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Bromantics Law (left) and Downey.

Film

Sherlock Holmes

As overemphatic as one might expect from the ham-fisted Guy Ritchie, this resurrection of the world’s most famous…

McKay’s Welles basks in adulation, worries about his next career step.

Film

Me and Orson Welles: Zac Efron Holds His Own in a Very Enjoyable Backstage Tale

Orson Welles lives on not only in posthumously restored director’s cuts of his movies but as a character…

An actor (Jude Finisterra) pretends Dow Chemical is owning up to its sins.

Film

The Yes Men Fix the World: If Only Capitalism Were This Funny

The anti-globalist performance guys who call themselves the Yes Men are masters of forging corporate rhetoric and media…

Fernández goes on shore leave.

Film

Liverpool: Another Landscape Movie From Lisandro Alonso

As with his previous films, Argentine director Lisandro Alonso’s Liverpool is defined by its trajectory. A taciturn merchant…

Clooney and McGregor (right) get lost on their desert quest.

Film

The Men Who Stare at Goats: George Clooney Can’t Read Your Mind

Goats begins with the mind-fucking assertion that “more of this is true than you would believe.” And would…

As Jeannie, Tilly Hatcher rolls as she pleases.

Film

Beeswax: Mumblecore Comes of Age

Though no one’s idea of an action film, Andrew Bujalski’s Beeswax feels less charmingly aimless than its radically…

Dafoe has some unusual ideas about loss and therapy.

Film

Antichrist: Lars von Trier Continues to Annoy

Lars von Trier’s doggedly outrageous, fearsomely ambitious two-hander is so desperate to make you feel something—if only a…

Records becomes lord of the monsters.

Film

Where the Wild Things Are: Not Terrible, But in Need of Some Terror

Directed by Spike Jonze from a 400-word children’s picture book first published in 1963, Where the Wild Things…

Cornish in a typically quiet moment.

Film

Bright Star: The Quiet Return of Jane Campion

Set in the bucolic suburbs of early-19th-century London, as fresh and dewy as a newly mowed lawn, Jane…

It all ends badly for the Baader gang.

Film

The Baader Meinhof Complex: Germany’s Radical ’70s Make Little Sense Today

Founded by self-described urban guerrillas Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Ulrike Meinhof, the Red Army Faction were the…

Varda retains her verve.

Film

PICK The Beaches of Agnès: A Veteran Director Powered by Love

The great idiosyncratic original of the French nouvelle vague generation, Agnès Varda began her career as a photographer,…

Laurent as Tarantino's ideal, movie-mad heroine.

Film

Inglourious Basterds: World War II According to Tarantino

Energetic, inventive, swaggering fun, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is a consummate Hollywood entertainment—rich in fantasy and blithely amoral.…

Castro’s criminal dancer.

Film

PICK Tony Manero: Finding Evil in a Disco Classic

Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain’s alarming Tony Manero—set in the dark days of the Pinochet regime and named not…

Gazowsky commands his flock.

Film

Audience of One: Faith on Film

Michael Jacobs’ Audience of One belongs to a particular nonfiction genre—the docu-exploitation of a spectacularly miscarried movie. Jacobs’…

Slacker searches for, yes, the meaning of life.

Film

$9.99: A Claymation Spiritual Quest

Tatia Rosenthal’s stop-motion animation feature adds a measure of stolid creepiness to co-writer Etgar Keret’s brand of dark…

Lusting for fame, not lederhosen, is the real shame for Baron Coen.

Film

PICK Brüno: Sacha Baron Cohen Feels Your Shame

Willkommen to the new Sacha Baron Cohen extravaganza Brüno (directed by guerrilla filmmaker Larry Charles), which is often…

Clarkson is considerably less sour than her surroundings.

Film

Whatever Works: No, Woody, It Doesn’t

Woody Allen’s first New York movie after five years abroad, Whatever Works is his first in even longer…

Director Kim doesn’t sentimentalize her kids.

Film

PICK Treeless Mountain: An American Indie Shot in South Korea

Kid performers naturally introduce elements of magic and mystery into the most banal situations. They are most resonant,…

Kazakhstan stars as itself.

Film

PICK Tulpan: A Minimalist Marvel From Kazakhstan

The first feature by Russian ethno-documentarian Sergei Dvortsevoy is a fiction founded on a powerful sense of place—and…

All in the family: Ehrenreich, Gallo, and Verdú.

Film

PICK Tetro: Francis Ford Coppola’s Imaginary Family History

As this baroque genealogical melodrama reaches its appropriately hysterical denouement, Vincent Gallo fixes his pale gaze on young…