Arlington Road is a too-tidily packaged thriller about a university professor (Jeff Bridges) who (1) teaches about terrorism, (2) lost his FBI agent wife in a botched terror-related raid, and (3) suspects his own neighbors (Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack) of being terrorists; yes, very tidy indeed. In terms of the psychological complexity of its characters and their interactions, its scripting pales in comparison to, say, Hugo Whitemore’s similarly-premised Pack Of Lies, though their intended audiences are very different. And while…

Shale and salmon: there’s no green, no indicator of life or hope in the world of Quintet, Robert Altman’s masterful and definitive exploration of a planet’s final days, where ice and cold doom its sentient race to extinction. Quintet asks (and answers), what would we do if we finally came to the awful realization that before us, and especially after us, there is only our non-existence? Would we futilely strive to make a mark on our dying culture, or would…

This investigation of a sexually-deprived uppercrust young spinster who huddles in her hollowly traditional apartment (Sandy Dennis. Ah, Sandy Dennis!), whose only social engagements are with her dead parents’ friends, and who spies on a seemingly mute and homeless youth (Michael Burns) and invites him in (…!), is indeed on the cusp of Altmanesque (especially in the camerawork; the gynecologist office scene is spectacular; throughout, its somber lighting and awful red-tinged beiges—revisited in Quintet—add significantly). Dennis renders her tragic character…