Amy Nicholson

Like us, the deft and merciless director Daisy von Scherler Mayer ("Party Girl") sides with the girls, and to stack the deck she's hired five tremendous actresses.

It’s as uplifting and threadbare as a feel-good viral video stretched to feature length, yet Makijany’s ability to rally the troops, get solid performances from first-time actors, and simply get the film made is worth a genuine cheer.

A good romance can make us endure an implausible plot as long as the leads have heat. Luke and Sophia's connection feels true. Who cares about the mechanics? By the time The Longest Ride runs right off a cliff, we're already strapped in to the passenger seat. Give in and enjoy the plunge.

The cumulative assassinations begin to ache like a mysterious bruise, making the audience feel the psychic weight of living in fear. Yet, the style of the film is more teen soap opera than vérité miserablism.

The film strips Fifty Shades of Grey to its essentials: a confident man, an awkward girl, and a red room rimmed with leather handcuffs. From there, Taylor-Johnson rebuilds. She constructs an erotic dramedy that takes its romance seriously even as it admits that Christian Grey's very existence is absurd.

The result is a personal film that feels oddly impersonal. The tonal clutter overwhelms Keshavarz’s genuinely interesting story.

The rare moments in which an image pauses to catch its breath can be stunning, such as a shot of an endless expanse of flaming lanterns dangling over countless white ghosts — how the artist Yayoi Kusama might have designed the afterlife. There’s enough gags that a dozen land.

Brooks can merely offer this flawed pair more kindness than they grant each other (or themselves). Which makes “Oh, Hi!” a pleasant if perilous date night film. Having spent an enjoyable evening with it myself, I have to admit: I like the movie fine, but I’m not in love.

The confident, female-driven sensuality of Kiss of the Damned anchors this handsome nonsense.

I liked the plot better on a second watch when I knew not to expect Jamie Lee Curtis on all fours. The ending is great and the build up to it, though draggy, gives you space to think about the interdependence between our species.

The paradox of "Little Monsters" is that it’s so guileless in its story and execution, it could have been made for kids, except for the disembowelings. Still, Nyong’o not only survives the film with her dignity intact, the audience might exit admiring her more.

It’s confounding that Johnson ignores the book’s brutal existentialism. But it’s equally fascinating that other parts of the story get their hooks in him. A novel — any piece of art, really — functions like a dream. You grab onto the bits that resonate. It’s why people can leave the same movie with totally different interpretations.

None of the sizzle is as compelling as this character study of a young woman who confesses that her only childhood companion was the TV.

Almost as bad as we want it to be, which is to say, it straddles the line between campy and legit without winning over either audience.

Miranda’s devotion to his idol keeps him from expanding the musical’s myopic fretting into a universal story of sacrifice and resolve. Garfield at least gives Larson an endearing vulnerability.

Once I Think We’re Alone Now establishes that Grace and Del represent love versus stability, the film doesn’t have a convincing way to reconcile the two.

Most of her exes’ memories stop short of being psychologically insightful. Strung together, however, these tender confidences shape an outline of a woman who never trusted anyone with her heart.

These ladies - even at their weakest - carry themselves with the confidence of winners, and we cling to their strength like a life raft.

Thorne has made a resolute portrait of a woman who can’t break free of generational trauma.

Sure, Sagan’s scientific method dominates the universe. But here on earth, this crowd-pleaser convinces us to spend one day savoring an American Dream.

Blast Beat cares far more about testing the limits of the family’s togetherness, and while the resolution doesn’t have the sweetness of a pop song, Arango is happy to settle for heavy metal discordance.

The bad news is that if you haven't seen "Thor," "Captain America" and "Iron Man 2" - that's six hours and three minutes of homework - The Avengers won't make sense. The good news is if you're a human under the age of 45, you probably already have.

Oppenheimer is after something that drives right at the heart of what a musical is. To harmonize means to agree. It’s a public display of solidarity — a pact to parrot the same delusions.

Ackie doesn’t much resemble the superstar, although her carriage is correct: eyes closed, head flung back, arms pushing away the air as if to make room for that mezzo-soprano. That the film sticks to Houston’s surfaces is half excusable.

Kris and Doug’s moving love story should be the emotional foundation of the documentary, but it’s edited in a bit too late. Paradoxically, however, we also crave more scenes of their individual transitions from bohemians to business titans.

Neither disposable nor a long-lost masterpiece, she might not be loved by all the boys, but she's still worth a Friday night date.

Sierra Burgess is a Loser is a slumber-party charmer that wants to satisfy every craving, even when what audiences are hungry for clashes, like pouring a chocolate milkshake over a pepperoni pizza.

Fehlbaum milks a good amount of tension out of men in headsets barking orders at their desks, although the conceit is harder to pull off once the action moves farther away and news comes in slower and slower.