Cliff Doerksen

Writer-director Benjamin Heisenberg serves up a lean and solidly satisfying existentialist thriller.

Director Ry Russo-Young, who cowrote the script with Schnabel, is gunning for a big generational statement, but her ordnance is strictly small bore.

This is the art-house equivalent of a Clive Barker splatterfest, punctuated by mildly amusing stabs at Lynchian absurdity and compromised by an incoherent plot twist that would leave M. Night Shyamalan rolling his eyes.

Fast-paced and intelligent documentary.

Though frustratingly superficial and shot through a nostalgic, rose-colored lens, this enthralling 2010 doc opens a wider window on forgotten world of burlesque shows than anything I've previously seen.

The current national priorities should be as follows: reduce carbon emissions and stop funding the films of M. Night Shyamalan.

The drama is torpid, the astronomy lessons pedantic, and the spear-and-sandal production values flat-out cheesy. The whole thing is also historically ludicrous.

Like the best kids' entertainment, this creates a daffy little world all its own.

There are some creepy chuckles to be had from this allegedly true account of a hip, young New York photographer.

This is based on actual events, but it feels a lot like television.

Eventually the kids figure out that parents and other authority figures (among them Rebecca De Mornay, Anthony Edwards, Penelope Miller, and Aidan Quinn) don't always have it together. Was this trip necessary?

To judge from this agonizing documentary, sniveling man-child Joaquin Phoenix was put on earth to make us appreciate Crispin Glover for the level-headed fellow he is.

The dialogue is dumber than dirt, and the plot crumbles at the halfway mark, but the movie does what a loud summer blockbuster should, which is loudly bust blocks.

Carnahan stays true to the source material by delivering carnage without consequence (the machine gun-toting bad guys still can't hit a barn from the inside), his convoluted plot and multiple villains may challenge the attention span of the target demographic.

The notion that only whites can be racist barely survives this riveting 2009 documentary.

The result, messily directed by Jimmy Hayward, begins affably enough as a random slew of Leone-style squint-a-thons and shoot-outs but then loses it way in a dopey, anachronism-happy sci-fi plot.

It's fun to watch the habitually intense Duris relax somewhat in a light comedy role, and director Pascal Chaumeil gets good mileage out of the team's ridiculously elaborate con games.

The after-school-special moralizing is mitigated by the project's sincerity and textured locale.

The tone is both goofier and darker than the Potter pictures, and some of the magic battles built around New York City landmarks are eye-popping; there's also a genuinely affecting romance between Baruchel and fetching newcomer Teresa Palmer.

Based on a novel by Jonathan Ames, this drearily quirky mess wants to be "Secretary" for submissive males, but it's just a sitcom in a powdered wig and size 17 pumps.