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A Complete Unknowns" is organized not simply around the elusive nature of Bob Dylan's identity, as some reviewers have claimed, but as a dramatization of artistic self-creation and re-creation. It first focusses on country boy Robert Zimmerman's creation of inventive folk singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and then on Dylan's transformation from the folk singer-songwriter of the likes of "Blowing in the Wind" into the landmark folk-rock singer-songwriter of songs "Like a Rolling Stone." The protagonist's personal, amorous and professional development is done making ingenious use of Dylan music. For example, Dylan's falling out with Joan Baez is enriched via use of a duet performance by the two of "It Ain't Me Babe" and the folk artist's 1965 break with more traditional folk and the board of directors of the Newport Folk Festival is enriched by use of "I Ain't Gonna Work on Maggie's Farm No More." The film's audience, alas, may be limited by the extent of popular familiarity with Dylan's work, indeed appreciation of his genius. However, for many of those familiar with the artist the acuity and power of the movie will be great. Timothee Chalamet's performance is astonishing.

In this neo-noir transnational epic, four First World criminals seek - from Boston, Oarus, etc ) refuge from law enforcement in Latin America (mostly remote Venezuela., where they are reduced to a taking a bottom-of-the-ladder, life-is-cheap job delivering high explosives over treacherous mountain and jungle roads. The atmosphere is mesmerizing, the tension nerve racking, Friedkin considered it his finest film, and was personally devastated by its financial and critical failure (as stated by Friedkin himself in the 1999 documentary series The Directors). As adrenalin thriller, "Sorcerer" may not be quite the "Jaws" level kick that "The French Connection" is, but it's a richer, more variously and original exciting -- and more meaningful -- film.

A superb adaptation of Joan Didion's anti- novel "The Last Thing I Wanted, " Brilliantly cast, performed, and scripted and directed. The cast is crowned by Ann Hathaway's gripping enactment of protagonist Elena McMahon, a woman precariously ever her head. The script improves on the novel as a narrative by providing it with McMahon as a point of view with whom we can identify; but it does leaves the viewer potentially disoriented by assuming viewer wanky knowledge of the film's context-- Reagan's early 1980s Central American policy -- and its elliptical art film style. (It's the "L'Avventura" of spy films.)

Were it not so certain to be substantively and stylistically elusive to most, I'd have given it 9 stars instead of 8.

Viewers interested in the film's political context but perplexed by "Last Thing" ''s elusive use of it might like look at the less esoteric s 1983 "El Salvador,' 1986 " Under Fire" and 2017 "American Made."