Movie formulas are almost always regrettable, but they are especially so when the subject being formulized is reduced in the process. That’s what happens with Walk the Line, which squeezes the life of Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) into the convenient, Oscar-friendly Ray format. When it isn’t ignoring hugely relevant portions of Cash’s life – namely

Scorsese’s fourth feature and his modern tribute, in a sense, to the classic Hollywood women’s picture. Scorsese has always been a film lover first and a filmmaker second, and so it’s appropriate that Alice opens with a striking visual homage to the likes of Gone with the Wind. Florid titles, elegant camerawork and a Technicolor

Blue Car has a firm grip on its lead character – a troubled high-school English student, played with spot-on sullenness by Agnes Bruckner – but it isn’t quite sure how to handle the rest of its players. The movie is an ensemble piece when its true calling is to be a character study. This is

An astonishing act of cinema and anthropology, Atanarjuat dramatizes an ancient legend of the Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic. The story traces the life of a hunter (Natar Ungalaaq) whose devotion to the community contrasts with the greed of the tribal leader’s son. As their lifelong feud illuminates the repercussions of breaking a society’s

Director Paul Schrader and star Greg Kinnear turn what could have been a big-screen True Hollywood Story – in this case the life of Hogan’s Heroes star and sex addict Bob Crane – into a fascinating portrait of a tortured personality. The groping on display has the sad desperation of a junkie shooting up in

Girlfriends are bad, wives are worse and babies are the kiss of death in this bitter Italian comedy about a group of friends in their late 20s who are loath to give up bachelorhood, even as wedding days and children are fast approaching. A smug Stefano Accorsi stars as Carlo, a fun-loving advertising executive undergoing

How can an artist be true to the tragic past? That’s the question driving Ararat, a movie that poses the query to itself as much as it does to endeavors such as Schindler’s List. An extremely personal effort from Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), Ararat features his usual abstract approach, this time to

Like the socially awkward art students it depicts, Art School Confidential is at turns endearing and cringe-inducing. It’s best to focus on the endearing qualities. This is the third feature from director Terry Zwigoff, whose previous odes to misfit souls are Bad Santa and Ghost World (as well as the documentary Crumb). Zwigoff is in

If only writing in real life could be as romantic as it often is in the movies. Ask the Dust, from writer-director Robert Towne), stars Colin Farrell as Arturo Bandini, an aspiring novelist in Depression-era Los Angeles who is dirt poor but still manages to afford a dapper if distressed wardrobe and a vintage room