A Stranger

Bobo Jelcic's A Stranger (Croatia, 2013) a man fear offending his own community by attending his muslim friend's funeral in forever divided Yugoslavian today. 2013BERf, 2013SAR. RATING:2.5

George Clooney and Sandra Bullock at 2013 Venice Film Festival Opening Gala

George Clooney and Sandra Bullock enjoy great reception from audience and critics alike on their new film GRAVITY that open 2013 Venice Film Festival

Floating Skyscrapper

Tomasz Wasilewski's Floating Skyscrapers (Poland, 2013) - 2013KVeotw Best Film Winnner. Kuba attends an art opening with his girlfriend of two years and bumps into Mikal. The connection between these two young men is instantaneous and intoxicating, and despite opposition from all sides, he allows Mikal into his life. The results go beyond anything he could have imagined. This intimate and bold second feature from Polish director Tomasz Wasilewski captures the often-complicated consequences of finding love where others do not want it. 2013KVeotw, 2013TRI. RATING: 3

The Wolverine

James Mangold's The Wolverine (US, 2013) RATING: 3  - The Marvel team has recast the Incredible Hulk three times in recent years, but when it comes to their most popular hothead, Wolverine, there’s only one actor fit to wear the claws: Hugh Jackman returns for his sixth screen appearance as the adamantium-reinforced superhero in James Mangold’s smart, Japan-set “The Wolverine,” an entertaining and surprisingly existential digression from his usual X-Men exploits. Though Wolvie comes across a bit world-weary and battle-worn by now, Jackman is in top form, taking the opportunity to test the character’s physical and emotional extremes. Fans might’ve preferred bigger action or more effects, but Mangold does them one better, recovering the soul of a character whose immortality left something to be desired.

Snowpiercer

Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer (South Korea, 2013) - Two decades into a second Ice Age, a few thousand human survivors live out their days aboard a state-of-the-art luxury train in “Snowpiercer,” an enormously ambitious, visually stunning and richly satisfying futuristic epic from the gifted Korean genre director Bong Joon-ho (“The Host,” “Memories of Murder”). A rare high-end sci-fi/fantasy pic made completely outside the studio system, and that even rarer case of an acclaimed foreign helmer working in English with no appreciable loss of his distinctive visual and storytelling style, Bong’s adaptation of French graphic novel “Le Transperceneige” reps a pricey investment ($40 million) for majority producer CJ Entertainment, but seems a downright bargain compared with the cost of forging such pics on Hollywood turf. A heavy marketing blitz combined with Bong and co-star Song Kang-ho’s considerable fan bases will drive strong biz at home (where the pic opens Aug. 1), if less than the whopping $64 million earned by “The Host” in 2006 — until recently, Korea’s all-time box office champ.

R.I.P.D

Robert Schwenke's R.I.P.D (US, 2013) - Transforming the supernatural into the subpar, R.I.P.D. aspires to the hip, zippy, irreverent spirit of Men In Black, but this effects-heavy action-comedy is simply too unremarkable to generate much of a pulse. Co-stars Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds are not without their charms, but director Robert Schwentke (RED) has made a film that culls together marketable elements without ever really getting them to congeal into anything satisfying. RATING: 2

The Frozen Ground

Scott Walker's The Frozen Ground (US, 2013) - A bleak and deliberately dour police procedural that follows the real-life events surrounding Alaska’s most notorious serial killer Robert Hansen, a family man who over a period of some 12 years abducted and killed at least 24 women in the 1970s and ‘80s, the impressively staged The Frozen Ground is a striking platform for strong, intense and serious performances from Nicolas Cage (as determined cop) and John Cusack (as manipulative killer). While straight-forward in tone and structure, the film is admirably non-exploitative as it lays out the developing drama.