Oren Moverman

A lot of talented people have worked overtime to make "Rampart" matter. Woody Harrelson gives a ferocious performance as a very bad LA cop and director Oren Moverman, coming off the quiet triumph of 2009's "The Messenger," throws caution to the Santa Ana winds. The script by Moverman and crime fiction legend James Ellroy is land-mined with profanity and nihilism. Bobby Bukowski's camerawork practically stands on its head. A Greek chorus of well-known actresses - Cynthia Nixon and Anne Heche as sisters serially married to the hero, Robin Wright and Audra McDonald as floozies,...

You can see where Woody Harrelson would be keen to collaborate with filmmaker Oren Moverman, who cast the actor as a casualty-notification officer in the military drama "The Messenger," and as a similarly complicated LA cop in "Rampart" (2012). Harrelson hasn't had a double shot of roles this richly provocative since the days of "Natural Born Killers" and "The People vs. Larry Flynt. " Harrelson plays Dave Brown, an LAPD vet who's been abusing his authority for years. The film's personification of corruption and racism is familiar – see "Colors," "Southland," and on and on – but...

I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG (Encore on Comcast) A lean and observant French weepie, slightly spoiled by melodramatic contrivances but anchored by a rich and subtle performance from Kristin Scott Thomas as a woman paroled after 15 years in prison for murder. (PG-13; runs through July 8) TY BURR THE MESSENGER (Comcast Movies: All Movies) A forcefully acted and peculiar emotional drama about two soldiers (Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson)

New releases ★★★ ½Coriolanus Making his directorial debut, star Ralph Fiennes brings Shakespeare's Roman tragedy roaring into a 21st century of military strongmen and civil unrest, asking what society should do with the attack dogs we ask to protect us. Vanessa Redgrave scalds the screen as one mean mother. (122 min., R) (Ty Burr) ★★Declaration of War As ponderous and overwrought as a movie hogged by hipsters named Roméo and Juliette can be. Their son has a brain tumor, and the movie seems to be about everyone's struggle to hope for the best while physicians strategize to prevent the worst.

New releases ★★★ ½Coriolanus Making his directorial debut, star Ralph Fiennes brings Shakespeare's Roman tragedy roaring into a 21st century of military strongmen and civil unrest, asking what society should do with the attack dogs we ask to protect us. Vanessa Redgrave scalds the screen as one mean mother. (122 min., R) (Ty Burr) ★★Declaration of War As ponderous and overwrought as a movie hogged by hipsters named Roméo and Juliette can be. Their son has a brain tumor, and the movie seems to be about everyone's struggle to hope for the best while physicians strategize to prevent the worst.

Previously released Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Nicolas Cage is back in his high lunatic mode as a New Orleans police detective investigating a murder while high and corrupt. He’s working with the hellion, Werner Herzog. Their pairing is about as perfect a meeting between a director’s sense of mischief and an actor’s license to misbehave as a moviegoer could hope for. With a never-better Eva Mendes as Cage’s hooker girlfriend. (88 min., R)

The first minutes of "Married Life" are a barrage of cheeky Eisenhower-era advertising images, very much like those Anne Taintor postcards that combine martini-sipping hostesses with riot grrl taglines ("Make your own damn dinner"). The opening pumps you up, promising a smart, retro good time that the movie only partly delivers. Set in 1949, the film's a four-cornered marital roundelay for the postwar suburbs. Businessman Harry Allen (Chris Cooper, zipped up tight) is married to willowy Pat (Patricia Clarkson)

New releases ★★★ ½Coriolanus Making his directorial debut, star Ralph Fiennes brings Shakespeare's Roman tragedy roaring into a 21st century of military strongmen and civil unrest, asking what society should do with the attack dogs we ask to protect us. Vanessa Redgrave scalds the screen as one mean mother. With Gerard Butler and Jessica Chastain. (122 min., R) (Ty Burr) ★★Declaration of War As ponderous and overwrought as a movie hogged by hipsters named Roméo and Juliette can be. Their son has a brain tumor, and the movie seems to be about everyone's struggle...

You can see where Woody Harrelson would be keen to collaborate with filmmaker Oren Moverman, who cast the actor as a casualty-notification officer in the military drama "The Messenger," and as a similarly complicated LA cop in "Rampart" (2012). Harrelson hasn't had a double shot of roles this richly provocative since the days of "Natural Born Killers" and "The People vs. Larry Flynt. " Harrelson plays Dave Brown, an LAPD vet who's been abusing his authority for years. The film's personification of corruption and racism is familiar – see "Colors," "Southland," and on and on – but...

A few impressions from a six-movie day filled with unhappy characters banging their heads against the world: 1. One can only hope it's temporary, but Todd Solondz appears to be spent as a creative force. " Dark Horse ," which had its premiere at Toronto this evening, is such a minor work compared to 1998's " Happiness " -- hell, compared to 2009's " Life During Wartime " -- that it feels like the filmmaker is actively regressing. I say this with regret, because few directors have brought the weight of such committed pessimism to bear on an oppressively...

New Releases ★★★ ½Coriolanus Making his directorial debut, star Ralph Fiennes brings Shakespeare's Roman tragedy roaring into a 21st century of military strongmen and civil unrest, asking what society should do with the attack dogs we ask to protect us. Vanessa Redgrave scalds the screen as one mean mother. With Gerard Butler and Jessica Chastain. (122 min., R) (Ty Burr) ★★Declaration of War As ponderous and overwrought as a movie hogged by hipsters named Roméo and Juliette can be. Their son has a brain tumor, and the movie seems to be about everyone's struggle to hope for the...

A lot of talented people have worked overtime to make "Rampart" matter. Woody Harrelson gives a ferocious performance as a very bad LA cop and director Oren Moverman, coming off the quiet triumph of 2009's "The Messenger," throws caution to the Santa Ana winds. The script by Moverman and crime fiction legend James Ellroy is land-mined with profanity and nihilism. Bobby Bukowski's camerawork practically stands on its head. A Greek chorus of well-known actresses - Cynthia Nixon and Anne Heche as sisters serially married to the hero, Robin Wright and Audra McDonald as floozies,...

A few impressions from a six-movie day filled with unhappy characters banging their heads against the world: 1. One can only hope it's temporary, but Todd Solondz appears to be spent as a creative force. " Dark Horse ," which had its premiere at Toronto this evening, is such a minor work compared to 1998's " Happiness " -- hell, compared to 2009's " Life During Wartime " -- that it feels like the filmmaker is actively regressing. I say this with regret, because few directors have brought the weight of such committed pessimism to bear on an oppressively...

I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG (Encore on Comcast) A lean and observant French weepie, slightly spoiled by melodramatic contrivances but anchored by a rich and subtle performance from Kristin Scott Thomas as a woman paroled after 15 years in prison for murder. (PG-13; runs through July 8) TY BURR THE MESSENGER (Comcast Movies: All Movies) A forcefully acted and peculiar emotional drama about two soldiers (Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson)

Previously released Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Nicolas Cage is back in his high lunatic mode as a New Orleans police detective investigating a murder while high and corrupt. He’s working with the hellion, Werner Herzog. Their pairing is about as perfect a meeting between a director’s sense of mischief and an actor’s license to misbehave as a moviegoer could hope for. With a never-better Eva Mendes as Cage’s hooker girlfriend. (88 min., R)

I’ve worried before that it might be too soon for movies about our current wars. They’re too fresh to get a dramatic grip on either the conflicts or what provoked them. What many filmmakers have produced were tracts that cast a skeptical eye. But, as it turns out, the proximity wasn’t the problem. It was the point of view. Americans have been in Afghanistan and Iraq for most of this decade, and in the last two years or so a number of smart, powerful movies - “The Lucky Ones,’’ “The Hurt Locker,’’ and, to some extent, “Stop-Loss’’ - have focused not on the wars, per se, but more dispassionately on...