Kevin Crust

Within the confines of a straight-ahead, handsomely designed and photographed biopic beats the heart of a more adventurous presentation of Holiday’s tragic life. It’s hinted at in Day’s performance, the dreamlike memory sequences and a cheeky, meta-coda that plays out during the end credits but never quite pierces the film’s more varnished surfaces.

The film’s higher aims never take hold. The breeziness feels at odds with implied gravitas.

An engrossing peek inside the Mideast peace talks during the Clinton administration.

Sometimes you just don’t want a movie to end. The characters are so vivid and multidimensional, the milieu so inviting, the circumstances so compelling, you don’t want to let go. The Dig, starring Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes, is such a movie.

It’s a profound, immersive lesson in empathy that should resonate with anyone interested in neurodiversity or simply seeking a more inclusive society.

The film’s themes of extinction and survival are worthy of thoughtful treatment, something that eludes the ambitious movie as it succumbs to a schematic and sentimental telling that overreaches for a grand gesture and obscures the more meaningful ideas.

Allowed surprising access to Sotudeh’s life, the film achieves stirring results if not an always fluid narrative.

Its beauty lies in its empathy — something currently in short supply and therefore very welcome in the stories we consume.

We are likely to be watching films on this subject for years to come, but for it’s sheer in-the-moment rawness, 76 Days is one that will stick in your consciousness for some time.

There’s a much appreciated sweetness and innocence to what we witness, a truly diverse group of Americans selflessly helping one another, joy being their only compensation.

It is the type of stirring entertainment that delivers both the thrill of the moment and the kind of sophisticated ideas that can lead to discussion and even debate long after viewing.

The filmmaker deftly moves backward and forward in time to chronicle Ngoy’s remarkable journey from war-torn Cambodia to the strip malls of Orange County while becoming a multimillionaire.

Sometimes when the moment comes to reconcile our feelings, we freeze or fumble the opportunity; other times, when we finally process the emotions and can articulate the thoughts, it is too late to communicate them. Coming Home Again, sweetly, sometimes painfully, evokes this experience.

Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something is an uplifting tribute to an impressive human being.

Though the film’s casual structure lulls you into thinking not much is going on, the gently shifting power dynamics between the characters, and a reversal of the traditional gender roles sets up an unexpectedly moving resolution.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow is a pleasingly quirky outing that has fun with the mythologies of both monsters and men.

The filmmakers are tackling a broad, evolving topic and the documentary struggles to maintain a throughline.

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life is a moving portrait of a man taking deep stock of his life with great satisfaction and verve. It

Kiss the Ground is the good kind of kale. It’s dense but nutritious. The science is explained in simple terms with plenty of visually striking graphics and animation.

Cohn, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, likely was aiming for subtlety, but these are not subtle times. Trying to get a spark from a damp match is a lot harder than holding a flame to dry kindling.

Though as leisurely as a summer’s day, this kaleidoscopic memory film has an intensity of purpose that wants to knock you on your heels — or maybe harder — in its take on gentrification.

Enola provides a richly fanciful, fresh perspective on the well-worn family name.

The film makes an ardent case to stay ever-vigilant against the ongoing threat to the electoral process.

The genre elements are nicely balanced by the adult drama embodied in the lead quartet’s performances, especially Rapace’s turn that is part femme fatale, part damaged soul.

Jeff Orlowski’s The Social Dilemma may be the most important documentary you see this year.

The feature debut of music video director Ninian Doff is probably best viewed late at night under the influence of a mind-altering, preferably hallucinatory, substance.

For anyone missing this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, postponed to March, Rising Phoenix is a fitting bridge for one night, resoundingly demonstrating that an athlete is an athlete. You will never watch the games in the same way.

Wilmott’s affecting historical drama “The 24th,” inspired by the Houston riot of 1917, bears both the weight of that history and the filmmaker’s passion for the subject matter.

It takes some big swings at a big subject and almost — not quite — pulls it off.

Tanne, who tackled the relationship of a young Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama in “Southside With You,” also hits the physiological explanation of the pain of heartbreak (from which the book and movie draw their titles) pretty hard.

The documentary, based on Cooper’s self-published memoir (he connected with Mazzio on Twitter after she’d read it), illustrates the differences that can be made through the efforts of a few and draws attention to the high levels of trauma experienced by residents in our poorest neighborhoods.

It’s competent filmmaking in the service of lousy storytelling.

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind is a thoroughly engaging retrospective of a hard-working, hard-living performer who survived to tell the tale.

Father Soldier Son is a demanding film, a sometimes brutal story told with immense empathy. There is sorrow and joy; success and failure; marriage, birth and death. The Eisches are a tough crew, absorbing the challenges and even tragedy with a fragile resilience.

Schneider’s direction is taut, limiting much of the action to the confined spaces of the ship’s bridge and its vantage points. The close quarters ratchet up the tension and intimacy of a space where everyone can see you sweat.

In the final act, the film embraces some of those larger points, and Herzog ends with a striking final image leaving us to contemplate the transactional nature and true cost of all human relationships.

That Hoon lived such a prototypically rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, while simultaneously commenting on it — he notes his first broken hotel room mirror — is fascinating. And heartbreaking.

There are a number of sharp political and philosophical points made, but they are undercut by “The 11th Green’s” overload of history, speculation and fantasy that strands it in a narrative Bermuda Triangle.

Though it’s a shame that Mr. Jones is not more cohesive, the remarkable story of Gareth Jones retains its potency. It’s a bracing reminder that we can never allow the advocates of truth to be silenced.

In sharing these often harrowing stories, “Unsettled” paints a sobering but ultimately hopeful portrait of possibility for those who are allowed to enter.

As in his previous films, the Oscar-nominated "How to Survive a Plague” and “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson,” France, an investigative reporter, presents ordinary citizens doing remarkable things. If only our governments could learn to follow suit.

The cast, especially Gordon-Levitt and Memar as Vedat, the youngest of the hijackers, excel at combining drama and physicality. Rather than the over-choreographed fight scenes of most Hollywood movies, the violence here is clumsy, painful and visceral.

There’s a terrific ensemble — including Ella-Grace Gregoire as a girl Jack has a crush on — but it’s Nighy who will have you enthralled. He delivers a subtle, nuanced performance that allows the actor to shine while in full support of his costars.

This is not a “but the book was better” argument. It’s simply that by abandoning the original character and cobbling together broken story shards and spare parts, Branagh and company have produced something off an assembly line: safe, generic and utterly disposable.

It’s a simple recipe and remarkably effective.

The documentary “After Parkland,” released in 2019, takes a more intimate approach to the lives lost. Parkland Rising, on the other hand, focuses on the activism and the political impact it had, an impassioned record of incremental change in an age of uncertainty. The fight continues.

Powered by unbridled optimism, Gameau defies skeptics by doing his homework and bringing receipts.

The film frequently feels like a branding exercise but manages to remain entertaining and informative.

While director Daniel Traub has little time to dive too deeply, the documentary serves as a fascinating glimpse into an artist’s work, inspirations and process.

Hawkes is terrific with a softer-edged character than we’re used to seeing from the actor (“Deadwood,” “Winter’s Bone”). He’s heartbreaking in scenes where disappointment and resignation play across his face. Lerman is a fine foil, energizing scenes with his edgy impatience and willingness to be unlikable for the majority of the film.

More evolution than sequel, Chen maintains the laidback, low-fi charm and black-and-white aesthetic infused with Nakamura’s dreamy, pensive music but also grows the characters, infusing them with more narrative purpose.

No surprises await, but the performances by Scott Thomas, Horgan and company and some pleasant harmonizing make Military Wives palatable Memorial Day weekend viewing.

Once the movie shifts gears, it’s less about the working man and more about the human. That sounds like a good thing, but the further Working Man creeps into emotionally over-calibrated basic cable territory, the less real it feels.

It’s a Shakespearean rhapsody in indigo where love, friendship, betrayal and revenge swirl and blur with life-changing consequences.

As directed by New Zealand filmmaker Justin Pemberton, “Capital” is a sleek tour of economic history over the last 400 years or so.

Wu is confident enough to make the bold strokes her characters speak of and craft a movie that’s comfortably different.

Barker and Borten have chosen to retain the documentary’s framing device of the rescue attempt. In the nonfiction film, it served as a propulsive engine, carefully balanced against the interviews that told Vieira de Mello’s story and its tragic conclusion. Here, it feels abstract, disjointed from the scenes with him and Carolina, thus weakening and muddying the story.

It is a movie that will reward your patience.

The film never really delves beyond the level of observation and the simplistic explanations it does offer are not very satisfying; cloaking possible mental illness in religious zealotry simply clouds whatever the directors meant to convey.

The movie leans too heavily on quirk to express character and we are left as annoyed at Timmy’s antics as the adults in his life or the kids in his class (save the one girl who finds him “fascinating”).

Reflected in its native language title (“My Lens”), Chinese Portrait is a personal reflection on the country’s past and present. Brimming with humanity, Wang’s contemplative, minimalist approach forces us to consider the day-to-day lives of these people, and perhaps our own.

Moving in its humanity and forceful in its pragmatism, the documentary feels like essential viewing, especially for decision makers with the power to enact similar initiatives.

There is a guileless quality to the enterprise as Young interviews stars such as Chita Rivera, Florence Henderson and Martin Short who worked in industrials, as well as the lesser known performers and songwriters who became his heroes.

Billed as a romantic comedy but really a farce, The Perfect Kiss is the perfect example of a movie that is so bad it’s … no, not good, just terrible.

Yates’ verité collage approach naturally leads to an elliptical narrative. But it occasionally feels frustratingly indulgent, like being cornered in a one-way conversation where you can’t ask a question.

The New Romantic follows a very familiar arc, but the path is certainly a pleasant one, thanks to Barden’s naturally ebullient performance. Her enthusiasm in the fun parts is infectious, and she holds the camera during the moments of melancholy.

Ultimately, it’s an inspiring account of an elite athlete with the tenacity (and resources) to battle adversity and keep his dream alive.

[A] crisp, engaging documentary.

The prescription of rest, meditation, exercise and nutrition is not exactly fresh, but Coors’ story is inspiring and the message that mental, physical and spiritual health are inextricably linked is one we cannot hear often enough.

A good supporting cast — including Isiah Whitlock Jr., Harris Yulin, Tom Everett Scott and Josh Lucas as a hindrance to John’s plans — gives Kelly much to play off, but the story is too rote to get worked up about any of the conflicts.

Stone doesn’t explicitly ask the straightforward, big-picture questions you’ll find in a film like “Arrival.” But his attention to detail and character, and his ability to render those people in recognizable settings, is engrossing.

The Negotiation unravels from the inside out, lurching from improbable to implausible to just plain ridiculous, and writer-director’s Lee Jong-Suk’s by-the-book filmmaking does little to raise the stakes.

The film never finds its groove. Whatever point Van Peebles is trying to make gets lost in all the noise.

The film’s initial non-judgmental perspective eventually sounds more like a public service announcement for Louisiana’s nutria control program.

A heartbreaking nightmare for the couple, a life-changing event for Keith, yet together their stories make Lee’s amazing film deserving of a broad audience. Letter From Masanjia is a bracing reminder of our sometimes blindered approach to globalization and the effects of simple actions.

The ending is both shocking and inevitable. Drummond and Matthews honor the western traditions, classic, spaghetti and revisionist, while creating something stylishly original steeped in the seldom-seen rural and tribal cultures of South Africa.

Arcan wrote prolifically about beauty and female identity in essays and articles, as well as her books, and Émond uses those words extensively in the film. But what may have been profound and poetic on the page feels redundant and banal on screen. It’s a sad tale that never manifests much more than that singular emotion.

Gently adjusting the tension throughout, Mosley knows exactly when to turn up the flame and make a point in the process.

The characters are familiar movie types sufficiently fleshed out and well performed to hit all the emotional and comedic cues. The fight scenes and stunts — especially a masterfully choreographed motorcycle chase throughout the stadium — and a lack of obvious CGI provide the requisite thrills.

Though practically everyone involved invokes a winning-is-everything sentiment, it’s clearly not entirely true. O’Callaghan and the Sheehys obviously care deeply for the animals they train and the film’s ending will leave a lump in the throat of even the most cynical viewer.

A bit slick, especially in its last half hour, Restoring Tomorrow nevertheless hits its emotional marks in reporting the renaissance of an important community institution, and Wolf’s personal connection to the subject elevates what may have simply been a well-made promotional film.

A curious film in multiple ways, Cielo does not always achieve its lofty ambitions of transcendence. However, accompanied by the eerie silence of the desert and the plaintive wail of Philippe Lauzier’s mournful score, McAlpine’s visuals transport the viewer to a state of reflection while reminding us of the sublime beauty of the space above.

The references, conscious and not, serve as constant reminders to the audience of other, better, movies, rendering Mute more atonal hodgepodge than carefully orchestrated pastiche.

Though it lacks the sophistication and depth its subject merits, Angels Within does suggest the possibility of reconciling some of the cultural divisions that face the nation if we are willing to drop the labels and judgments and see one another as human beings.

Faith comes naturally, but complexity does not for Ty Manns’ script, which plays like a first draft, one written from a manual and riddled with two-dimensional characters and on-the-nose dialogue.

The filmmakers cultivate a dynamic portrait of Egypt, with its dense social, political and religious layers.

It’s surprisingly affecting, but there’s a tendency to telegraph these pivotal emotional moments that in a way lessens their effect. It’s a tribute to the film’s overall craft, and especially its cast, that it’s as much a winner as it is.

Harvey delivers an in-depth cultural and sociological view of the sport, while making a compelling case for the necessity of fighting.

Tom gradually chips away at the preening facade to seemingly unmask a complex woman whose self-image was largely shaped by her appearance-obsessed father. However, the deeper he digs, the more elusive his subject becomes.

The film is at its most effective when band members and lead pastor Brian Houston testify to the strength their faith provides during times of crisis.

By concentrating on the early projects, we get a richer sense of the development of Nichols the artist in his own words and illustrated with photos and extended clips of performances.

Morelli uses plentiful flashbacks drawn from the earlier movie and television series that are at times intrusive to the narrative but eventually serve to deepen the relationship of Ace and Laranjinha.

Like his father, Brown inserts himself into the action via folksy narration. His husky, laid-back voice sounds something like Kevin Costner, lending a regular-guy aura to the reverential treatment he affords his subject.

Related to the 1953 Vincent Price film in name, embalming technique and Warner Bros. pedigree only, the new House of Wax is a dreary, predictable tale.

An unapologetic cheerleader for exploring the final frontier, Hanks wrote and produced (along with director Mark Cowen) this enthralling look at what might be the greatest technological feat of the 20th century.

The film's tone is on the sitcom side, but its likable cast and zany subplots make it palatable.

For the most part the film succeeds in producing a frightening Halloween weekend experience.

An uninspired if perfectly watchable drama.

Grounded by a gutsy, over-the-edge-and-back performance by Paul Kaye as Frankie, It's All Gone Pete Tong takes the long way around before finally redeeming itself.

Ripped directly from Disney's playbook of inspirational sports movies, it's devoid of any original elements that might deter it from that successful formula, hewing closer to the sentimental cliches of "Remember the Titans" than the much better "Miracle" or "The Rookie."

The scenario isn't entirely plausible, but the actors are engaging and you can't beat the running time.

Has a return-to-innocence sweetness that recalls some of the work of another of its executive producers - Steven Spielberg. Kids may grow up too fast today to embrace the film's familiar message of the virtues of an unhurried adolescence, but it's nice to be reminded of the possibility.

God-natured comedy.

The movie unravels pretty quickly as Caleo almost immediately gives away the "what" but remains marginally entertaining as he manages to maintain some suspense in the "why" and the "how" before blowing the genre completely by going soft in the resolution.

Wein and Bang deftly balance the comedy and the commentary, resulting in a fast-moving, funny film that’s as alive as the city of Los Angeles itself.

A bust. As murky as its release print, it is a stale, incoherent spy caper.

Despite the presence of funny guys such as Zahn, Garlin, Justin Long and Jonah Hill, along with veteran character actors Ernest Borgnine, Joe Don Baker and Robert Patrick, the movie fails to be even passably funny.

Wright and Pegg are storytellers who weave their naughty bits into genuine characters and a plot. It's a ridiculous plot, but one that's absolutely in the spirit of the films they're satirizing.

A lifeless pingpong comedy that ricochets from one flat gag to the next.

Music may be Honeydripper's most indelible element and Sayles and longtime collaborator, composer Mason Daring, seamlessly incorporate several original songs alongside the soundtrack's period tunes.

A visually wondrous experience in high-contrast black and white, bogged down by a slow, underwrought story and uninvolving characters. It would be easy to dismiss it as another great-looking film with little else to offer, but that wouldn't be entirely true.

The result is a film that's main crime is inducing stupefying boredom with little payoff in the end.

Even if you have no previous interest in or extensive knowledge of hip-hop, Freestyle will draw you in, accomplishing that rare feat of making the creative process interesting while also telling a story.

Deliberate silliness is hard to sustain, but Undertaking Betty pretty much succeeds.

Thirty years of gestation have produced a film of great beauty with unfulfilled promise - a disappointment, but with much to recommend and be glad about.

A jumble of genres including mob melodrama, bodyguard romance and interracial love story, none of which is handled in a remotely satisfying manner by director Ron Underwood. The film's tone shifts with all the grace of a car with a balky transmission.

A refreshingly grown-up comedy, "Stranger" is a charming film that is unafraid to be low-key in ways that studio releases seldom are.

An unsuccessful concoction of sincerity, camp and crassness that is more interested in its parade of D-level celebrities than developing its characters.

More athletes than actors, Raffaelli and Belle are terrific when their bodies are in motion but the movie grinds to a halt when they open their mouths.

Fails to deliver on its main promise of big laughs, which is the film's truly unforgivable sin.

Plunges into an abyss of gruesome imagery so repulsive it precludes further watching.

It plays less creepy on-screen than it sounds, at least in part because Herzlinger is an extremely likable guy and he goes to great lengths to avoid appearing to be a stalker.

The dark sequel offers gorgeous images, with an updated and stylish design, but its characters' angst gets in the way of storytelling.

Has little to offer in the way of entertainment or originality.

Adept at wringing maximum suspense and might have reached the heights of the Korean monster film "The Host" but for the limitations of the camcorder ploy. While it injects the film with a run-and-gun urgency, the device grows tiresome and ultimately leaves the film shortchanged.

Chrystal unravels a bit toward the end as it becomes more fable-like, but the performances make it worthwhile.

As compelling as the music and concert footage is, it is the vitality of the performers as characters that enables the movie to transcend the music documentary genre.

Loud, proud and cheeky, the film runs roughshod over corporate behemoths Disney, Starbucks and Wal-Mart as it preaches a sermon of simplicity and consumer awareness.

Moved to take charge by something like chivalry, Rambo hits his stride in the film's second half, meting out justice in an unjust world and ultimately the movie works best when warbling its out-of-tune greatest hits.

Director Wong is at his best in this rerelease of the 1991 film.

Based on the real-life exploits of Munro, it's a boilerplate fish-out-of-water/road trip/underdog sports movie -- but it's a heck of a ride with Hopkins leading the way.

There's nothing particularly revelatory about the interviews recorded over a two-month span, but there's an intimate quality that gives the impression you're listening to a private conversation, which, in a sense, you are.

There is nothing extraordinary about the filmmaking, but Mashayekh's old-fashioned commitment to his and co-writer Belle Avery's story creates an overall satisfying experience.

The film strives for some type of a girl-empowerment message that equates trading one type of conformity for another with self-determination but muffs the dismount and stumbles on the landing. In other words, it fails to Stick It.

An entertaining film that is neither stuffy nor pretentious.

An oddly appealing, if innocuous, movie of considerable charm.

Writer-director Nic Bettauer hits upon some important themes, including homelessness, environmentalism and the plight of the elderly, but not enough care has gone into developing the subsidiary characters who merely come across as types.

Despite the creakiness of the vehicle, there are some genuinely funny moments and observations.

Terrific performances and a bleak, riveting look at life on the economic fringes eventually gives way to an overly familiar tale of abuse, denial and catharsis that feels like warmed over Sam Shepard minus the poetry.

A movie-of-the-week treatment of race and class, the film credibly portrays the day-to-day workings of an urban ministry.

The film is strictly straight-to-video action movie stuff, albeit with dialogue in iambic pentameter.

Bisexuality certainly increases the geometric possibilities of the romantic comedy, completing its triangles and allowing for quadrangles and other, more amorphous layers of amorous involvement.

Despite the grim Cold War environment, Schlöndorff blends, mostly successfully, goofiness and melodrama into the overall social realist tone.

A forceful documentary set against the 2004 Haitian coup d'état that toppled the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

A thoughtful and provocative look at a previously little-seen world.

The presence of the two actors and the film's mordant sense of humor buoy the downtime between bloodbaths and genre fans may find enough to love here.

Freeman and Nicholson make the most of Justin Zackham's script, but there just isn't enough substance behind their characters to prop up the carpe diem platitudes. The result is a semi-comedic, geriatric "Brokeback Mountain" minus the sex and with a Himalayan summit.

The resulting film is a muddled, melodramatic, sort-of remake of "The Graduate."

A ticking clock scenario and a terrific performance by Willis as an alcoholic NYPD detective make up for the film's occasional missteps and some strange pop culture references.

The movie is at its funniest and most original when zinging the sometimes pretentious milieu of competitive figure skating. Whatever combination of choreography, camera trickery and special effects were required to render the over-the-top, hyper-real skate numbers, they're executed with wit and ingenuity.

With pathos competing equally against the often pungent laughs for the audience's attention, it's a movie that is both unsettling and amusing, most comparable to "Chuck & Buck" in tone.

Provides little insight beyond hanging out with its super-sized star and would not be out of place as halftime filler except for its nearly 90-minute running time.

In a film with several over-the-top characters bordering on camp, Timberlake's Frankie is the only one who approaches three dimensions, adept at convincingly dishing out some of the movie's disturbing violence as well as registering subtle shifts in Frankie's allegiance.

The writer-director brilliantly juxtaposes the personal and the political, bookending a stirring coming-of-age drama with the provocative opening and an equally affecting end sequence.

The film -- buoyed by its cast of excellent actors -- loses its momentum in the final half-hour when it starts to take itself too seriously.

If the segments are uneven, Moncrieff -- with the help of her excellent cast -- nevertheless crafts a gripping overall narrative that exposes a shared dissonance among the protagonists.

Like "Street Fight," Marshall Curry's account of the 2002 Newark, N.J., mayoral race, "Mr. Smith" captures ground-level political machinations in an utterly fascinating way. The question raised by the title makes for an interesting, if possibly disheartening, debate.

The new live-action rendering of E.B. White's perennial children's favorite, Charlotte's Web, is so carefully spun that it's lifeless.

In three parts, the film patiently unwraps the details of daily monastic life. Observation and translation is emphasized over explanation or interpretation.

Walker-Pearlman's strengths lie in these characterizations and his ability to draw subtle performances from his actors. However, the powerfully understated moments are undercut by the film's unwieldy structure. Any emotional momentum that builds is lost with the interminable flashbacks.

For much of its duration the film is a case of intense fare done with an undeniable effectiveness and ingenuity -- until it lurches into a deplorable surprise twist.

Movies about male friendship are often trivialized with the "buddy" tag, but this one resonates beyond that.

Lamm effectively uses interviews with family members and the soap's users to draw a well-rounded portrait of the otherwise inscrutable senior Bronner. In doing so, she observes a bittersweet story of a family and the surprising effects a crusading eccentric can have on them.

A story peopled by flawed archetypes, it's an achingly funny film that is also a little sad around the edges.

Its biggest failing -- and the ultimate one for a lightweight entertainment such as this -- is that it's a deadly bore from start to finish.

What might have been a complex story dealing with greed and high-stakes betrayal among the young intellectual elite in America's gaming playground is instead treated as a slick, glossy romp.

Tense and gut-wrenching, Beyond the Gates is a horrifying story told with grace and compassion.

Not Brooks' funniest film, but it possesses his trademark wry humor and is slyly observant.

It boils down to experience's arrogance, intellect and wealth versus youth's cockiness, resilience and hard work, and the actors appear to have a good time playing the game.

Features some charming songs by Carly Simon and is warmly animated so as to evoke nostalgia in parents.

Though its title suggests an exposé on Dodger Dogs, the movie is the moving, inspirational account of John Peterson's discovery of an almost divine calling in the land beneath his feet.

An emotionally rich and satisfying drama featuring a terrifically understated performance from John Cusack.

The film is injected with a refreshing energy whenever McConaughey is on-screen, balancing some of the inherent sadness of the story.

Although Alvart lays on the biblical allegory too heavily at times, the film's pace is brisk enough to maintain our full attention. Antibodies is not so much an art house movie as a well-made, commercial thriller that happens to be in German.

Combines complex relationships with a winning style of storytelling.

Though the film aspires to the epic with pretensions of deeper philosophical meaning, it ultimately settles for being the "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" of historical romances.

The result is a wonderfully humorous take on a seldom-broached subject.

Black is interested in big themes -- including guilt and redemption -- and is helped by a strong cast capable of carrying the dramatic sequences.

A pointed and nicely observed screenplay that guides us on an often funny journey through familiar terrain made fresh by their off-center sensibility and three fine performances.

The whole movie could be clipped by about 95 minutes and it would make a swell little video for Simpson's performance of the title cut from the soundtrack.

Above all, it's a testament to the will to live and how that spirit can be found in even the smallest of packages.

It's a grindhouse-inspired concoction that may not contain a shred of originality, but it is executed with unbridled bombast and glee.

Everything has been significantly amped up -- bigger, louder, further removed from reality -- but it also feels that much more forced. Cage and Kruger seem like they're not having much fun this time around, and Bartha still gets the best throwaway lines.

Not only screams out to be a midnight movie, but one in need of, shall we say, an herbal supplement, and we aren't talking ginkgo biloba.

Sweet but dramatically inert.

Despite striking a chord in terms of sibling politics and the inelegant ways we deal with death, Two Weeks too often feels as if it's destined for heavy rotation on the Lifetime Movie Network.

With a subversive streak as wide as the Han and a title open to interpretation, The Host confounds our expectations while providing top-notch entertainment. For Bong, the monster movie is an ample vessel, one that he can fill with social criticism while discovering exuberant amusement in the process.

Reinforcing the adage that looks aren't everything, the live-action animal drama Arctic Tale arrives in an impressive visual package and even boasts a timely message, but its undistinguished storytelling is a big letdown.

To packs the moments of contemplation with as much suspense as the action sequences and is a master of ratcheting up tension through small details.

Trade works fairly well as a thriller ticking down to Adriana's auction. It's less assured when it strains for some buddy picture chemistry between Ramos and Kline. Though both actors are fine, with Ramos' performance being reminiscent of some of Diego Luna's English-language roles, the attempts at humor to ease the tension between Jorge and Ray and some of the speechifying are out of tune with the rest of the film.

Only 22 when he began shooting the film, Greenebaum displays a prodigious understanding of the treatment of the elderly in contemporary America.

Paxton and Frost lay the schmaltz on thickly, but the deal-breaker is the overuse of special effects, which make the game in question look more like pinball than golf.

If the film offers any lesson, it is that nirvana is not easily attainable, so there really are no shortcuts.

It's more like "That Girl" on speed than anything else.

It's a bare-knuckled crime drama set in 1988 that stylistically could have been made that year and emphasizes Gray's strengths as a director while drawing attention to his limitations as a writer.

An emotional horror story, both the play and the film triggered controversy and challenged the status quo.

Unless you're a connoisseur of movies that are so bad they're good, Hide and Seek is one game you're not going to want to play.

Through sensitive, in-depth profiles of four workers, Weisberg drives home the point that hard-working men and women with full-time jobs find themselves and their families trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of poverty.

Lucky Number Slevin is an attempted cinematic sleight-of-hand that has its moments, but is finally just plain annoying, wearing its influences too broadly on its sleeve.

Breck Eisner, son of former Disney mogul Michael and something of a protégé of Steven Spielberg, for whom he directed an episode of the miniseries "Taken," guides Sahara's big action set pieces with assurance, but would have been better served by a tighter script.

While endearingly heartfelt and G-rated to boot, its storytelling suffers from a lack of locomotive force and characters that feel disappointingly two-dimensional.

Instantly forgettable.

The movie has a lot of the elements that might make it thrilling and it's visually arresting, but it's missing the emotional connection necessary to make it interesting.

The long line of recent muckraking documentaries that has preceded Why We Fight does nothing to diminish its force.

The overly familiar plot points also make the film feel a little dated.

An amazing achievement of personal filmmaking.

Wilson is as sincere as ever at being insincere, though the sweet minor notes of his trademark melancholia seem here to be in search of a more boisterous presence -- say a Vince Vaughn -- to riff with.

A shaggy dog tale in more ways than one, the campy comedy Wasabi Tuna is the kind of film that can give dumb blonds a bad name.

Anker evocatively captures the joys (and sometime frustrations) experienced by high-level artists working within an institution. The ardor they bring to their music is both enviable and inspiring.

The campier aspects of the film are not enough to make up for its lapses into melodrama and just plain silliness.

In essence, you get "It's a Wonderful Life" meets "Wings of Desire," swapping out the substance for self-help platitudes. If you can get past that, you can enjoy it as a 90-minute look at a lovely postcard.

Lifeless and laughless.

A sleek, effective entertainment that is a refreshing respite from the slick emptiness of recent American crime dramas.

Brosnan and Neeson make fine adversaries mining the terse dialogue for veiled dramatic fervor.

A thoughtful, provocative exploration of the ways poets have dealt with the experience of battle throughout history.

The interviews are carefully augmented with speeches by President Bush and other administration officials, plus footage from Iraq and Afghanistan, and powerful graphics detailing the depletion of the global oil supply.

Both acidly funny and very moving.

It's one of the charms of Air Guitar Nation that much of it plays like a mockumentary in which you're not quite sure who's pulling your leg. But it's real, even if the guitars are not.

Archetypal characters and somewhat formulaic plot notwithstanding, Diggers has the conviction to avoid tying things up with a bow and allows us the privilege to imagine where its denizens will go afterward.

Never quite works as a film. The failure to create appropriate cinematic metaphors reduces it to "happiness is a warm puppy" superficiality.

The film is haphazardly structured, undercutting its potential power.

In some ways, The Man plays like a sequel to some terrible movie that was mercifully destroyed before it was ever released.

Scurlock does well to counter the more dire aspects of the film with a razor-sharp sense of humor.

Carl T. Evans' tedious drama Walking on the Sky serves primarily as an acting exercise for its cast and a showcase for its primary location, a scenic Manhattan rooftop.

The strongest scenes are those between Elliot and Richard, which give Second Best a verisimilitude lacking in the rest of the film. The truest thing here is that these two guys have been friends forever and always will be.

Philosophy and religion become entangled with love and sex in Karin Albou's intelligent, sensual drama.

The highly partisan Game Over ably illustrates the often-silly psychological gamesmanship that accompanies world-class chess and nearly catalogs enough circumstantial evidence against IBM to convict.

Slither is a gross, disgusting, but undeniably amusing treat laden with homages and in-jokes.

This logic-challenged dive-bum thriller directed by John Stockwell, who did the equally silly surf movie "Blue Crush."

Originally titled "Fast Track" when it was scheduled to open last January, neither the wait nor the new title makes it worthwhile. The only fast track here is the one to home video.

Recycling is alive but not well in the outmoded teen comedy Dirty Deeds, with a result that is more toxic than intoxicating.

An amusing if slight excursion into nature with a group of animals who turn the tables on their collective nemeses, the hunters.

If Dick Wolf is interested in doing a "Law & Order: Cyber Crimes," he could do worse than to follow the lead of Untraceable, a diverting police procedural about an FBI unit tasked with sleuthing the Internet for mouse-wielding bad guys.

Writer-director Kevin Noland effectively utilizes his fine young cast and the natural beauty and rich culture of northern Spain in amiably posing a timeless question of youth.

An impassioned plea for change, the film balances bleak, Dickensian conditions with details of a growing number of international programs designed to combat the epidemic.

The themes are all familiar and the plot unfolds slowly and in predictable ways, but there's plenty of heat generated by the three leads.

"Inspired by" is an interesting phrase because the movie is more inspiring than inspired. The man's struggles are emotionally engaging, but dramatically it lacks the layering of a "Kramer vs. Kramer," which it superficially resembles.

An intimate drama that views the deterioration of a relationship from the inside out. Moving from summer through fall and concluding in winter, it's minimalist cinema that turns on subtle emotion rather than narrative and demands the audience's full attention.

The result is that they never truly find the innate drama in Pimentel's story, instead simply recounting four or five decades' worth of events that shaped the man.

We've seen the inner lives of hit men and mobsters rendered innumerably in recent years on film and television, but You Kill Me does it in a satisfyingly comedic way, loaded with easily identifiable idiosyncrasies.

Witt injects the film with plenty of razzle-dazzle on the visual side, but the pace deadens whenever the zombies are offscreen or the characters open their mouths long enough to do anything more than grunt.

Zodiac is primarily a complex character study, despite the film's grim and gruesome subject matter. It's a role reversal of sorts for a director who normally emphasizes the brutal tension in his movies.

While an effective rebuttal to media stereotyping, especially in its own portrayals of people of color and the LGBTQ community, Hillbilly feels less assured in dealing with the election, a subject that is getting a little tired but no less confounding.

As clumsy and awkward as his previous films were stylishly silly.

Detailed and intensely researched documentary.

The main strength of "Shakespeare" is its ability to show the vulnerability of its subjects, neither judging nor smothering them with undeserved praise.

An initially promising horror film that turns exploitive, Wolf Creek fails to deliver the requisite payoff considering its leisurely pace.

There's a dry humor underlying the absurdity of Koistinen's experience. When things cannot possibly get worse, they do.

Fascinating, highly entertaining.

Davaa has made a sweetly meditative film.

Harrelson and Maura Tierney, who plays Monix's love interest, seem to be inhabiting a different, more interesting, movie, one that follows the familiar path of a has-been athlete seeking redemption at what looks like his last stop. The strange thing is that the subplot is so tangential to the rest of the movie that the scenes could be omitted with no one the wiser.

A winning combination of humor and crafty filmmaking.

Although the message of the film sounds bleak, it is actually quite rousing.

A stupendously torpid thriller without a single redeeming quality.

A spellbinding, intelligent thriller that takes its time to get where it's going but is well worth the trip.

A clever, delightfully rendered summer diversion.

The twists and reversals that pile up, stirred by greed, friendship and betrayal, fail to register any meaning, simply accumulating -- so that ultimately Autumn is as dry and lifeless as the leaves that fall to the ground in its opening images.

And though the film also quotes Wiesenthal's exhortation "Hope lives when people remember," the filmmakers are most interested in drawing attention to what is happening now, primarily in Europe, and what it may mean for the future.

In the parlance of "The Player," Katrina Holden Bronson's Daltry Calhoun would be pitched as "Because of Winn-Dixie" meets "Napoleon Dynamite," and that is definitely not a good thing.

Director Desmond Nakano, who co-wrote the script with Tony Kayden, does a fine job in evoking the events and era and in guiding his actors through emotion-filled scenes. However, much of the plot revolving around a climactic baseball game is trite and detracts from the overall drama.

Redeemed by its adherence to a simple yet distinctive approach to storytelling and its uniformly strong acting.

The movie is a pastiche of tortured slapstick, groan-inducing dialogue and a lethal dose of treacle, apparently awaiting one of Williams' trademark sprees of riffing and vamping to save the day. That moment never comes, however.

Hurting the film is the fact that the central character, Anthony, is so self-absorbed.

The uproarious laughter that floats from the cinema wonderfully illustrates the universality of the moviegoing experience.

A highly entertaining piece of genre-blending fun.

This family adventure about a team of sled dogs abandoned in Antarctica naturally invokes the traditional shout of "Mush!" urging the canines to go faster, but it's also an apt descriptor of both its shameless sentimentality and ineptly structured story.

Most successful in capturing the emotional elements of its story, the film relies on its excellent cast to balance out sketchily drawn characters and the unfortunate obviousness of its plot.

Evans and Gideon never really succeed in selling the idea that serial killing is a disease -- which would require a degree of realism that the slick, over-plotted Mr. Brooks doesn't otherwise aspire to. They seem to be content with occupying the audience with a series of twists and jolts.