Marjorie Baumgarten

The fabricated story that propels the movie, though tenable as events that might have occurred, is insufficient to seize our attention. It’s like a bent note that never finds its correct register.

Hush has a solid first half before the cat-and-mouse shenanigans begin to seem repetitive and prolonged. Still, at 82 minutes Hush is a concise and well-executed horror nightmare.

The filmmakers insert their own bulldozer midway through the story, rendering the metaphoric literal and the literal absurd.

There are a lot of laughs in The Boss. The problem is that the space in between them is stagnant and shapeless. Falcone, who also directed and co-wrote "Tammy," is a dud as a filmmaker.

British actor Hiddleston transcendently captures the sound of Williams’ voice and his performative swagger, and it’s something that’s worth seeing for its amazing conjuring act.

The film is also comic, mysterious, and structurally ambitious, while offering numerous points of entry and perspective.

Emblazoned with ambition, this throwback Seventies-style private-eye movie (think Robert Altman’s "The Long Goodbye" or Robert Aldrich’s "Hustle") seems more invested in its form than its content.

There’s a certain spiritualism that inhabits all of Nichols’ films, and I’m not sure that the explanations finally offered to shed light on the specialness of this child are truly sufficient. But in the context of the movie, it all works.

This comedy has a few genuine laughs, but The Bronze never even comes close to making it to qualifiers.

There’s no denying the poetry at work in his film, but so much of it is inchoate and fundamentally sexualized that it becomes more of a turn-off than a turn-on. Malick’s Cups is ultimately half-full.

Effective performances by the principals are unable to surmount the movie’s many cliches, although the actors render them more endurable. A more evocative title for this Hindu Gothic might be: "Mommies Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things."

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

A quietly searing drama about morality, priorities, and absolute truth. It’s told in a matter-of-fact manner that eschews melodrama, yet is loaded with haunting human moments and circumstances.

As long as underdog sports stories hold a place in the cinematic universe, Eddie the Eagle, despite its shortcomings, will soar into moviegoers’ hearts.

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.

As Owens, relative newcomer Stephan James delivers a stirring performance, and as his coach, comedian Jason Sudeikis turns in a solid and smirk-free performance.

Loaded with sass, sex, and sadistic violence, Deadpool is not your youngster’s comic-book origin story. Deadpool earns every bit of its R rating, a quality that’s sure to appeal to fans weary of the macho, apple-pie-eating, altruistic superheroes who buck for attention in the comic-book stables.

You have to feel a certain sympathy for a project as cursed as this one, but there’s no denying that Jane’s gun barely grazes its target.

Adults may respond with a laugh every once in a while, but they’re unlikely to find Fifty Shades of Black a nonstop titter fest.

Although the film never fully convinces us of its characters’ cold, pain, and desperation, their brotherly sparring keeps the story interesting.

Told in a chaotic fashion, the movie jumps from scene to scene without a lot of continuity.

Although the plot is pretty bare-bones, it’s propped up by plenty of gratuitous dialogue and imagery that do nothing to further the story.

The most punishing movie of 2015, The Revenant, is almost as brutal an experience for the viewer to watch as it is for its title character Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) to undergo. That’s not meant as a knock, but rather as a warning that the film may leave you as near-speechless and mono-minded as its battered returnee from the dead.

Even in its disassociation, The Great Beauty ingratiates itself as a witty and compelling companion – much like Jep Gambardella.

The original was indeed ludicrous, but it exuded warmth, vitality, and belief in itself. The 2.0 update splashes up on shore DOA.

In Carol, all the elements dovetail perfectly to create a movie that is as irresistible as its title character.

Daddy’s Home is one of those comedies that is not terribly good, but not nearly as terrible as it might have been.

Despite The Danish Girl’s lack of specificity regarding what motivates Einar’s transformation into Lili Elbe, the film is still quite lovely. Its compositions are lovely to look at, and the performances engaging.