When a movie’s press material spends as much time insisting that the film means something as the material for Demonlover does, it’s a pretty good indication that the picture in question is meaningless. Demonlover, from French director and critical darling Olivier Assayas, isn’t quite that empty. Its flimsy narrative thread – involving a pending merger

In this bitter, bracing drama, Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger – both excellent – play Ted and Marion Cole, a wealthy but miserable married couple struggling to survive the death of their young sons years earlier. She has sunk into a near-coma of grief, while he lashes out via repeated infidelities. It’s not a pretty

Is love anything more than a hormonal impulse? That’s the question posed by Dopamine, an independent drama about an emotionally skeptical computer animator (John Livingston) who won’t admit he may have met the girl of his dreams (Sabrina Lloyd). Perhaps I would have cared more about the answer if Dopamine had brought even an iota

Often fodder for lowbrow horror flicks, Bram Stoker’s classic tale gets the highbrow treatment here. Cult Canadian director Guy Maddin has adapted the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s interpretation of Stoker’s novel for the screen, resulting in a mixture of dance performance and Maddin’s signature, silent-movie style. Maddin’s ghostly black-and-white imagery – punctuated by occasional bursts of

This unfortunate vehicle for former “Friends” star David Schwimmer, can never quite decide whether it wants to be a hard-hitting domestic drama or a quirky character comedy. Schwimmer – as the title alcoholic, who is in denial despite the threat of losing his wife and kids – seems capable of going both directions, but not

Gus Van Sant makes Elephant an act of mourning – specifically over the Columbine shootings, and also over the loss of innocence that tragedy implied. Appropriately set during the fall, when things are dying beautifully, the film uses lyrical camera work to cast a spiritual glow on the most mundane of high school activities –

This mostly works as a curious commentary on star Naomi Watts’ career. Her Ellie, a struggling Hollywood actress frantically running from one futile audition to the next, is a variation on Watts’ breakout role in Mulholland Drive, while one scene takes place at a zoo, where she goes gaga over gorillas. Sound familiar? The King

The Embalmer does just about everything in its power to turn you off. And guess what? It works. Set along what has to be the dumpiest, dreariest coastline in all of Italy – the sand is strewn with trash; the high-rises are mostly empty – the drama details a romantic triangle involving a diminutive taxidermist

Everything that is good and bad about an “art film” can be found in Eros, a meditation on desire featuring three shorts by three different directors: Hong Kong’s Wong Kar-wai, the United States’ Steven Soderbergh and Italy’s Michelangelo Antonioni. The Hand, Wong Kar-wai’s opening segment, is strictly sensual and very similar to his best-known work: