Lawrence Toppman

Writers Rasmus Heisterberg and Nicolaj Arcel are known in America for the original version of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." This film is the exact opposite: stately instead of propulsive, emotionally warm instead of chilly, lit by candles and sun instead of flashlights and neon.

The two male leads, bulwarks of the Danish film industry for more than a decade, play off each other like the veterans they are.

Bizarrely entertaining and brilliantly designed.

You can say nothing of Castle-Hughes except that she's already a movie star: The camera loves her and we do, too.

Plays out like a sprinter competing in his first distance race: It bursts forth with tremendous energy, sustains itself for quite a while, loses steam near the end but finishes ahead of most of the pack.

The best action movie of the month contains chase scenes, fights, a love story, exotic locations - well, one exotic locale, snow-blasted Antarctica - and a battle for survival against long odds amid brutal conditions.

Supplies the three key elements of the best political thrillers: suspense, credibility and the feeling that you're really sitting in the Oval Office.

Some writer-directors would have squeezed pathos from this story until the corn turned to pone, especially in a post-Christmas release. Writer-director Robert Benton (Places in the Heart) keeps a gentler grip on the proceedings and makes 10 times the impact. [13 Jan 1995, p.1F]

Whatever you think of gay people (or politicians), you may find the movie compelling viewing.

Every time it starts to feel like something we have known, we realize how unlike us these Iranian characters are.

But as cynical as I may have been going in, I came out a believer.

British director Stephen Walker approached this project with wide-eyed good humor.

Why on earth didn't Warner Bros. release this movie in time for Oscar consideration? Sure, it's bleak, depressing, sometimes painful to watch. But it would have been one of the best pictures of the year, and Nicholson (who hasn't done work of this caliber since "The Crossing Guard") might have been on the podium again.

When I first heard about Wordplay, I assumed I wouldn't have an ort of interest.

Zero Dark Thirty, like the mission that inspired it, commands respect, admiration, even awe in places for the logistical nightmares that had to be overcome to get it done. But it's a hard movie to love.

[I] enjoyed McQuarrie’s ingenuity in construction, smiled occasionally at the jokes and admired Ferguson’s performance as the most interesting femme fatale in the series.

Raymond Wong, who has become Chow's favorite composer, iced this cake with music that sounds like Beethoven, Henry Mancini's jazz and all the James Bond themes run together in a blender.

Crowe gave Kate Hudson one pointer while making Almost Famous: Her character simply had to light up every room as soon as she walked into it.

The most violent scene is dreamlike, and more direct killings are often seen at an angle or from a distance. The camera placement is thoughtful and effective, never titillating.

If Hollywood’s going to extend the most famous movie myth of the past 40 years, The Force Awakens seems a worthwhile way to do so.

Gibney also made the Oscar-nominated "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," and he gets remarkable access to people you wouldn't expect to talk to him (including U.S. interrogators charged with crimes at Bagram).

The result is one of the twistiest thrillers in recent memory.

Can there be higher praise for a motion picture designed to capture a beloved book with fidelity, thoroughness and affection? Only this: They made it better.

The superb Trintignant and the Oscar-nominated Riva – who would win, in a just world – embody once-vigorous people in inevitable decline. Yet as another critic has said, the film is sad without being depressing.

Did we need another Spider-Man this quickly? Debatable. But if you wanted a new interpretation – especially one where story and action stay in the right balance – this is it.

Impassioned concert sequences with Ben Harper, Chaka Khan, Gerald Levert and especially Joan Osborne prove the Brothers' balanced approach still works on Motown chestnuts.

The results require immense patience but also reward it immensely.

A richly satisfying adaptation of Louis Sachar's novel.

Perelman and Otto make auspicious, nearly flawless debuts.

If “Whiplash” was Damien Chazelle’s bullet train through dark regions of the New York jazz world, La La Land is his leisurely bus tour through sunlit fantasies of life in Los Angeles.

The coolest film in town offers industrial espionage, power struggles, thwarted romance, betrayal and suspense - and best of all, it's true.

If this new film doesn't quite go to 11, it's a healthy 8½.

Most movies about people passing themselves off as the opposite sex can't sustain the illusion, but "Nobbs" does.

A feature film as odd, personal and sometimes mundane as his (Pekar) comics.

(Cusack) has never been more effective onscreen.

His height didn't stop independent writer-director Thomas McCarthy from casting his friend in The Station Agent, scoring a triumph for both.

Another of Charlotte native Ross McElwee's musings about his family, history (this time the tobacco industry) and life. It may be his best.

A wicked comedy with just the mildest amount of pathos to season the blend.

Penn, one of Hollywood's most famous iconoclasts, must have felt instinctive sympathy with someone who told the whole world in general to leave him alone.

You'll be disappointed if you expect famed leftist Oliver Stone to apply a coup de grace to this man.

The movie is the usual kind of film biography of a respected figure from the distant past - honorable, oversimplified, handsome.

South African director Neill Blomkamp set and shot the film around his native Johannesburg, so parallels to apartheid leap to mind. Yet the script he wrote with Terri Tatchell applies to any culture that bluntly excludes another.

A potent environmental message wrapped up in an irresistibly cute romance between robots.

Examines Muslim family's religious warfare.

The film's an irresistible time capsule of that Camelot summer, blending girrrrrl power, social consciousness and faux-'60s pop with the fizz of a soda jerk whipping up a root beer float.

Veteran documentary-maker Louise Osmond directs with flair. She gives us just enough of the history of Blackwood to show what Dream Alliance means to the place, and she gets us inside the horse’s head.

I have never seen elementary schoolers more passionate about education than the ones I met at a school in rural Kenya, not far from the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

A love story more involved than I can easily explain.

Chi-Raq is indeed interesting, challenging, provocative and consistently entertaining in its outrageous depiction of life in modern Chicago. And nobody in mainstream filmmaking today except Spike Lee could or would have done it.

Has more twists than the Pacific Coast Highway and more layers than a stack of silver-dollar pancakes. If you can wrap your mind around one unlikely condition, the picture provides unalloyed pleasure for connoisseurs of cinematic con artists.

The film was reputedly inspired by Japanese teens who trolled chat rooms to find predators, made assignments, then ganged up to beat offending adults.

The songs are pure joy, for them and for us.

Deniz Gamze Ergüven, who makes her feature debut as writer-director after a couple of short films, tells the story exclusively from the girls’ point of view – both emotionally, as they have all our sympathy, and physically, as almost nothing happens that one of them could not be seeing.

Reflective, touching, intimate portrait of a samurai facing action in his waning years.

Brilliantly interweaves stories that take place decades apart, and features stellar work by three of the best English-speaking actresses: Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.

A taut, consistently surprising political thriller with a sting in its tail.

The filmmakers beautifully balance goofy moments with Gothic darkness.

If we admire anything about him, it’s entrepreneurship; there’s something uniquely American about a guy outrunning his own death by turning suffering into profit. And as a judge asks, why shouldn’t a dying man be allowed to try any remedy for his disease?

Had Amy Winehouse not been a briefly famous musician – had she been an architect or a teacher or even a woman who mopped floors – the documentary Amy might have been nearly as compelling.

Once you accept that he (Neeson) has the badge and gun, you’re in for an exciting trip.

Is “feel-good” a bad word? Critics often think so. But when a movie explores real emotions en route to its gladdening end, when it takes time to touch on serious issues along the way, it earns the right to make us feel good.

Whitaker’s performance reveals a man who unobtrusively changes white people around him – perhaps without trying or even knowing it – through his demeanor and ability.

Now comes director Baz Luhrmann, who’s incapable of taking anything literally, and what do we get? The “Gatsby” that, of three I’ve seen and two I’ve read about, seems most faithful to the spirit of Fitzgerald’s superbly sad book. His audacity pays off in a way that may not exactly reproduce the novel but continually illuminates it.

Any Preston Sturges comedy explodes American ideals, and this one mocks everything from patriotism to motherhood. [14 Jun 1998, p.1F]

Career Girls is a chamber piece: intimate and direct, two voices performing monologues and duets of irony, despair and hope. [29 Aug 1997, p.11E]

This may be yet another variation on the usual coming-of-age/sisterhood themes so familiar in Disney movies, but who does those better?

Eastwood has directed five war movies and acted in others, and he knows there’s no single truth to convey about combat.

Miller’s not interested in character development, plot twists or social commentary, with one possible exception. He wanted spectacular stunts, which he achieves with tremendous skill, and a bad-guys-vs.-less-bad-guys pursuit that goes through countless exciting permutations.

Yet nothing in their visually stimulating film registers as strongly as Jolie’s enigmatic, ever-changing face.

“22” merits a B grade. The long final credits, in which Dickson imagines dozens of future scenarios for the undercover boys, kicks it up one notch.

It's an honorable, straightforward, talking-heads-and-old-clips film that sometimes rises to profundity when it touches us deeply. [23 Apr 1999, p.10E]

Keaton reminds us what a fine actor he could always be.

This sequel is, by design, entirely absorbing and satisfying without being one whit memorable.

The movie ends so abruptly you might wonder if a piece is missing, and it relies on one extraordinary coincidence I couldn’t swallow. Yet scene by scene, I found people I knew or wish I knew: Ben’s romantic advice to the straight but awkward Joey would give any boy confidence about himself.

Overall, Noah represents a respectful take on an old story by filmmakers who pose a pertinent question. The Creator promises never again to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth, signing that covenant with the cheering image of a rainbow. Does that mean he won’t let us wipe ourselves out millennia later, if we’re hell-bent on doing so?

The result is one of the most honest recent comedies about romances that flourish, marriages that totter and the difficulties of raising children with the right blend of respect, discipline and support.

Virtually all science fiction functions as metaphor, and I took this film to be a metaphor for the act of becoming fully human.

Whedon has more on his mind than he did in the last one. The Avengers seem not just contentious toward each other but weary, sick of their brutal responsibilities.

Winterbottom has darkened the tone: The final scene takes place during a golden sunset that brings no closure to either man.

For now, the franchise has enough zip and humor to be worthwhile.

Anderson leavens the lunacy with a few acts of sudden and extreme violence or avert-your-face sex, which seem as extravagant as the rest of his notions. Perhaps they’re in there to change the flavor of the humor, the way Mendl might put a bitter coffee bean in a chocolate torte to keep it from cloying us.

Like many horror directors, Flanagan felt he could build a feature-length film around his brief idea. Unlike many, he was right.

All three leads give effective, low-key performances. (I don’t remember a single character raising a voice.) Their acting fits the tone of this movie and all the ones Reichardt directs: Her camera moves slowly, and she accumulates tension by showing detail after detail.

I spent The Kids are All Right wondering whether director Lisa Cholodenko was affectionate toward her self-absorbed characters or gently mocking them. In the end, I thought she was both and liked the film more.

Writer-director Caroline Link (who did the Oscar-nominated "Beyond Silence") adapted Stefanie Zweig's expatriate memoir gracefully, languidly and with full understanding of its heroine.

Super 8 takes its place among the best B-grade science fiction movies of this generation by copying the best of the past 50 years.

It’s the first Pixar effort that feels less like a creative outpouring and more like an obligation met to satisfy a distribution schedule.

The movie seemed a disappointment at first, until I decided I was missing the point: It’s actually a drama about the way people treat a celebrity – with fear or reverence, as a source of income or reflected glory– and the way their own personalities change around him, while his stays the same. In that way, the film’s a small triumph.

Madden has the wisdom to give most of the heavy emotional lifting to Mirren, who continues to shine at the age of 66.

Reflective, deliberate, building gradually to a climax that left me touched.

Roger Deakins, probably the best living cinematographer never to win an Oscar (he’s 0-for-10), was behind the camera. So the picture never lets us down visually, even when the story occasionally strays.

Like "Shattered Glass," the other picture Billy Ray directed, Breach probes a guilty mind and reveals how he baffled people. We get a Hitchcock-like pleasure from knowing the protagonist is guilty and watching other shocked characters realize his wickedness.

The film seems like a loose and uncredited updating of "The Great Man Votes," a more serious 1939 entry.

Zach Braff, who shot the film near his hometown of South Orange, N.J., directed this drama with subtle flair and wrote a star part that perfectly fit his acting range.

Try as he might, (Hanks) is miscast in Road to Perdition, a partly satisfying gangster drama that amounts to less than the sum of its handsome parts.

Jim Broadbent is the wild card in the cast; he screeches and growls his way through Madame Gasket's lines in the best traditions of British drag.

It never commits the sin of sentimentalizing old age, as Hollywood usually does when it deigns to admit that people over 55 exist.

If you used this guy's umbilical cord for fishing line, you could land a world-record marlin.