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George Miller's nightmare post-apocalypse vision is told primarily through kinetic visuals with dialogue provided only when needed. Yet it's so simple a story he's telling that the visuals are pretty much all that are needed; Miller relies on the visceral to move his story along. This all works because the dystopian world Miller and co-scenarists Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris creates is complete, with history, customs and rituals fully developed and identifiable; the viewer doesn't need a whole lot to buy in. This is also true in relation to the main characters, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and Max (Tom Hardy): they don't have a lot to say but you get them immediately. Miller consistently comes up with imaginative set pieces (there's a knockout sandstorm and a nice monochromatic section is an interesting alternative to the mostly daylight action--the production design is by Colin Gibson) and displays as much Gothic grotesquery as he possibly can: there are alabaster bald children, weird midgets and startlingly obese men on wild display and that guitar player swinging from the front of the truck gave me the creeps; he gets tremendous make-up artistry from a team led by Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin; every ugly image--and there are many--is beautifully rendered. Everything is full-tilt here but fortunately John Seale's cinematography and Margaret Sixel's editing are up to the task. Miller has thrown away the campy shtick that was "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" in order to revisit and fortify the series' original raison d'etre: a despairing view of a world gone insane due to a dependency on oil. Its relevance is just as timely as it was back in the days of "The Road Warrior" and even though it's a heady theme, this entry is just as entertaining as "The Road Warrior" was, only turned up to eleven. The soundtrack is by Junkie XL (he of the remix of Elvis' "A Little Less Conversation") and it's very good.

A very understated tearjerker, well directed by John Crowley, who uses lingering close-ups and hand-held cameras to convey the intimacy of Saoirse Ronan's perceptions, which, in fact, is where the drama takes place. Ronan sparingly uses her alabaster face to be a passive observer of the events that directly involve her, but she also effectively conveys her emotions through slight facial twitches, particularly through her mouth, which alternately tightens and widens based on the conflict of the moment. She plays a young, inexperienced Irish woman who moves to the United States in search of a better life and falls in love with an Italian plumber (Emory Cohen); when an unforeseen tragedy calls her home, she falls for a middle-class gentleman (Domhnall Gleeson) who promises her the better Irish life she yearned for but could not attain. It's set in the Fifties, so proper manners are observed and emotions rarely verbalized and it becomes a flaw of the film: at one point Ronan's shy and conservative character breaks unexpectedly (and confusingly) with the mores of the time; and both her male suitors are a little too perfect, never uttering a wrong comment or doing anything less than honorable. Yet the film has the power to move, owing to both Crowley's commitment to his lead performer (he also gets good work from his male leads and a funny turn from Julie Walters as the Brooklyn boarding house owner where Ronan lives) and an eloquent script by Nick Hornby, based on Colm Toibin's (unread) novel.

Jacques Tati's first feature came as a salve to the horrors of war and its resulting despair (check out the trailer as proof) and the film's sweet sensibility seems designed to make the post-war French audience feel good about itself. It details an innocent, peaceful time in the countryside in which a traveling fair comes to a small village, almost as a reward for surviving the heartache of the previous decade; and the happy villagers flock en masse to forget about their stresses for a day. Tati plays the village mail carrier, a self-righteous but likable beanpole who, after watching a film at the makeshift cinema about advances in American mail delivery, attempts to mimic them in all their ridiculousness using only his trusty bicycle. Tati has no problem poking gentle fun at his character's stuffiness but also delights in the absurdity of the feeling of inferiority the French seemed to have assumed; after years of living under the yoke of the Nazis and then the Allies, their competition with America is presented as needless and silly. (It's not for nothing that Tati's character is named Francois.) As a comedian, Tati seems to derive his influence primarily from Buster Keaton's graceful and perfectly timed stunts, but his take is more wobbly--you really feel the danger of what's happening on screen almost as if it were unrehearsed. (Among other stunts, he rides his bike through a fire and cuts in front of an oncoming car.) While there are no real laugh-out-loud moments, there are plenty of warm chuckles and some really pleasurable recurring gags, particularly with a cross-eyed old man. But where the film shines is in its poignant conclusion, where the promise of a carefree future is personified by the child who adopts Tati's responsibilities after he sheds them to fade into the anonymity of the peasantry. As long as you come into "Jour de Fete" with the right attitude and appreciate it for what it represents, you'll have some fun.