There are many possible interpretations of what happened the night Kathleen Peterson died, and many different ways to judge the players involved. This ambiguity, the fact that two people can watch the same series and come away with different conclusions, is ultimately to the Staircase’s credit.

The film is one long interrogation, not only from Jennifer the character’s standpoint, but from a directorial standpoint.

Killer feels lurid, thanks to creepy music and editing. That betrays and trivializes some serious issues. The narration could be more lifelike. Then again, it’s from a robot.

What’s so disturbing about the story is the sheer terror of its female protagonists’ unknown future–how little understanding or control they have over their fates, in a world ruled by men.

Lea Thompson’s first film as a director – a brisk, breezy, sharp-elbowed, sexually frank, occasionally shout-y, often hilarious comedy – stars the performer’s own daughters and plays like both a raucous family party and an urgently necessary corrective.

Zen Diaries often loses focus, or gives excessive time to clips that seem extraneous. But it’s easy to forgive, because Apatow’s affection for his subject is so palpable, and so contagious, and because in the scattered collage of film and photos and affirmations and jokes it pinpoints the truth Shandling was looking for. … The power of Zen Diaries is that it allows you to share, for a few hours, a sense of what that must have felt like.