Joe Williams

It's got a grown-up artfulness, but Winter in Wartime could become a lot of boys' favorite movie.

A high-wire act that could crash if the actors were out of sync, but under this big top, the never-better Segel keeps everyone aloft.

The first half of the film dusts off some kitschy picket-fence footage and alarmist news reports to invoke an era when homosexual acts were illegal in 49 states, and gays were subjected to arrest, electroshock and sterilization.

When a man whose wife was killed by cultists invites us to laugh at life's absurdities, the particulars are almost incidental.

He might be guilty of showboating, but De Niro's knockout performance is a declaration that the star of "Raging Bull" isn't ready to hang up his gloves.

The Great Gatsby is both swooningly romantic and giddily energetic.

What animates this dramatically constrained film are the lively words and the vitality of nature. An image of butterflies blooming in a bedroom is Keats' worldview in miniature.

Notwithstanding its storytelling stumbles, Sleepwalk With Me points in a positive direction for this likable comedian's career.

With a child’s perspective on war, Lore deserves comparisons with “Empire of the Sun” and “Hope and Glory,” and with a feisty female protagonist it stands virtually alone.

Draft Day isn’t quite a comedy, but it’s got a similar kind of flow that makes it as easily consumable as lite beer.

Jenison, who had never painted a thing in his life, does indeed produce a beautiful work, but we should never forget that Penn and Teller are professional bamboozlers, and their attempt to re-frame the definition of genius might be nothing but smoke and mirrors.

This showcase for Wiig is sufficiently absurd to make real-world parallels laughable.

While Black is painfully effective as the dork who drops slangy kudos on his new BFF, Marsden is a revelation.

A director whose breakthrough was the story of a madman's last stand has exceeded that feat with the story of an angry man's next step.

It’s Belgian actor Schoenaerts who will leave the target audience atwitter. Seemingly incapable of cracking a smile, he fits securely in the stoic-farmer tradition that stretches from John Wayne in “The Quiet Man” to Russell Crowe in “The Water Diviner.”

This hand-drawn French import is fresh evidence that you don’t need computers and singing princesses to make a charming animated movie.

The iconic actor may be too gruff for sainthood, but Murray still retains a secret stash of soul.

With stately surroundings and hissable villains, director Amma Assante imbues the finale with such dramatic resonance that Belle becomes a ringing proclamation of human dignity.

While the PG-13 approach to the most brutally sustained war the world has ever known makes it suitable for mature children, some cynical adults may resent the tug of the reins. Me, I cried like a grandmother.

Unlike the benchmark sports documentary "Hoop Dreams," Undefeated doesn't have a deep penetration of poverty and race in its playbook, but it does have enough heart to make substantial forward progress.

As predictable as a 3-and-0 pitch down the middle, but when it’s baseball season, who wants dark clouds?

In recording the timeless traditions of Jewry, he created a new one: the identity crisis that rides on the back of laughter.

The world-class mechanic is Brad Bird, who applies the pacing and spatial freedom of a 'toon to a live-action thriller.

For better or worse, the whole exercise in lurid leg-pulling goes out with a bang.

You can tell by some loose threads and hurried workmanship that God’s Pocket is a knock-off, but it’s so stuffed with value, it’s an offer you can’t refuse.

As an exercise in craft, it's surprisingly successful, thanks to the strong cast and the vivid depiction of a modern leader's security apparatus. But as a political statement or personal drama, The Ghost Writer is nearly invisible.

Even more than most versions of Anna Karenina, this chamber piece is heated by two combustible characters, not by the winds of war and peace.

A textured and unexpectedly entertaining drama about the human toll when racial assumptions crash.