Alan Scherstuhl

This material might be familiar to Frontline viewers and magazine readers, but Kenner's telling of the stories proves independently dramatic.

Even in its longueurs Young Bodies yields beauty and surprise, and there are inklings of some grand conception, even among scenes that feel haphazardly chosen.

The whole never makes much sense, and there's entirely too much screaming, but the directors stage the shocks with wicked aplomb.

For all its piteousness, [it's] often moving, always well acted, and distinguished by rare stillness and beauty.

It works, kind of, despite its broadness, its obviousness, and its howlingly awful opening.

Jesus, meanwhile, exhibits all of Lee's weaknesses — clashing tones, careless pacing, the straightest dude's hand-in-pants idea of lesbianism — but also just enough of his might and madness that the Lee-minded shouldn't miss it.

From moment to moment, this Last Five Years is a robust entertainment, often stirring, sad, and funny.

Those more devoted to the genre can debate whether Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman is the best comic-book movie of the last few years. What's beyond argument, however, is that Vaughn has whipped up the most interesting one, the only to make ferocious, unsettling art out of the great contradiction of superheroic fantasy: jolly do-goodism and its brutalizing sadism.

The movie's a fascinating mess, grand and gaudy, often hilarious.

Overstuffed and distractible, this episodic redo feels like a couple episodes of some Showtime series stitched into a feature.

The promise of the multi-screen future-history info-dump that kicks off Alien Outpost isn't enough to mask this military sci-fi indie's repetitive familiarity.

Raw and insistent, bold and brawling, Girlhood throbs with the global now, illustrating the ways an indifferent society boxes in the people who grow up in project-style boxes.

Occasionally, the film rouses into something thoughtful, even daring.

Writer-director Sean Mullin gives us some of the usual beats, but he and his performers invest them with rare persuasive power.

Hathaway's performance is brave, strong, wistful, and misty, and she's especially affecting when being wooed, gently, by Flynn, playing an indie-folkstar.

Hart rants, Gad fidgets, and together this pair barrels through the plot, shaping between them a surprisingly potent friendship.

The movie's not built for belief. It's built for dumb, shivery, sexed-up pleasure, and it delivers, albeit somewhat modestly.

The killing is bloody, the power struggles involving, the history-class examinations of the relations between mines and unions and gangsters fascinating, and the tough-guy routines, while sometimes tiresome, never less than credible.

Forget its generic title, its breakup setup, and its indie-standard Brooklyn walk-and-talks: Writer/director Desiree Akhavan's Appropriate Behavior is the freshest comedy of life and love in the city since Obvious Child.

The biggest suspense: As everything gets worse for everyone, will this consummate director's outraged worldview afford anyone any pity? At first you'll seethe — then your heart will ache.

The scale of the occasional mayhem is heightened, but its spirit and ingenuity doesn't feel wholly at odds with the books.

The film is work, but it's upsetting, insightful, and sometimes gorgeous — admire its cold suns and withering cornfields.

Haupt persuades viewers to surrender to a place, to a vision, and to a scale of thinking beyond our own lives.

[A] goof/stunt of a movie.

Rob Marshall simply cuts from one tale to the next, isolating his actors. There's little sense that the fairytale space is a shared one -- it's just a bunch of noisy incident transpiring in unrelated treestands.

This patient, beautiful, painful, engrossing film pits husband and wife against each other and their world in a series of extended conversations/confrontations.

Serge Bozon's smart, surprising, marvelously realized French crime-and-sex police drama/comedy distinguishes itself with trenchant plotting, inspired framing, and performances that honor true human feeling even as they lunge into the screwball.

Landscapes and lyric conundrums distinguish the first two-thirds of this find-your-own-meaning artflick, which unfurls like some stranger's life you're half reliving.