With two of the damn things opening on the same day, I think it’s safe to make it official: there is now no denying that there is a subgenre of triumph-of-the-human-spirit melodrama that must be dubbed the Dead Poets Society Movie. Stand and deliver your Mona Lisa smile for a story about dangerous minds who lean on me and learn the music of the heart. Or something. Cuz as Mr. Holland learned, you’re never too old to, er, learn.

Carol Kane (The Princess Bride) garnered an Oscar nomination in 1975 for her intensely, intimately realized performance here as Gitl, a Russian immigrant to New York in the 1890s, but the rest of the package around her isn’t quite so satisfying. Shot in moody black-and-white — which looks crisp and clean in the new digital … more…

The year 2004 produced more than a handful of angry liberal documentaries — editorials, really, with far more partisan and obvious points of view than your typical newsy flick. Whether by accident or design, these films are countering the balance that has been one-sidedly weighed down by a supposedly liberal mainstream news media that is more interested in toeing the lines of their corporate masters and in catering to an audience it perceives as ignorant and willing to stay that way than in attempting to explain what’s really happening in the world. Much of what these films cover will be shocking to those who believe themselves well informed by watching network or cable news.

The Insignificance of Static Set yourself in front of your VCR and rewind tapes for an hour and a half while your TV is tuned to a dead channel. There: You’ve just saved yourself the price of admission to White Noise, a limp attempt at scaring you with electronic static that’s about as frightening as … more…

I’ve never seen a sadder smile on a human being than Javier Bardem musters as Ramón Sampedro, a man who has “learned to cry” with that smile. In an extraordinary performance, this physically robust and bracingly brawny actor physically shrinks down into the body of a man paralyzed below the neck, bedridden for decades, who … more…

It’s a neverending springtime for Hitler and Germany in this ironic and mesmerizing 76-minute distillation of the self-delusion of an entire nation. German documentarians Oliver Axer and Susanne Benze have gathered together startling counterpoints to the images of the era we’re used to seeing: instead of dismal, grainy, colorless footage of goose-stepping stormtroopers and flag-waving … more…