Snow Angels, David Gordon Green, 2007

Gordon Green's sturdy ear for dialouge and deft handling of interpersonal relationships are at once overwhelmed and undermined by the abject, misanthropic grief of his film.

The Darjeeling Limited (with Hotel Chevalier), Wes Anderson, 2007

Anderson's South Asian experiement is indulgence run horribly amok. Precious and infantile, the film no more adds to the cinema than any Bruckheimer popcorn franchise.

Last Night at the Alamo, Eagle Pennell, 1983

Pennell's hardscrabble booze yarn, regarded as a modest curio from the proto-indie era of regional cinema, is instead a genuine major work, with the director effortlessly and expertly deploying the film's myriad types in service of a narrative reflecting nothing less than the God's honest American Spirit.

RIP: Anthony Minghella (1954-2008)

Lady Chatterly, Pascale Ferran, 2006

Ferran's film, excepting a few minor stylistic missteps, is a patient, lived-in work that assuredly balances blunt physicality and eroticism with staid, poetic classicism.

Ne Touchez pas la Hache (The Duchess of Langeais), Jacques Rivette, 2007

The ever masterful Rivette offers Balzac's stark tale of ill-fated passion with a style most distinctly his, employing a stately mise-en-scene, mannered, elegant compositions, and a host of deceptively experimental flourishes.

I Could Never be Your Woman, Amy Heckerling, 2007

Heckerling's breezy May-December comedy, buoyed by strong performances from Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd, employs enough of the director's signature stylish wit to overcome its intermittent creative missteps.

Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant, 2007

In this high school murder mystery of sorts, Van Sant employs young, non-professional actors as the film's principals, a tact that served him tremendously in 2003's staggering and affecting Elephant. Here, though, the director rests too much on his adolescents' near-incessant blank stares, languid strolls, and mumbled interior monlogues.