Joe Leydon

Lee takes time to explain the stories behind the stories, to unearth revealing details under-reported in other accounts, and to identify individuals among the faceless masses of unfortunates.

Uproarious. Line for line, minute to minute, writer-director Judd Apatow's latest effort is more explosively funny, more frequently, than nearly any other major studio release in recent memory.

A fascinating and heartfelt documentary.

Trenchantly witty and acutely insightful.

Director Gracie Otto’s Seriously Red disarms and delights as a sensationally spirited concoction that neatly balances unfettered outrageousness and unabashed sentimentality.

If John Cassavetes had directed a script by Eric Rohmer, the result might have looked and sounded like Mutual Appreciation.

At once raucously free-wheeling and meticulously contrived, picture satisfies as a boys-gone-wild laff riot that also clicks as a seriocomic beat-the-clock detective story.

Stevens offers a couple of revelations that bring the documentary to a dramatically and emotionally satisfying conclusion — and, not incidentally, leave a viewer with the pleasing sensation of discovering a worthy individual.

There are times when you’re tempted to turn away when Joy makes the latest in a long line of really bad, even self-destructive choices. But deGuzman’s performance is so arresting and engaging, you keep your eyes glued to her — if only so you don’t miss the next development that will be hilarious or heartbreaking or both.

A spirited and captivating bio-doc that richly deserves the exclamation point in its title.

An exceptionally compelling Outback Western.

Everything Harry Dean Stanton has done in his career, and his life, has brought him to his moment of triumph in “Lucky,” an unassumingly wonderful little film about nothing in particular and everything that’s important

Ultimately, it’s extremely doubtful that any of this would work nearly as well as it does without Hartnett at the center of the storm, anchoring the bloody chaos and generating rooting interest with a performance defined by propulsive physicality, industrial-strength enthusiasm and an indefatigable willingness, even eagerness, to repeatedly make himself the butt of the joke.

A rivetingly suspenseful drama that deftly intertwines elements of ticking-clock thriller and tragic farce.

The Winding Stream is cogent and compelling as a pop-culture history lesson, and genuinely uplifting while it shows how contemporary artists — along with descendants like Rosanne and John Carter Cash — keep the legacy of A.P., Mother Maybelle, June and Johnny alive and thriving.

A fascinating and ultimately infuriating documentary.

Equal parts suspenseful road movie, persuasively detailed period drama and emotionally resonant coming-of-age story, The Retrieval is an outstanding example of regional indie filmmaking accomplished with limited resources and an abundance of skill.

This enjoyable East-meets-Western likely will succeed on its own terms as a sure-fire, long-legged crowd-pleaser.

A seductive, fascinating tapestry of small-town life.

Deliberately paced, richly atmospheric drama also boasts first-rate work by a splendid supporting cast and impressive production values.

Having earned his stripes by directing a few TV episodes, Frakes makes an auspicious debut as a feature filmmaker, sustaining excitement and maintaining clarity as he dashes through a two-track storyline.

Rowland ratchets up the suspense with cunning and confidence, advancing the narrative and introducing secondary characters with suitable swiftness and meticulous precision that never call undue attention to themselves.

Taken strictly on its own terms, the film adaptation is an arrestingly and sometimes excruciatingly suspenseful psychological thriller lightly garnished with horror-movie flourishes...and driven by a compelling lead performance that is entirely worthy of a description too often misapplied to lesser work: tour de force.

An ingeniously conceived and devilishly clever opus.

Four excellent lead performances, vividly evoked ambience and a masterfully sustained mood of quiet desperation mark Sydney as an impressive piece of work.

Deftly mixing alternating tracks of playful rowdiness, thoughtful introspection, ferociously slamming rock and not-so-quiet desperation, helmer Manu Boyer scores impressively with I Trust You to Kill Me, arguably the best rockumentary since "Some Kind of Monster."

Immensely entertaining and unabashedly inspirational.

Equal parts audacious dark comedy, wish-fulfillment fantasy and over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek action-adventure.

Although the TV ads and other promotional material appear to promise a megaplex-ready thrill ride about space invaders and rebellious Earthlings, this rigorously intelligent, cunningly inventive, and impressively suspenseful drama plays more like a classic tale about a disparate group of resistance fighters united in a guerrilla campaign against an occupying force.

Both fascinating as a glimpse at the not so distant past, and provocative as an account of what arguably was an early step in the decline of political discourse on television.

A delightfully twisted fairy tale that artfully juggles broad tomfoolery and sly drollery, along with a generous serving of sight gags enhanced by special effects. Even though it's being pitched primarily at younger moviegoers and their parents, pic is exuberantly quirky enough to please almost anyone.

Ingeniously conceived and impressively executed, Pleasantville is a provocative, complex and surprisingly anti-nostalgic parable.

[A] splendidly graceful and quietly magical documentary.

Evidencing savvy visual flair and compelling storytelling skill, Goyer infuses heart and vigor into material that could have come off as overly familiar at best, sappily improbable at worst.

A smart, subtle and seriously funny dramedy bound to find favor with sophisticated auds.

Imagine a live-action version of the "Dilbert" comic strip with a touch of Hal Hartley's deadpan absurdism, and you're ready for the frequently uproarious "Office Space."

A doggone hilarious cartoon extravaganza...virtually bursts at the seams with a supersized abundance of witty wordplay, silly songs and inspired sight gags.

[A] technically polished and emotionally stirring close-up view of celebrity chef José Andrés and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen.

Working from a smartly constructed script by Andrew Zilch, director Trevor White (“Jamesy Boy”) does an impressive job of propelling the narrative along parallel tracks of arrestingly suspenseful thriller and knowing media satire.

It's meant as high praise to say that, very early in Robots, the extraordinary starts to seem perfectly ordinary.

Jack Frost is a slickly packaged and engagingly sentimental fantasy-comedy that stands out as one of the season's most pleasant surprises. Pic offers a shrewdly balanced mix of humor, high concept and heart tugging, along with some amusingly impressive special effects.

Key to drama's success is the artful underplaying by Kurt Russell in the lead role of Herb Brooks.

People’s Republic of Desire is provocative and unsettling as it brings us on a guided tour through the digital marketplace for something resembling human contact.

Hot-wired, white-knuckle thriller.

“Portrait” abounds in the sort of ironies and contrasts that can make a biodoc fascinating even to auds totally unfamiliar with its subject.

Well positioned to slake the thirst of action fans for world-class, slam-bang rough stuff.

A lavishly mounted and appealingly old-fashioned swashbuckler with nary a trace of wink-wink irony or revisionist embellishment.

Harvests a bumper crop of laughs.

A smartly constructed and sardonically funny indie with attitude that somehow manages the tricky feat of being exuberantly over the top even as it remains consistently on target.

Even more family-friendly than its immensely popular predecessor.

Its lack of manufactured drama is one of the most engaging things about it, especially if you are a baseball fan who has ever marveled at the miracle that was, and is, Nolan Ryan.

It is much to the credit of Hanks and his collaborators that All Things Must Pass makes this particular iteration of the oft-told tale come across as freshly compelling, even poignant.

It works surprisingly and consistently well as a storytelling flourish for a documentary that does not traffic in subtleties or moral indignation while repeatedly and boisterously posing the question: “Can you believe these people actually did this?”

Imagine a '30s screwball comedy played to a sensuous Brazilian beat and you're ready for Bossa Nova, a delightfully amusing romantic roundelay.

Raging Grace strikes a skillful balance of sociopolitical commentary and conventional yet effective spooky stuff, and maintains that equilibrium after Zarcilla flips the script in regard to motivations and assumptions.

Beautifully lensed and intelligently crafted.

Five Fingers for Marseilles turns out to be an impressively effective and engrossing cross-cultural hybrid that has a great deal more than novelty value going for it.

One of the summer's more pleasant surprises. A silly bit of tiptop tomfoolery with cross-generational appeal.

Sandler (never making a false step while maneuvering though vertiginous mood swings) and Cheadle (deftly commingling instinctive decency with quiet desperation) are individually excellent, and bring out the best in each other. And the picture itself transcends its real but relatively minor flaws to score a satisfyingly potent impact.

With equal measures of prickly wit, gleeful pride and bemused gratitude, Charles Nelson Reilly looks back at his life, and invites his audience to share the view, in this thoroughly engaging filmization of his one-man stage show.

An impressively polished documentary by Bob Hercules and Cheri Hughes. Perhaps even more thought-provoking than its co-helmers intended, pic is bound to spark conversations and debate.

Sensationally exuberant, imaginatively crafted and intoxicatingly clever.

The performances are perfectly attuned to the material, with Koechner dominating his every scene as a kind of demented ringmaster, and Healy adroitly demonstrating the potential for both humor and horror in a character with nothing left to lose.

Consider this review primarily as an encouragement: Stick around. Your patience will be amply rewarded.

Deftly interlaces heart and humor in a witty, warm and well-observed comedy about the unexpected and inconvenient blooming of romance at the weekend gathering of an extended family.

A stealthy neo-noir drama that isn't afraid to take its time developing characters on the way to the payoff of a neatly designed caper scenario.

With a mix of sly humor, homespun grace and affecting poignancy, Get Low casts a well-nigh irresistible spell.

You can’t help feeling that something terrible will happen at any moment, unless something worse happens first.

Never Look Away gives us as complete a portrait as seems humanly possible, for which Lawless merits abundant credit.

Warm-hearted but clear-eyed indie effort richly repays audience patience during deliberately paced and provocatively allusive early scenes with a cumulative emotional impact that is immensely satisfying.

Poet Maya Angelou's debut feature directing effort is a solid and affecting piece of work.

Costa-Gavras develops such a propulsively suspenseful pace — with no small assist from Armand Amar’s mood-enhancing Euro-tech score — that his drama comes across as the cinematic equivalent of an engrossing page-turner you might purchase off the rack at an airport newsstand.

A hugely enjoyable romantic comedy that dares to suggest that love can bloom -- and, more important, hormones can rage -- after 50. Smart, sassy and slickly packaged.

Equal parts coming-of-age story and slow-burn thriller, writer-director Megan Griffiths’ quietly absorbing and methodically disquieting drama is a genuine rarity: a sympathetic portrait of a budding sociopath.

Cesc Gay’s wise, wistful and well-observed film about two friends enjoying a final reunion in the shadow of impending death, is by turns amusing and affecting — and quite often both at once.

This well-crafted documentary from director Harold Crooks (“Surviving Progress”) offers a concise, engrossing and occasionally infuriating overview of the ways multinationals avoid taxes by stashing profits in offshore havens.

What Lies Upstream is a quietly devastating documentary that’s all the more attention-grabbing for being such a scrupulously restrained and slickly polished piece of work.

Credible and creditable performances by a fine cast of promising newcomers and familiar veterans enhance the emotional impact of this low-key but compelling indie.

Born to Fly teasingly suggests that some displays of avant-garde virtuosity could be enjoyed equally by venturesome aesthetes, dance enthusiasts and devotees of World Wrestling Entertainment.

A heady spirit of spontaneity permeates the proceedings, suggesting the entire pic, much like the concert it documents, was conceived, planned and completed in a single burst of creative enthusiasm.

If you can surrender yourself to the measured rhythms of the film and accept its mix of feeling and artifice, you may find much to admire here.

Slither begins briskly, gradually accelerates and eventually achieves a breakneck momentum that makes the wild ride even more exhilarating.

A slow-burning found-footage suspenser with some mildly clever twists and a knockout payoff.

Tureaud and Salzberg achieve their potent impact through the straightforward (but clearly admiring) observation of men who band together in battle and, in the film’s emotionally stirring final scenes, mourn their fallen comrades.

Intelligent, informative and unusually entertaining documentary errs only when it yanks too insistently on heartstrings while focusing on worst-case scenarios involving desperate debtors driven to suicide.

The movie is such an irresistible and intoxicating celebration of cinematic excess that even after 187 minutes (including intermission or, as the title card announces, “InteRRRval”), you are left exhilarated, not exhausted.

Mouse Hunt is the cat's meow. Blending the graceful slapstick of Laurel and Hardy with the mock-Gothic visuals of "The Adams Family," this often screamingly funny comedy about a resilient rodent has enough across-the-board appeal to click with audiences of all ages.

Intelligent, involving and intricately plotted thriller.

Written and directed by sibling filmmakers Ian and Eshom Nelms with equal measures of respect and skepticism for pulp conventions, the movie comes across as neither pastiche nor parody, but rather as a seriously down-and-dirty crime story with a savage sense of humor.

Time and again during After Class, Schechter makes pinpoint-accurate choices that are even more impressive when, after it’s done, you replay the movie in your mind, and you realize what an exceptional piece of work it is.

A sensationally entertaining mash-up of historical drama, “Dirty Dozen” style shoot-‘em-up, spaghetti Western-flavored flamboyance, and extended action setpieces that suggest a dream-team collaboration of Sergio Leone, John Woo and Steven Spielberg.

An exceptionally well-crafted Western that spins a gripping, racially charged tale of suspicion, deception and survival in post-Civil War New Mexico.

Koepp does a masterful job of grounding his intimations of the supernatural in a totally persuasive down-to-earth context.

The film is a heady brew of period thriller, compelling melodrama and jet-black comedy, and the second most remarkable thing about it is how seamlessly these diverse elements gel.

A film that remains relentlessly absorbing for all of its compact 83-minute length largely because it places its audience in the position of helpless witnesses to a slow-motion trainwreck.

A sly curve ball of a documentary best described as a sports-themed "Rashomon" with an O. Henry twist.

Khan conveys equal measures of cynical wit and authoritative gravitas as Kumar.

For all the pic’s sentimentality, De Felitta refuses to back away from some unpleasantly realistic touches.