G. Allen Johnson

Kaizo Hayashi's homage to noir B movies, both Japanese and American, is successful as a true labor of love.

Nicolas Cage gives one of the best performances of his strange, courageous career.

Dreamy and elegantly filmed.

Now "Rod Tidwell," with Jerry Maguire as a supporting character, would be a movie to pay to see.

What could have been an insightful, irresistible movie is instead a simple, self-contained fable, pleasing to look at but meaningless

POSITIVE vibes aside, Down in the Delta is fairly simple stuff, with acting that at times sinks to the dialogue-of-agreement level of those after-school specials a network used to run a while back. But it will go down in history as the first film to be directed by Maya Angelou, and it isn't a bad one at that.

Troubling and troubled.

The movie is meant to be uplifting and to the degree that you can ignore its unquestioning treatment of mental illness, I suppose it is.

Solondz's greatest success is the pederast, heartbreakingly played by Baker...Had Solondz reached that apex in the other stories, it would have been a masterpiece.

The writer-director has come up with a sumptuous, happy piece of fluff.

If you buy the gross, it's surprisingly funny .

Stolevski obviously wants us to sympathize with these wounded characters who have been shunted aside by a cruel society, but that’s hard to do when they are so verbally cannibalistic.

It’s colorful and imaginative, but other than Lu, the characters don’t have much depth. Emotional, that is, not oceanographic.

Although more Fiennes is always a good thing, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple simply doesn’t have the solid storytelling or enthralling characters that its predecessor has.

Aniara has an intriguing premise, and it’s even fascinating at times, but despite an excellent production design, it never gets off the ground even as it speeds through the cosmos. The characters are not fully formed, so we’re not invested in their futures.

Hawke is effectively brooding, which recalls his first collaboration with Almereyda, a 2000 adaptation of “Hamlet” set in modern-day New York City.

Despite the terrific set design in The World to Come, the characters don’t feel at home in it; they do very little farm work, for example. Still, Waterston and Kirby do achieve an intimacy that operates as a warm fire warding off the chilliness around them. It’s too bad we were left out in the cold.

A cute and scruffy movie. Helena Bonham Carter, lending a female presence to the otherwise all-male story, charmingly narrates as Robert’s sister, who pieces together the Stubby legend from letters sent home.

The original Space Jam was an out-of-nowhere delight, and Jordan gave space to his fellow live action co-stars, such as Bill Murray, Larry Bird and Wayne Knight. It was also in and out in 87 minutes; Space Jam: A New Legacy, directed by a good filmmaker, Malcolm D. Lee (Girls Trip, The Best Man), is a bloated 115 minutes, its mayhem and madness wearing pretty thin as it goes along.

But for now, we have The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which actually was a pretty good idea that just didn’t have enough wind in its sails.

The problem with “The Tiger’s Apprentice” is it sacrifices character and story for the repetitive mind-numbing action we have come to expect from such fantasy and superhero films.

A bleak, at times fascinating but strangely inert Chinese animated film.

Shot almost entirely within a hotel, the film operates as a low-budget answer to “Roma,” Alfonso Cuarón’s much-lauded film that also centers on the life of a domestic worker.

Like sitting on the beach under a cozy, warm afternoon sun. The view is beautiful, but not much is happening and soon you drift peacefully to sleep.

You would think Towne would identify closely with a big young talent who flames out too early. But when Pre turns to Mary and says, "I can endure more pain than anyone I ever met," it seems forced, empty. Towne just doesn't capture his subject.

Bannon is an intriguing figure, a former liberal who went to Harvard Business School and did a hitch in the Navy. His turn in philosophy is worth exploring. He can undeniably hold attention — American Dharma is not a hard watch.

So Orwell it’s not. But “Mercy” is a cinematic feat of a different kind, even if it begins to fade soon after leaving the theater.

Feels like a regifting of previous action adventure favorites, lifting elements from the “Mission: Impossible” series, “Skyfall” and, most of all, “The Incredibles.” It’s fast-moving, entertaining, kinda clever and instantly forgettable.