Joe Williams

Lacking beef or sufficient spice, it's nonetheless colorful comfort food.

Paul Simon and a Parisian orangutan tell us the same thing: It's all happening at the zoo.

This is rich material that Moretti mines for both superficial absurdity and deep pathos.

The secret in this case is the jokes, which are ferocious. Marrying a monster flick with an adolescent romance has produced a merry mutant.

Because the sociopath at the center of this family portrait never asks for forgiveness, The Iceman is truly chilling.

At nearly three hours long, "An Unexpected Journey" has moments when the caravan seems both overstuffed and out of balance, but it's such a scenic trip that only a stubborn homebody could complain.

Like a Fishbone show or an LA weather forecast, the dark curtain rises, and there's a promise of more sunshine.

The simmering rivalry between Di and Fiamma, inflamed by the kind of glimpsed indiscretion that makes adolescent melodramas tick, explodes in a thriller ending that turns an observant coming-of-age story into something resembling "The Lord of the Flies."

With Whitaker, Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong pulling the strings, The Butler can take a bow.

It's zippy, and the movie version has both a computerized sheen and handcrafted detailing. Because the details are cribbed from classics, parents can enjoy this 'toon as much as their kids.

The libido and bloodlust flowing from the pint-size Page is the funniest thing in the movie, but elsewhere, the mix of the goofy and ghastly is hard to digest.

This melodrama about spousal abuse and honor killings might be too grim to bear, but Kekilli keeps it centered.

While Looper lacks the heft of a classic, this wayback machine is worth taking for a spin.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee sees the '60s through a rose-colored telephoto lens, but his sympathetic spirit extends the generous message of the hippie era like a passed joint.

Rounded, redemptive and refreshingly free of cynicism.

As Refn is riffing on thriller cliches, he gets solid support from the ensemble. Brooks, a comedic standout since the '70s, makes a sympathetic villain, and Gosling stokes the young-Brando comparisons - instead of settling for Richard Gere.

Im Sang-soo has crafted an erotic thriller whose cool beauty speaks for itself.

Ultimately what makes Gone Girl so watchable is the three-headed monster of Fincher, Pike and Affleck. The director bathes the B-movie scenario in the queasy-green hues of a morgue, while Affleck flashes his million-dollar smile like a dime-store Dracula and the beautifully inscrutable Pike absorbs the light like a wax mannequin. If it’s true that Nick and Amy were made for each other, they were made in a fiendish lab.

Yet so much about The Lovely Bones is so skillfully orchestrated, from the chillingly methodical villainy to the thrillingly paced manhunt, we can accept that we're in the hands of a higher power.

This vision of a violent future makes Elysium well worth seeing, even as the conventional violence of the thriller finale makes it a missed opportunity.

With his actors and crew hewing to the script, the director’s craft is impeccable. His low-light images are suitable for framing, and there’s scarcely a moment of modernity, let alone humor or loose ends, to disrupt the tragic trajectory.

Here’s a toast to the cast and crew: Drinking Buddies is a three-dimensional movie that doesn’t require beer goggles.

To its credit, Celeste and Jesse Forever wants to be more than a formulaic farce. It succeeds to the extent that the neighbors keep up with Jones.

As the wife to a wolf of Wall Street, Blanchett shows us a lost sheep both before and after the slaughter. It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s twitching with life.

Whereas many kung-fu movies are a feast that leaves us weary with sensations, the tastefully bittersweet “Grandmaster” puts us in the mood for more.

There are three sides to most love stories: his, hers and the truth. But on London's Fleet Street, the three sides are his, hers and the tabloids'.

Doggedly indie but unpretentious, Begin Again is one of the best movies I’ve seen about the music industry and the ways it changes people whose paths diverge.

While we await the definitive documentary about the glut of garbage, Waste Land reduces this global catastrophe to touchingly human scale.