"Sensation comes from emotional investment. If you're not emotionally invested in the character, it doesn't matter how quick your cuts are or how much the camera moves or how kinetic the surfaces. It all comes from character."

The movie successfully imagines a distant but recognizable future in which the planet's energy problems have been solved by a transition to fusion. But we discover eventually that consumption has only been displaced and not eliminated, and that the true fuel source is not lunar rock but something far more precious.

Allen's penchant for pairing increasingly older leading men with nubile actresses in their early 20s has gone beyond parody into a kind of fugue state. But Whatever Works reinvigorates the formula, in part because the script was written before it was established.

Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman's documentary is a straightforward inspirational-teacher tale, but it's enlivened by uncommonly intriguing characters, including the three students the film focuses on.

Without a word of dialogue, Docter conveys the tenderness of a life lived in harmony, the disappointments weathered if never forgotten, the dreams more important in aspiration than in their fulfillment.

The stars of Y Tu Mamá También are well-matched as love-hate rivals, although Bernal's talent has blossomed more fully than his erstwhile co-star's.

It's ironic that the film's plot should be the reason for its vanishing act, since narrative is the least of the movie's concerns.

The two men, a portly Jew with a degree from Harvard and an asthmatic kid from Brooklyn who became the world's greatest boxer, could hardly be more oddly matched, but Toback says they instantly recognized each other as kindred spirits when they first met.

In a sense, Gervasi has performed the ultimate fan's service, giving Anvil the chance they never had. Consider it a debt repaid from a 16-year-old roadie turned 40-year-old-filmmaker.

The movie works to keep you constantly off-balance, never sure how deep the conspiracies run or who's in cahoots with whom. But despite of its loop-the-loop plot, it's still possible to give away how it ends without spoiling anything. It ends with paper.