Shine a Light is just about as good as you could ask for a canned concert film. Directed by Martin Scorsese — who, early in his career, helped edit Elvis on Tour, don't forget — the feature is ostensibly a show the Rolling Stones did at the Beacon Theatre in NYC on behalf of the charity-oriented Clinton Foundation (Hillary approves the extra face time, you bet). But actually the thing was carefully rehearsed for the cameras, giving Scorsese the chance to choreograph his cinematographers (apparently shooting honest-to-goodness celluloid film) right up on stage, eye-level with the artists. Damned if the Stones don't have the same love affair with the lens that Presley did, and arguably even more pure joy in performing.

There are the standards: "Satisfaction," "As Tears Go By," the Microsoft Windows-abused "Start Me Up." The full-on musical numbers are interspersed with media-barrage intervals of clips of the Stones on film, going right back to the group's rarely seen first concert flick, 1964's Charlie Is My Darling, though giving short shrift to the grim Gimme Shelter (Albert Maysles does get credit as guest cameraman). Here is the young Jagger, fresh off a widely-publicized pot bust with Keith Richards, looking little more than a kid, faced with a serious World in Action panel of British academics and clerics to discuss life, the universe and everything (Scorsese cuts this short for humorous effect, but you really want to hear the whole dialogue). Then back to the AARP-qualifying band burning up the screen with a minor 1980s entry, "She Was Hot," and making you wonder where this song has been all your life. Jack White III, Buddy Guy and Christina Aguilera show up to guest-duet with Mick (Guy with the Muddy Waters tune "Champagne and Reefer"), and they all pull it off beautifully.

The archival inserts and fragmentary interviews hardly make this a useful bio of the group — there's no mention, for example, of ex-Stone Bill Wyman. It's basically a Valentine to the band's sheer longevity. Even the legendary substance-abuse excesses of Richards are part of the picture. By this point in time dude looks like something manufactured in Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He jokes with the audience about a recent near-death experience and (with a Pirates of the Caribbean badge prominent) chain-smokes his way through the C&W twang of "Faraway Eyes" and other renditions. I actually think I saw a piece fall off him. But Keith still rocks out, and he'll probably outlive a lot of us (not to mention Amy Winehouse).

After an amusing montage of the Stones being asked at regular intervals, from the early '70s onwards, whether this next tour will be their retirement swan song or not, the last word belongs to talk-show host Dick Cavett, who in a clip of about 35-years' vintage, tells Mick, "You earn every cent with the performance you give every night." Cut to Jagger, the consummate showman, still stalking the stage and swaggering, a rail-thin bolt of energy at age 64, seemingly unstoppable, as he does a "Sympathy for the Devil" in such a celebratory fashion that it loses all sense of what the dark tune is about. Oh well. Even so, for Stones fans and concertgoers-by-proxy, Shine a Light is the stuff dreams are made of. - Charles Cassady Jr.

Shine a Light: 7:05 p.m. Thursday, July 10 and 9:20 p.m. Friday, July 11 at Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd., 216-421-7450.

Jellyfish

Winner of the Camera d'Or for Best First Film at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, co-directors Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen's feature debut is a bit of an anomaly. For starters, it's one of the few contemporary movies shot in Israel that has nothing to do with politics or religion. Furthermore, it turns the jigsaw/mosaic template of countless previous movies (Babel, Crash, et al) on its head by replacing angsty schematicism with charm, whimsy and a generous sprinkling of wit. Tel Aviv waitress Batya (the terrific Sarah Adler) circumnavigates an entire cross-section of Israeli society — including a pair of unlucky newlyweds, a mysterious little girl, an awkwardly transplanted Filipino maid, a suicidal authoress and her own exasperating society doyenne of a mom — during one extremely hectic weekend. Keret and Geffen's deft, rigorous touch never oversells the material or burdens it with fake melodrama and/or cutesy affectations. Jellyfish is a welcome breath of fresh air on the overhyped and frequently underwhelming summer movie scene. — Milan Paurich

Opens Friday at the Cedar Lee Theater, 2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 440-564-2034, clevelandcinemas.com.

Standard Operating Procedure

"Every picture tells a story, don't it?" Rod Stewart's 1971 admonition seems to be the creative impulse behind Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure, a vexing new documentary about the notorious, widely circulated photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. The fact that Morris allegedly paid some of his interview subjects — many of whom, like Lynndie England, served prison sentences for their involvement in the scandal — has made SOP more controversial than your average nonfiction film. Yet there's precious little here that any astute observer of cable news programs doesn't already know. Morris' rigorously stylized filmmaking technique — a Morris invention called the "Interrotron" which permits interviewees to look at a video image of the person grilling them instead of into the camera — has become as instantly recognizable and ripe for self-parody as Woody Allen's. And for the first time in Morris' career, the slick production values and Hollywood-type special effects prove to be more of a distraction than an asset. There's something vaguely disingenuous about the level of SOP's technical sophistry that makes it appear untrustworthy at times. Can we truly believe our eyes or our ears?

One of Morris' interview subjects provides a built-in auto-critique of the movie while discussing the Abu Ghraib photos. "The pictures only show you a fraction of a second. You don't see the forward, you don't see the backward and you don't see outside the frame." By only telling us what we want to hear — and only showing what he wants us to see — Morris is as guilty as any Fox News neocon of stacking the deck. While the same charge could — and has — been leveled against Michael Moore's satirical brand of agit-prop, there's a major difference between the two filmmakers. Moore is upfront-and-center in all of his films, never apologizing for his "liberal agenda." By using an eye-of-God (or eye-of-Interrotron) point of view, Morris stealthily gets his points across without the audience ever realizing that it's being subliminally conned. The subtle whiff of exploitation is as palpable as it is queasy-inducing. — MP

Standard Operating Procedure: 7 p.m. Friday, July 11 and 9:15 p.m. Saturday, July 12 at Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd., 216-421-7450.

When Did You Last See Your Father?

Adapted from English author Blake Morrison's best-selling memoir, When Did You Last See Your Father? dissects the loving yet uneasy relationship between Blake and his father, Arthur (Jim Broadbent). The narrative oscillates between the 1950s, which details Blake's (Matthew Beard) restless youth, and 1989, when Blake (Colin Firth) returns home to stand watch over his cancer-riddled father's deathbed. David Nicholls' deliberate, treacly screenplay drops few bombshells save an extended subplot involving Arthur's apparent marital infidelity. While the love-hate relationship between Blake and Arthur suggests the filmmakers want to "have it both ways," the simple fact is often the nature of a child's connection with his parents is more complicated — and conventional — than The Great Santini or Big Fish. The always-reliable Broadbent skillfully manages to flesh out Arthur's flaws and peccadilloes without allowing them to eclipse his affability and paternal devotion, thereby forming the character's paradox and, hence, the film's crux. Firth, Beard and Juliet Stevenson, as Blake's long-suffering mother, round out the sound cast. However, the true star is director Anand Tucker, who follows his work in Hilary and Jackie and Shopgirl with an exquisite production that makes ample use of all the filmmaking ingredients at his disposal — sweeping camerawork, lighting, reflections, the bucolic English countryside, etc. Tucker's work is sublime without becoming showy, and his sumptuous palette showcases an achingly genuine story that will leave you too pondering the titular question. — Neil Morris

Opens Friday at the Cedar Lee Theater, 2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 440-564-2034, clevelandcinemas.com.