Mini-Review: Yau spent enough time working for Johnny To to assemble some seriously craftly structures here. The opening sequence in particular is an incredible piece of pinpoint geometry, a breathless introduction to a typically great ensemble of To players, made effortless by a perfect display of efficiency. The rest of the film has a slower, more peculiar cadence, emphasizing the melodrama and absurdity of a drawn out punchline, as it mirrors the fishhooks of an artificial, constructed version of karma.

Mini-Review: Not so much a melding of mumblecore and thriller as it is a schoolyard scuffle between the two. The dialogue attempting to tie them and provide plot points is weak enough to be distracting, especially as delivered by torpid hipsters. Rikoon brings in a breath of life at least, nervy and other and intriguing despite her bum lines and frequent absences from the screen. Really, it's Andrew Reed's camera (along with whoever did the beautiful Oregon location scouting) that deserves top billing.

Mini-Review: For all the years this spent in production hell, it's emerged with a surprising amount of quirk intact. It's smart enough to play to the psychotic puppydog energy of Cruise & Diaz; they're both plenty old enough to know better, and their commitment despite that just adds to the charm. It pokes good fun at the shorthand of the genre, but ultimately can't sustain the energy of the initial pace and gets bogged down in weepy rom-com family nonsense. Fun while it lasts though.

Mini-Review: Messy and disjointed, composed of small brilliant fragments that are simply too disparate to stick together. If you approach this through the mindset of its own lead - communicating in a foreign language, forgetting every moment once it's passed - you'll note a very pure strain of To's resonant crafting. A massacre in a surgery, the great specificity of guns hidden throughout a junkyard, the alternate world of women and children, an endlessly floating flying disc, an army of rolling baled trash.

Mini-Review: Lonergan crafts a quiet gem, beginning with a script that skirts the standard melodrama of family trauma by dealing in rubble rather than explosions. He's got the cast to make it work, picking up brilliant performances from everyone, and lacing it through with off-kilter humor that feels true to the small town experience without being insincere. Sammy and Terry are just so well drawn, prickly and needy and full of misplaced love and tension, and their history bleeds through unmentioned.