Betsy Sharkey

That sense of extreme, excess, over-the-top everything is there from start to finish. And isn't that what Bay fans count on even at cut-rate prices?

What DeBlois has deepened in No. 2, is the film's emotional core. Though there are moments when the tension goes slack, the cast steps up to keep things afloat.

The writer-director is up to his old tricks, creating an onion of an experience -- a movie within a movie within a movie, irony in each layer, poignancy that stings and whimsy that bites.

This is definitely animation for grown-ups - its look is voluptuous, sexy and sultry; its Latin-inflected Dizzy Gillespie sound is seductive; and its story of young lovers whose passions are tested is timeless.

Assayas has such a steady hand as a director, he knows precisely how to let all of Gilles' inner angst play out. His nostalgia for those past days can be felt in the affection and forgiving way the indiscretions of youth are portrayed.

The film is deeply moving yet never maudlin in telling this hard-knocks-but-hope-infused story.

While the intolerance fueling this dark, existential comedy won't be to everyone's liking, the film's cerebral beat-down is a strange and sardonic thing of beauty.

As Obvious Child stumbles its way to the final punch line, it echoes Donna's onstage musings — funny but rough around the edges. A work in progress that somehow hooks you anyway.

Like art itself, words can't fully capture what it is like to see the Vermeer emerge under Jenison's brush. Or to see Jenison's obsession with the idea run its course.

The better moments are fleeting. More often, the film feels flat-footed, and the story plays out as you'd expect. Long before Tanner Hall ends, you may well find yourself wishing for the final bell.

Bernal and Furstenberg exist within this meditative space with all the ease and unease of a couple still trying each other on for size. The forces that push and pull them feel so rooted in reality that if not for the layers of meaning it might seem a complete improvisation.

One of the most creatively rich and emotionally rewarding movies to come along this year.

Though there are occasional stumbles along the 1,100-mile hike, the peaks in Wild make the journey more than worth it.

I don't know whether the tall man is happy, but I do know that Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? is intellectually and visually groundbreaking, and most certainly a film.

Any comic relief it affords comes with such an undertow of repressed emotions and displaced anger that it all starts to feel more depressing than dramatic.

A mind-bending and mesmerizing thriller that takes its time unlocking one mystery only to uncover another, all to chilling and immensely satisfying effect.

In Man on a Ledge, Leth does well in taking us to dizzying heights. If only he had found a way to ground that thrill in some real pathos as well.

Verbinski's greatest triumph is that he allowed the animation to free rather that confine him. There is indeed a new sheriff in town, with Rango destined to become a classic.

A love story that is actually worth falling for, with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal excellent at steaming up the screen in Love & Other Drugs.

A film of rough edges and no easy answers, nearly perfect in its imperfection.

The Retrieval comes at you like a haunting slip of a memory, one that writer-director Chris Eska retrieves from a mostly forgotten era in unforgettable ways.

Brydon and Coogan's discourse over breakfast, lunch and dinner is captured with a casualness that makes the eavesdropping delicious.

A very fast three hours, Wolf is a fascinating, revolting, outlandish, uproarious, exhilarating and exhausting master work on immorality.

Cirque is a harmless bit of fluff with a very cool look, but there's just never enough bite.

This is writer-director Richard Linklater at his wry, whimsical best, and considering he was the filmmaker behind 1993's "Dazed and Confused," that makes the movie something of a milestone.

From the first overheated moments of Bridesmaids...it's clear we're in for that rarest of treats: an R-rated romantic comedy from the Venus point of view.

Director Brett Haley, who co-wrote the film with Marc Basch, has managed to create a film about those final years that gets to the heart of things like loss and love without patronizing or parody. No small thing to create a movie whose cast is mostly in their 70s yet whose story is so relatable whatever your age.

What happens when a seemingly righteous operation goes wrong and anxiety threatens to overtake ideals? It is the question Night Moves asks and answers in chilling ways.

There are times the action lags, and when the dialogue falls back on pop cultural references it feels contrived and forced but, mostly, like the mythical creatures at the heart of this tale, the movie soars.

There is action galore, but Future Past is a deeper, richer, more thoughtful film, more existential in its contemplations than earlier Xs, all rather nicely embedded in the mayhem churned up by the mutants' altered states.

If this low-budget indie is any indication, the younger Levinson's creative sensibilities appear to be darker than his dad's, the voice clearly his own.

What happens when Omar is outside the prison walls, and how his world and his relationships are reshaped by the realities of broken trust and betrayal, make for gripping and heartbreaking watching.

Frozen is fabulous.

One of the better movies to come along this year.

This is a beautifully rendered film.

He (Burton) has used that tonality deftly here, it keeps Frankenweenie visually stunning and the sensibility light. It's too bad the tale, like Sparky's wagging appendage, keeps falling off.

Director Andrew Bujalski makes a serious play for his own place in the pantheon of hysterically pretentious pretend.

It's a great trick the filmmakers have pulled off to make us feel as if we're there sorting through the memories with him. The movie's editing is especially artful with Maya Hawke and Casey Brooks doing the nipping and tucking.

Mara is the captivating center of the film, all the emotions of the men and the child hinge on her moods. She continues to be one of those actresses able to shape-shift into different places, times and characters.

What is missing is something new - clarity, insight, outrage. Instead, its understatement is ultimately its undoing.

Herzog has become a master of the understatement — knowing just how long the images can sustain you without a word being said. Vasyukov and his team of cameramen gave him a stunning range to work with, so the filmmaker keeps his own narration to a minimum.

Amid all the nerd-inspired firepower that gives the movie much of its flash, the big boy's droning tone proves to be the film's stealth weapon, perfect for pulling off highly targeted comic strikes.

If there is one constant in Eat Pray Love, the imperfect yet beautifully rendered adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir on a year of heartbreak and healing starring Julia Roberts - it is this: There will be tears.

Young's almost mystical musicianship is what saves it.

Though Joe occasionally slips and falters, the filmmakers and actors get all the hard-luck details right.

The film catches her long after she's left the public eye, and rather than an examination, or an assessment, of her politics, it instead offers up an affecting if not always satisfying portrait of the strong-willed leader humbled by age.

Writer-director Nicholas Jarecki squarely lands that punch, creating a tense and chilling horror story for financially fraught times.

The dialogue is fresh-prince clever, the themes are ageless, the rhythms are riotous and the return to a primal animation style is beautifully executed.

As intriguing as the facts are, much of the documentary's charm is the way in which it embeds the work.

Bayona achieves a rare sense of balance between the big and the powerful as well as the small and the intimate in the family's survival against impossible odds, no doubt the inspiration for the title.

McKay, a British stage actor who was doing an off-Broadway production about the movie legend when casting started, and Danes, whose acting always seems so effortlessly good, are the best things about the film.

As intriguing as Prince Avalanche can be in its contemplations, and as glad as I am to see Green cozying up to his more elemental and esoteric side, the film ultimately plays like an unfinished thought. It's a good thought, mind you, but like the road, it seems to go nowhere.

Tense and violent, it grabs you from the first moments and rarely loosens its hold until the last body drops.

The bookish group at the heart of this talky film is having such a grand time trading tart exchanges their mood proves infectious. The sparring helps offset some of the contrivances that make Liberal Arts less buttoned up than it should be - so an A for effort and a C for execution.

The story goes slack onscreen, so much so that the movie's two-plus hours will seem an eternity.

Really more of an effusive autobiography of the 84-year-old singer-actor than a traditional documentary, so be prepared for something close to sainthood in its tone.

The laughs come easily, the screams not so much. It's as if the filmmakers got so wrapped up in the satire they forgot to include the intense sensation of rising dread that creates all the thrills and chills that are part of the attraction.

François Ozon can usually be counted on for dark irony of the juiciest sort...But the filmmaker has an especially deft touch when a dash of comedy is mixed in. He uses this to delicious effect in his latest, In the House.

You can feel how personal a film In Bloom is and how promising a first feature this is for one of the country's new wave artists.

The result is a documentary that weaves as much comedy as fact into the narrative, making the experience a satisfying entertainment even for the lucky few who have no hair cares at all.

The movie's subversive sensibility and old-school/new-school feel are a total kick.

It may be the most fun you'll have with ghosts and zombies all year.

So many things are done right that even with the bombast, "Into Darkness" is the best of this summer's biggies thus far. It's a great deal of brash fun.

Has the sweep of a classic John Ford movie, the sentiment of Frank Capra and a spirited steed named Joey who will steal your heart. The film itself is more difficult to love.

Jandal emerges as someone who was truly in Bin Laden's inner circle, Hamdan seems the menial driver he claimed to be. What remains unanswered is where their allegiances now lie. Frightening or not, terrorists or not, both seem human, which at the end of the day is what Poitras set out to do.

It is a striking and moving study of "what was" versus "what it has become" as the filmmakers try to get at the whys.

What the film does well is capture the confusion of the identity abyss of twentysomethings of a certain social class.

It's potent stuff, laced with smart, sensitive humor, and extremely well handled by Wysocki and the excellent ensemble of young actors that become Terri's intimates.

There are moments when the film is a little too precious, taking time to preen at just how clever it is.

As inventive as the action sequences are, there are too many of them and they tend to go on far too long — the movie is just shy of two-and-a-half hours. Still, Evans' filmmaking has undergone some impressive fine-tuning for The Raid 2. It is something to see — if you have the stomach for it.

The result is a film that unsettles as often as it seduces, though it does very well with both.

Barsky does a good job of taking all the complexity of such a major personality and the times in which he flourished and boiling it down to the essentials.

A great deal of insanity ensues, none of which would work if Tatum and Hill weren't so disarming in their roles. Their level of comfort with the characters and each other helps 22 click.

Like the family, the film occasionally comes apart at the seams. But Childers and Garner are absolutely mesmerizing as Iris and Rose.

When it's done right, as it is in Young Adult, there is something absolutely mesmerizing about watching a train wreck unfold on screen. When the wreck in question is a narcissistic beauty played to scheming, sour, downward-spiraling perfection by Charlize Theron, cringing is definitely called for, but so is laughter.

As for the many loose ends the director leaves, you can either tie them or leave them loose, either way is fine since the experience as much as anything is what Antoniak was after.

Between the sheer on-screen beauty and the finely wrought performances of Mulligan and Schoenaerts, Far from the Madding Crowd has its appeal. Yet like unrequited love, one can't help but lament what might have been.

Having seen the show on stage, I wondered if Birbiglia could morph the ideas into an equally funny movie. He hasn't quite, but he's come pretty close.

The narrative arc swings between light and darkness, from the sheer joy of the Persian rappers who practice on top of an unfinished skyscraper, to Nadar's arrest and interrogation for his black-market DVDs. In Ghobadi's hands, though, it always feels real.

At the moment, modestly amusing does not stave off that desire for a really great live-action family film after years of watching the terrain land-grabbed by animation.

Joe Berlinger's densely detailed new documentary about the legendary Boston mobster is disturbing on so many levels it's hard not to wonder why Bulger was the only one on trial.

Self-discovery always comes with a cost, and in Bliss the price is a great one. It is mesmerizing to watch it unfold in the lives of these two young people.

Exciting, terrifying, worrisome stuff saturates every second of Prisoners, holding you captive, keeping you guessing until the bitter end.

Though the movie wears its agenda on its sleeve, the music and the cast, many of them members of the real Les Muses, as Marion-Rivard was for a time, are simply so charming that it makes Gabrielle hard to resist.

There are risky plot choices all along the way, but the risks are what keeps the pot boiling as the complexities of the relationship triangle heat up and cool down.

It's just that there isn't enough story - the book shouldn't be required reading for the film to make sense.

For all of its punishing pathos, the movie does not have the clean lines and elegance of another cut at crime in this city, "L.A. Confidential" (based on an Ellroy novel). As the day of reckoning approaches, the film spins out of control, careening between convoluted subplots, with the emotional pitch of the piece swinging too wildly.

The comedy isn't always as crisp as it should be, but Peretz has the perfect partner in crime in Rudd.

Like the best war movies do, director Peter Ho-Sun Chan has woven together an intimate story of men against a backdrop of history writ large.

If that all sounds like a lot of good, clean fun, a word of warning. In what seems to have become the genre's raison d'etre, the dialogue is so blue at times that you'll probably feel the heat of the blushing cheeks on either side of you, especially whenever Reilly's fast-talking savant of smut shows up.

All in all, Happy Christmas is a good deal like cartoon Charlie Brown's classic tree — scraggly, plenty of heart and much to enjoy, especially if you prefer your presents homemade.

It's tempting to forget that Cage is not Terence. That would be unfair though, and diminish the sheer ferocity of his performance.

What Solondz does so well is create unthinkable moments in a "Leave It to Beaver" world, where unmentionables are aired in the most innocuous ways to startling effect. In Life During Wartime, he's done just that, creating a relationship agitprop that pops and sizzles; just be careful not to get burned.

Remarkably, much of that sizzling sensibility was caught on film and has been stylishly stitched together with her personal history in the scrumptious new documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.

It is a caustic, comic, cerebral romp for a long time before it hits you with its best shot — some Polanski-worthy darkness.

This mind-and-fork-bending sci-fi saga comes from the freaky imaginations of director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis, who've packed their feature debut with smartness.

What makes Into the Woods so entertaining is the cleverness of the tale itself and the way specific characters match the talents of its storytellers.

What sustains the film through the rockier times are its challenging themes, offering real issues for the young protagonists to wrestle with, rather than whether anyone will be carded trying to buy beer.