John Anderson

Screenwriter Steven Knight has much to answer for in Callas being quite so shrill, but Ms. Jolie is unable to turn her storied character—one of opera’s most important and influential performers, a woman of polarizing voice, scandalous history and tempestuous personality—into something recognizably human.

Gracefully bittersweet and balanced. [16 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-1]

The Rip is a sturdily entertaining, hyper-kinetic avalanche of action propelled by equal parts bullets and f-bombs.

It’s a humanistic endeavor, essentially, out of which emerge memorable people doing heroic work in inglorious places.

18 1/2 — with a title aimed at fans of both Rose Mary Woods and Federico Fellini— then proceeds to go off the comedic rails.

Ms. McKenzie is terrific and carries much of the film, and director Taylor (“Sex Education”) seizes every opportunity to adorn it with period flavor, portraying Manchester and a Manchester hospital as they were 50 years ago.

There are many more questions in “CHAOS” than hard answers, but one thing is clear, namely the hypnotic quality of Mr. Morris’s filmmaking, enhanced to no small end by the dread in Paul Leonard-Morgan’s score and even in the demo recordings by Manson of his songs (which might have been sung by someone like Johnny Mathis, weirdly enough).

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.

It is an inspiring story, no surprise, told with a great deal of warmth.

The compositions and palette are occasionally stunning (the cinematographer is Scott Siracusano), and while the story lacks a certain momentum, the intention, quite successful, is to keep a viewer curious.

In several marvelously postmodern moments it recognizes its own glucose level. And the results are genuinely hilarious.