Quiet, Creepy, Absurd, Home Wows Critics

Almodovar's latest mixes noir with melodrama

(NEWSER) - Broken Embraces isn't quite up there with Pedro Almodovar's finest work, say critics, but the noirish tribute to '50s Hollywood looks fantastic and tells a compelling story.

• "While it may not elicit the affection reserved for some of Almodovar's more heartfelt films," writes Claudia Puig in USA Today , "Broken Embraces is a tale of lust, treachery and guilt, with artful homages to classic films."

(NEWSER) - American art houses are finally getting a taste of Katyn, legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s acclaimed film about the World War II-era massacre of the same name, and critics are heaping yet more acclaim on it. AO Scott of the New York Times calls it “solemn and searing,” while Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer says Wajda “has made a heroic effort to translate a historical crime into a saga of human hope and delusion.” More»

Salon's critic's favorite flicks are an eclectic bunch

(NEWSER) - Behold: a top 10 movies list that doesn't include The Dark Knight. In a year that's hard to sum up, Stephanie Zarachek pulls together an eclectic mix of great flicks for Salon:

• Even repeated viewings don't betray any flaws in Happy-Go-Lucky, a "luminous" tale of a London school marm by British director Mike Leigh.

France delivers excellent old-style Hollywood thriller

(NEWSER) - French thriller Tell No One has the critics rushing to tell the world how much they liked it. The fast-paced and thickly plotted adaptation of a novel by American writer Harlan Coben is "hot-blooded, haunting and packed with the pleasures of the unexpected," writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. More»

Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones return for alien flick

(NEWSER) - Sure, no one was that desperate for a Men in Black 3—but it's actually a pretty good summer movie. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are back defending the planet from aliens, and this time, Josh Brolin's along for the ride as a young Jones.

• The movie "turns out to be so much fun," writes AO Scott in the New York Times . While it "carefully fulfills its blockbuster imperatives—with chases and explosions and elaborately contrived plot twists—it swerves into some marvelously silly, unexpectedly witty, and genuinely fresh territory."