Kyle Smith

There’s no goal to be met or secret to be uncovered. Instead, it’s a collection of odd, wonderfully realized vignettes that plunge us into an alternative way of life that it neither glamorizes nor satirizes but simply strives to understand.

The film, made by two Cuban-American exiles (and produced by their friend, Charlize Theron), makes an ironic point about Cuba: This is a land where the grandparents are revolutionaries (or at least say they are) but the kids are yearning for capitalist globalization.

Villains who aren’t good at their jobs are a bit boring, and despite their menacing regalia these Nazis are effectively lambs to the slaughter. “Sisu” is simply the slaughterhouse Mr. Helander has built around them, with all of the narrative and thematic artistry that implies.

Illustrating the many ways nuclear weapons could kill you makes Countdown to Zero one of the most frightening documentaries you'll ever see, or endure.

Lovable misanthropes can be a lot of fun, but someone forgot to put in the lovable.

Like a Pixar movie shorn of the cutesy and manipulative aspects that marred “Inside Out,” the animated remake of The Little Prince, hitting theaters and Netflix, is as fragile and beautiful as the beloved rose guarded by the wee fellow of the title.

The film seeks no more than to be fan service, a two-hour hangout with favorite characters and situations. Like many a runway trend, it isn’t going to last more than a season in anyone’s memory.

Superb Noo Yawk attitude, dialogue and performances (including one from the essential Kevin Corrigan, now well into his second decade of being indie movies' dirtbag on demand) keep the movie lively and tart.

When they came in to pitch A Thousand Words, no doubt by calling it "Jerry Maguire" meets "Groundhog Day," a studio exec should have raised the palm of rejection and said, "When you stop being sadly derivative and write an original idea that's as good as those two, come back."

Although Hill failed to derail Thomas’ career, she seems to consider her testimony a success: She remains a highly sought public speaker about workplace sexual harassment, which in large part thanks to her is much less tolerated than it once was.

The exhilarating documentary Sunshine Superman, which melds gorgeous aerial photography of Boenish’s jumps with sublime musical cues, finds in Boenish a kind of poet-adventurer, equal parts pixie and desperado.

Watching it is like being the only non-stoned person in the room as someone tells a long, long story.

Only in the heartfelt closing minutes does the film cut any deeper than a tired episode of a sitcom about children of immigrants complaining about their hopelessly old-fashioned parents.

Writer-director Kirk Jones doesn’t do a great job finding anything fresh to say about this unnerving situation, with one exception.

Smith’s appeal, just, holds together a thin plot upon which Bennett, who wrote the script, and director Nicholas Hytner have loaded gimmicks.

Quiet, sober and tense, the movie makes some interesting points -- contrasting the frenzied hookups of the two men with the butcher's rote, dismal lovemaking with his wife as their bodies are carefully hidden under sheets -- but it lacks the emotional firepower of "Brokeback Mountain."

As the movie drags on, though, it takes on a throbbing, sick monotone. This isn't a concert, it's a bass guitar solo, all thumping blackness.

So this bourgeois-bohemian movie is, in a way, as serene in its obliviousness to the exterior world as its man-child subject. It's not essential, but it is endearing.

Its personal, newsmagazine touch will make your heart ache for its cross-section of humanity.

Doesn't have as much behind-the-scenes juice as you'd hope.

A comedy for no ages, has an amazing amount of CGI - Cuba Gooding Incompetence.

For rock fans, hearing many Led Zeppelin and U2 classics on a theater sound system is worth the price of a ticket.

A thoroughly amateurish effort at capturing clued-in and smartass teens.

Though Materialists only partially delivers on its promise, is only occasionally funny, and has little to say that’s new, Ms. Song and her cast put enough feeling into it to make it glow.