Loren King

If this blend of community service, innovative teaching, and creative approach to design and construction sounds idealistic, the film’s final scenes deliver enough stress and sweat to show that idealism takes hard work, too.

Jonathan Gruber and Ari Daniel Pinchot have assembled a straightforward documentary that uses Yoni's own words - in the form of his moving, eloquent letters and poems - to create a searing portrait of his short but meaningful life.

The 100-Year-Old Man may appeal to viewers who like the madcap and the whimsical, no matter how self-conscious. Me, I’ll take Max von Sydow’s moroseness any day.

Despite its many charms, the title of the film -- both complaint and boast -- makes clear whose point of view this is. Gainsbourg is delightful, intelligent and sexy, but this isn't her film.

The film delivers a concise history of Western eating habits, with graphs and charts punctuated by entertaining real-life experiences.

Meadows clearly has a flair for working with actors and for depicting the rough-and-tumble of ordinary provincial lives. If he could go just a bit deeper, the truly great Midlands movie just might surface.

Star Pilar Lopez de Ayala is such a feisty, striking presence, and the film so conventional in its depiction of a jealous and insatiable love, that it is hard to see Juana as anything other than a typical soap opera heroine.

Plenty of dramatic action, stunning imagery and an operatic score add weight to Escaflowne. It may not appeal to fans of traditional animation.

Deftly uses the conventions of the urban buddy/ romance film to create a fast and loose, often humorous, atmosphere.

Boldly goes where Hollywood rarely treads: into the passionate, intense and complex world of girls at the point in their lives when self-discovery is tempered by enormous vulnerability.

A handsome but lightweight period piece about passions indulged and repressed, and the calamitous outcomes that result from both courses.

Doesn't aim for more than padding a plot around Kennedy so he can do his Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman character full-force. And the joke soon wears thin.

Solid, balanced period piece that focuses on a specific place and time yet resonates with universal themes.

A welcome family film that extols noble values and offers first-class animation.

Manages to wring some originality out of its fairy-tale plot. This freshness compensates for the expected hackneyed qualities in this Cinderella tale.

Winton’s inspiring story deserves greater attention but this film isn’t the best representation of it.

Melding history, science, and up-to-the-minute urgency, A Fierce Green Fire is a clarion call that’s passionate and provocative.

One can hardly argue with the desire to make a wholesome movie for families that extols honesty and decency, but it all comes too easily, too superficially.

The heartfelt truthfulness of Gardos' tale, and the performances of all leads, particularly Johansson, make the film a powerful account of the universal search for identity and the meaning of "home."

An uneven mix of genres that, even when it misses the mark, gets points for originality and a good beat.

This bizarre, uneven comedy is notable mostly for the unsettling presence of Nicole Kidman in full, kinky, sex-kitten mode.

Though perhaps more suited to PBS or classrooms than to movie screens, the documentary is engrossing and just may encourage more people to look less to pharmacology for answers and more within.

Lesnick seems to be saying that lesbian characters on screen can also meet cute significant others, spar in a lite Woody Allen fashion, and have a happy, sappy Hollywood ending. But a sitcom is still a sitcom -- gay, Greek or otherwise.

Cleverly mocks the modern chronicler, raising questions that linger long after the film is finished.

Give credit to writer-director James DeMonaco for at least attempting to give his action thriller some heft with a plot that concerns our obsession with violence, ham-fisted as it is. But The Purge: Anarchy is still just an excuse to bombard us with high-powered weaponry, armored vehicles, vigilantes, and masked marauders in creepy Joker-like makeup.

A powerful portrait of modern journalism and the nobility -- and futility -- of chronicling modern war.

It is awkward and dull, a capital crime for an aspiring noir.

Offers something rare for a modern movie: an uncynical depiction of the redemptive power of human relationships.