Chris Nashawaty

Like Eric Bana's menacingly raw breakout in 2000's "Chopper" or Tom Hardy's in 2008's "Bronson," O'Connell bristles with terrifying hair-trigger unpredictability. Watching him, you feel like you're witnessing the arrival of a new movie star.

Jonze's satiric, brave-new-world premise is undeniably clever, but it's also a bit icy emotionally.

Murray, of course, can play a redeemable misanthrope with one hand tied behind his back. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he has to do here because writer-director Theodore Melfi reins in his leading man with a script that doesn't know when to stop troweling on the sap.

In this passionately nostalgic documentary, actor-turned-director Colin Hanks brings that era back to life, tracing the rise and fall of Russ Solomon’s retail music chain, which first opened its doors in Sacramento in 1960.

What makes the film more than just a dusty Grisham retread is that the case (as compelling as it is) is merely the backdrop for a more emotionally engaging story about fathers and sons played, like a duet, by two virtuoso actors who give the film not only all they have but probably more than it requires.

Like everything else in Jackson's Tolkienland, the buildup to the climactic melee stretches on too long. But when it comes, it's a doozy.

The reason why the movie works at all is Hanks.

Cedar has created a classic cautionary tale in Norman, and Gere flawlessly turns his tragic hero into someone who’s sympathetic and human.

For a rookie director, Trachtenberg appears to be a real craftsman, even if what he’s crafting doesn’t add up to as much as you hope it will.

While the first hour is evocative and suspenseful, the second doesn’t quite muster the depths of paranoia and doom you’re led to expect.

The Other Side of the Wind (both the movie and the movie-within-a-movie) is a hypnotic, magical mess of a film. It’s a lot of story and not enough of one. Still, there are shots that are so haunting and beautifully composed that you want to get out of your seat and take up residence in them.

As a coming-of-age story, the film is a bit uneventful. But the girls’ rebellious, fist-in-the-air spirit and the warmth of their friendship are undeniable.

If, on the other hand, it’s sleazy kicks you’re after, you’ll be in exploitation heaven. Because writer-director James DeMonaco’s third chapter in the thrill-kill vigilante franchise is the best and pulpiest Purge yet.

It doesn’t have the most adrenalized action sequences or the deepest origin story. What it has is the balls to mess with the formula and have some naughty, hard-R fun. It’s a superhero film for the wiseasses shooting spitballs in the back of the school bus.

When you get past Miller’s orgy of loco action sequences—and they’re so good, you may not need to—the story is pretty thin.

Buoyed by some nicely nuanced performances (especially by Pearce and Amy Ryan as his dream-dashing wife), Breathe In never quite rises above its predictable potboiler premise.

The film’s raw performances get upstaged by Kurzel’s medieval shock-and-awe palette. The text has been streamlined to make room for more brutal mud-and-blood battle sequences, hauntingly shot by Adam Arkapaw.

It's been 20 years since Tom Hanks put a movie star's face on the AIDS crisis in "Philadelphia." Since then, Hollywood has largely ignored one of the most tragic chapters of the 20th century. Considering that track record, even a movie as imperfect as Dallas Buyers Club is something worth celebrating.

Young & Beautiful, with its barrage of fairly graphic sex scenes, is a throwback to the erotically charged, envelope-pushing Euro art-house films of the '60s and '70s such as Blow-Up and Last Tango in Paris.

We get to watch another unforgettable and incomparable Huppert performance.

What sets it a notch or two above rote familiarity is its cast, featuring a charismatic, white trash-with-a-heart-of-gold turn from a mulletted Matthew McConaughey and a naturalistically low-key performance from newcomer Richie Merritt.

I don't know if A Million Ways to Die in the West will turn any of the MacFarlane haters into fans. But for those of us who have remained on the fence until now, his raunchy, rat-a-tat parody is proof that beneath all of the bratty immaturity lays the head and heart of an outrageous quick-draw satirist.

No one forks over 10 bucks to see one of these flicks for its logic. We go for the bananas demolition-derby mayhem. Furious 7 delivers that with the direct visceral rush of an EpiPen.

It's still plenty hilarious in a reheated sort of way.

Speaking of Glover, it’s no spoiler to say that the Atlanta star is easily the best thing in this good-not-great movie.

Peele is undeniably a born filmmaker with big ambitions and an even bigger set of balls. He’s made a horror movie whose biggest jolts have nothing to do with blood or bodies, but rather with big ideas.

I never entirely bought the flirty détente between the two or believed in the rapturous power of a perfectly cooked sea urchin to solve the world's problems. But for two hours, at least, I swallowed it with a smile.

Richard Fleischer’s dystopian thriller set in an overpopulated, famine-stricken 2022 New York is a wonderfully silly slice of future schlock, featuring some of Heston’s zestiest overacting.

I doubt there’s a huge audience for a movie like Bone Tomahawk, but those who find it may turn it into a new cult classic.

It feels like a movie that’s been lovingly crafted and put under glass in a museum. And I kept waiting for it to move me more than it did.

It’s a shame that, despite some excellent performances, this urgent, well-intentioned film feels so conventional and stolid.

Raw is unsettling and repulsive and, believe it or not, occasionally funny. It’s got audacity and style, and it packs an undeniably wicked punch.

Son of a Gun becomes a somewhat predictable but excitingly twisty heist film involving a double-dealing Russian heavy, a desperate femme fatale, and a fortune in gold bars. It has just enough muscle and style to make the familiar feel fresh.

A violent, grungy, Peckinpah-lite action thriller that’s worth checking out just to be reminded how powerful an actor Mel Gibson continues to be even—if the parts aren’t coming like they once were.

The achievement of Edward Zwick’s new Fischer biopic, Pawn Sacrifice, is that it does just that. It manages to turn thinking into action.

While Byrne is solid (as always) and Eisenberg is restrained (a relief after his manic Lex Luthor), it’s newcomer Druid whose scenes pack the most power and force.

It delivers. The Perfection is a pure hit of twisted, absurd camp catnip.

The British illustrator’s process of creating his surreally deranged, truth-to-power cartoons is fascinating, but the rest of the film lacks the same mad spark.

With her brassy, determined aunt, Ida sets off to find answers and discovers life beyond the convent walls in this leisurely but satisfying journey.

The result is a slight, handcrafted indie that’s sweet, skewed, and feels a bit like a skit stretched out to feature length.

Is it possible to sit through a movie, mentally cataloging its absurdities, and still walk out dazzled? Because that pretty much sums up my experience watching Ridley Scott's eye-candy spectacle Exodus: Gods and Kings, an over-the-top Old Testament epic that's essentially Gladiator with God.

The pounding ’80s soundtrack (New Order, Depeche Mode, Ministry) couldn’t be cooler, the ultraviolence is relentlessly brutal, and Theron’s guns-and-garters wardrobe is sexy as hell. So it’s a shame that apart from the gender flip, the plot is so derivative.

It’s smart, relatable, laughter-through-psychic pain entertainment that happens to be elevated by a handful of wonderful performances even if it, at times, feels like a lesser version of "The Royal Tenenbaums."

The Highwaymen is a leisurely ride with a pair of actors who know how to do a lot by not doing too much. It won’t reinvent cinema the way that "Bonnie and Clyde" once did. But it’s a ride worth taking nonetheless.

The film itself feels a bit padded and clunky.

Like all of Anderson’s films (the best of which remain Boogie Nights and Magnolia), Phantom Thread is meticulously crafted, visually sumptuous, impeccably acted, and very, very directorly. But until the final act, this straight-jacketed character study is also pretty tame stuff — emotionally remote, a bit too studied, and far easier to admire than surrender to and swoon over.

There may be no honor among thieves, but Triple Frontier certainly makes watching them pretty entertaining.

Entourage, the show and the movie, is about five insanely lucky knuckleheads who have each other’s backs in a town that’s more likely to stab you there.

It is essentially two movies. The better by far (and it’s very good) is the one that feels like a darker Stand by Me — a nostalgic coming-of-age story about seven likable outcasts riding around on their bikes and facing their fears together... Less successful are the sections that trot out Pennywise. The more we see of him, the less scary he becomes.

Is Morgan hardwired for violence, or is “she” just a synthetic naïf with a bloody glitch? Taylor-Joy and the rest of the ace cast make you care about the answer to that question. The script? Less so.

Shazam! is basically two movies in one. One with Levi and his wiseass foster brother (a fresh Jack Dylan Grazer), the other with Strong and all his snarling, computer-generated gobbledygook. And they both have the other in a headlock, wrestling for the soul of the story. I loved one, yawned through the other.

It’s the quiet, simple moments between Olli and Raija that stick with you, whether he’s giving her a ride on the handlebars of his bicycle on their way to a country wedding or skipping stones across the smooth surface of a lake.

The dialogue mixes Sunday school and the streets, and it’s funny, profane, and occasionally poignant when it’s not a bit too on the nose.

Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, Iñárritu’s savage endurance test of a film almost works better as a series of stunning images and surreal sequences than as an emotionally satisfying story.

The Mule fits the 88-year-old Eastwood perfectly. Not just because there probably aren’t many roles for actors of his age out there, but also because its lack of judgment makes sense for a star who’s always been as willing to play anti-heroes as heroes.

The good news is that the film’s four lead actors all slip seamlessly back into their onscreen alter egos as if they’ve been keeping tabs on them all these years.

Even though there’s not a lot to Jim Strouse’s new relationship comedy, it has a real warmth and charm thanks to the undeniable appeal of comedian Jemaine Clement.

What saves Infinity War from being just another bloated supergroup tour – and what will end up being the thing that blows fans’ minds to dust – is the film’s final stretch.

A lightweight teen rom-com that isn’t likely to clear up anyone’s grasp of what the studio stands for, but it is breezy and charming enough to merit a watch contingent on reasonable expectations.

Cranston is utterly hypnotic as a certain kind of American male on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Two of the chapters stand with some of the best work the merry-prankster filmmakers have ever done, while the rest are varying degrees of… fine.

Top Gun has always been more than just an action flick about a cocky young fighter pilot who feels the need for speed.

There’s no denying that Bisbee ’17 has some moments of deep elegiac power or, for that matter, that Greene’s ambition is boundless. But by the end, I often felt like his blurring of the past and the present was an experiment that was easier to admire than be swept up by.

If it sounds like Hologram is basically about a middle-aged white guy getting his groove back in the Middle East, well, yes, it is that. But if you squint hard enough, it’s also a little bit more.

With his follow-up, It Comes at Night, Shults has conjured another master class in anxiety, claustrophobia, and dread. He’s a natural-born filmmaker.

Everett’s utterly fantastic performance as Wilde slightly exceeds his grasp as a first-time filmmaker.

Never mind the director’s still-prodigious work ethic, the big-screen adaptation of Ernest Cline’s giddily overstuffed, ’80s-saturated best-seller is, in a way, a movie that couldn’t be more bespoke to Spielberg. After all, so many of that decade’s most indelible touchstones poured directly from his brain. It’s the perfect marriage of fabulist and fable.

In the best scene, which comes late in the film, James holds his dying mother and shares a vision of their future that they both know she’ll never get to see.

It’s not Toy Story or Inside Out or even Nemo. What it is is a perfectly enjoyable family film that’s comforting, familiar, and a bit slight, like one of those serviceable Lion King spin-offs that Disney used to ship straight to DVD back in the ‘90s.

Engrossingly intimate documentary.

It's a deeply touching story about survival, perseverance, and hope.

It’s festooned with so many triumph-of-the-underdog clichés (including a climax you can see driving down the Garden State Parkway from a mile away), it’s like déja-vu with a breakbeat. The most remarkable thing about the film is how little you’ll actually mind by the end.

The Love Witch is so thin that if it turned sideways it would be invisible. It’s like a Bewitched episode stretched out to two hours. But boy, is it gorgeous to look at.

Charlie McDowell's romantic brainteaser is disarmingly clever — too clever to spoil. But it's also repetitive and a bit too Spike Jonze lite.

Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales almost feels too audacious, too crazy, and, in some ways, too slight for the Oscars.

As entertaining as The Lego Movie 2 ends up being — and let’s be clear, it’s still better than 99 percent of its competition — there’s something missing: that white-hot spark of insane creativity and out-of-the-box novelty that made the first Lego Movie such an unexpected, revolutionary surprise. Everything is still awesome. Just a little bit less so.

Directed by another great character actor, John Carroll Lynch (Zodiac, American Horror Story), Lucky is an elegiac and ultimately affirming meditation on mortality, regret, and smiling through hardship. You couldn’t ask for a more poignant swan song from a more singular artist.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. doesn’t quite have the same frayed-wire electricity as "Nightcrawler," but what it does have on its side is Denzel Washington.

At its heart (and it’s a big corny heart, for sure), the film’s message is one of unconditional love and embracing family wherever you find it. It’s hard to argue with. Especially when it’s served up with such spiky laughter-through-tears sweetness.

"Virgin" is also one of the few Reagan-era romps that could put a lump in your throat, as loser Gary (Lawrence Monoson) watches his skeevy best friend (Steve Antin) steal his dream girl. Thank-fully, the Cars keep things fizzy by shaking it up on the soundtrack.

Hoult brings a quiet, romantic intensity to the young Tolkien (pronounced ‘Tolkeen’, who knew?), Lily Collins does a lot with a little as his first love Edith, and the Hobbit horde will gobble up all of the easter-egg references peppered throughout the movie.

Over 95 minutes, Blindspotting builds tension like a simmering cauldron on the verge of boiling over. Its themes of racial prejudice, class conflict, friendship and loyalty find a voice that’s both disarmingly funny and heartbreakingly tragic.

Ex Machina is beautiful and ominous and features another delicately nuanced performance from Isaac, who’s quickly making a habit of them. But in the end, for all of Garland’s ambition, his reach winds up exceeding his grasp. The film is as synthetic as Ava.

The film belongs to Green — maybe the only actress ever to "graduate" from being a Bertolucci muse to a bloodthirsty action-flick dominatrix.

So let me just say that this latest rah-rah red-meat installment is the biggest and best surprise of the series. It has its flaws, but it's mostly a big, dumb, gruntingly monosyllabic hoot.

It’s cartoonish, fast-paced, a bit cheesy, and ridiculously dumb fun.

It's a Marvel spectacle that manages to deftly balance razzle-dazzle, feel-it-in-your-gut slingshot moments of flight and believable human relationships. There's psychological weight to go with all of the gravity-defying, webslinging weightlessness.

Although the film does hint at Apfel’s creeping sense of mortality as she donates her clothes for posterity, it never gets deep enough under her skin.

Draft Day is "Moneyball" Lite. And if that sounds like a slight, it's not intended as one.

Johnson ties some of the film's looser ends together and makes you overlook the ones that stay untied. Between "Eastbound & Down," "Django Unchained", and now Cold in July, Johnson has a nice little streak going of turning seemingly disposable characters into indelible scene-stealing rascals.

Both Cage and Sheridan (who shined opposite Matthew McConaughey in Mud) give true and at times tender performances. It's a shame the film lacks the same subtlety and force.

It's always a thrill to see what an artist as singular as Jarmusch will do next. I just wish that his foray into the world of the undead had a little more to sink its beautiful fangs into.

Frost is a likable bloke with a deft physical grace to match his rat-a-tat one-liners. But all the sequins and silk shirts in the world can’t disguise the film’s too-familiar formula.

Make no mistake, there will be a sequel. Clary may not wind up having the same pop-culture impact as Bella and Katniss, but like it or not, this won't be the last time you hear from her.

Clocking in at a lean and very mean 81 minutes, writer-director Nicolas Pesce’s follow-up to his grim 2016 black-and-white arthouse chiller "The Eyes of My Mother" is a sick-joke psychological cat-and-mouse game with just enough twists to keep you on your toes.

While the story attempts the moves that a Pixar film typically makes—nonverbal storytelling, death, a bittersweet ending—most of The Good Dinosaur’s punches land soft, made worse by the disconnect that exists between the overly cartoonish style of the characters and the photorealistic landscapes.

Farrell delivers his lines with the same replicant monotone he used in The Lobster. And Kidman, the only cast member who expresses recognizably human emotions, extends her recent hot streak. But even she’s not enough to give this head-scratcher any real life.

It's moving, admirable, and occasionally exhilarating. What it's missing is the one thing that could always be counted on with Jolie as a star: the spark of danger.