Joe Williams

Bad Words is often very funny, thanks to Bateman’s brick-wall malevolence and screenwriter Andrew Dodge’s inventively rude dialogue.

In place of a rousing adventure, Blackthorn is a haunting ode.

Although there are gentle detour discussions about advertising in classrooms and school buses, Spurlock's ironic approach can't convince us that ads are toxic. Indeed, when he visits sprawling Sao Paolo, Brazil, where all outdoor advertising has been banned, it seems as sterile as Stalingrad.

While Banderas' dark intensity overshadows the potential poignancy of the story, Almodovar is such a skilled surgeon that he extracts a juicy nugget of pleasure from a purely distasteful premise.

Of course, there's a kind of reverse snobbery in touting cheap movies over polished ones. But if Not Quite Hollywood is not quite convincing, it is quite entertaining.

This affable comedy is a healthy alternative to tearjerkers.

The troupe's first film in more than a decade, is a more aggressively absurd antidote to what it calls "a hard, cynical world." Happily, it works.

This very male and methodical movie is like the anti-“Gravity,” as the un-moored hero is quietly in control of his options and at peace with his possible failure.

This Swedish sensation is a magic trick that jolts the murder-mystery genre back to life.

While the movie sometimes seems like faux Fincher, the symbiotic acting, artful imagery and punchline ending turn True Story into credible entertainment.

Marley is thus a valuable history project but not a definitive or analytical one. For that, we await a film that's less "One Love" and more "Stir It Up."

Few mainstream movies, let alone disability dramas, are so frank about sexual mechanics, yet notwithstanding the nudity, The Sessions isn't voyeuristic or sleazy.

Monkey Kingdom tugs our heartstrings to the top of the trees. With a lot of patience, and perhaps a little trickery, directors Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill have produced a simian “Cinderella.”

In the context of confounded expectations, director Maxime Giroux may have intended the what’s-next ending to be ironic.

Although Tomboy is as tightly constructed as a short story and as seemingly straightforward as a documentary, the parable about a small fib that grows out of control is so rooted in the rich soil of sexual identity that it entangles us.

A good nature film - and a great technical achievement.

A bit undernourished to fit into the crown of a comedy classic. But the sharp wit, soft-focus cinematography and slow-motion lyricism lift it into the realm of this summer’s nicest surprises.

The documentary offers undercooked subplots about Gruber’s mostly Hispanic staff and his romance with a health-conscious Catholic acupuncturist, but Deli Man is best when it sticks to the menu.

But even without world-class smarts or amusing mutations, the next generation of “Jurassic” is an enjoyable ride.

How could you not marvel at a movie that includes a revisionist explanation of the JFK assassination, a football stadium floating over the White House and the sight of Richard Nixon firing a .45 at a villain in a Christ-figure pose?

The Messenger is the debut film of writer and director Oren Moverman, but it's worldly wise, with two well-rounded characters.

Gibney is as dramatic a storyteller as the Hollywood directors with whom he competes for our attention, and he employs a big bag of tricks.

A fanciful French cousin to Allen's "Zelig" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo," yet the fulfilled wish for a better life is high-concept absurdity without high-anxiety guffaws.

Just when this black-and-white, microbudget movie seems poised to spring an indictment of the Dickensian social order, it ends, but in a redemptive ray of color.

Although there's a skeletal story, A Cat in Paris evokes a mood instead of a moral. Like a cat nap, it gives us a brief, refreshing dream with little to remember.

Neither as magic nor as trippy as the culture quake that it documents, but it's a valuable flashback and a pleasurable contact high.

This debut film is fun, and everyone involved can proudly declare, “Honey, I shrunk the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

The campus comedy Pitch Perfect harmonizes high-end performance with low-brow spoofery. It's like a National Lampoon parody where the targets write the jokes.