John Anderson

It has some savvy things to say about social media, assimilation and a specifically American condition: the peculiar mix of embarrassment and pride (and guilt) one can harbor about one’s ethnic origins. With a character who brings it all back home.

The filmmakers may have refashioned the book to make it a vehicle for Mr. Murphy, and done so successfully. But they were right about the POV: Witnessing the turmoil of these very troubled youths through the frustrations of their teachers makes for more convincing drama than would a delinquent’s-eye view of the same situation.

You can hear many an echo emanating from The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, sometimes to the point of cacophony. But there’s music here, too, and it is more than a requiem.

People might have laughed at the old Jack Rebney, but they were laughing at themselves as well. And counting their blessings. Everyone has a cranky side. Unlike Mr. Rebney's, it isn't usually gawked at by 20 million people.

It’s a fast-paced whodunit, despite the answers to its central mystery being either memorable, or Google-able, but the reasons why may amount to spoilers. So reader beware.

There are a few speedbumps of illogic along the gnarled route of Night Always Comes, but they can’t negate the pace of the storytelling, Mr. García’s gymnastic shooting, or the sense of there being no bottom to the well of darkness explored by Mr. Caron.

Following Woody Allen, Ang Lee and any number of sitcoms, Georgia Lee constructs her well-shot, well-written film around three daughters.

Smartly nuanced and darkly comedic. [21 Mar 1997, p.F2]

Watching Mr. Brooks’s career roll out in a compressed form is quite a treat, though Mr. Reiner seems to race toward the finish to include everything that he needs to get in.

It is in part biographical, with the young-hunk-makes-good tale of the film world and a parade of clips from the movies that he made. But the documentary’s main concern is Hudson as the ultimate closeted homosexual, the CinemaScope version of a tale gay men had been forced to live out for generations, or risk scandal, blackmail and even criminal prosecution.

The audio recordings left by the first lady were clearly intended for posterity, and as such are discreet and politic but always revelatory, even by omission: LBJ’s legendary philandering, for instance, is never mentioned.

In a deliberately raggedy film, we find a raggedy man.

Despite a certain emotional chill, what holds this Mechanic together is - no surprise - the core Carlino story.

The divide between Mr. Sutherland and the rest of the cast is striking: The way Friedkin shoots him, and the nature of his portrayal, are in sharp contrast to the more stage-bound performances of his co-stars; it may have been intentional, though it doesn’t really work.

There are a few characters and storylines that aren’t quite resolved, but the essentials—notably, what launched Mickey into a life of crime—are wrapped up in a way that should mollify a viewership left hanging when the show was so abruptly assassinated.

It's doubtful Milarepa will be opening in Beijing any time soon; all the more reason it deserves a look.

Mr. Malek gives an eccentric performance, but he won’t make anyone forget Dustin Hoffman, whose original Dega was an endearing coward, a fatalist and a masterpiece.

Narrated quite drolly by comedian John Hodgman, Class Action Park is very funny in its dark way, the interviewees are all charmingly surprised that they lived through their teenage years and there’s a remarkable amount of action footage from the park, considering that it predates cellphones. (The animation by Richard Langberg is amusing, too.) Where the film has a problem is Mulvihill.

Sometimes you just want a crazy action movie to kill an evening, and “Lou” fits that bill. Just don’t expect to be thinking about it tomorrow.

The landscape is dire, the architecture is haunted, children disappear by the dozens and antique toys inexplicably spark to life. That Mr. Radcliffe doesn't is part of the problem.

What keeps Ain’t in It for My Health from being a really satisfying portrait isn’t a lack of access, but a lack of intimacy.

A serviceable thriller, kind of an “Argo” in Argentina, replete with ornate preparations, plans gone awry and narrow escapes.

Being a person who grew up with him as a live cultural presence, I’m a highly biased fan of the man. Still, like its subject, “Belushi” is sometimes simply too much.

A lot of culture, East and West, receives glancing blows from The Monkey King, which was directed by Anthony Stacchi, whose 2014 stop-motion animated feature “The Boxtrolls” is a classic. And an entirely different animal from The Monkey King.

It may be a historical documentary, but it has blinkers on.

Minka Kelly has a face that could launch a thousand cable movies and is the freshest thing about “Champagne Problems,” a holiday-season romance that takes the welcome tack of embracing its own clichés.

Mr. LaBute is not a moralizer as much as a lamenter — his people usually bring unhappiness upon themselves. In the gently joyous Dirty Weekend, though, they are capable of finding a flight path to contentment.

Mr. Chase still tries to be funny here, sometimes desperately, and isn’t. Which along with a career’s worth of ill will puts the sting in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not.