Marc Mohan

Intense, well-acted love story.

You might not be able to picture yourself in such a life, but you'll be glad that it persists.

Even the finest troupe of thespians would be wasted without Allen's guiding hand as writer and director. But Blue Jasmine, which might rank among Allen's 10 best films, shows what can happen when it all comes together.

The results are inspiring, demonstrating that an artistic eye is an innate thing.

Only in its final moments does Breathe extend its reach beyond experiences that most, if not all, teens (and ex-teens) can relate to. When it does, it might just leave you breathless.

It's a riveting character study/soap opera.

To dismiss Ex Machina as just another robot movie would be like calling the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground. It's one of the most original, smart, thought-provoking science fiction movies of recent years.

In Morvern Callar, the subject matter may be morbid and unappealing, but the director handles it with a visual poetry and an eye for hidden beauty that marks a filmmaker of the first order.

It's a pleasant, engaging version of probably the closest thing to a sitcom the Bard ever penned.

What's different here is the setting: Instead of modern-day misogyny, the heroine of The Last Mistress is up against its 19th-century version.

There will always be plenty of fictional geniuses solving impossible crimes, but Holmes, it turns out, it where the heart is.

There's much to admire here, but less to like.

Herzog's drive to bring Dengler's story to a wide audience might have paradoxically caused him to do what he seems normally to abhor: compromise.

It's also exhausting, despite an engaging premise.

Isn't a complete waste of time. If Kutcher seeks to transition from national joke to lightweight actor, he's made a decent stab at it.

The resulting documentary is a fascinating meditation on the different ways nature can be experienced, as well as a fatalistic take on the process of our planet's seemingly inevitable change in climate.

As far as a coherent, hilarious story line, as well as sheer blasphemous glee, you can't do much better than "Life of Brian."

It wouldn’t be surprising to hear about moviegoers demanding their money back after seeing The Dallas Buyers Club, but not because the film isn’t good. It’s actually very nearly great.

The cinematic gloss serves to heighten our involvement in the tale, and to mark Fukunaga as a talent to be reckoned with.

Grandma is a movie that, for what it's worth, gets an A+ on the Bechdel test. Writer-director Paul Weitz may still be cashing residual checks for the "American Pie" movies, but this is his most heartfelt, successful effort since 2002's "About a Boy."

The edited footage has an intensity and immediacy you won't find on cable news networks.

Moving and suspenseful.

A Band Called Death is more effective as a chronicle of the intensely close relationship between three musically ambitious brothers than as proto-punk archaeology.

Of all the roles where the star has played a character transformed from ordinary to goofy ("The Mask," "Me, Myself & Irene," "Liar Liar"), this is the one where he seems the most human, achieving that elusive quality in a Carrey film: tolerability.

This film could serve as a potent tool for those trying to change 40 years of public policy.

The only danger with a movie like this is the inevitably disappointing return to more humdrum reality once it ends.

It’s a harrowing and impressive accomplishment (especially considering potential government censorship), and it shows how, in its mad rush toward modernity, China has become a land of haves and have-nots, where income inequality and lack of opportunity have made a mockery of the nation’s purported ideals. Sound familiar?

Effective, fact-based melodrama that packs an unexpected emotional wallop.