...and in some ways the success final film depends totally on the luck of picking the right team in the right year. No spoilers; but rest assured that there is an emotional payoff to the otherwise pretty ordinary documentary.

It isn't a spoiler to reveal that after several months of captivity by ISIS, American journalist Jim Foley was executed by shadowy terrorists on the internet. Fortunately this documentary film doesn't replay the grizzly conclusion of that scene. But the Foley story, a story of an all-American family, a foolhardy, risk-taking hero, an unquenchable spirit in captivity...that is a story worth telling.

The film itself is somewhat unbalanced. The first half, which contains ample visual materials including home movies, Foley's journalistic videos from Libya and Syria, and interviews with family and friends, is pretty ordinary stuff. Good looking, unfocused boy finds purpose in risking his life as an independent war correspondent. Ordinary stuff, repetitious and even a little boring. Then he is kidnapped by unknown terrorists (at the beginning of the ISIS insurgency), and held captive, effectively incommunicado for almost two years. There is no filmed record of that time...only the harrowing and moving testimony of his fellow captive journalists who were somehow released before Foley's execution, told in interviews and some clumsy, darkly lit re-creations with stand ins. Yet the second half becomes a transcendent and moving testament to human resilience. A little judicious editing of the biography half, and this film could win the Oscar.

The is a tense, inside look at how the FBI busted the international banking conspiracy to launder money for the Medellin drug cartel, using undercover agents with fake identities. The threat to these agents was real...the cartel was ruthless when crossed. Cranston is fine at showing what a great real-life undercover agent Walter White would have made. The plot is complex and believably authentic, with even the evil drug lords and bankers having a human element that almost arouses sympathy...except for what they did behind closed doors. However, around two-thirds of the way through the film I had to check my watch...an indication that the story wasn't as gripping as it might have been.

Filmmaker Josh Fox travels to the ends of the world to prove his climate change warrior bonafides in this informative (if slightly overlong) documentary. He starts out in his native Delaware River homeland decrying the death by beetle of the tree he planted years earlier (beetles that are being implacably driven north by global warming.) From there his filmed travels take him to New York City devastated by Hurricane Sandy, the Amazon, Iceland, Australia, China, and the imperiled Pacific islands to show the effects of global warming, and illustrate how people are attempting to cope around the world. Fox becomes personally involved in the film, both as narrator, witness and participant (along with his banjo and dancing shoes) in the struggle against the environmental damage of under-regulated coal use and fracking. The China segment, where he had to literally hide the damning video disks from the authorities, was particularly effective and scary. The film is skillfully shot and edited. Sure, it's yet another in a long, exhausting series of environmental disaster documentaries. Maybe one day the message will get through...if it actually isn't already hopeless.

As mindless and nihilistic a script as they come. Yet the action is so furious, the editing so skillful that all I could do was watch the screen mouth agape. In the ever escalating race to top every previous automobile chase...the culminating scene wins first prize. But I would really like to have had one cutaway to an innocent victim in one of the 170 wrecked vehicles on the Las Vegas strip. For sure they were all gamblers who lost their final bet. However, in the final analysis, just watching a summer action flick with a modicum of smarts despite the hyper-violence merits 3 1/2 stars. Or zero stars. I guess it's just up to my mood at the moment; and tonight I'd like to punch Donald Trump in the face with Jason Bourne's fists. So 3 1/2.

The superbly realistic gay HBO series gets a welcome, if grudging, final send-off with this TV movie. I was disappointed that the series wasn't picked up for another full season...but thankful that we got an additional hour-and-a-half with these characters. Sure, Andrew Haigh movies are more talk than "action" filled. But, frankly I love his realistic dialogue scenes. And his actors, for the most part (how wonderful is Jonathan Groff here!), do justice to the lines. The criticisms I've heard from my gay friends (among them San Franciscans) is that these characters don't represent their kind of gay men. Well, I may be almost 50 years older than these characters...but to me they are absolutely familiar and identifiable as people I know (and would like to know.) The personal stories in this film pale in interested compared to the humanity and realism of the characters. Maybe that is why this isn't the perfect gay TV movie. But it is better than we probably deserve.

Justin Lin is an action director without an ounce of subtlety, only a smidgen better than the tone-deaf Michael Bay in developing characters that are deeper than caricatures. This is a film of relentless bombast, somewhat saved by its technology. Yet even here, the unrealistic models and unbelievable physics which has plagued Trek from the start were annoying, and in this case not redeemed by any optimism of a livable future. OK, I've vented my spleen. I've watched all the Trek films, understand the mythos. But honestly, I found myself bored about three-quarters of the way through, after experiencing so many genre clichés and predictable plot developments. The film mostly looked realistic...the 3D special effects were mostly fine. But I guess I'm just too old and jaded to be transported by such a simplistic revenge and nick-of-time-heroics plot.

A father takes his family of six children off the grid into the Washington State wilderness, where they must deal with the consequences of their bi-polar wife and mother's suicide. That's the capsule synopsis of this timely and deeply affecting drama. But it doesn't even come close to describing the intellectual challenge and emotional turmoil the film engendered in this viewer. Is the father (by the way, a brave and altogether perfect characterization of an updated and idealized hippie by Viggo Mortensen) an irresponsible child abuser? Or is he the epitome of the 21st century free man, imbuing in his children the ideal mechanisms for survival in a world despoiled by consumerism? This capsule review cannot possibly delve into the way the film resolves the dichotomy of those questions. Let's just say that the film reached me on an emotional level that few films ever have. It's gorgeous, it's timely, it illuminates the current culture with brutal truthfulness. I don't hand out 5-stars to fiction films very often (I'm pretty sure this is the first such film this year); and I do so only when a film deeply affects me on a visceral level for good or for bad. And when a film manages to do both at the same time maybe it deserves six stars.

This entertaining documentary follows the career of iconoclastic rock star Frank Zappa. The film (presented in standard 4X3 format) is comprised of roughly chronological TV interviews with Zappa, along with some very rare performance videos of the "Mothers of Invention" in action, along with Zappa's forays as an atonal classical music composer with mainly British orchestras. I was never particularly a fan of Zappa during his career; and this film proves that I was dead wrong. Not only was he an outspoken observer of the culture that proved to be eerily prescient...but his creative output also turns out to have been ahead of his time and genius level. I regret I didn't catch on back then; but I appreciate it that this film has given me the chance to make amends. Based on the subject matter I could easily have rated this film higher; however there is a lot of thematic repetition in the interview portions. The film could have been edited tighter. But maybe it took a German filmmaker to provide such insight into a musician that was so under-appreciated in this own country and era.

Andy Whitfield was a struggling Welsh actor living in Sydney when he was cast as Spartacus in the STARZ American TV series. 39 years old, married, with two young children, and at a promisingly successful point in his career, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. This long, well edited documentary, organized as a personal diary, tells the story of his years long fight against the disease. He was initially told that it had an 80% survival rate, given that he was strong and in good shape. The course of treatment would be chemotherapy followed by a stem-cell transplant. What ensued was a tortuous, agonizing view of a man and his family living and coping with illness through pluck and a philosophy of "Be Here Now." It's not an easy film to watch; but Whitfield's courage and his beautiful family are worthy subjects. Because of Whitfield's celebrity, it isn't a spoiler to disclose that ultimately he lost his final battle. However, the film handles this outcome tastefully, and manages somehow to make a positive statement out of tragedy.

The first Monday in May refers to the date that super-exhibits are opened and celebrity-rich charity events are thrown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This documentary tells the story of the 2015 event, an immense exhibition of fashion and art that somehow connected with China called "China: Through the Looking Glass." The film extensively covers the frenetic preparations taking place over months...featuring Vogue luminaries (the magazine sponsored the party) and overall artistic director of the show Wong Kar Wei. However, the plodding, unimaginative editing structure (featuring interviews, poorly edited meetings, and endless montages of pop glitterati attending the party) made me appreciate all the more how much better a similar subject was handled as cinema vérité in Frederick Wiseman's National Gallery. The costumes were spectacular, however, almost worth watching the film and certainly made me regret missing the exhibit.

Eva Hesse was a modernist artist/sculptor. This traditional biographical documentary follows her life from her Jewish childhood in Germany (she and her older sister were two of the last children sent to Holland in the kindertransport!). The film continues more or less chronologically and informatively through her fruitful artistic phase in the 1960s, to her untimely, premature death in the 1970s. Hesse has been undergoing a career resurgence lately; but her large, amorphous sculptures of mixed materials are hard to film (and not to my personal taste.) Still, this glimpse into Hesse's life and art is a valuable resource and a fine tribute to an an artist who certainly deserves recognition.

With impeccable production design and an excellent cast, this most recent Woody Allen film is probably my recent favorite. Especially notable: Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart have authentic chemistry...the last, wistful scene featuring an amazing dissolve is simply awesome. And kudos to the location scout...really pegged L.A. in the 1930s. One cavil: Woody's narration was annoying. But despite all odds, the film played young and fresh. How does he do it?

This delightfully partisan (but totally realistic) documentary uses personal filmed anecdotes, interviews with experts, graphics and examples to illustrate how Fox News and the vast conservative conspiracy of talk radio brainwashed the filmmaker's elderly father (and by extension many similar Americans.) It has a happy ending (deprogramming by natural means); but I don't expect that the film would appeal to the people most in need of watching it. I've never been able to stomach watching even a minute of Fox News (and Limbaugh and his ilk made me retch whenever I stumbled upon them while twiddling my car radio dial). So I'm a member of the choir this film is preaching to. But it felt really good to watch and listen to the examples of institutional brainwashing by the media without guilt or fear of being entrapped by such tactics. Yay me!

Good enough for a diverting, retro couple of hours, with some ok special effects and a great score which raises hackles. The raised-by-apes back story told in flashbacks still works, even if the main story of fighting despoiling Belgian colonialism makes no sense historically or dramatically. Alexander Skarsgard makes an ideal Lord Graystoke ne Tarzan; but Christophe Waltz's stock, mustache-curling, villain characterization needs a retooling. However, just as with the failed retro action flick John Carter of Mars, updating Edgar Rice Burroughs is a losing proposition. Even bringing 19th century geopolitics, colonialism and slavery into the forefront does not make the film relevant to a modern audience.

Ben is man living through a midlife crisis (he blames himself for the death of his child and subsequent divorce proceedings.) He decides on a career change, passing a course to become a caregiver; and then is hired to effectively wipe the butt of Trevor, a bitter and sarcastic youth severely disabled with muscular dystrophy. That is the set-up for an off-center, wryly comic relationship drama that turns into a somewhat predictable road trip. The film depends on the central relationship of Ben and Trevor, respectively played by the superb Paul Rudd and young Welsh actor Craig Roberts (previously notable in the British indie film Submarine.) Since both performances are spot on perfect (along with a sardonic turn by Selena Gomez as runaway hitch-hiker), this Netflix original feature film is definitely worth watching.

Celebrated stage and film director Mike Nichols sat down and reminisced about his early career with his literate colleague Jack O'Brien, both in front of a theatrical audience and just the two of them. The two conversations were then intercut into one fascinating and informative narrative. Eschewing the biographical documentary form, the film falls somewhere between a conversation - something like My Dinner with Andre - and a Q&A session with an aging, but still sharp, celebrity. The conversation was limited to Nichol's early life and career, from his improvisational collaboration with Elaine May to his first theatrical and cinematic directorial achievements, with frequent insertion of illustrative filmed and video excerpts (comedy sketches, his first play, "Barefoot in the Park," and early films like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and The Graduate.) [personal note: I happened to be working as an assistant editor on another project at the Goldwyn Studio when that latter film was in post-production, and stumbled into one of the scoring and dubbing sessions...as close as I ever came to being in the same room as Nichols, though I didn't actually encounter Simon & Garfunkel, who were my heroes at the time .] Bottom line: spending time with Nichols just before his untimely passing was an unmitigated pleasure.

It isn't as bad as it could have been. I checked my critical faculties at the theater door and just enjoyed the ride. Subtract a star for a totally lame-ass script which contained every alien attack cliché in the book. Add the star back in tribute to the 15,000 peons who worked on the more than adequate special effects. Still, 3-stars is too generous. I'm only rating it thus because Liam Hemsworth is so pretty and Travis Tope, who plays the obligatory comic relief sidekick, kept me wondering throughout the movie: who is this guy?

Maggie has a history of quickly losing interest in relationships with men. So she hatches a plan to find a sperm donor and raise the child as a single mother. Only she falls for an unhappily married man; and her "plan" goes farcically awry. Gretta Gerwig plays Maggie with her usual off-beat persona (smart, but slightly ditzy). The married man, a college professor and novelist wannabe, is played by Ethan Hawke, who has proved in recent Linklater films that he is great at delivering verbal comedy dialog with the best of them. Julianne Moore is simply wonderful as the spurned ex-wife, Georgette: foreign born college prof whose accent is somewhere between Teutonic and lisp. What results is an old-fashioned screwball romantic comedy with a 21st century sensibility, great dialog and a tone-perfect acting ensemble (including Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph as the obligatory best friends, and Travis Fimmel as the savant potential sperm donor.) Writer/director Rebecca Miller proves to be adept at turning the clichés of the genre into something clever and fresh.

If, like me, you enjoyed the original...skip this confusing, overlong and patently ridiculous sequel at all cost. I do like the actors; but watching them struggle with a plot that totally defies belief is painful.

I'm a huge Refn fanboy...ever since being stunned by the Pusher trilogy at a film festival a few years ago. His films are transgressive, his direction fearless. He has arguably the most developed visual sense of any living director, along with a deep understanding of the evil tendencies of the male psyche at its breaking point (for instance Bronson and Only God Forgives.) The Neon Demon exhibits all of Refn's talents...it's gorgeous to watch, eerie and creepy. However, this is Refn's first film that I've watched which is female centered; and the man's apparently innate misogyny is here front and centered. And honestly, it was just too much for me to take. I didn't walk...Refn is too mesmerizing a talent to walk out on. But I left the theater feeling shaken and somehow unclean. I guess that's the mark of greatness, in a way.

Thomas Wolfe was my favorite author when I was a teenager in the 1950s. His sprawling novels (written 20-years earlier) spoke to me the way I imagine that David Foster Wallace possibly speaks to today's youths (although all I really know about Wallace is from the recent film End of the Tour, so I may be off-base.) However Genius is not really about Tom Wolfe. Rather it is a vividly evocative biopic about his relatively obscure editor at Scribner's, Max Perkins, who also edited the works of such immortal American authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. But make no mistake, the core of the film is actually about the surrogate father-son relationship between the unquenchably incandescent author and his staid, family man mentor.

Colin Firth as the elderly Perkins is steady as a rock, hiding his usual fire under an intellectual bushel. But it is Jude Law's over-the-top (yet controlled, even charismatic) performance as Wolfe that lights up the screen. Amazingly, this literate and beautifully written script managed to make the process of editing a novel into a fascinating vocation. I guess it helps that Wolfe was the consummate enfant terrible of his time (today's television talk shows would have eaten him up.) The film briefly digresses into the tragic story of Scott Fitzgerald (a remarkable supporting performance by Guy Pearce); and takes us into the world of Wolfe's rich, married patron and lover played by Nicole Kidman. But Wolfe himself, the barely controlled genius, is the heart and soul of the film. If the film inspires a renewed interest in this great, but today almost forgotten, author, it will have done a huge service to literature.

Léa Seydoux gives a subtle, even anachronistically modern, mien to this 19th century French chambermaid, a girl whose beauty and pretended servility disguised her guile. The story tells, in a confusingly fractured timeline, how she interacted with a variety of bourgeois families...especially one with a lecherous old master and his termagant wife. But for me, her most interesting liaison was with the terminally ill grandson of one of her clients (played by Vincent Lacoste, who is an up and coming ingenu), although the crux of the drama is her fateful relationship with a taciturn, anti-Semitic footman (Vincent Lindon). The period film had great costumes and production design; but I couldn't engage with the characters or the story.

70-something Rex (Michael Caton) is a cab driver living in the town of Broken Hill, in the Australian desert outback. He's white; but has a somewhat more than casual relationship with his Aborigine neighbor lady. Upon being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Rex decides to drive the 3,000 km. route to Darwin, where a doctor (familiar actress Jacki Weaver) has become famous for fighting to be able to perform assisted suicides. That is the set-up for an amusing and inventive road trip where the crotchety old man meets up with a series of adventures and interesting companions. Especially vivid were a young English nurse on hiatus working as a bar-maid in Alice Springs - and an ingratiating Aborigine, a rowdy, alcoholic, ex-rugby player, out for adventure (a star-making turn by young Mark Coles Smith).

Yes, this is another "dying of cancer" film, at least the fifth movie with that theme I've watched recently. But this film was done with such humor and realistic humanism that it was one of the true highlights of the year, and a great way to end my six weeks-long, 109 film orgy of total immersion into the varied cinematic worlds on view at the Seattle International Film Festival.

At the start of this well written and involving American indie film, Nelson (Victor Almanzar) is a marine sergeant, just returned home to the small town barrio of Holyoak, MA from serving in Iraq. Turns out he originally enlisted to escape the consequences of an Hispanic gangland self-defense shooting. But upon his return, he discovers that the past, in the form of his victim's brother, is coming for him on the 11:55PM bus bent on vengeance. His friends and former gang members refuse to come to his aid (except for a wheel-chair riding former marine buddy played by the always reliable John Leguizamo.)

I believe that the film sets out to be an updated version of the famous 1952 Gary Cooper western High Noon (seems to me that the 11:55 title and constant use of clocks to show the same-day passage of time are clear references.) However, the film makers were intent on subverting the usual western genre tropes, mainly the inevitable shoot-em-out. That was the factor that raised this well acted film to semi-classic status.

This dark French farce tells the story of Philippe Mars, divorced from his TV news reporter ex- and father of two surly and difficult teenage kids. When the ex-wife must absent herself to cover an EU crisis in Brussels, Philippe is left with the kids, along with his impulsive sister, and a literally crazy work colleague...all jumbled together by happenstance in his chaotic apartment. The plot is complex and increasingly unlikely as Philippe's life falls apart. François Damiens struggled heroically with the lead role; but the quirky script did him no favors.

Frank is a middle-age man obsessively involved with his younger girlfriend, Lola. They have recently settled in Las Vegas. He is the jealous type; and she has masochistic sexual tendencies. That is the set-up for a psycho-sexual thriller that has all the trappings of film noir with that genre's murky cinematography, but no feeling for the dark reality of the characters' personas. Much of the film's failure for me was due to the casting of Michael Shannon as Frank. He is a fine actor, with a deep aura of mystery in most of his films. But he simply lacks the charisma of a romantic lead character. And as alluring as Imogen Poots is physically as Lola, she is no vamp...her clean-cut American look played against her sexually screwed up character. The chemistry between the two leads just didn't exist. And the film, despite its noirish look and rich production design, just felt totally inauthentic.

The setting of this family drama is Basque country of northern Spain, among sylvan farmland near San Sebastian. The Basque tradition has always been that the oldest child inherits all the land; but increasingly, the inheritor has become a matter of choice...in the case of this land-rich farming family a choice made by the elderly grandmother, who ruled with steely silence. When the eldest son opts to escape his heritage, the future responsibility falls on Amama, the artistic middle daughter (the younger son is considered a wastrel.) That is the set-up for a drama of conflict...tradition vs. modernity. The film is gorgeously shot, and makes great use of Amama's sensitive artistry as she illustrates her photographic skills in a one-woman art exhibition. However, I just couldn't engage emotionally with the characters. So as much as I admired aspects of the film making, the plot seemed contrived and the pacing so lugubrious that I lost interest before the somewhat predictable outcome.

This is a classic 1926 Buster Keaton silent comedy that somehow I had never watched before. It was presented with an amazingly pristine B&W print and a wonderful new symphonic score (complete with orchestral "sound effects" and familiar American folksong motifs) by Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi. I was impressed by the sheer scope of the Civil War production...cast of thousands of men and horses, vintage trains. The slapstick comedy seemed a little antiquated; but occasionally struck my funny bone. And there were some uncomfortable moments of pro-Confederacy propaganda that really seem dated for the 21st Century (cf. Griffith's Birth of a Nation). Still, I understand why this has remained a cinematic classic...the film making and humorous, clever stunts hold up quite well.

Tim (Ryan Corr) and John (Craig Scott) became friends while attending a Jesuit high school in Melbourne, Australia in the mid-1970s. Tim was the the artistic type, an aspiring actor introduced in the film playing the role of Paris in a school performance of "Romeo and Juliet." John was a shy rugby star at school, from a pious Catholic family led by his stern father (Anthony LaPaglia). Tim's father, on the other hand (Guy Pearce) was more liberal and accepting when the two boys fell in love and formed a lasting bond.

The film is adapted from the apparently well-known actor Tim Conigrave's memoir of living through the AIDS years, watching his lover die of the disease, and eventually dying himself at 34 years of age in 1994. I'm sorry if the bare bones of the story is something of a spoiler; but this moving film is really not plot centered. Rather it is arguably the most realistic depiction ever put on film of the personal consequences of living with AIDS before medicine started to saving victims in 1996. [On a personal level, it is hard for me to be objective about this film. I can only say that everything about this film: script, acting, music, watching a loved one die...were eerily resonant with my own experiences, a kind of déja vu that only great art can provide.]

Not that the film was flawless, being overly sentimental at times. And one could quibble with the editorial scheme which was somewhat disorienting as it skipped around the time line strangely. But the film depicted its milieu with absolute truth and sensitivity, that I can attest to from experience. The two lead actors were superb on every level, portraying love, sexuality, sickness and their inner life and turmoil brilliantly. Add in the first class production values, and the ambitious scope of the concept, and this film is simply the definitive AIDS drama, on a par or superior to any previous such film.

A film editor (stalwart David Call) and his sister (Kelli Garner), while driving on a deserted San Francisco road, accidentally kill a child and perhaps unknowingly drive on (the film here and elsewhere is maddeningly non-specific about details.) The trauma and its consequence drive him to alcoholism and the solitude of a remote mountain cabin...at least until he is offered a job by a movie producer friend (Jack Davenport) to re-cut the troubled film "Americana" that stars his sister. He has been given a chance for redemption; but other dark factors are at play. That is the essential set-up for this murky drama that was for me, at least, too enigmatic and pointless to enjoy.

Clair (a strong performance from "Breaking Bad" actress Betsy Brandt) is a math professor at the University of Ohio. Her husband, also a professor, leaves one morning on a wilderness survival hike, and then disappears...leaving Clair and her young son Connor (Zev Haworth) in limbo. Is he dead? Was this a planned runaway? That is the set up for this character driven drama, as Clair gradually learns that she really didn't know a lot about her husband's life that he had kept from her. The enigmatic script was quite good at keeping the audience in suspense while staying true to the characterizations.

Damien is a sensitive high school student, living with his physician mother and mostly absent soldier father. At the outset of the film he seems to have a fixation on a fellow student, Thomas, a dairy farmer's son living precariously in a small remote farm in the high, French Pyrenee mountains. However, Thomas becomes combative under Damien's gaze, and the two become enemies at least for a while. That is the set-up for a beautifully made gay coming-of-age story. Damien is played by teen-age Kacey Mottet Klein, who as a kid actor stole the 2008 movie Home from Isabelle Huppert, and here just about repeats that feat with his interplay with the fine actress playing his mother, Sandrine Kiberlain. Rounding out the cast, the first-time actor Corentin Fila has extraordinary presence playing Thomas.

I love what the great director André Téchiné did with the relationships in this film, they rang truthful...especially when it got down to the convincing sexual awakening of the boys. Téchiné certainly isn't afraid of male nudity; and the film is refreshingly frank without being particularly prurient. This was for me one of Téchinés most emotionally resonant films.

This contemporary character driven drama tells the story of Tao, a clever and pretty young woman living in Fenyang, an industrial town in Northern China. Tao is played by Tao Zhao, the famed director Jia Zhangke's wife and muse. The film is divided into three parts, each shot with expanding aspect ratios. Part one (in the old 4:3 ratio) takes place in 1999, and tells of 19-year old Tao's dilemma of being involved with two men, choosing to marry the one on the capitalist road to wealth, rather than following her heart and going with the the coal miner prole. The consequences of this decision are shown in part two (shot in 16:9 HDTV format) in 2014, when the divorced Tao, a successful business woman, has been separated from her 7-year old son "Dollar," who is living with his rich father and step-mother in Shanghai, but is briefly reunited with his mother for her father's funeral. The third part (in 2.25:1 scope) takes place in 2025 in Australia where the now 20-something son has followed his exiled, wealthy father...but both are beset with alienation, while Tao remains in China, still in touch with her roots.

The film resonates with authentic characterizations and encapsulates a Chinese society in transition...both at home and in diaspora. I was emotionally moved, totally involved; and by the end of the 131 minute intimate epic film I was so into the story that the unresolved ending left me longing for more.

This semi-serious documentary pokes gentle fun at several people whose hobby (and in some cases vocation) is raising and exhibiting pedigree chickens for poultry shows. Their goal is to breed the Super Grand Champion chicken, a perfect specimen according to some arcane 20th century book. Even a feather out of place could disqualify one of these obsessive chicken farmers from achieving their victory. The film makers chose their subjects well, including a young man who is also following his dream to be a jazz singer performer in Branson, MO, a housewife, and a full time poultry farmer. But, honestly, after the amusing concept is introduced, there simply isn't enough interesting material to sustain a feature documentary. The film seems padded, and overlong.

Lenny (Jim O'Heir) is a middle aged momma's boy from Peoria, an accountant who aspires to be a stand-up comedian. When his mother dies, he sets off on a road trip to Las Vegas in the '53 Olds that he inherits...to live his dream. Only Lenny is about as funny as cancer. Anyway, on this trip he encounters a psychotic hitchhiker (Andrew J. West, vividly satanic here); and the film becomes a repetitive, darkly comic noir that is a pale version of early Coen Bros. films like Blood Simple, with a plentiful body count of senseless murders. Although funny at times, the film was too distasteful to even be considered a guilty pleasure.

Layla is a young Bedouin woman living in the Lebanese desert. She is being somewhat spoiled and allowed to attend university by her doting, if traditional father (who is in the process of taking a second wife, a rebuff to Layla's strong mother and first wife.) When it is accidentally outed that Layla is seeing a boy from another tribe while at school, she is forbidden by her parents to ever see him again. But Layla is a strong, modern young girl; and how she deals with this situation makes for compelling drama with chilling consequences.

The eponymous Arianna is 19, with budding breasts but slow to become a menstruating woman despite the application of daily hormone patches. Her parents are sympathetic; but Arianna suspects that something is wrong with her that is being withheld. Going against her physician father, Arianna sets out to find the solution of her sexual mystery. Italian actress Odina Quadri is ideal for the role: feminine enough, but also physically boyish. Early on, the script gives away to a knowing audience any mystery or suspense about Arianna. Still, the subject is so sensitively handled that we care about her.

This beautiful and involving romantic drama took place in northern France towards the end of WWI in early 1918. The sound of artillery at the war front can be heard in the distance; but Charles (a strong performance by Olivier Gourmet), a former cavalry captain, has returned to his bucolic horse breeding property after losing a leg in the war. Needing a nurse to aid in healing the stump, he hires young Angèle (luminous Georgia Scalliet), who has a pre-teenage daughter by her dead soldier boyfriend. That is the set-up for an unconventional romantic match-up between two strong individuals whose most compelling reason to get together is a love for racing through forests on beautiful, galloping steeds. The production design is sumptuous and perfect for the period; and the acting ensemble is flawless. I was fascinated by the characters, and the practicality and realism of their war-scarred relationships.

A Spanish couple fly to Lithuania attempting to adopt a reasonably healthy young child using the corrupt system in place. This film tells the story of their endless bout with red tape and money grubbers. The point of the film was to show how difficult the procedure was, and how stressful it became for the couple's relationship. To that end, the film worked. Still the endless repetition of problem after problem made for one of the longest 96 minutes I've spent in a while.

This unabashed Spanish spoof of the Bourne and Bond films is just good fun. A father and son battle an evil terrorist escapee from prison and his seemingly endless gang of thugs. The mayhem is inventively shot (thankfully no car chases), and the satire is both pointed and effective. As silly as some of the stunts were, still they were often laugh-out-loud funny and original. This is audience pleasing cinema; and it wouldn't surprise me if the film wins the Golden Space Needle popularity award at this festival, like its predecessor OSS 117, a similar spy spoof with a larger budget, but for me, less amiability.

The several Hong Kong triads, under the loosening leadership of a dying godfather, go to war to establish the next Dragon Head kingpin. The contest reduces to choosing one of two faction leaders...either Chuck, ex-con, conscientious family man, or Wulf, upstart, vicious (and gay) ex-cop. The gangster gangs are pretty well evenly split come election time, as the mob elders' influence wanes. What ensues is a violent, combative film that I found only occasionally engaging.

At the start of this wry comedy, Mike Tyson (no, not the boxer) is a teenage boy, living in a small Ontario town with his nagging mother and absent father. When he fails at a suicide attempt, he discovers to his delight that he has a brain tumor. That is the set-up for a unique and unpredictable coming of age story that vastly benefits from its lead, 23-year old Alex Ozerov, who immigrated from Russia with his family at age 13 (he reminds me of another young Russian immigrant actor, Anton Yelchin...there is a certain fateful Russian mien to both actor's flawless English.) Ozerov nails Tyson's teenage angst; and Elena von Saucken's script is filled with inventive and playful dialogue, which somehow manages to overcome the many plot holes. I loved this film, despite its flaws, leaving the theater with the up-beat message that life is worth living.

This amazingly affecting drama tells six stories of people living in the Netherlands, some natives, some foreign. The stories are intricately inter-cut, seemingly unconnected. But the audience is aware that somehow the characters and their dilemmas will eventually meet up. Each story in itself is compelling and could make a separate film. The beautiful, young Bulgarian girls imported as sex slaves by criminals (who have their own stories). The African illegals scratching out a living in fear of deportation. A native Dutch family of classical musicians who are ignoring their piano prodigy young son. I became totally involved with the suspenseful script and these characters. The production was near flawless, beautifully shot, acted and edited. The film also incorporated into the fine script a spectacular production of Mozart's Requiem. I was blown away by this film, and regret missing the screening last autumn for the foreign language Oscar. Maybe my vote would have qualified the film for deserved recognition.

Pablo was a gay teenager living in Santiago, Chile. He was flamboyantly femme in front of his mirror, but closeted to his work obsessed single father and homophobic contemporaries. He was open to his lesbian girl friend; and surreptitiously having sex with his long time, straight acting friend Félix and other pick-ups. But after a savage, brutal gay bashing by youths in his neighborhood, he was left comatose. That is the set-up for this dark drama roughly based on a famous 2012 Chilean murder. However, in Q&A, director Anwandter made it clear that he was not interested in making a biopic about Pablo. Rather his focus was set on the traumatic effects on the people around Pablo after the bashing, especially Pablo's father Juan (Sergio Hernandez). The plot was compelling; however for me the film was marred by poor direction: dark cinematography which concealed details, poor editing with endless closeups that didn't quite convey the inner dialog, and inappropriate, eerie musical cues that worked against the action (to my critical sensibility.) At least the film wasn't at all coy about the gay sex scenes, even if they seemed to be placed in the film as random non-sequiturs.

This sports oriented drama tells the story of the unlikely Danish soccer team competing in the European championships in 1992. It is told mainly from the point of view of the unpopular coach (the fine Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen). The low-budget production combines locker room drama with actors with lower resolution TV footage of the actual games that were played at the 1992 event. The effect is somewhat cheesy on the big screen compared to previous soccer films such as Goal! Still, despite my lack of interest in soccer, the film was emotionally affecting.

Three U.S. border guards manning a southwest checkpoint become involved in a fatal road trip and ongoing conflict with a powerful, mostly unseen drug cartel. The film is a tense and violent low budget thriller with convincing performances and an authentic feel for the desert and the drug wars.

Even in his non-native English, Lanthimos' satire stings with a bite. He's the Jonathan Swift of contemporary world cinema, even as the meaning of his fables eludes me. Oh, and Colin Farrell turns out to be great at meek.

After a planet-wide apocalypse, the survivors formed a society called The Collective. In their futuristic, utilitarian city, all the inhabitants have gradually been homogenized, with all emotions effectively bred out of the gene pool and relationships forbidden. However, one young man, Silas (an immaculately coiffed Nicholas Hoult, never more attractive in any of his previous films) contracts the disease of attraction to a co-worker Nia (Kristen Stewart, perfectly cast for her usual cool demeanor). What ensues is a kind of "Romeo and Juliet" ill-fated romance abetted by a couple of older rebels (Guy Pearce and Jacki Weaver.) The film is enhanced by its austere, futuristic production design and all-white identical costumes. And the eerie, hypnotic musical score adds much to the tension and pathos of the story. However, as much as I wanted to like the film, director Doremus paced the film so slowly that I literally was lulled into a trance and slept through some of the film. Not a good sign.

Eight 30-ish friends gather together in couples for a weekend at the Savannah, Georgia plantation house where some of them grew up and formed lasting relationships. One couple is unhappily married, and the others have colluded to form an intervention to persuade their friends to divorce. However, each couple has their own problems, which get thrashed out during the weekend. Every generation needs a Big Chill type film of its own. All eight actors in this ensemble (which include familiar indie players such as director DuVall, Melanie Lynskey, Natascha Lyonne, Alia Shawkat, Jason Ritter and Ben Schwartz) are fine. And I was impressed by how truthful and insightful the script was at portraying the various relationship dynamics of the non-married sextet (the lesbian couple, the older guy-younger girl pairing, the engaged to be married couple with doubts). This sort of film only works if the viewer can identify with the plights of the characters; and for me, despite the predictability of the outcome, it worked.

Ariel (Alan Sabbagh) is an overweight, 30-something Argentinean man who has been living in New York. At the start of the film he returns to Buenos Aires to visit his father Usher for the Jewish holiday of Purim. Usher is mysteriously missing on an errand; but Ariel is plunged into the chaos of his father's market in the heart of El Once, the crowded Jewish district. Ariel meets a resolutely non-talkative Orthodox woman, Eva, who turns out to have problems of her own; and a romantic spark is lit (possibly planned all along by Ariel's father.)

Ariel was director Burman's 20-something main character (played by charismatic Daniel Hendler) in the wonderful 2004 film A Lost Embrace, which took place in a shopping mall in the same urban district. The current film is as steeped in Jewish culture as all of Burman's films that I have seen before; but with this film, the film maker's frenetic hand-held style, unsympathetic characterizations, and enigmatic scenario left me disappointed and wondering where the once fine director has gone. ** 1/2

Let's get the negatives out of the way first. This hyper-violent, even sadistic film is about two brothers involved in a college fraternity hazing week that has repercussions. If the viewer can get over that (and I could), the film offers some trenchant commentary on today's alcohol sodden college life along with an involving enough story and some fine young actors in extreme situations. Ben Schnetzer played Brad, the sensitive younger brother who at the start of the film was a high school senior who got soundly beaten in a car jacking after attending a drunken party with his older brother Brett (Nick Jonas, who has outgrown his pop teen heart-throb start, becoming a quite competent actor.) Next thing Brad has decided to attend his brother's college and pledge his brother's macho fraternity. The story goes downhill from there as the fraternity bros relived their own horrible hazings as pledges through increasingly violent pranks. I found the college milieu convincingly real enough; but on occasion I just had to look away from the screen. Anyway, James Franco has a cameo as a boisterous frat old-boy returned to enliven the start of hazing week. I did enjoy that.

Adam Scott plays 30-something Robbie, blinded in an accident years before caused by his older brother Bill (Nick Kroll, who really is the heart of the film.) At the start of the film, the guilt-ridden Bill is aiding his blind brother to finish a marathon to support charity when he hooks up for a truncated one-night-stand with a super-neurotic woman, Rose (the skilled comic actor Jenny Slate). The film develops as a heart-felt farce from there, as the three character interact romantically all the while keeping secrets from each other. There's much humor in the feel-good script. It's one of those romantic comedy indie trifles that are fun to watch on video and at festivals; but are probably going to be lost when the film is released theatrically.

At the start of this inspiring melodrama, Magda has separated from her philandering husband and is trying to relate to her pre-teenage son Dani's interest in soccer. When she is diagnosed with breast cancer by her concerned gynocologist (Asier Etxeandia), and coincidentally meets and falls for the pro soccer scout who is watching her son play (Luis Tosar), it sets in motion a profoundly moving, realistic portrayal of a good woman and mother who is bravely coping with a possibly fatal disease.

Magda is played by luminous Penélope Cruz, who has never been better even in Oscar winning roles. Her relationship with her young son Dani (a winning kid performance by Teo Planell) is so well played by both actors that by itself it would have made a fine film. Add in the jeopardy of cancer and found true love (and one amazing plot development that I won't spoil in this review), and one gets a three-hanky weeper that left me devastated. Basque director Medem has long been a favorite of mine, with an emotional sensitivity that resonates with me in all his films that I've watched. Here he plays editorial tricks with time that never seem forced and add poignancy to the drama. He has his actors underplay their painful emotions, which added all the more to my appreciation of the film. Kudos all around.

Set in upper New York State in 1994, this involving film is a character driven family and relationship drama disguised as a murder mystery. Jack (familiar young TV actor Owen Campbell) is a quiet, loner-type teenager living with his mother (Mary Stuart Masterson). His mom falls for an ex-Marine security guard (Scott Cohen) who has a son Mark of Jack's age (played by charismatic Charlie Heaton). The boys become friends, even brothers of sorts when their parents move in together. The pair befriend intelligent classmate Sarah (Amandla Stenberg); but the relationship dynamic is adversely affected by Jack's increasing attraction to straight Mark, an attraction that is not entirely one-sided. In the complex story, somebody gets killed; and the film is structured around police videos interviewing all the surviving characters. For me, the film worked as an extremely realistic tale of repressed homosexuality and all of the hardships caused by this during the mid-1990s (and of course in earlier decades as in my own similar life experiences in the 1950s and 1960s.) But the plot mechanics to make the film more of a mystery thriller just got in the way of the people story, at least for me. Still, 25-year old director Joris-Peyrafitte is potentially a real film making talent to watch for.

Abe (Conner Marx) is a journalist for a Chicago independent weekly paper. At the start of this enigmatic thriller, he has arranged a secret rendezvous with Debra (Carol Roscoe), a national security analyst and potential whistleblower who has promised to deliver to Abe a big scoop. Debra is cautious, and her paranoia meant meeting by car on dusty deserted roads in Eastern Washington state. Except that it turns out that the two are possibly being followed by a mysterious car. What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse chase film which I followed with rapt attention, until it dissolved into a series of unfathomable plot developments that made no sense to me. These puzzling developments were obviously intended by the writer-director who admitted as much in Q&A when he said that all the clues are in place...but it is up to the audience to come to their own conclusions. I just threw up my hands and decided that this regressive puzzle of a plot was simply not worth shedding brain cells over.

At the start of this comic fable, Ricky is a rowdy sub-teener, a ward of the state who has failed in previous foster homes. Sulking, he's brought to a new home by a tyrannical social worker. His new foster mom Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her lay-about husband Hector (a crusty Sam Neill), are so nurturing that Ricky starts to come around when Bella suddenly dies and Ricky and Hector are forced by circumstances to head into the New Zealand bush to avoid Ricky's being sent off to a borstal institution. That is the set-up for a totally unlikely story of two weirdly mismatched fugitives evading capture in the wilds. There is genuine humor in the script, and the director has a real feel for the characters and the setting (Ricky was played by roly-poly young actor Julian Dennison who delivers a classic smart-aleck performance of wit beyond his age.) But ultimately as much as I enjoyed the journey, I had trouble believing in any of the story.

Ari (youthful Atli Oskar Fjalarsson, expresssively unemotive) is a Reykjavik teen-ager whose mother and step-father emigrated to Africa, sending the boy to live with his drunkard father (Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson) in the small north-western Iceland backwater town that Ari originally grew up in. His life is mostly one of despair for the displacement...except for his supportive grandmother, the independence of a summer job at a local fishery, and Lara, once his childhood best friend, now girlfriend to a local bully. The film is just an ordinary coming-of-age story...but for the gorgeous scenery of the mountainous seaport village and Ari's stoic humanity when faced with some really terrible events that mar his life. It's rare to watch such a downer film that is ultimately edified by the actions of an unexpectedly heroic protagonist.

This enigmatic Kazakhstani film tells the story of four teen-age boys variously caught up in troubled lives in the 1990s, when the Soviet economy was breaking down. That's about all I can say about the film since I couldn't make sense out of any of the stories and how they interconnected (maybe because the pacing was so slow that I think I slept through some initial exposition that may have explained things.)

Four teen-age skater dudes living in the Cleveland projects, were cutting school and jacking cars for fun and chump change at the start of this despairing contemporary indie drama. When they jack the wrong car, and rob illicit drugs belonging to a rough adult motorcycle gang of killers, trouble for all four ensued. The film has a fine cast, especially familiar young actors Moises Arias and Rafi Gavron (and the lead youth Cisco, played by Jorge Lendeborg, Jr., new to me but a real up-and-comer). The decaying city setting and hopelessness of the slum life for the kids and their families were central themes. This was one of those American indie dramas that may be realistic and convincingly written and acted, but was almost too much of a downer to watch.

In this amiable family saga, Paul (François Létourneau) is a type-setter and amateur cartoonist who lives contentedly in 1999 Montreal with his girlfriend Lucie (Julie LeBreton) and young daughter Rose (sprightly child actor Shanti Corbeil-Gauvreau). On holiday, they drive to Québec city for a family get-together to celebrate Lucie's elderly parents' anniversary. Turns out Lucie's father, retired Roland (superbly played by Gilbert Sicotte), is ill; and Lucie's mother Lisette (Louise Portal), along with her two sisters are charged with caring for the old man. What ensues is a moving tribute to a loving extended family in crisis, with a fine acting ensemble and non-flashy direction that emphasizes the good in its characters. It's a touching story that rings familiar...at least it brought me to honest tears of recognition. The film is based on a series of autobiographical graphic novels by Michel Rabagliati; and the film makers made fine use of the author's artistic style in a lovely end-credit animation. Simple premise, well told.

Resolutely indie auteur Ira Sachs has, almost under the radar, become my favorite filmmaker in the gay film genre. His subtle and revealing screenplays have sensitively covered all ages and shades of the gay sensibility. This film is somewhat a departure for him, in that there is no overt gay subtext at work as he tells the story of two seemingly heterosexual 13-year old boys living in contemporary Brooklyn who become best friends despite their different personalities and their parents feud over money. Jake (Theo Taplitz) is the sensitive artist type, whose parents (Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle) inherit a walk-up apartment above a storefront dressmaker's store. Tony (Michael Barbieri, a young actor with a huge future, if this film is any indicaton) is the hyper-active son of the dressmaker (feisty actress Paulina Garcia), who can not afford a new lease on her store. The film tells the story of these families from the boys' points of view; and it is both wonderful to witness and heartbreaking in its truthfulness. Sachs in Q&A stated that this film is the end of a trilogy about three disparately aged, involved couples living their lives in New York City that included Keep the Lights On and Love is Strange. This film about the youngest couple of the three is perhaps the best, and most illuminating of all.

This Romanian dysfunctional family drama involves incest, abortion (a recurrent theme in Romanian cinema lately), politics...all in a talk-filled stew of family squabbling. That it works at all is due to the shock factor, and a kind of realism and humanism that seems to pervade the best of contemporary Romanian cinema. The superb acting ensemble does their best to tell such a distressing story, of which any attempt to summarize would be too full of spoilers. I think this film might have been upsetting to many in the audience, since its themes are hard to take, and the Romanian dialog is spoken almost too fast for the sub-titles to handle. But I actually enjoyed the film for its utter realism and how many rules of cinema it broke.

The family in this picturesque Czech drama is uniquely dysfunctional. Mom and dad and family dog go off on an extended vacation sailing around the world leaving their barely adult daughter and teen-age son to fend for themselves with scant supervision by their uncle (or maybe family friend, I was confused by the connection for most of the film.) What ensues is a coming-of-age film combined with a travelogue and an inspirational (if occasionally unlikely) story of a family overcoming life-shattering obstacles. The family drama is absorbing enough; and elements of the plot are surprising and unpredictable. The characters are attractive, even as they consistently act totally irresponsibly (except for the family dog, the most heroic and likable of the bunch.) I enjoyed this film despite its flaws.

At the outset of this bittersweet Swedish comedy, Ove, a grumpy 59-year old widower is laid off from his job. He has also lost his self-important position as head of his condo association; and figuring that he has nothing left to live for, he's determined to join his wife by killing himself. What ensues is an ultimately uplifting story of a old man whose faith in life is reborn through unexpected means. The film examines Ove's life through increasingly revealing flashbacks. In some ways this film resembles closely the 2013 Swedish film The Hundred Year Old Man etc.. in that it uses the passages of a man's life to create a mirror reflecting current multi-cultural Swedish society. The film is fun to watch; and actor Rolf Lassgard gives an indelible performance as Ove. But the story, apparently adapted from a popular novel, was a tad predictable.

David is a 30-year old struggling TV comedy writer (failed pilots and a gig at Saturday Night Live). He's gay, in a troubled long time relationship with Paul (the wonderfully geeky actor Zach Woods), when he has to return home to Sacramento from his New York City domicile to care for his mother, who is dying of a chemo-resistant, rare cancer. David is played by pudgy actor Jesse Plemons, familiar from the TV series "Friday Night Lights," whose physical imperfection as a character actor provides him with the ability to be totally realistic as a neurotic, gay momma's boy...plus have the acting chops to carry the film. David's mother, Joanne, is played by Molly Shannon (her second role this festival as the mother of a gay son...type-casting?). Shannon is astonishingly good in this role, totally convincing as she literally physically disappears into her illness. If Shannon is deprived of an Oscar supporting nomination, I'll be surprised (hopefully the film will get a release to showcase this performance.) This is a family drama, with impressive work also by Bradley Whitford as David's homophobic father, who still loves his children and nurtures his ill wife.

I was immensely moved by this film, which resonated with my own life. Maybe some will find the cancer and gay son story to be overly familiar territory (it's a staple of indie films, after all.) But for me, every facet of the script rang true; and the acting and direction were extraordinary. Except for the familiar plot, I could have given this film a rare for me 5-star rating.

At the start of this French thriller, Vincent is a soldier flunking his latest physical exam with hearing loss and a clear case of paranoid PTSD. Now an unemployed mercenary, he takes a job as bodyguard protecting the wife and young son of an absent, shady Lebanese billionaire, which turns into a horror show when mystery ninjas attack the high-security compound (called Maryland), maybe to kidnap the wife or kid...it's never spelled out. Vincent is played with steely physical charisma by the wonderful Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts; and the married lady he is protecting is portrayed by the multi-lingual, resourceful German actress Diane Kruger. Director Winocour is very effective at ratcheting up the tension, utilizing an effective score and a script that never fully explains what is happening, right up to a mysteriously unresolved final scene. Still, for all the narrative flaws, the film was totally absorbing.

In this two-character, one-set Mexican film, Senor Lino (veteran actor José Carlos Ruiz) supervises a warehouse for a manufacturing company. Lino is a week away from retirement, when his replacement, clever, young Nin (Hoze Meléndez), appears to be taught the rigid and boring details of his new duties. However, Nin soon discovers that the warehouse seems to be perpetually empty, which serves as a metaphor for the plight of the youthful work force in general in today's Mexico. This is basically a one-act filmed play which has been compared to "Waiting For Godot." The actors are fine; and the director manages to solve the problems inherent to shooting in a confined setting with creative camerawork. From the start I expected to be bored; but gradually the clever interplay between the two characters caught fire and kept my interest.

Sex scandal prone politician, Anthony Weiner, ran for New York City mayor in 2013 when fresh allegations of internet improprieties, mostly tattled by a publicity seeking 23-year old woman, surfaced during the campaign. This documentary was apparently pitched as a "fly-on-the-wall" depiction of the mayoral campaign with full cooperation by subject Weiner and his "good wife" (and Hillary campaign confidante) Huma Abedin. But circumstances turned it into much more: a fascinating depiction of a fine politician brought down by his own character flaws. Fact is, despite everything I'd vote for Weiner for any office. His honesty, his courageous liberal stances, and his likability superseded his sexual peccadilloes for me. But not for the NYC electorate, alas.

At the start of this film Miles Walton is a gay high school senior who is desperate to get out of Springfield, IL and get admitted to a college in Chicago. His father has just died suddenly, having spent all Miles's college money on a car for his girlfriend; and his mother (Molly Shannon) is supportive...but no financial help. So Miles joins the high school girls volleyball team to hopefully get an available athletic scholarship to Loyola U. The film runs with that scheme, which encounters problems.

Miles is played by good-looking, authentic teenager Tim Boardman; and he's the best thing in this film with his fresh-scrubbed enthusiastic performance. The film is roughly based on the young director's actual experiences in 1999 (despite the "based on a true story" opening tag, the end credits show the usual "fictitious characters, not based on real people" bug.) The film was an amiable watch, with a good cast; but the uninspired, slow-paced direction and predictable script just made for a middling coming of age film.

In 1939, a true-life, devout Christian German man named Georg Elser attempted to kill Hitler and other Nazis by planting a bomb at a Munich meeting hall. The bomb exploded 13 minutes too late; and Elser was captured and tortured to provide information about the supposed plot. This film tells Elser's story, mostly in a series of flash-backs which show in brilliant detail from 1932-on the way Germany gradually succumbed to the Nazis. Elser is played by Christian Friedel, in one of the most incredibly taxing and beautifully played performances I've ever witnessed. Director Hierschbiegel made one of the best, most insightful Hitler films ever, Downfall; and he clearly understands the period. The current film, for my money, is a masterpiece of pre-WWII historical movie-making, part character study, part thriller, but always a probing study into the cultural Zeitgeist that created the Nazis. I couldn't help myself from making the horrendous connection that 1932 and the start of the Nazi ascension to power is eerily like the Trump/tea-bagger movement in today's America. Yikes!

Director Whit Stillman, bard of the modern hipster talk-fest genre, turns his quirky intelligence to a total change of pace: a period costume drama and comedy of manners based on a Jane Austen novella, "Lady Susan." The eponymous Lady Susan is an impoverished, faintly scandalous, upper-class widow with a grown eligible daughter. Lady Susan is a schemer, who uses her considerable wiles to affect the men of wealthy families, both in London and in their country mansions. She is played with quick wit by Kate Beckinsale, who lights up the screen as she toys with handsome eligible young nobleman Reginald De Courcy (a star-making turn by actor Xavier Samuel) and plots mischief with her American best friend (Chloë Sevigny.) Stillman proves to be quite adroit at creating an authentic eighteenth-century world. The script is talky and complicated; but also smart and fun to watch. I'm not sure I caught all the implications of the fast-paced story...especially who was supposed to be dallying with whom. But I think that confusion was intentional in Austen's world.

Shonzi is (how to say this in PC language?) a developmentally challenged, mid-30ish adult living with his elderly father. When his father has a heart attack, Shonzi goes to live with his older brother Todd (Timm Sharp) and Todd's girlfriend Lindsay (Melanie Lynskey) who is undergoing a divorce from her sarcastic ex- (Jay Duplass), largely caused by Lindsay's earlier affair with Todd. Shonzi develops an inappropriate longing for his brother's girl. That is the set up for an involving, character driven family dramedy. Shonzi is a character invented and played by writer-director Linas Phillips, who worked earlier in his career making "rainbow time" videos with special needs kids. Phillips vests his character with a unique authenticity, especially when it comes to Shonzi's sexually stunted development, which is sometimes hard to take. But the screenplay is well crafted and often quite funny when it goes farcical. And the acting ensemble, like the best of the mumblecore genre, works together flawlessly.

Colin and Drew are a yuppie married couple living in contemporary Seattle. He's a successful investment maven, she's a dabbling artist. As played by Eric McCormack and Parker Posey they epitomize the modern up-scale couple in their late 30s, whose child bearing clock is ticking. To that end, they need a bigger house, and find a gorgeously situated tear-down on the Sound to buy and renovate. They hire a neurotic architect (James Frain), who offers a plan for a home that is a hideously modern, out-of-control expensive, architectural wonder of impracticality. From there the film develops as an original and entertaining replay of the 1986 film The Money Pit.

This foodie documentary recounts the inner workings of world-class Copenhagen restaurant Noma. In early 2015, owner and chef René Redzepi moved his entire staff to Tokyo for a 5-week long experiment of bringing his exciting cuisine to Japan and giving it a Japanese flavor using local ingredients. The film tells of the months long experimentation phase where Redzepi and his hard-working under-chefs worked to create an original, multi-course tasting menu. The results were tantalizing to see on screen, and undoubtedly very expensive and delicious. But the film, mostly about the processes of high-end food service, became a mite tedious before the final triumphant opening and visual disclosure on film of the mouth-watering, exotic courses served.

This witty, incisively directed and superbly acted film is a remake of the 1969 French film La Piscine (a film that I really must watch!) In the current iteration, Marianne (Tilda Swinton, luminous) is a famous rock star reduced to whispering after a throat operation for bruised vocal chords (from now this will probably be called the Adele operation.) She is recuperating at a lovely Sicilian villa, built around a much-used swimming pool, with her caring younger lover, Paul (played by the magnetic Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, a fave of mine. [note: in the original film this role was played by Alain Delon, another all-time fave of mine].

Into this bucolic idyll arrives uninvited Marianne's former lover, Harry (Ralph Fiennes in a powerful, boisterously repugnant and frenetic characterization), along with his new-found, sex-kitten, teenage-ish daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson, the fourth wheel in this sterling cast.) Harry is still holding a torch for Marianne; but Marianne is just annoyed by his sudden presence. That is the set-up for a fascinating menage à quatre, that is exciting to watch as these characters cavort among the gorgeous Sicilian countryside. I loved every minute of the film, even when it eventually goes completely off the rails dramatically in an unlikely way which kept the film from my rating it a 5-star masterpiece.

This documentary recounts the life story and experiences of French scientist and explorer Claude Lorius from the mid-1950s, when he took part in the first real scientific expeditions to Antarctica, through his eventual breakthrough explorations which provided incontrovertible evidence of global warming gleaned from evidence he gathered by digging deeply into the Antarctic ice shelves. The film is rich with old 8mm and 16mm films showing early Antarctic explorations by Lorius and others, which is intercut with present day footage of the now 82-year old scientist returning to his beloved continent and reminiscing about his life with voice-over (by an actor in rather florid English.) The documentary is fascinating, even important, for its historic content and its scientific revelations.

Sara is 12, almost 13, attending a Chilean middle-school where she is mildly embarrassed that she is living in a home with two moms - in the tentative shared custody (along with her younger sister) of her re-married father. That is the starting point of this family drama about institutionalized homophobia and the effect it has on one fractured extended family. There are no evil characters here, only irresolute and confused ones. This issue-oriented film raised important questions about family and legalities that make for questionable decisions about family matters. However, I found it hard to empathize with the characters as written in the screenplay. This was more my failing of empathy than the fault of the film maker.

Sofia (Julie Andersen) is a Danish teen-age girl whose step-father, along with his gang of rowdy friends, is tyrannical and physically abusive to her mother, herself and her older sister. When the two girls run away to find the younger girl's natural father, it sets in motion a series of morally challenging events. Sofia's father they discover is a crazy ex-soldier, paranoid, a victim of PTSD living a hermit's life as a dairy farmer. The film becomes a tense drama of broken family ties...but with a ray of optimism due to Sofia's strength of character. The script is downbeat; but the fine acting and assured direction overcome some of the more unlikely story developments.

In this involving documentary, New Zealand journalist David Farrier becomes intrigued by a sport he discovers while browsing the internet: competitive endurance tickling. A straight youth is strapped down, and other strapping boys then tickle him mercilessly, in a kind of S&M sporting ritual. Farrier is determined to discover more about this sport, which leads him to identifying a mysterious New York millionaire lawyer and ex-con who he finds bankrolls the sport under various fake women's names. I have to admit that I found the "sport" sort of intriguing to watch. But Farrier's obsessive detective work on camera which involved trips to the U.S., coping with unceasing litigation, and secretly shadowing his suspect...somehow all this left me incredulous. Still, just like in that other similar documentary which coined the word "catfish," Farrier does manage to find the smoking gun.

This Turkish documentary is the account of thousands of wild and semi-tame cats that roam the streets of Istanbul. Much of the film is shot using wide angle cameras at street level, sort of a cat's-eye view of the world. These scenes are intercut with beautiful aerial and scenic shots of the city. The cats and kittens are cute, of course; and the people interviewed in action, who devote time and treasure to caring for them (mainly with food and love) are verbal in their devotion. Being allergic to cats, and not an admirer of the species, I found that the 79 minute film just seemed endless and repetitive. I'm sure cat lovers will eat it up.

In 2012, Mike Birbiglia directed an obscure, fun comedy about a stand-up comic played by Birbiglia himself (obviously somewhat autobiographical) called Sleepwalk With Me. Birbiglia as auteur in that film was like Woody Allen doing a mumblecore genre film. In this followup, Birbiglia plays a member of a funny, but failing New York improv group called "The Commune." All the members of the group aspire to act or write for a thinly disguised "Saturday Night Live" type show called in this film "Weekend Live." What ensues is a moderately funny, bittersweet film about the hardships of the comedy marketplace, and how the performers and writers are either eaten alive by the system, or go on to success or failure in life. That's a hefty burden for a comedy to aspire to...but Birbiglia succeeds by having a wonderfully adroit comic cast and a smart script. The title refers to one of Birbiglia's rules of improv: "Don't think twice" about what to do next in the skit. The film felt both improvised and tautly written. I really enjoyed this film.

Back in 2001 I watched a great Russian film directed by Pavil Lungin called The Wedding (Svadba). It was a madcap farce, and my favorite film of the festival. Demon is also about a madcap Polish wedding that goes amok; but in this case the groom, a successful Polish ex-pat living in Britain, became inhabited by a "dybbuk" (Yiddish: דיבוק‎, from the Hebrew verb דָּבַק dāḇaq meaning "adhere" or "cling"), a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. The dybbuk in this film was a Jewish woman murdered on the wedding property sometime in the past; and I believe it served here as a metaphor for the Polish-Jewish Holocaust victims. However, the symbolism is somehow lost in the confusion of other symbols...failed Catholic exorcism, xenophobia, doddering Jewish elders, incompetent doctors, the bride's family's adherence to despoiling capitalism. If the film was meant to be just about a comic wedding ruined by a ghost's appearance, somehow the fun got lost in the confusion of direction and editing that was just too out of control.

After a short intro, the film flashes back three months to what may be the most beautiful visual of the year: Tom Hiddleston's naked body. Unfortunately that's the high point of the film. J. G. Ballard's dystopian satire about a futuristic, high rise condominium and its self-destructive denizens has been frenetically brought to the screen by transgressive English director Ben Wheatley. His film making style here is sort of like Fellini's grotesque characters inhabiting Greenaway's most visually over-the-top environments. There's a point to be made about human nature run amok; but this film overdoes it to extremes.

Mo is a tough ex-con, released from a falsely convicted prison stretch, who now works in a dog shelter, determined to stay on the straight and narrow. He is played by Boyd Holbrook, a good looking actor that somehow has never before made much of an impact in several of his films and TV shows that I've watched (lately in Narcos)..but here gives an indelibly deep performance. When Mo encounters a needy girl on the run from murdering her abusive cop husband (Elizabeth Moss, great in a role that is something of a departure for her), the two outcasts embark on a desperate road trip to freedom. The film engrossed me despite some inexplicable plot developments. The magnetism of the two leads and the propulsive story of their jeopardy was that strong.

This documentary follows three crusading foodies who run the Nordic Food Lab and the Danish restaurant Noma, as they travel the world exploring the use and preparation of various insects and bugs as food. Theoretically this under-utilized source of protein could help solve the world's upcoming population explosion and food shortages. Some of the images of edible grubs and maggots are revolting; but the enthusiasm of the multi-national trio of gastronomes, Josh Evans, Ben Reade and Roberto Flore, is catching. Except that I think I'll definitely avoid some of their culinary creations if offered. Technically, the film could use a more logical editing schema. As it is the film jumps around confusingly from cooking lessons to insect hunting, to boring, repetitive lectures on sustainable farming. The message got lost in the verbiage.

This is a sequel to a marvelous French kids film of a couple of years back, where an adorable 6-year old boy befriended a fearfully large wild dog during the Nazi occupation.

The current film takes place post-war, and Sébastian is now 9, but still wild and totally at home in the gorgeous Alpine terrain. His dog Belle is now his constant companion; and his adoptive grandfather (once again played by Tchéky Karyo) is awaiting the return by plane of his daughter who had served in the French resistance. When the plane crashed and the girl was reported to be missing, the film became a kid-friendly search and rescue adventure.

Frankly, the plot had enough logical holes to drive a herd of buffalo through. Nevertheless young Félix Bossuet is such a charmer as Sébastian, so perky and physically adroit for his age, that all my cynical disbelief in the story simply disappeared.

A punk band gets a gig to play at an outlaw Oregon venue, which turns into a fatal horror show. The film was well acted, and tensely directed; but the film's incessant violence was just a tad too over the top for my tastes. And some character motivations and plot contrivances were too sketchy to be believable. Patrick Stuart as the chief villain was a long way from Jean-Luc Picard; while the young cast of good guys, including a game Anton Yelchin, Joe Cole and Imogen Poots, made sympathetic victims and avengers.

OK, I get that my inattentiveness to the Marvel Avengers universe might have been the source for my feeling that the script was confusing and the overall direction pedestrian and derivative. After all, with heroes pitted against each other it would help to know beforehand why and how they got that way...and I guess I just didn't care enough in previous films (I've watched them all) to keep track. But even the many special effects sequences seemed badly choreographed and full of technical glitches to my eyes. So I guess I'll just never be a Marvel fanboy. However, I do like the third version of Spider-Man...and the most enjoyment I got out of this film was the obligatory post-end-credits scene where we're promised that Tom Holland's Spidey will return!

A 15-year old Irish schoolboy, attending a new school because his parents were having money and relationship problems, impulsively formed a pop-music band to impress a 16-year old girl. That's the set-up for a remarkably involving film that gets its mid-1980s period exactly right, with wonderful original songs and convincingly live performances of those songs that could only happen in the movies. Except that such Irish bands seem to have spontaneously appeared all the time...the film rings of truth and authenticity.

A lot of the credit goes to writer-director John Carney, who based much of this story from his own youthful experiences and also wrote many of the up-beat original tunes that made me nostalgic for the flash of '80s pop (I'm more of a '60s and '70s music fan...but the songs in this film were the bomb!) Even more credit goes to the talented and appealing actor-singer discovery Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, cast in the lead-singer role, and the rest of the unknowns that were cast as his band mates. The plot may have been simplistic; but this filmed pop musical still enthralled and thrilled.

Two misfit high school boys in Versailles, France become friends. Daniel (nickname "Microbe") is small and undeveloped for his age, Théo is the new kid in class, from a troubled home, but an accomplished mechanic (often smelling of gasoline, thus his school nickname.) Together they build a makeshift go-cart disguised as a house, and set out for summer vacation on a road-trip through France. This coming-of-age film is a departure for director Michel Gondry, depending less on animation and filmic invention than his recent work, and concentrating more on character, realism and whimsy. What has resulted is a superior family film (at least the PG-14 variety of family film), that avoids clichés and is totally involving. Much credit to the two young actors, Ange Dargent and Théophile Baquet, who are convincingly age-appropriate, and a script that is never predictable and quite entertaining.

Watched at the Seattle International Film Festival under the title of The Violin Teacher

At the start of this film, a former Brazilian violin prodigy found himself creatively stalled. He took a temporary job teaching high school students from the favela (Brazilian slums) to perform as an orchestra, especially identifying with one promising violin student who was unfortunately involved with local gangsters. That's the set up for a film steeped in the appreciation of classical music; but also impaired by a clunky, predictable plot.

This scattered and virtually incoherent film tells the story of two mermaids who go to work in a Polish music bar and sex club. The film is visually dazzling; and the musical numbers are wonderfully performed. But none of that makes up for a plot that is so annoyingly obscure and bloodthirsty (don't even ask), that it defies why anybody would ever want to watch such a film. Of course, your mileage may vary. But if I could conveniently have fled the festival screening I certainly would have after the first half-hour or so of sheer torture, which didn't improve.

This is a taut, dramatic accounting of a British supervised and American performed drone strike on terrorists in the middle-east. It was well acted (Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman in his last role were particularly convincing as British soldiers, while Aaron Paul was sort of wasted as the drone pilot conflicted by doubts.) And the ethical dilemma of remote drone warfare with its calculations of "collateral damage" (in this case a very young, sympathetic little girl) was convincingly portrayed. Good script, tight direction (Gavin Hood, a director I'm certainly watching for). In the end I wasn't quite sure what the point was...anti-war? ends-justify-the-means? we are all complicit in making more terrorists? that remote, modern warfare is hellish and soul killing? all of the above?

This film dramatizes the first date of two lawyers in Chicago's southside in the 1980s. That these two lawyers happen to be Barak and Michelle Obama in their youths is a fitting start to the ongoing legend of the 44th American President. Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers as respectively Michelle and Barak are physically and vocally convincing. The film is talky (hard to imagine these two being anything else on a first date), and intellectually satisfying, with a smart, illuminating script. I think if I had been able to watch this film in 2008 I would have been a lot more supportive of candidate Obama, who was a relative unknown to me at the time that I didn't quite trust. What this film does very well is define what a "community organizer" actually is, and the source of Obama's appeal and oratorical skills that ultimately propelled him to the Presidency. What it doesn't do is make for a gripping romantic drama. Too cerebral for that. Still, it's enjoyable and worth the time to get involved with these people.

The setting is an olive tree grove and farm in present day Spain, where a young girl watches her adored, dementia afflicted grandfather mourn the previous sale and uprooting of their favorite 2,000 year old olive tree at the instigation of the girl's father and uncles. The girl hatches a plot to recover the tree which involves a clever deception; and the film becomes an eco-friendly road trip north to Germany, and a girl's coming-of-age story. Unfortunately for me, I just couldn't get all that involved with the unlikely deception and the film was too slow to arrive at the bittersweet resolution.

One year after the shocking and tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT in 2012, the town came together to perform an original musical production of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream," utilizing the school's children of all ages as performers. This documentary tells the story of the making and performance of this event from the point of view of some bereaved parents, traumatized kids and the Broadway professionals that volunteered to write, compose and direct the show. The subject of a town's attempting to heal is important; and the kids and parents that were mainly featured were well chosen for emotional impact. However I couldn't help but come away with the been-there-done-that feeling that I'd experienced the same sort of straightforward, chronological film making about talented kids triumphing over adversity before.

This Brazilian-Canadian co-production has a fascinating and original premise, a live action and animation composite film where three stories blend into one another circularly, with the characters in each story somehow creating the characters in the next story in line. Thus there is no "original" "real" story, just an endless loop of characters creating other characters. I won't even try in a spoiler free review to explain the details. Suffice it to say that the various film techniques (including some superb rotoscoped animation) used to join the three stories together are superbly realized. The film uses some familiar actors: Alison Pill, Gael Garcia Bernal, Don McKellar and Jason Priestly were the most familiar to me; but the entire ensemble is quite good. I was entertained from beginning to end by the concept and story, a filmic equivalent to an action filled graphic novel.

On the south Pacific volcanic island of Vanuatu in the 1980s, two indigenous tribes waged a territorial war. This film dramatizes a kind of Romeo and Juliette story of the granddaughter of one of the tribes put under pressure to bring the tribes together by making an arranged marriage with the son of the chief of the other tribe. However, the girl has a mind of her own and is in love with a man of her own tribe. The film looks authentic, using unknown amateur actors that are actual people of the island, and a setting centered on the local volcano which is used as a metaphor for the couple's passion. For me the story was too simplistic, and the pacing too slow to keep me enthralled. However, as an example of pure film making, it had an authenticity that others might find worth watching (I had trouble staying awake.)

Sonita was a young Afghani girl living illegally in Iran. In this suspenseful and inspiring documentary it is disclosed that she was an accomplished rapper (it is illegal for women to sing in Iran) whose mother traveled from Afghanistan to Iran to insist that her daughter submit to the family by returning home to an arranged marriage so that her older brother could use her marriage settlement of $9,000 to buy his own bride. This documentary tells of the amazing strength, wisdom and luck of this young girl as she fought back against custom with her music and her actions. As she interacted on screen with the Iranian woman filmmaker, the viewer is alternately terrified for Sonita and elevated by her creativity and courage. This is one of the better documentaries you'll see this year.