Chris Nashawaty

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.

Aside from a few cheap but effective shocks and jumps, there's nothing here that horror fans haven't seen in better recent films like "The Conjuring." Not to mention all of those wonderful Hammer films from the '50s and '60s.

It’s well made but drearily familiar.

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.

Yes, Locke is a bit of a storytelling stunt: For the entirety of the movie, Ivan is the only character on screen. But even with nothing to cut away to and no flashbacks to offer context, the film manages to stay as tight as a vise.

Watching it all unfold and slowly go off the rails, you can't help but wonder what Pfister's mentor, Nolan, might have done with the same material. My guess is he would have sent the script back for a Page One rewrite for starters.

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

Unless you’re Billy Bob Thornton, old furniture just isn’t all that scary.

The supporting cast includes Nick Nolte, Christine Lahti, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Hailee Steinfeld, making the movie’s greatest accomplishment the fact that it was able to squander so many interesting actors.

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.

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.

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.

A stranger-than-fiction gem.

The film itself feels a bit padded and clunky.

Like so many reunions, this one starts off all smiles and quickly grows tiresome.

As a film, Under the Skin is hauntingly freaky and ultimately frustrating. But as a movie star's gamble to be seen as more than just a moneymaking member of the Marvel universe, it's a home run.

Noah is a movie about big ideas (environmentalism, heavenly obedience versus earthly love) and even bigger directorial ambitions (how to tell a personal story on the grandest of grand scales). But, in the end, it's also a disappointment. Maybe not one of Biblical proportions, but a disappointment nonetheless.

More connect-the-dots detective thriller than traditional doc, John Maloof and Charlie Siskel’s revelatory riddle of a film unmasks a brilliant photographer who hid in plain sight for decades working as an eccentric French nanny.

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 Raid 2 will make you feel like Christmas came nine months early. Some action sequels don't know when to say when. But here's one where too much is just the right amount.

The film loses some of its fizz by giving in to a so-so caper plot that unintentionally proves the axiom they were just satirizing.

It's both exhausting and laughable in its eagerness to shock. That's the bad news. The worse news is that Volume II comes out next month.

As with most of his films (Madea-centric and otherwise), subtlety isn’t Perry’s strongest suit. He tends to hammer his audience over the head with canned sentimentality, lazy stereotypes, and easy uplift.

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

[A] harrowing documentary.

The only one having any fun in this dead-on-arrival noir is Robert De Niro.

Stalingrad is a 3-D epic that's one-dimensional.

Once again Neeson is a straight-faced secret weapon. With his lion's roar and can-do fists, he grounds the film's more preposterous moments and makes them feel excitingly tense. At a certain point either you'll fasten your seat belt and go with Non-Stop's absurd, Looney Tunes logic or you won't.

There’s never any doubt that this will end badly for the lovers. But just in case, Jessica Lange as the fire-breathing mother-in-law seals the deal.

With the exception of Waleed F. Zuaiter, who does a remarkable good-cop act as an Israeli agent, the cast is composed of first-time actors who bring realism to a tragic story. It manages to punch you in the gut and break your heart at the same time.

It's no coincidence that Winter's Tale is being released on Valentine's Day, when our resistance to schmaltz is at its weakest. But do that special someone in your life a favor and splurge on some flowers and a nice heart-shaped Russell Stover box instead.

With his latest film, the mawkish and melodramatic Labor Day, Reitman has done an unexpected about-face: He's ditched Wilder for Douglas Sirk. And the swap doesn't do him — or his fans — any favors.

After 519 days at sea, Dekker finally achieves her goal...and decides to keep sailing, only this time with a hunky boy as her mate. If I were her parents, I wouldn't have signed off on that, either.

Both actors still manage to show something we rarely see on screen: the heartache and happiness that come with love late in life.

Hart's exasperated dervish shtick has moments of real live-wire anarchy, including one priceless gag at a firing range. Will it be enough to make Hart a household name? Maybe. But both he and his fans deserve better.

Berg has made a powerful film and an important reminder of what really happens when we send men and women off to war. It's just too bad that subtlety isn't a stronger weapon in his arsenal.

In the end, Walter Mitty is a film about acting out our dreams. But Stiller never quite shows us the soul of his dreamer.

The feverishly paced film is hell-bent on making the audience feel like they just snorted a Belushian mountain of blow. You can practically feel your teeth grinding to dust. As with any high, though, it also doesn't know when to stop.

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

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

Saving Mr. Banks is a wholesomely square film about a wholesomely square film. But damned if its sugar doesn't go down like honey.

It's Bale, and his almost biblical quest for justice, who burns his way into your soul.

While Hudson's and costar Mary J. Blige's soulful, stirring musical numbers are absolute dynamite, the rest of the film's story is larded with enough soap opera twists and heavy-handed schmaltz that you'll feel like you're being bludgeoned with a hymnal.

All of the highlights are dutifully hit, as in a made-for-TV movie (albeit a lavish, gorgeously photographed one). Unfortunately, they're hit with a sledgehammer.

Dench and Coogan's chemistry is undeniably great. In the end, he manages to give her the answers she seeks and she manages to give him a heart.

The only saving grace is Chris Pratt as Vaughn's deadpan best friend.

Nebraska isn't a perfect movie. It's often hard to tell whether Payne, an Omaha native, is paying heartfelt tribute to his vast stable of Cornhusker characters or slyly mocking them as simpleminded yokels.

It's a fascinating film that points the finger at a charismatic master of deception — as well as our willingness to buy his deceit.

By the time the movie finally manages to get interesting, audiences may be too numb and their retinas too fried to win back.

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.

Schwarzenegger, for one, seems to be having a hoot.

Its lack of both originality and any real memorable moments feels shameless and lazy. Adding insult, the movie ends on a cliffhanger, guaranteeing that Insidious: Chapter 3 will soon be coming to a theater near you.

This tone-deaf misfire can't decide whether it wants to be a broad comedy doling out raunchy slapstick laughs or a serious drama about our porn-saturated age of sensory overload.

It shows us how rare love is — and how we need to grab it and not let it go.

Rush hits a few potholes, but in the end it reveals the psyches of two men who only feel alive when they're cheating death.

Mandy Lane does eventually build to a whiplash twist ending, but it's too little, too late — much like the film itself. Here's a case where the backstory is more interesting than the movie.

We're treated to what's essentially a slick, airbrushed promo reel of a bunch of genuinely sweet superstars who can't believe their dumb luck. That's charming. But it's also a little boring. What it's most definitely not is a documentary.

It's so deliciously twisted, it will make you walk out of the theater feeling like you just endured a grueling, giddy workout.

As in their previous comedies, Pegg and Frost play men who refuse to stop acting like boys. But these pint-swilling Peter Pans also know how to work the heart and the brain for belly laughs.

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.

Moretz, who is 16 now, can't manufacture the same that's-so-wrong jolt she managed the first time around. Back then, it was hilariously taboo to see a little girl spout arias of profanity. Now, she's just another teenager swearing. Like the rest of the film, what was once shocking now just elicits a shrug.

2 Guns is a much-needed reminder that the best summer surprises can come when you least expect them.

Skip it, and you'll be depriving yourself of one of the summer's most satisfyingly stupid pleasures.

Nicholson’s live-wire performance turns what could have been a standard movie malcontent into a martyr.

Lady is a surprisingly powerful gangster flick about a mystery woman whose public-enemy path briefly overlapped with John Dillinger’s in the ’30s. It’s just one of many Bonnie and Clyde knockoffs Corman cranked out at the time, but there’s real artistry alongside the violence and nudity in this one.

No Footloose. But its synthy soundtrack, heated dance-offs, and Day-Glo leg warmers are guilty-pleasure pay dirt. A mouthy 14-year-old Shannen Doherty doesn’t hurt either.

Naturally, if you’re putting it before youngsters’ innocent eyes for the first time, you’ll want to stick close by in order to play grief counselor when Bambi’s mother ”meets” a hunter in the woods.

Still, with everything working against him, the Duke manages to be an old-school badass and stick it to those fancypants Brits.

One of the great unheralded films of the late ’60s.

Clever, funny, and wonderfully bloody.

Rowlands gives a harrowing performance as a housewife coming unhinged.

Based on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s best-seller about cracking the byzantine Watergate cover-up, the movie is a victory lap for American journalism — the triumphant flip side to Network‘s self-loathing take on the media.

Nominated for five Oscars, Pillow Talk led to two more Day/Hudson collaborations, but this is by far the best.

Loaded with atmosphere, bared flesh, and a haunting turn by the Dietrich-esque Delphine Seyrig as an ageless countess who hungers for a pair of newlyweds (and their necks).

Bogart is hilariously crusty as a hard-drinking river rat who journeys downriver on a rickety steamer with a prim missionary (a flawless, lock-jawed Hepburn), trying to stay one step ahead of the Germans.

Timeless and essential.

Shot in shaky handheld style, [REC] is a bit like George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead, but, you know, actually scary.

Death Race 2000 isn’t the sharp satire Corman thinks it is, but it’s fun.

Gazzara struts like a polyester peacock, playing a doomed nightclub owner in debt to the wrong people.

Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap follow-up is surprisingly deep for a flick that rests on the same shelf as Hardbodies and My Tutor. But as Gib would say, ”What the hell’s wrong with being stupid once in a while?

Rob Reiner’s film is all about the journey, not the destination. And all of his young actors are great — Wheaton as the sensitive narrator, Feldman as the slightly crazy wild card, and especially Phoenix as the tough-yet-tender doomed soul.

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.

Action-packed and jaw-droppingly epic (it was the first time director John Ford ever shot in Monument Valley), Stagecoach is the perfect Western to show to people who don’t like Westerns.

With his Mephisto-phelean swagger and chewy, good ol’ boy drawl, Reynolds is a chest-beating revelation.

It’s one of those rare puzzle-box mysteries where, even if you can’t work it all out, you trust that it all makes sense. And when you do finally solve it — for me, around the fifth viewing — it fills you with the giddy sense of accomplishment you get from polishing off a stubborn New York Times Sunday crossword.

There's a long tradition of filmmakers poking fun at the movie business. But no one bit the hand that fed him more viciously or with sharper fangs than Billy Wilder in Sunset Boulevard.

It’s a daring, cynical gem.

Hepburn doesn’t know whom to trust and neither does the audience, which is what makes this Hitchcock-lite thriller so much fun. The chemistry between the two leads — something surprisingly missing between Depp and Jolie — is electric.

The film’s no great shakes; it’s a Down Under Goonies wannabe about three wisecracking kids shredding on their bikes as they’re chased by bungling bank robbers. But the baby-faced Kidman is easily the best thing in it.

The film’s packed with messages in invisible ink, secret staircases, and corpses in cauldrons of pig’s blood. And since ? Connery’s bald as a cue ball, that means no distracting Hanksian haircuts!

Mitchum looks like a doomed slab of granite and gives a dynamite performance. The tough-guy dialogue and working-class Boston locations are so realistic it almost feels like you’re watching a documentary.

Deliciously twisty and twisted.

It’s a feast for the ears, eyes, and soul.

Jeff Bridges seems to be the only one having fun, playing a videogame designer who gets sucked into a Day-Glo world of his own creation. It’s like Alice in Wonderland acted out on a kids’ Lite-Brite toy.

A Freudian honey trap of murder and women straight out of Italian Vogue.

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

The kind of Swiss-watch precision and attention to detail that would eventually get Kubrick labeled Hollywood's most notorious perfectionist.

Nicolas Roeg’s art-house adventure is lyrical and intoxicating.

A pulse-pounding procedural that pieces together the murder of a left-wing youth leader (Yves Montand). A baroque government cover-up is foiled by a tenacious inspector (Jean-?Louis Trintignant) whose rat-a-tat interrogations are like machine-gun fire. This is an amazing film.

James Caan is underused as the crusty coach who needs a championship season, but he is supported by good turns from the highly angst-ridden quarterback (Craig Sheffer) and the straight-from-the-streets rookie running back (Omar Epps).

"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.

Directed by Dario Argento, a.k.a. the Italian Hitchcock, the remastered giallo Tenebre is crammed with artsy camera work, intricate Rube Goldbergian death scenes, and a gruesome final reel where blood flows like the Tiber.