Reviewer: Glenn Heath, Jr.
Rating (out of 5): ***

Glazed in a dusty yellow sheen, Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe, based on Posy Simmonds' comic strip, coyly dances around a well-traveled idea: the grass is always greener on the other side. At first, this breeds comedic situations through rampant miscommunication, as deeply unhappy souls yearn for a romantic or economic situation that will produce inspiration. Eventually, these small self-deceptions turn grotesque. Tamara Drewe's collective of off-kilter characters, some purposefully and others regrettably rooted in the small English town of Ewedown, watch romantic relationships unfold from a distance, judging them with a selfish desire for tragedy that will benefit their own needs. Through their outside gaze, we feel the power of gossip and mischief mold the narrative. Perspective is everything for Frears, and often his characters see only what they want to see.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): ****

Hirokazu Kore-eda's new family drama Still Walking - now out courtesy of Criterion - is his most beautifully accomplished work since After Life (1998), but if it also comes so close to Yasujiro Ozu territory -- especially the themes of Tokyo Story (1953) -- that it ends up paling a bit in comparison. Still, it's a lovely work.

Ryo (Hiroshi Abe) is an unemployed art restorer who has married a widow with a young son. Upon the anniversary of his older brother's death, he returns home for an annual family gathering. His grumpy father (Yoshio Harada) is a doctor who was forced to retire due to failing eyesight. His dream of one of his sons taking over his clinic has come to nothing. (Of course, the happy future of everything that could have been is projected onto the dead son.)

Reviewer: Steve Dollar
Rating (out of 5): ***

Don't screw with Vincent Cassel. If there's any French actor destined to play his country's most notorious gangster, it's this guy. Cassel's headlong stride, vivid emotional range and masculine charisma make him ideal for volatile character studies and anti-heroics. The forthcoming Our Day Will Come (Notre Jour Viendra) builds an entire movie around Cassel, playing a renegade shrink who takes an emotionally troubled teenager under his wing and basically shows the boy how to be a man – a process that involves a lot of dangerous, illegal and outrageous behavior.

Reviewer: Glenn Heath Jr.
Rating (out of 5): ***

As far as remakes go, A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop, Zhang Yimou's colorful and ultimately punishing period piece riff on Blood Simple, might be one of the strangest in recent memory. Jumping from the dark, beguiling, and smoky Texas landscape of the original to a textured, barren mountain region of China, Zhang situates an oddly static locale where his patented surrealist color scheme can intertwine with American genre conventions. Isolated by a sea of soot-covered mountain sides and an endless teal sky, the titular noodle shop feels like its own doomed city-state, with owner Wang (Ni Dahong) as the fascist dictator, his abused wife (Yan Ni) and the three workers a citizenry of angry imbeciles waiting for chance to free them of suffering. But we get the sense that even if these messy peons were granted individualism, they'd let it blow away in the harsh winds.