Kyle Smith

It's mainly about a supremely annoying French-born LA clothier who became a hugely successful artist without pausing to consider his utter lack of originality or talent.

In their refusal to be up-to-the-moment, the Narnia movies are bound to age beautifully, perhaps much more so than the two Shrek films Adamson directed.

Bloody horror flicks need not be anemic when it comes to intelligence. The victims of You’re Next, as well as their slaughterers, are reasonably smart and resourceful. Their clash may not be as nasty as the battles of academia, but there’s a lot more common sense involved.

Yousef’s story, which he retells in the documentary The Green Prince, is one of unimaginable courage and moral awakening.

The film, like the man, is never boring.

In a captivating climax, the movie turns attractively freaky, though somewhat marred by cheesy special effects, and there’s a huge debt to the immense leaps of “2001.” An abrupt ending feels frustrating and leaves questions floating in space. Then again, I’m using only 3 to 5 percent of my capacity, so what do I know?

Those expecting an exhilarating, "Pulp Fiction"-style wrap-up will also be disappointed. Instead, Flowers gives us the impression - as the end of "Traffic" did - that we've just taken a few turns on a merry-go-round of doom that is going to keep spinning long after the movie ends.

The film is shaky as a procedural, and the level of official corruption seems more Moscow than Melbourne. Yet as a fable of power, vengeance and betrayal it exerts a quiet, increasingly wicked pull, equivalent to that of the wrinkly but ruthless grandma.

Sharp little psychological thriller.

Director Griffin Dunne's adaptation of Dirk Wittenborn's fiercely personal novel ambles pleasantly through coming-of-age movie territory, then takes a jarring Agatha Christie detour.

The Miyazaki legacy is in good hands.

Any parent who has ever scrambled desperately to find a doll to appease a wailing child as though it were a life-and-death situation will appreciate the wit of this multilayered, dread-soaked chamber piece.

Revenge is a dish best served with bullets, high explosives and giant rolling flameballs. In Quantum of Solace, James Bond orders the revenge buffet, deluxe.

A passable French homage to the American crime epic, The Connection has plenty of visual style to go with stock characters.

Gives a taste of what it might be like to live inside Mike Tyson's mind.

The movie is an entertaining stroll through a colorful gallery of characters including, in villain mode, former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving. "She knows nothing. I am an expert," huffs Hoving, who is so nasty he might as well be wearing a monocle - making Horton that much more fun to root for.

Filled with arch wit, the film is sweet and sorrowful at the same time. Like many indies, it lacks much of a conclusion, though writer-director James C. Strouse shows that simple ideas, ably executed, can make an endearing film.

The cheesehead noir Thin Ice presents Greg Kinnear in a role that's almost too easy for him: He's a morally flexible Wisconsin insurance salesman for whom honesty is the least-likely policy.

I’d love to tell you Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals is a cinematic masterpiece, and for most of its running time, that’s what I was planning to do. You must see it. But a great movie requires a great ending, and Nocturnal Animals doesn’t have one.

Touching and unexpectedly funny moments (such as McCartney busting out the theme song from “The Monkees”) mingle with highlights from the show for an unusually compelling keepsake from what might well be the last time many of these ’60s rockers perform together.

It's smart, funny, agreeably perverse and simultaneously abrupt and exhausting.

The story quietly builds to a rueful and fraught climax in which Campbell Scott does his usual exceptional work

The film could have been improved if it had been less aggressively limp. But the post-adolescent, pre-adult moodiness is spot on: Everyone's favorite author is a bitter recluse, and the soundtrack heaves with the suicide sounds of Joy Division. Trier's intent is to reproduce a sweet, hazy vision of the agony of youth. Ever so elliptically, he succeeds.

Writer-director Antonio Campos, making excellent use of the queasy rhythms of a percussive musical score, keeps piling up the dread as we wonder just how dangerous Simon can be to the women who keep taking pity on him.

An intensity of purpose and a patient, suspenseful directing style make the B-movie Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning superior to most of the big-budget action films I've seen lately.

Eva Green...Gaspingly beautiful, wouldn't you say?

A study in intoxicants: drink, drugs, youth and Emily Ratajkowski. All four are potentially dangerous, yet nearly impossible to leave alone.

Jason Statham, possibly the greatest B-movie leading man of this era, stars in a complicated and clever imagining of what might have happened in the mysterious 1971 London bank heist dubbed the "Walkie-Talkie Robbery" - in other words, it was unbelievably high-tech.