Ben Kenigsberg

Kurosawa’s well-timed camera moves cut like daggers. What emerges is a samurai picture that feels simultaneously classical and modern, austere and capacious, familiar and surprising.

Like Ponciroli’s throwback western, “Old Henry” (2021), Motor City is more a film to respect than to see (or hear).

The trajectory of Valdez’s work and its activist emphasis only look more revolutionary in retrospect.

The most interesting aspect of this somewhat on-the-nose page-to-screen translation may be extra-textual: It is, unusually, an Israeli-Italian co-production set in Tehran, by a director, Eran Riklis, whose previous films (“Cup Final,” “Lemon Tree”) have brought the same world-weary optimism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The most bracing thing about Young Washington is its commitment to old-fashioned stodginess. Declamatory acting, cleanly stated motivations and a few solidly staged battle sequences are the order of the day. (Personality, humor, a sense of 18th-century texture — less so.)

A regrettable portion of Jackass: Best and Last is simply regurgitated material. (There’s even a special credit for a “best of” cinematographer, presumably because such a large percentage of this film has been seen before.) Far too much of the movie consists of the guys playing the tape and reminiscing about their favorite exploding portable toilets.

While decently absorbing, Unidentified eventually goes way more Hollywood than either of those films, with a plot that defies logic (raising issues of both structure and perspective) and undermines the movie’s message — unless the pulpy swerve is itself intended as a kind of statement.

There is much to be said for [Sehiri's] unsensationalistic approach, and for its specificity of detail, even if splitting the narrative three ways means that each of these stories feels shortchanged.

One need look no further than “Marty Supreme” to see how Mexico 86 might have complicated the audience’s sympathies, but this straightforward crowd-pleaser doesn’t wish to see beyond Martín’s charm.

While there is value in any documentary evidence of this time and place, Aljafari’s allusive approach seems ill-matched with the urgency of his subject matter.