A gorgeously drawn, beautifully scored, and, as is wont with most erotic Japanese anime, disturbing film,

This year, the two best films made by first-time feature filmmakers at Cannes were animated. Both movies are told with precision but without rigidity. In both cases, you won’t know where the free-flowing story is headed.

This is a perfect film for smart, preteen kids (as well as adults) and a welcome relief from the YA dystopian merry-go-round that Hollywood finds itself in.

It’s tough to digest a film written by Charlie Kaufman right after you have seen it. Even the more accessible ones are enigmatic: Being John Malkovich (involving a portal into actor John Malkovich’s mind) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where Jim Carrey erases all memories, literally, of his relationship with Kate Winslet after […]

There’s no intelligible dialogue in this animated odyssey about a nameless boy who leaves his home in the countryside in search of his father, but it still manages to speak to the heart. The father has left for the city to find work, and his lonely son undertakes a dreamlike pursuit. Growing in sinister stature […]

Extraordinary Tales is the perfect little bon mot to kick off the Halloween season. It is a slight, charming, and charmingly macabre animated adaptation of five Edgar Allen Poe short stories, all illustrated, directed, and adapted by Raul Garcia. There is also a mediocre framing device that sets up Poe as a raven chatting with […]

Like MetLife and its commercial use of Snoopy, Laurie Anderson deploys her cute canine as an entry point to mull a subject people usually avoid thinking about: death. The depiction of the life and 2011 death of her rat terrier, Lolabelle, at first seems like those endless photos of and commentary on beloved pets posted […]

Directed by Roger Allers, Gaetan Brizzi & Paul Brizzi, Joan Gratz, Mohammed Saeed Harib, Tomm Moore, Nina Paley, Bill Plympton, Joann Sfar, and Michal Socha Produced by Salma Hayek-Pinault Written by Allers, based on The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran Released by Gkids USA/France/Lebanon/Qatar. 84 min. Rated PG With the voices of Hayek, Liam Neeson, Quvenzhane […]

Written and Directed by Ari Folman, based on The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem Produced by Folman, Reinhard Brundig and Robin Wright. Released by Drafthouse Films Israel/Germany/Poland/Luxembourg /Belgium/France. 123 min. Not rated With Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Danny Huston, Paul Giamatti, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jon Hamm Robin Wright is having a career revival. She became […]