Connie Ogle

Absolutely Fabulous works best consumed bite-sized; there’s not enough here to warrant a full-length movie. Too much feels like padding.

Gerwig and Hawke are outstanding reasons to see this movie, but your patience — just like Maggie’s — will be tested before it’s over.

Me Before You is a sugar-coated romantic bauble, not a gritty documentary. Giving into its pleasures is not for everyone, but its message — live boldly, as the movie’s hashtag encourages — is an admonition that’s awfully hard to argue.

Watching Beckinsale evade and persuade and charm and infuriate is an utter delight. You might not want Lady Susan in your home, but she’s a force of nature in this amusing film.

Scafaria — who wrote and directed "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" and co-wrote "Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist" — elevates the material with a terrific eye for detail, an understanding of the complexities of mother-daughter relationships and a generous sense of humor.

Carney gets everything right here: Sing Street hums with authenticity.

I Saw the Light, though, doesn’t live up to Hiddleston’s efforts; it’s shallow and disjointed, handicapped by a weak, cliche-sodden script.

The film moves jerkily, in fits and starts, squandering its promising setup and bogging down in explanation.

Fey is a good fit with the material, and her co-stars are all solid, including Billy Bob Thornton as a laconic general; Martin Freeman as a boozy, charming Scottish journalist; Alfred Molina as a local politician with a crush on Kim; and Christopher Abbott (Girls) as Kim’s fixer and translator (he tries to keep her out of trouble).

James and Riley might make an interesting Elizabeth and Darcy in a traditional Pride and Prejudice, but this version? It’s dead on arrival.

The Lady in the Van doesn’t give in to platitudes. It’s unnervingly honest about its subject.

Director/screenwriter Peter Landesman builds a solid dramatic story around this premise, and Smith delivers a terrific, award-worthy performance as Omalu, nailing his Nigerian accent, his intelligence, his determination to do what he knows is right.

What the film truly reveals is something else entirely: how Jennifer Lawrence can elevate any material, any time, even middle-of-the-pack fare like this.

With compassion, a touch of melancholy and a sense of wonder, Brooklyn reveals the profound truths in a simple, familiar story, ending on a note that’s achingly bittersweet, no matter where you’re from.

Some of the developments feel a bit predictable — shot in the dull hues of gray that match Maud’s life, Suffragette occasionally turns hard truths into platitudes — but the story is inspiring, buoyed by a fine cast, a pointed, important examination of the price paid for a shot at equality.

The real trick, of course, was casting the perfect child actor to carry the heavy load, and Tremblay is a wonder. The smart camera work helps highlight Jack’s perspective, but Abrahamson has also coaxed a genuine, marvelous performance out of the kid that’s key to the film’s emotional weight.

Gerwig, not surprisingly, is a marvel: mercurial, thin-skinned, haughty, desperate, funny, warm, a magnetic presence who mesmerizes the audience in the same way she attracts Tracy.

Too much of the breezy humor that made the book a delight is stripped away, replaced with predictable jokes and broad slapstick, sitcom-quality encounters with women and bears and a pushy, grating sentimentality.

Well-acted and sincere, Testament of Youth is chastely romantic in its treatment of the relationship between Vera and Roland, but the film doesn’t hold back on showing the horror of trench warfare.

If Magic Mike XXL is bulging with anything, it’s inane conversation.

In the end The Overnight promises more than it can deliver: Some of the supposedly provocative material ends up being juvenile, and the movie ends just as the situation gets truly, weirdly interesting. It’s too tame a resolution to a film that suggested the capacity for more.

Even Greg’s tattooed and charismatic history teacher (Jon Bernthal) is more interesting than the self-absorbed kid we’re supposed to care about.

As it is, Gemma Bovery is as dry as day-old bread: Not inedible, but why bother with it if you can find something fresher?

The film never allows any of its characters to fall into stereotype; they are complex creatures, full of anger and disappointment and passion, and even the weakest among them is not bereft of honor.

The Age of Adaline is a modern romantic fairy tale set in San Francisco, marred by bad narration and an unnecessary desire to overexplain random magic.

Merely adding an older generation of lovers to a love story does not make your romance one for the ages. Doesn’t even make it "The Notebook."

This period piece, directed by Richard Laxton, is shot in such a grim and grainy fashion you long to turn on the lights — which is fitting, because you also wish the filmmakers had illuminated the characters a bit more clearly.

Unfortunately, Insurgent can’t quite live up to its intriguing set up. Even if you’re curious about it, the movie is often plodding and frequently nonsensical, with action that never feels novel or exciting.

Blanchett manages to project the idea that there’s more to this woman than mere banal evil. Cinderella may well be the heroine of this story, but if you wanted someone to have a few drinks with, you’d pick her stepmother in a heartbeat.

You can’t shake the feeling the script is trying too hard to please, upping the drama despite the fact that what made the first film so enjoyable was its relative simplicity.

Focus is a shiny, stylish shell game of a film that, much like its protagonists, relies on breezy chatter, a good sense of humor and a lot of misdirection to succeed.

Despite what you might fear, the movie is not torture. And even if it doesn’t inspire lust, you will breathe a warm sigh of relief, thinking: This could have been so much worse.

There are some who may lament Aniston’s choice to step out of her comfortable comedy shoes and little black dresses, but the decision was sound: The best reason to see Cake — the sort of film that makes your life look pretty good in comparison — is to watch her deliver her best dramatic performance to date.

The bigger problem is that neither Jolie nor the script bothers to flesh Louis out as a fully formed person with faults and fears and regrets, which keeps the film from ever capturing you emotionally.

Wild may sound like a film about redemption, but it’s more about learning to live with what you can’t control — and accepting what you can control, which is sometimes just as difficult.

Filmed around stunning County Sligo on Ireland’s west coast, Calvary is a thoughtful, atmospheric movie despite the awkward parade of suspects and the fact that everyone seems a little too conveniently hostile.

There was, however, another question the screenwriter should have asked: Why does the script focus on the wrong couple?

A trifle bland, but with enough virtues to make it palatable to audiences who want comfort food, not a challenge, when they go to the movies.

The concert scenes in this biographical picture are some of its best moments — you’ll wonder just how long the actor had to practice to perfect all those splits — and Boseman’s charisma is irresistible.

Not entirely unwatchable.

Even the most ardent fans of Braff’s first feature film, the charming Garden State, will struggle to warm up to this self-indulgent, uninvolving drama about an immature, almost-middle-aged guy trying to find himself with questions he should have had answers to long ago.

The cinematic equivalent of herpes, Sex Tape is an uncomfortable embarrassment to raunchy comedies everywhere. Fortunately, no medication is required after being exposed to it: The effects are not permanent, only painful.

Begin Again manages to be romantic and cynical about the music industry, which Carney touches on but never allows to take center stage.

Derivative and self-important, Third Person is a concept and not much more, precisely the sort of film that makes you wonder why anybody would bother to see it at all.

The undeniable star is the diminutive comedian. He’s the glue that holds the movie together when it wanders into the weeds and starts believing it’s a serious meditation on relationships.

Best of all, the film never makes its characters into stoic or tragic heroes, choosing instead to highlight what makes them human — their hopes, their fears, their anger, the way they learn to live with knowing they’re going to die.

This movie couldn’t be more fantastical if dragons swooped down and incinerated London, Paris and the south of France.

Blended isn’t Sandler’s funniest movie or his best, but it is a big step up from the dregs he’s been churning out, a messy, shaggy dog of a comedy that you can’t help but like even as it sheds all over your house.

It still feels a little like a lesson you’re supposed to learn before you can enjoy anything truly satisfying.

Favreau worked hard to replicate an authentic restaurant world, and it shows in every frame that involves chopping, dicing, slicing, sautéing or otherwise cooking (he also finds an ingenious way to visually portray Twitter, so vital in the marketing of food trucks).

Due to its good humor and terrific story, Million Dollar Arm is always engaging; its power lies in its feel-good charm.

We may not understand her, this strange, solitary woman, but we know in our bones her desire for a place in the world.

Definitely funny. Goofy, ridiculous, with more gross-out humor than is strictly necessary but still funny.

That rare biopic that’s shorter and swifter than it should be. This turns out to be both a blessing and a curse.

Thoughtfully directed and co-written by Arie Posin, the film is not a ghost story, nor is it played for campy laughs, but its melodramatic subject matter flirts with Douglas Sirk territory — and sometimes just dives right into it.

Unfortunately there’s far too little magic in this clumsy attempt to marry fantasy and realism; the film doesn’t have the grace or imagination to bridge the gaps between the two.

If you can get past the ludicrous fantasy — well, wait, that’s the problem. You can’t get past the ludicrous fantasy.

As a film, though, Gimme Shelter is unremarkable, a predictable story of redemption that happens awfully fast, to a girl who only seems to be in peril briefly — and has a rich dad to bail her out.

Screenwriter/director Tornatore is best known for his nostalgic "Cinema Paradiso," which won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1990. But The Best Offer is completely different in style and tone; it’s dark instead of light, a psychological thriller of sorts, only with Virgil’s heart and orderly life in peril instead of his life.

The Invisible Woman offers a compelling glimpse at a life once hidden.

Ride Along sabotages itself, although I suppose that doesn’t really matter — there are already plans in the works for Ride Along 2.

Pine, who has been so good and so instrumental in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek series as Captain Kirk, turns out to be a decent Ryan.

The arsenal is empty, and there’s nowhere for The Truth About Emanuel to go except — unfortunately — downhill.

August: Osage County is easier to watch on screen, and maybe for that we should be grateful.

A better primer-for-the-uninitiated than an in-depth, fresh and insightful examination of a famous and remarkable life.

Page, who died in 2008 in Los Angeles at the age of 85, makes for a blunt but engaging narrator who’s refreshingly candid about sex and her own inner demons.

Kill Your Darlings is more coming-of-age story than murder mystery, but its characters are so well drawn and complex the emotional weight carries a suspense all its own.

Curtis pulls off some amusing moments, and he has a secret weapon: Nighy, who is so jolly and funny you wish he’d had more screen time.

What you don’t expect is camp. The Counselor is more "Wild Things" than "No Country for Old Men", with which it shares a border town setting. But at least "Wild Things" knew what it was. The Counselor treats its material seriously and seems to have no idea it’s a joke that can’t even muster up a bit of smarty-pants Tarantino cleverness or energy.

Assange is a compelling figure that merited a better effort.

Carlei’s film is not particularly imaginative in terms of context, but it offers proof that this material never tarnishes, that with the right sort of movie magic, even a traditional telling can be thrilling.

If only more romantic comedies played out as charmingly and perceptively as this one.

There are a few flashes of wit in the romantic comedy Austenland, but for the most part, the humor lands not with Dear Jane’s grace and style but with all the subtlety of a cholera outbreak.

It’s filmed with a sharp eye and filled with good performances.

Its flimsy plot can’t quite support all the characters stuffed into the script, and the movie plays out in a weirdly static way that makes it feel improvised and uneven, leaving a few too much time during which nothing funny is happening.

Paranoia has a promising foundation — betrayal, danger and corporate espionage are solid building blocks of suspense. But the movie turns out to be more exasperating than exciting.

In Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, choosing the dumbest character is a colossal task.

The To Do List is a funny movie, but only if you’re not easily offended.

The movie does miraculously end up making good use of a couple of running jokes, and the cast soldiers on, though the laughs are meager. But mostly, Girl Most Likely is a case of good actors in serious need of worthwhile material.

It’s bad enough to make you look askance at Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Maya Rudolph, all of whom deserve a chance to do something funny other than pose as wives exuding various degrees of sexiness.

Unfinished Song is full of predictably poignant moments; you’d be lucky to survive the film dry-eyed.

A Hijacking is not quite as exciting as it should be, but its realistic examination of grit and folly are still more intriguing than swaggering action movie heroics.

This is getting old.

A decent thriller made better by good performances and an intriguing setting.

Love Is All You Need works despite its occasional preposterous developments.

Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a failure that should have at least been a magnificent mistake, a risky endeavor that showed a daring intent even if its brash vision didn’t quite succeed. Instead, the movie leaves you cold and weary and vaguely disgusted.

The film builds to a three-pronged tumultuous climax, shot in slow motion that could have been overwrought but somehow isn’t.

And still 42 persists in entertaining you, even when you’re cringing, because the real story is so compelling.

This mostly upbeat crowd-pleaser soothes the audience with glistening harmonies and familiar songs and doesn’t always handle the ugly past simmering just below its surface gracefully.

An invasion of the body snatchers is preferable to realizing that the true horror perpetrated here is not on the characters but on the audience.

Stoker is the sort of stylish, cerebral movie that engages your brain instead of your emotions, and yet you’re never less than intrigued by the breathtaking visual artistry of this slow-burn thriller.

A competent but utterly unnecessary retelling of the story.

The film isn’t overlong. But it tries to fit so many themes into its brief running time — that it merely touches on most conflicts instead of exploring them in depth or with any delicacy.

There’s potential here, a decent story and a cast well-stocked with grownup cinematic luminaries. But this supernatural Gothic romance is a prisoner of its own demons, which include sketchy Southern accents, tacky and tired stereotypes and faux homespun dialogue in the wrong mouths.

A sentimental romantic thriller. But it’s a well-made sentimental romantic thriller, and that makes all the difference.

Zombie lore doesn't allow for redemption, only head shots, and Levine's film, amusing though it may be, is never gory enough to truly become a classic zombie movie. It also ignores the one basic necessity of monster films, even the funny ones: It really ought to be creepy or scary or gross, at least once or twice.

Even the people who griped about Tom Cruise being cast as the towering Jack Reacher will have to admit Statham fits nicely in Parker's shoes.

Quartet is truly an actor's film.