Marjorie Baumgarten

Maybe it's indicative of my end-of-the-year brain-fry, but this dopey comedy about two of the dumbest guys in the universe on a road trip to misadventure is a hoot.

The obvious thing is to say that Keep the River on Your Right has unfortunately bitten off more than it can chew -- but not more than we can digest.

A formulaic family melodrama whose craftsmanship and sensitivity to its characters raises it to the level of sublime group portrait.

Lyne's excesses are usually the kind of thing I love to hate, but Unfaithful found me pretty much following along in step with his rhythms and dramatic choices.

The information it presents is eye-opening for medical consumers and health professionals of any stripe. And the film incidentally makes a great case for health care reform.

The film is a startlingly original and haunting take on our ageless fear of otherness.

This documentary is as soothing and edifying as watching a video loop of the Yuletide log.

The movie is a lot of fun if you don't think about it too much, the stuntwork should satisfy the genre fanatics in the crowd even though it doesn't set any new plateaus, and the rapport between Davis and Jackson is enough to keep the sticklers for realism in abeyance at least until the final credits roll.

Secretary is a testament to the importance of tonality in telling a story.

"We, the people" have never been big fans of movies about the American Revolutionary War. The Patriot, however, appears to be the movie that will break that historical jinx.

My Cousin Rachel 2017 retreads du Maurier’s luscious mix of Gothic trappings and psychological mystery, but it’s a wan concoction that’s never fully convincing or engaging.

William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice may help in bringing some of the Bard's language to life, but this rendition is hardly a freshman course.

When all is said and done, director bob Fosse (Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz) delivers a sluggish movie that exhibits none of his usual flash and even less psychological drama.

The story's parallels with the present are sometimes inescapable, as when Saladin's fireballs catapulted at Balian's castle strike an eerie resemblance to the "shock and awe" of the U.S.-led coalition's initial assault on Iraq.

The transitions from performance to song and to reality are strained and awkward.

Out of the Furnace brims with atmosphere and Bale, Affleck, and Harrelson deliver some of their finest acting work. Smokestack lightning this film is not, but Out of the Furnace nevertheless provides a solid whiff.

The performances are all strong (particularly Landau's) but, as a whole, the movie suffers from competing impulses that push and pull Mistress from comedy to drama and back again. It can't quite seem to make up its mind and as a consequence loses a lot of its steam and momentum.

The film’s overarching story is solidly scripted, although it lags somewhat in the second act, and the government figure played by Catherine Keener is woefully undeveloped (an especially sore point since Emily Blunt in the original film portrayed such a formidable female lead).

He seems to be everything anyone might want from a pope, and this commissioned film seems to be part of the PR campaign to spread that particular gospel to the world.

Hopefully find the audience it deserves.

Here, watching Theron is just about the whole show, and to the film’s credit, this is usually a mesmerizing rather than crass experience.

Purrs with uncommon emotion.

Time and again, Devor sabotages his own attempt to bring "zoos," literally and figuratively, into the light.

A movie about life and death; its underpinnings are soaked in the perfume of artistic expression.

For the most part, it works well at this level with the added bonus of some unexpected intellectual twists. The predominant thing that bogs down SWF is the script. It has too many plot holes to be fully believable and too little psychological background on our unbalanced roomie (and when it is revealed, it's revealed all in one stroke).

Spring Breakers is Korine’s most cogent take yet on society’s outsiders.

The greatest problem with The Great Buck Howard is that writer/director McGinly shapes the story with young Troy as the protagonist, when the really interesting character is the one for whom the movie is named.

Instead of skipping lightly over rough seas, Triangle of Sadness bobs to shore like a floating sarcophagus.

The film’s gear change between mournfulness and madness is stuck in idle.

If nothing else, the film provides an enlightening look into the Karen diaspora, and a healthy reminder that God’s work is not contained by a sanctuary’s walls.

Intriguing.

World War Z comes across as a smart and ambitious horror movie, a bio-disaster film along the lines of "Contagion" or "28 Days Later." It’s nail-bitingly tense at times, although these well-executed moments mix with others that are too much of a murky jumble to follow with any precision.

As far as cinema’s long love affair with DID dramas goes, Split ain’t a half-bad contribution.

This Life may not be everlasting, but it sure gives us a good run for our money.

The two fantastic performances by Allen and Costner that anchor The Upside of Anger are the reason to see this contemporary drama.

Despite its pleasant veneer, Laggies is a bit adrift itself. Winning performances keep us engaged – and a one-sequence appearance by Gretchen Mol as Annika’s mother who flew the coop is hauntingly complex.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Linklater's (and Bogosian's) running commentary on disaffected suburban youth is that it doesn't bore you half as much as it should.

Screenwriter Steve Conrad has less success with the female characters: The always dependable Davis is forced into shrewish territory, and David's mother (Judith McConnell) is so barely present that it's a wonder she's written in at all.

By letting her babble on and become a somewhat risible figure, the filmmakers display a somewhat mean-spirited attitude, despite all their fuss about finally appreciating this put-upon survivor.

Likely to be remembered more for its method of manufacture and release than for any inherent qualities of its own. It will also become one of the many fascinating footnotes in the always provocative career of Steven Soderbergh.

It has a classic Hitchcock scenario in which a man is mistaken for a murderer, but the film lacks humor and suspense. Even the great cast is unable to make much headway with this torpid thriller.

The movie offers glimmers of truth about the aging process, but there is always the sense that Moss only wades knee-high into this river.

The one thing that is clear from Japón is that a major new visual stylist has hit the screen and that Reygadas’ first film represents the beginning of an auspicious career.

The window Hollywoodland offers into old-style workings of the company town is fascinating to behold, however the film doesn't always know where to direct our gaze.

Duigan has the makings of a good yarn, but instead of trusting the story and his characters, he becomes fatally bogged down in trying to make statements.

One of the most intelligent, engaging, and gut-bustingly funny revelations to come along in a while.

The movie is, ultimately, a fascinating victim of its own ambitions.

Up-and-comer LaBeouf (Holes) is a young actor to watch, but he's had better opportunities than this teen thriller to show what he's capable of.

Beguiling performances and a story that veers between social observations, period detail, and genuine humor make this movie an end-of-the-summer stand-out.

It’s a creature feature for the Subatomic Age.

The movie is a strange amalgam of compelling visuals and fascinating vocational details forged with deep moral ambivalence and often hollow didacticism.

Writer/director Lucía Puenzo (XXY) has a nice feel for her characters and, especially, the viewpoint of adolescent Lilith. But by giving away the story’s big reveal at the very beginning, it infuses the film with a potent sense of dread rather than suspense.

Does not go gentle into that good night.

Though he has stepped up his game, Perry's plainspoken, unsubtle aesthetic is an uncomfortable match for the fragility of Shonge's speeches, and scenes abruptly switch between the language of Perry's scripted continuity sequences and sudden poetic soliloquies.

Without the luminous Danes in the title role, Shopgirl would have the flair of an ordinary sales clerk.

A real audience pleaser.

Totally in the distance is the memory of "Swingers," whose hipster goof has been replaced by a stupid goof. This may be what is meant by the “dumbing down of America.”

So many logical questions go unasked in The Gift, which, ultimately, is the movie's downfall. Mark this package as Return to Sender.

Penis-obsessed, man-child film comedies can crown a new king: the Danish import Klown.

If treats like this are evidence of Washington's special gifts as a filmmaker, Antwone Fisher promises great things for the future.

There is no question that Yuen Woo-ping is a master of his craft, but True Legend leaves doubt as to his mastery of the art of storytelling.

Despite its narrative familiarity, the film is suffused with such contagious enthusiasm, distinctive performances, and local color that it stands out nevertheless.

More like watching a Polaroid picture develop without ever getting to see the finished picture.

Then along comes a movie like Deconstructing Harry, which marks the writer/director/actor's return to top form, once again using the stuff of his life to create the stuff of his fiction.

Unlike any coming-of-age movie you've seen before. Equal parts sweet and perverse, this Scottish film is unpredictable in places where it might be twee, and subversively fanciful in others where it might be punishing.

The story is so meandering and unbelievable that Westerners are still likely to roll their eyes. I have no idea what Indian audiences will make of Kites. The film is rousing, but it does not soar.

Despite its compelling nature, Greenaway’s film is not always an easy one to sit through.

These visual techniques also serve to emphasize the Japanese anime fetishes for violence and female body parts -- you can always count on a gun or a breast to be in the foreground' but I'll take this opportunity to again stress that this is an adult cartoon.

For better or worse, the film plays like an extended TV episode, jumping from each character’s story arc to the next, rarely lingering longer than the time it takes to land a few low-bro love jabs before moving on to the next scene.

Kind of funny and kind of scary, Baghead's central horror motif is merely a structure on which to hang its four-character story about the depth of relationships and the drive to find meaningful work.

The film is wonderfully atmospheric and full of little frights, but its overall impact is only glancing.

This Romeo & Juliet is a rich visual feast, besotted with the fervor of its acrobatic camerawork and kinetic staging and its mind-bending aggregation of unrelated but resonant fragments of 20th-century iconography.

Jeunet's Micmacs resembles a live-action cartoon, one in which the set-pieces, the characters, and their actions all have the flavor of physical impossibility and unfettered imagination.

This is an amazing allegorical study of the life and death of a donkey named Balthazar, whose nasty, brutish life as a slave parallels that of a young farm girl.

Deli Man needs more meat on its rye.

There's so much ache in this plaintive little film that it almost makes you believe that the entire world is composed of estranged parents and children searching in vain for one another.

If anything, A Few Good Men errs by throwing almost too many elements, themes and moral debates into the mix thus, by default, they sometimes seem shallowly developed and overly simple. Then again, that perhaps allows them to connect with more universal experiences.

Puts an unusual spin on some of the clichés of the romantic comedy.

Provides lots of good information for newcomers to the cause.

Technically, I Am a Sex Addict is a stellar achievement, as it coaxes viewers to accompany Zahedi down avenues of sexual desire that have had little frank exposure on film.

An additional change in the film's adaptation from Scott Phillips' novel substitutes the author's original ending for a redemptive conclusion that seems indicative of The Ice Harvest's unwillingness to really plumb the real depths of the darkness it has set in motion.

The effects are reasonably well-created, though hardly transparent. The last 15 minutes of the film spins out into unimaginable realms. Fans of this kind of stuff will leave smitten; those accompanying them to the theatre will have a pretty good time too.

The Interpreter is ultimately fluent in many things, but an out-and-out thriller it is not.

Filled with some marvelous dialog and quips delivered by some of the best in the business. There are worse ways to while away the time.

Edwards' crowning achievement. It is a wickedly funny, impeccably cast, ingeniously subversive satire of the Hollywood film industry.

Never Goin’ Back and its overworked tropes should, by all rights, be a trifle of a film, but what Frizzell and her two leads deliver is more fun than a floating party boat.

Solid performances, capable visuals, and the honesty of the interracial subject matter make Restaurant stand out from the typical "I'm an artist, not really a waiter" pack.

Usually, I am not so persnickety about such things, especially with first-timers, but the accumulation of mis-matched shots is so great that you have to wonder why some of the more experienced crew members weren't climbing the rafters to say “Whoa, Mel.”

If you shut down your brain and simply take in the wardrobe and performances by Streep and Blunt you'll have a swell time, like aimlessly flipping the pages of a fashion magazine.

The film is worth seeing for the performances, but the drama is a nonstarter.

There is no doubt the film is exquisitely felt, yet Touched With Fire often feels like a "David and Lisa" redux for the psychotropic drug era.

For the first time in her film career, Plummer really owns the movie. Plummer's habitation of the character of Eunice in Butterfly Kiss is a creation that sears itself permanently into the viewer's consciousness, though it's possible that, ultimately, you may wish the memory to be quite otherwise.

Aided by a strong soundtrack by Corbijn's friend Herbert Grönemeyer, The American nevertheless seems more like a concept in search of a movie.

This Earth Day release has honorable intentions, but it imbues the animals with human emotions and motives, which only muddies our understanding of these ferocious feline species.

Despite successfully creating the illusion of forbidden glimpses, The Good Shepherd slogs through most of its lengthy running time.

As a whole, September 11 never reaches any conclusions or ready insights. But as a collection of moments, the film often soars.

Night Moves doesn’t give us much reason to like or empathize with its protagonists, but neither does it discount their activism. In this way, the film spurs contemplation. If it’s food for thought you’re looking for, you won’t go hungry with Night Moves.

Margaret definitely has many elements for a successful drama. It's unfortunate that no one was able to shape them into a functional movie.

Don’t come to this documentary expecting to learn more about the girl named Malala.

An intriguing, disquieting, but ultimately overdrawn nightmare.

The piece is a tribute to the 1992 film "Troll 2" and its many fans, who have dubbed it the "best worst movie" ever made.

The performances are all solid, although the screenplay frequently bogs down with the complexity of palace intrigues and plots that could have been rendered more consumer-friendly.

While not always successful or even unusual, Night and the City is a tart Manhattan cocktail worth savoring until the cup runs dry.

In most ways, the film is a conventional rock doc, a nostalgic and valorizing chronicle of a group’s rise and fall. The Band is one group that deserves the deep dive.

Cheadle takes what could have been a role as a mere foil and creates a rich portrait of a vaguely discontented married man. Yet the drama sputters once it reaches a contrived and melodramatic climax that feels undernourished and artificial – both less than and more than one had hoped for.

Seemingly taking its cue from Belfort’s shenanigans, the film is completely without modulation. It starts with all the knobs cranked up to 11 and remains that way for the next three hours. While what’s onscreen is never uninteresting, its unrelentingness is exhausting.

The laughs and pacing of Fun Mom Dinner may be uneven, but days later I’m still smiling at the thought of the dispensary’s recommended strain: the Ruth Bader Ganja, which “gets you supremely high.” It’s the little moments that matter here.

This movie belongs to Posey, and her nuanced performance makes Broken English a worthy adventure.

Fails to completely engage the viewer at the basic level of story.

My be a gearhead's delight, but its appeal to middle-of-the-roaders will be stop-and-go.

The top-line talent, particularly Thornton and Rourke, do manage to hold our attention with idiosyncratic performances, but most of the others are a jumble of fair-haired, disaffected boys.

Each member of the well-chosen cast not only creates a distinct character with unique and memorable resonances but also meshes these separate personalities to form as satisfying an example of ensemble acting as we are likely to see for quite some time to come.

Amy Heckerling’s portrait of high school/shopping mall life in Southern California is still just about as good as it gets...The panoply of teen types and turmoils is dead-on accurate.

Occasionally, the unevenness of the performances in Star Maps becomes distracting and the dastardliness of the characters' dysfunction impinges the bounds of dramatic believability, yet you will be hard-pressed to find another directorial debut this year that equals the narrative and structural audacity of Star Maps.

Sumptuous to behold, although one will not leave the theatre with a much deeper knowledge and understanding of this great Spanish painter's career.

This sumptuous-looking film clearly spared no expense in its visual rendering; its optical flourishes and attention to detail aim for the Disney gold standard and, for the most part, come pretty darn close.

With all the hallmarks of a prestige picture, chief among them a great cast and creative crew and an "important" message, The Soloist plays its tune with a frequently heavy hand.

Only a couple years removed from his screen super-success in Saturday Night Fever, Travolta struts his way through Urban Cowboy’s modern-West parable about machismo, cowboy manqué, and mechanical bulls. Travolta captures some of the confusion of a little big man on the new prairie, Debra Winger provides a vixenish challenge to his manhood, and Scott Glenn plays the guy in the figurative black cowboy hat.

When people think fondly of John Hughes, it's movies like Ferris Bueller that they're thinking of.

This time the acclaimed filmmaker tackles an entire “ism” and, much like its ambiguous title, Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore’s film is an unmethodical survey of a gargantuan topic, one that has only grown more so in the year since he began work on the project.

A conventional story, conventionally told.

Mixing faded rock glory with Nazi-hunting and American road-tripping creates an odd hybrid that is completely transfixing, although some viewers are likely to find this film an awkward mishmash. The drama, however, is consistently offset by comic underpinnings, which are well-played by the actors and seamlessly presented by Sorrentino.

One wonders what its objective is other than the cynical obliteration of all hope.

It’s a vivid indictment of the way in which we all stumble along, yet the film never musters full-throated chagrin at our dull complacency.

Movies about cons, if well done, are hard to resist – and such is the case with Criminal.

The Front Runner spends too much time involved in the glare of the situation rather than examining its intricacies or characters. Like many of Reitman’s films, particularly Men, Women & Children, The Front Runner is interested in the subject of privacy as mitigated by the TMI era. The character of Gary Hart, unfortunately, becomes only a means to this end.

Although it's interesting and well-performed, East-West never locates its crux: It's all over the map.

Ultimately a creepy tale.

Something about The Comfort of Strangers remains aloof, creating a physical and emotional distance between its characters and its audience. Some of that is, no doubt, Pinter's script. But Schrader pinpoints a nucleus of moral decay and then observes it with a detached clinician's eye rather than the eye if a rapt storyteller.

Von Trier’s vision is amazingly thorough and exquisitely executed, but the audience may feel executed as well.

Thanks to Susan Seidelman for reminding us that romantic comedy is suitable for any population or age group.

Molly Ringwald is radiant here as the eternal teen looking for love.

Never gives us the nuts and bolts of mental illness and guilt, just the sight of cooped-up steam escaping from a valve that’s about to blow.

Knockout ensemble performances like these don't come around all that often, though, and when they do they ought to be savored.

Yet for all Vaughn’s attention to stylized details, I noticed a number of obvious continuity errors throughout to which Vaughn seems blind.

Overall, it’s a package that will only be well-received by fans.

Director Caton-Jones ("Scandal", "Memphis Belle") once again shows his flair for period detail though he never here exerts his grip on the human drama.

The moral dilemma at the crux of the story is what makes it interesting, and good choices were made in the casting of Fassbender and Vikander, he so deft at playing men suffering silently from inner turmoil and she so emotively open-faced.

Taylor, Burton, and Harrison are sublime in this sweeping epic of love and nations.

The film is visually bland and hits a few comic dead ends, but there's an element of pathos that allows us to believe in the plight of the fictional James.

A triumph of style over logic. Although this is not necessarily a good thing, it works spectacularly in this instance.

The one thing about Luminous Motion that can be said with certainty is that Bette Gordon should be making more movies.

It gives the creeping sensation that this is going to be a talking-heads documentary, which Greenwald delivers in spades.

It's impossible to take in all the information in one sitting and at times threatens to spin off in too many directions, but I guarantee this movie will provide plenty to mull over and inspire consumers to demand greater accountability from their media purveyors.

Ultimately a shambling tale told with genial grace but little substance. It provides a pleasant buzz while it unfolds but vanishes quickly in a puff of smoke.

It's a "what if" story that's hopeful but doesn't ring true.

At two hours, the movie goes on too long and resolves too little -- even though it provides some interesting moments along the way.

Reminiscent of HBO’s new hit "Entourage."

The film aims to be a cautionary tale, but it doesn’t seem that the filmmakers have absorbed the lesson.

The problem, ultimately, is that little of this is of any real interest. The brothers' bickering can be amusing at times but even at 76 minutes, the movie feels repetitive and overly long.

The performances are all terrific, but Together never jells as a compelling narrative.

The story is really rather prosaic and character details are fairly nonexistent. Yet LaGravenese should be commended for his vision and tenacity, which has helped to create a piece that should be catnip to fans of the modern musical theatre – and in these post-Glee days, who isn’t?

Flightplan should have remained grounded for repairs.

Bassett as Voletta is her usual captivating self.

If the screenplay pulls at threads that don’t always pay off, the actors and the thoughtful cinematography of veteran Dick Pope always ensure that there’s something engaging to watch onscreen. A sequence set in the jazz club, during which the jumpy music and Lionel’s mental and physical state merge into an intuitive singularity, is a real standout.

Far grislier than one ordinarily expects from black-and-white, Habitaciones Para Turistas is a real homemade fright.

This is really Reygadas' show all the way. And what he's delivered is a sad, tawdry picture in which all hope for salvation lies with God.

In the end, Machete may not be all that original, but it is fresh – fresh as a steel blade to the gut.

Maintains a breezy charm throughout and contains many extremely funny sequences.

The performances are likable and there's nothing really wrong with the story -- other than the fact that Nutley hardly has any story to tell.

The film is an atmospheric work, a period piece set in the 1840s during the dawn of the Age of Photography with a dense and moody visual style that befits its Brönte-esque subject matter.

There’s much to applaud and much to knock in this Disney action adventure. Tomorrowland breaks the mold and becomes something quite original, while at the same time it ballyhoos its inspirational message to an extent that deadens the narrative.

As romantic comedies go, Danish helmer Susanne Bier’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning "In a Better World," percolates more than it froths – but that’s a good thing.

In the end, however, Protocols of Zion illuminates manifestations of anti-Semitism without ever really elucidating or posing solutions to the problem.

McNeil’s first-time film direction is capable but his screenplay suffers from a few too many cliches.

It’s too bad, then, that Justin Chadwick’s film does not offer a more substantial portrait of the man, whose passing is a fresh wound to mourners and curious onlookers worldwide.

A political thriller with topical currency, Spartan delivers the goods.

One of Disney’s best and most popular live-action movies, this one is a favorite among those who grew up in the Seventies

Even though Mrs. Hyde loses the trees for the forest, any movie starring Huppert (Elle, The Ceremony) is radiant, and it should be evident that tossing in a special effect or a message will be superfluous.

The true wonder of this low-budget movie, however, is its acquisition of the rights to so much of the previously mentioned music. It's almost exclusively Dylan and the Dead, but damned if you won't be stopping for some Cherry Garcia ice cream on the way home.

The screenplay by Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman nails the mechanics of a rom-com, even if it takes Wilson’s delivery to drive the lessons home. Scenes are succinct and the movie comes in at 88 minutes even with a tacked-on song-and-dance video at the end (as a nod to the film’s wildly successful karaoke-bar sequence earlier in the film).

Foster commendably stretches beyond her comfort zone with The Beaver, but in the end the film's high-concept premise is at war with its conventional direction.

The actresses are terrific together, and it’s nice to see Helen Mirren smiling onscreen for a change. And although Calendar Girls is resolutely pleasant, the movie never really goes much beyond that.

The circus acts and the rehearsals, which are set to Katy Perry's "Fireworks," make the greatest use of the movie's 3-D capacities. Madagascar 3 may not rival the "greatest show on earth" but it's good enough to pack 'em in anyway.

Lone Survivor is a somber celebration of courage and endurance that manages to steer clear of jingoism and moral judgments.

Smallfoot also features some excellent physical comedy, some of which calls to mind the sight gags prevalent in the old Looney Tunes cartoons once produced by this studio (Warner Bros.).

Good performances give this movie a pleasant shine, but in all honesty, Thin Ice relies on too many familiar setups to feel wholly fresh.

Even this director and the talents of three wonderful actors can't save this weak script.

Oscar-winning special effects and animation sequences by Ward Kimball make this musical fantasy a perennial favorite.

Most unforgivable, however, is the film's coda in which real Georgian victims pose for the camera with pictures of their loved ones lost in the five days of war. Using real people to impart the emotions that the entire film was unable to evince is simply cheap exploitation.

Better in theory than in practice.

The emotional crux of the movie is the relationship between the inept father and his hapless children. It’s a one-note relationship but the tone it strikes is good, due in large measure to mullet-headed McConaughey’s typical absorption into his role.

This children's sci-fi movie should be palatable to the young and old alike, yet it's ultimately more a mild diversion than a magical adventure.

In short, there are way too many storylines here, especially for a movie that turns stiff whenever it's on the ground. When cascading through the cityscape, Spider-Man 3 still makes us gasp with delight, but on Earth those gasps come solely in reaction to the cynical dreariness of the script.

As Zamperini, Jack O’Connell is the film’s strongest asset. The actor holds our attention from beginning to end, making us care deeply about the man’s fate instead of becoming an empty icon of stoicism.

This is director Pouliot's first film, so perhaps some of his excess cuteness can be overlooked. But then again, maybe not.

There's no getting around this dumb script that's just too silly for words.

Although Sarah's Key sometimes seems as though it's about to create a moral equivalency between the two tales, it never crosses that delicate line.

Although the film allows us a certain emotional proximity to the twins, it never rewards us with understanding or dramatic resolution. Their story draws us in, but distant (and silent) outsiders they remain.

Some of the interplay between Branagh and Dench as a refamiliarizing couple is also delightful. However, apart from fleeting pleasures, All Is True is mostly a goodie bag stuffed for Shakespeare completists.

Neither a change of seasons nor truly wonderful performances can breathe life into the dismally enervated Winter Solstice.

Strong performances and Miller's equivocal stance toward her characters save the movie from its symbolic overload and melodramatic crash course, but in the end there may be less here than meets the eye.

Go for Sisters is writer/director Sayles’ best film in a number of years, and since this icon of the American independent cinema can always be counted on to deliver maverick work, his latest alternative to the mainstream is welcome indeed.

A potpourri of issue-oriented drama enlivened by superlative performances and smart dialogue.

Yet, the problem goes beyond the film's staginess (although there's plenty of that to go around). It could even have something to do with the delicate difficulties involved in the successful transfer of stage camp to the more intimate level of film.

Filmed primarily in desaturated colors and oblique shadows, the look of J. Edgar is spot-on. The time frame jumps around, spanning decades in a single leap, but it doesn't strain the structure. Eastwood and DiCaprio have delivered a nuanced story about a man, a mythos, and an institution that relies on the facts rather than the legend.

One of the great things Scarfaria brings to this project is her apparent ability to convince a slew of wonderful actors to perform in small roles that appear in only a single sequence. That describes most of the actors in this film apart from the two leads.

The movie is cute but predictable.

Déjà Vu has enough style and forward (or is it backward) momentum to viewers aroused. It's only after you leave the theatre that your head starts to throb.

Mr. Holland's Opus is the kind of movie that only a person who really doesn't like movies could love. It's a movie whose grandiose swagger is meant as compensation for its message about the resignation of the human spirit to smaller gratifications and vistas.

Gray's signature long takes and overhead shots are in evidence and add to the film's fatalistic tone, and one rainy car-chase sequence is a real keeper. But, overall, it's impossible to shake the film's gloomy sense of eternal repetition.

Helping Elvis & Nixon remain in conjectural mode is the fact that neither actor – Michael Shannon as Elvis and Kevin Spacey as Nixon – looks particularly like the character he is playing. Yet both actors make their roles believable through apt choices in body language and vocalization.

There's so much that's so right in Oliver Stone's dizzying new crime thriller that its impediments stick out like speed bumps. You'll know you've hit one when your vertiginous sense of WTF screeches to a manageable – and much duller – pace.

Fascinating, partly because of its originality.

When the film sticks to biographical and career background, it is on steady ground, but when it argues the case for one particular album, it becomes promotional rather than documentary material.

This comic Disney Western is at its best when Don Knotts and Tim Conway are onscreen as the bumbling bandits who try to steal from a bunch of orphans. Few people remember anything about this movie apart from the hilarity generated by this scene-stealing duo.

Day Watch falls prey to the curse of most sequels in which "more" is often a thin concept stretched beyond its limits and misconstrued to mean "bigger and better."

Junior is passable entertainment, but it could hardly be called fully developed.

As a biopic, the movie has several shortcomings, but as a background story Madame Satã is full of atmosphere.

Funny and expands our background knowledge of these likable characters, but the story gets bogged down.

The film’s accumulation of unnecessary complications, bad visual choices, one completely superfluous character (LaBeouf), and tonally inappropriate quips makes us distractedly ponder the limits of human rather than artificial intelligence.

The premise of I Love My Dad is so icky that the film’s writer, director, and co-star, James Morosini, lets viewers know at the very outset that its plot is based on a true story, thus automatically rendering it more palatable.

The show delivers with its corps of dancers, backup singers, elaborate runways, and a couple tunes by boy group, the Jonas Brothers, who do their thing while the fictional Hannah makes the backstage transition into the flesh-and-blood Miley.

The documentary hasn’t the depth of another study of high school ball, "Hoop Dreams,"' and tends toward repetition, but, in the end, its heartfelt saga scores.

Not so much bad as it is witless and predictable.

It grabs you by the viscera in the opening prologue and for the next two hours rarely lets go.

Many questions occur to the viewer along the way but are never addressed by the filmmakers.

Despite the film's abundant gory effects, its best technical achievement may be its English subtitles, which move about the screen for better visual and emotional impact, and sometimes dissolve into poofs of blood or other colored effects.

The seductive scenery in this French film will sink its hooks into any hungering soul, and the window into the winemaking process it offers will stimulate the juices of any armchair oenophile. But the dramatic core of Cédric Klapisch’s Back to Burgundy is pure boilerplate.

Although To the Wonder never transported me, personally, to the ecstatic heights the title promises, there is still much here worth one’s engagement.

May not be grade-A prime, but it ain't chopped liver either.

Before I Fall puts all its excellent elements in service to a story that’s well-told and has a valuable lesson.

August: Osage County is not for the timid or those who prefer family reunions without histrionics. This film is like a long day’s journey into another damn day.

This biography, to our surprise, is extremely respectful and earnest and lacking Morris' usual transformational touch.

Unlike King, Darabont ends this story with a drop kick to the cerebellum, a change from the original that shocks the viewer and leave little doubt that Darabont thinks we're all headed to hell in a hand basket.

Finally, along comes a remake – a darn faithful one, too – that's not a just a pointless rehash or mindless retread.

This current film smartly adds material that keeps it up-to-date with the reality of today’s sophisticated electronic surveillance. The series may become a marker by which we come to gauge the future disappearance of all personal privacy. For the sake of the series’ endurance, I hope so, but for the sake of the rest of us, I hope not.

Me, I’ve now seen the movie three times and I’ve laughed and I’ve cried. It comes the closest to any movie experience I’ve had in re-creating the aftermath of unexplained suicide. Sometimes there just aren’t any answers.

Although the movie contains occasional moments of glimpsed accomplishment, Kansas City is for the most part a lame duck.

In its rush to push hot buttons, Disclosure neglected some essentials of good storytelling.

As pleasantly amusing as Victoria & Abdul is, the film is really little more than another showcase for Judi Dench’s reigning talent.

A compendium of really neat stuff and nifty sequences, and it will just have to do until Vol. 3 or reunification comes along.

Uneasy blend of the extreme visuals of director Ken Russell and the bloated dramaturgy of writer Paddy Chayefsky (who disowned this adaptation of his novel).

A concept executed with bravura style, intelligent curiosity, and playful wit.

Despite a title change from "The Boat That Rocked" to Pirate Radio, this British import exudes about as much outlaw swagger as Tom DeLay in a dance competition.

Manages to incorporate all these things into a moving yet unsentimental story about the beauty of maintaining one's wits while stumbling blindly in the insane no man's land that lies beyond wit's end.

By the film's climax, following the plot movements has become merely complex rather than suspenseful.

Love & Air Sex, with its text-message conversations and Facebook connections, is as of-the-moment as air sex.

Adams is absolutely winning in this role, which requires her to be a tough-as-nails attorney, grownup tomboy, and psychologically scarred adult. And she makes a good foil for Eastwood, though it's often uncomfortable to see the actor going through melodramatic paces.

The yuppie dream of an unencumbered life where style always exceeds substance is at the crux of The Object of Beauty. Partly likable and partly odious, your reaction may depend on whether, like the proverbial glass of water, you see their lives as half empty or half full.

Yet even though Forever After is not as fresh-seeming as its predecessors, it provides passable entertainment, especially for the kids who won’t be familiar with the George Bailey storyline retread – or midlife crises, for that matter.

By the time Turbo reaches the finish line, this new iteration of the fable about pursuing one’s dreams no matter how unlikely they seem joins the winner’s circle without quite nabbing the trophy.

The performances of all the central and secondary characters match the passionate intensity of the film's behind-the-scenes collaborators.

As much as Bardem is an expressive instrument for parlaying Iñárritu's somber worldview, so too is cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, whose stunning compositions find the poetry amid the sorrow.

A climactic speech on the lessons Western democracy might learn from Middle Eastern despotism offers a few moments of pure brilliance. I'd say that speech is worth the price of admission if it didn't also illustrate exactly what the film is missing: barbs that aim for the comedic bull's-eye.

Pacino delivers his best work in a long time, but it’s contained within an utterly predictable redemption movie that only comes alive when Pacino plays one-on-one scenes with the other members of the cast.

It may tell you everything you need to know about Easy Virtue to note that Hollywood hottie Jessica Biel receives top billing over veteran Brit thesps Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth.

This Tom Clancy thriller gets the proper screen treatment here with this first-rate cast and direction by one of the genre’s best: Die Hard director John McTiernan.

The movie's storyline is not always perfectly clear, seemingly falling into the same murky “grey zone” as everything else.

F*ck manages to strip some of the mystique from the forbidden word, and in the end, despite some road bumps, is a satisfying f*lm.

Satire without teeth is sort of a mewling entity that brings little into sharp focus. Nevertheless, the performances here are all stellar, and narrative movies that take the making of art seriously are a rare breed indeed.

It would seem the purpose of this movie, if not to deify, is to define -- and in this it fails miserably.

Lawless never fully comes together as a whole but it is quite intriguing in spots.

Ultimately, Look & See seems to have many objectives, yet accomplishes none of them satisfactorily.

Hanks is perfect in the central role, drawing on both his dramatic and comic acting skills.

Only a quite over-the-top character played by Raquel Welch strikes any false note. Otherwise, Tortilla Soup is a real chef's special.

Although the story and imagery are absorbing to watch, the details of the plot are sometimes hard to follow and fully digest. But enough of it survives to make this extravagant production a delightful experience for Westerners to watch.

A sumptuous ride with breathtaking scenes and a soaring musical score.

First Snow tries hard but lacks originality.

To sum it up, there is little that is unexpected in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Rather than an epic continuation of Jackson's Middle-earth obsession, the film seems more like the work of a man driving around a multilevel parking garage without being able to find the exit.

Pacing problems and shallow psychological inquiries plague this film almost as much as the overworked metaphor that supplies the film's title.

This is one of the major delights of Hotel Artemis: a plot that posits a damaged, Medicare-aged woman as its central figure. And that the role is executed by a two-time Oscar-winning actress delivering her best work in many years makes this a rare treat.

Again, Hill gives us a world filled with morally complex characters, but that just may be this film's undoing.

Less can sometimes be perceived as more, but in the case of The Myth of Fingerprints less is simply less.

Writer-director McKee’s arch comic dialogue (i.e., "We’ll hang out and eat some melons or something") is out of synch with the creepy horror he wields.

Lots of ideas are tossed around in Freakonomics, and it often feels as though one is trapped in some kind of pop centrifuge. None of the authors' arguments is contested in any way, and the zippiness of the film paints everything with a Teflon sheen.

See it for the performances – they are delights from the leads on down to the characters in the episodic vignettes. But the film’s vision of Gen-Y nesting is liable to leave you up a tree.

The setup is great, but Fading Gigolo’s follow-through lacks dynamism.

By trying too hard to stay on this side of hip and the other side of sentimental, Crowe winds up with a zoo that's neither fish nor fowl.

Has a haunting afterglow, one that neither satisfies nor illuminates, but at least keeps the flame alive.

Although the narrative hiccups in The Holy Land can be chalked up to the mistakes of a beginning filmmaker, they are not disruptive enough to diminish the film’s realistic impact.

Naïf meets waif in this touching yet unrealistic tale of love amongst society's write-offs. Between Masterson's schizophrenic Joon Pearl and Depp's oddball Sam, it's difficult to tell which one's the naïf and which is the waif.

The result, although more sexually provocative, is not nearly as gratifying as was his (Ziad Doueiri) breakthrough film.

Davies and Affleck are affecting and engaging as the callow young men on the verge of independent adulthood. One wishes that we had seen more of their personal drama instead of Going All the Way's myopic male gauntlet of shrews and Jews.

In the end, one's appreciation of My Wife Is an Actress may depend on the extent to which you like the character of Yvan and relate to his anxieties.

Despite its inadequacies, however, The Zookeeper’s Wife conveys a tale of courage and opposition to authority that provides valuable inspiration for any era.

As breathtaking as the imagery is, however, the script, which is narrated by John Krasinski, is a mess of anthropomorphic goop.

Solid 007 entertainment -- not as bad as some of the recent Bonds but not as spunky as some of the series' originals.

Has little of the wit, surprise, or memorable characterizations of the original.

Curious and effective.

Despite its subject matter and some humorous moments, the film lacks any real verve and punch, and brings little new to the table in the already tired new genre of junkie confession. The performances are solid and there are flashes of humor, but on the whole Permanent Midnight is in the dark.

Ftrangely emotionless. There's little offered in the form of rooting interests or compassionate characterizations, making the film ultimately as ephemeral as its title.

The Wedding Guest arrives with unexpected gifts.

The story builds to a feverish pitch and then never reaches a satisfactory conclusion. But while it’s onscreen, the film moves, incites, and jabs, all while reminding us how difficult it is to grow up female and sane in this world.

The amazing thing is that, despite such crass beginnings, Space Jam rises to the occasion and succeeds as an enjoyable piece of film entertainment.

There's no denying that Pacino's performance is superb. The rest of the movie plays like a bunch of inconsequentially strung together sequences.

Some of the movie's mysteries are more unsuccessfully secular than rapturously eternal, but the doorway opens far enough to offer a few glimpses of nirvana.

Cheech & Chong's first movie is still their best. The duo wrote the genial script about the never-ending search for great pot, and a good supporting cast co-stars.

It’s distinguishing the trickle from the treacle that becomes the problem.

WTF is on the right track, even if it never pulls all the way in to the station.

There much more roiling beneath the surface of these characters and it's a shame we don't come to understand them better. Smart people, dumb choices: it's true for both the characters and the filmmakers.

Although Bad Words never quite achieves Bad Santa’s level of misanthropy, the movie is chock-full of racist, sexist, and generally antisocial barbs – not to mention a slew of bad words.

Flesh and Bone is far from a comfortable experience to witness, so if you like your films “over easy” this will not be to your liking. But if you like entertainment that cuts to the marrow, then Flesh and Bone is something to see.

What The Newton Boys lacks in dramatic definition, it more than compensates for with its underlying intelligence and visual luster.