Chris Nashawaty

Occasionally, Mann shows flashes of the sort of springloaded action set pieces he was once hailed for, like a shoot-out during a religious parade. But mostly they just come off as warmed-over parodies from a onetime master aping his own style.

Like Welles' butchered cut of "The Magnificent Ambersons," it's fascinating but leaves you hungry for more.

With her wide, sad eyes and quiet air of embarrassment tinged with pride, Cotillard's Sandra is asking a question not only of her colleagues but of the audience, too: Are we willing to put aside our own self-interest for the sake of empathy? Are we cowardly or brave? Cotillard's exquisite performance makes you feel every ounce of the weight of that dilemma.

A Most Violent Year isn't an explosive film. It builds slowly, simmering toward an inevitable day of reckoning. It's the kind of uncompromising movie we don't see much of anymore. And it makes you nostalgic for a time when the world was worse and the movies were better.

Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is a film that evokes complicated emotions. A month after seeing it, you might still be wrestling with whether it's powerful, profound, or propaganda.

The one bit of good news is that the first Gambler is currently streaming on Netflix. Do yourself a favor and watch that one instead.

Despite its sharp feminist sting, Big Eyes never loses its light touch. Maybe the lesson here is that Burton should venture out of his dark, creepy comfort zone more often.

The first two-thirds of the film, which are like the Brothers Grimm's Greatest Hits on laughing gas, have a fizzy, fairy-dust energy. But as soon as the baker couple's scavenger hunt is over and a rampaging giant appears, Woods loses its magic and momentum and sags like an airless balloon.

DuVernay has done a great service with Selma. Not only has she made one of the most powerful films of the year, she's given us a necessary reminder of what King did for this country...and how much is left to be done.

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.

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.

Anderson's film is something to be experienced, like a psychedelic drug trip where the journey trumps the destination. Unfortunately, his journey just didn't do it for me.

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.

As brilliantly funny as Chris Rock is, he's never been able to replicate the high-voltage danger and electricity of his stand-up act on the big screen. But in his latest film, the sharply satirical Top Five, he not only makes a case for why he should be a bona fide movie star, he also proves he's a writer-director to be reckoned with.

If you're looking for cheap scares and have 90 minutes to kill, you could do worse than The Pyramid. But not a lot worse.

The setup has mysterious promise, but the film cheaps out on a satisfying payoff.

In an age when horror movies have mostly become lazy and toothless, here's one with ambition and bite.

The film is anchored by yet another hypnotically complex Cumberbatch performance. He's turning greatness into a habit.

It's the small, tossed-off moments — Bateman's deadpan mugging, Day's frenzied cluelessness, and Sudeikis' smarmy one-liners — that land the best.

Shot in inky black and white, Ana Lily Amirpour's fractured Farsi fright flick has a spooky, otherworldly quality. It's like an early Jim Jarmusch indie set in Little Tehran at 4 a.m.

The documentary offers a compelling overview of the case, but Bar-Lev spends too much time painting Paterno as a victim and scapegoat. That advocacy doesn't sit well.

With her sad, haunted eyes and ''plain as a tin pail'' looks, Swank is by far the best thing in the movie. More than most actresses, she seems unburdened by vanity.

The biggest problem with the new Hunger Games movie is right there in the title: Part 1. Mockingjay, the final installment in Suzanne Collins' best-selling YA trilogy, wasn't conceived in two parts.

I couldn't help wishing that The Theory of Everything had more theory. Hawking famously excels at explaining complicated thoughts with layman simplicity, but the film never translates the originality and depth of his ideas — or even what they are.

The most haunting thing in Bennett Miller's latest film, Foxcatcher, is Steve Carell. That's right, the same rubber-faced comedian who gave us the dim-witted meteorologist of "Anchorman" and the oblivious corner-office boob of "The Office."

It seems to have been made by people who couldn't decide if their film was a horror flick, a whodunit, or a "Hellboy" knockoff.

Most of all, it's a sobering look at a part of coastal America that will never be the same again.

In its wickedly twisted way, Nightcrawler keeps "Network's" battle cry alive. It's a 21st-century takedown of the media's pandering ''if it bleeds, it leads'' ethos and the ghoulish nightcrawlers who live by it.