Marwencol NYT Critics' Pick

Mark Hogancamp, the subject of the documentary “Marwencol,” sets up a scene with dolls in his backyard. More Photos »
Model Town as Safe Haven
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: October 7, 2010

Four years in the making, “Marwencol” emerges as a number of things: an absorbing portrait of an outsider artist; a fascinating journey from near-death to active life; a meditation on the brain’s ability to forge new pathways when old ones have been destroyed. Woven together by Jeff Malmberg — if not seamlessly, then with illuminating patience — these disparate strands honor an individual as unique as the miniature universe on which he depends. More

Red White & Blue - NYT Critics' Pick

Noah Taylor in “Red White & Blue.”
Loose Connections That Lead to Horror
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: October 7, 2010

“Red White & Blue,” the latest feature from the British director Simon Rumley, builds a triptych of character studies into an engrossing — and profoundly distressing — tale of random connection and specific revenge. More

Idiots and Angels (2008) NYT Critics' Pick

Misanthrope Sprouts Wings and Humanity
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: October 5, 2010

In the noirish world of the animator Bill Plympton’s “Idiots and Angels,” cars are miniature tanks with tiny windows and enormous haunches from which plumes of exhaust snake like tornado funnels. More

Jim (2010)

Abigail Savage as #3774 looks out over the distant compound in “Jim.”
Science Fiction for the Great Recession
By MIKE HALE
Published: October 7, 2010

“Jim” is two or maybe three movies in one. There’s an angry downsizing drama, a sort of “Falling Down” for the derivatives age, that overlaps with a cautionary tale about modern medicine and genetic engineering, and these connect in a hazy way to a dystopian science-fiction fantasy set on a future earth populated by clones. What they all share is a reliance on cliché and a limited visual imagination that is aggravated, in the science-fiction segments, by the film’s minuscule budget. More