Film Journal International

First-time feature director Eytan Rockaway (also producer and co-author, with screenwriter Ido Funk, of the film's story) does a commendable job of ratcheting up the scary atmosphere and images.

This is a more-than-promising directorial debut, well worth seeking by adventurous moviegoers.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Selma seems to understand King best when he's behind a podium or at the head of a march. After all, that public Martin Luther King, Jr. is the one engrained in our collective memory, representing the kind of person we all should be so lucky to aspire to be.

A tragic romance of identity embedded in a voluptuous atmosphere, Moonlight flirts with visual and thematic excess. But the emotional integrity of its characters, seamlessly maintained from one set of actors to the next, who so desperately want to love, pulls it back from the brink.

It’s a perfect pairing of sensibilities; Jenkins and Baldwin share a nuanced, lyrical style that conveys the beauty and hope in even the most despairing of situations, with a focus on the emotional truths of their characters. Like the novel, the film is a love story, as well as a powerful indictment of systemic racism and the criminal-justice system.

Never Look Away, a cohesively integrated collage of many genres (history, war, crime, medical drama with romance and spectacle), is also a feast of fine acting and magnificent visuals. But with so much going on, viewers, as if confronting impressionistic paintings or pixel-based photorealistic portraitures, need to step away to get a better picture.

Compositionally often quite gorgeous and filmed largely in luminous, at times otherwordly black-and-white, The Great Buddha is compelling due to its mordant wit, authentically observed performances and distinctive cynical/lyrical outlook.

Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and particularly an astonishing Olivia Colman find a perfectly pitched acid tone in harmony with the director's edgy vision.

Their most potent commentary is often their silence, their wordless responses to those questions that are unanswerable. Their restraint and dignity are an emotional sucker punch.

Not only do the Coens remember and reproduce it well, so does their French cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel