Mary Pols

I wanted very much for West's new movie to evoke films like "The Others" or "The Orphanage," which made me, in the moment at least, a believer in ghosts. The Innkeeper's payoff lacked that kind of oomph, and weirdly, the pairing of Luke and Claire brought movies about work relationships, like "Clerks" and "Office Space," more to mind than ghost stories.

The Hangover Part III gives off such a stench of creative decay that it hardly seems possible that even Phillips or his co-writers have any use for the movie themselves. If a movie can be self-loathing and self-destructive, it’s this one.

The screenplay, with credits shared by Gluck, Keith Merryman and David A. Newman, is predictable, plotwise. But it is elevated by energetic dialogue, the sexual chemistry between the leads and the fact that the miscommunication that keeps bliss at bay - there's always one in a rom-com, and usually it is annoyingly unbelievable - is plausible.

Cotton is that rarity in the horror genre: a genuinely intriguing character.

It's worth considering precisely whom the movie is meant for. It's not labeled as such, but It's Kind of a Funny Story is squarely aimed at young adults.

The movie made me laugh as much as anything since "The Hangover" or the love scenes in "Avatar."

Whereas Italian fashion icon Valentino was larger than life in "The Last Emperor," Matt Tyrnauer's jazzy 2009 documentary, Saint Laurent in L'Amour Fou is mostly a rather sweet and anguished ghost.

Uneven but occasionally quite funny.

Suspense isn't Burns' thing though, and it may be foolish to even ask for it this far into his career. Burns has made it crystal clear what his style is: lots of chatty, mostly amiable folks, working out their not so troubling differences in the greater New York metropolitan area.

Boseman is not a hugely close physical match to Robinson, except for perhaps in the power he conveys, but he’s a great choice to play the ball player, unfamiliar enough, despite a decade of small credits here and there, to feel like an athlete, not a movie star playing one.

For Colored Girls feels like the cinematic equivalent to putting a garish reproduction of the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of your McMansion and calling it art.


As for the yellow handkerchief of the title, I'd have dismissed it as a cheesy device if it weren't for the fact that I'm still cherishing the eloquence of Hurt's silent marvel when he finally sees it, fluttering across the gray Southern sky.

Despicable Me 2 is far more entertaining than the disappointingly bland "Monsters University" and as a sequel stands level with the first film, and may have the edge on it.

This is no-holds-barred humor of the finest, grossest kind, centered around the theme of arrested development.

Five-Year has comic bloat. Virtually every character gets their own moment of stand up, but in most cases, the bits aren't funny enough to warrant the screen time.

For every obvious turn The Help takes, there is Davis, the ideal counterweight.

When a mild-mannered peasant unsheathes the powers he has long kept hidden, the results can be spectacular. The same can be said for Peter Chan Ho-sun's Dragon, a martial-arts morality play as lithe as it is forceful.

The dreariest thriller of the year.

This cutesy film is overwhelmed by a sense of forced farce.

Lonergan didn't bite off more than he could chew with Margaret - this is his personal moral gymnasium - but he did bite off more than others might want to chew.

What takes Conviction out of the "Erin Brockovich" inspirational orbit - and gives it fresh interest - is the fact that Betty Anne is never portrayed as a fish suddenly taking brilliantly to judicial waters. Instead of being a legal savant, she's a persistent lunatic tilting at windmills for the sake of a familial love no one else can quite understand.

The slight but captivating indie-comedy The Kings of Summer has the ragtag look and feel of a movie made in some teenager’s basement

This isn't a passionate, showy part, but it's a finely drawn performance, worthy of a veteran actress (Lane) who started her career as Secretariat did in the 1970s (in A Little Romance) and has since earned a champion status of her own.

Could women stop war through the sedation of sex and drugs and a plot to bury every weapon in their community? Labaki has said she knows Where Do We Go Now? is a fantasy. But it's a good one, and this lovely film seems pertinent far beyond the landscape of the Middle East.

It's pointed, a piece of domestic comedy that starts with the unappealing sight of an overgrown slacker hunched on a faux leather couch in a dingy basement and subtly winds its way into a tender, wise and completely delightful film about family.

It may be minimalist, but it isn't minor.

Warm Bodies is the first movie worth paying to see in theaters this year. It’s an inventive charmer that visits all the typical movie scenarios of young love amid chaos and disaster, but with a new dimension: one of the romantic leads is a zombie.

The Beaver is serious about portraying mental illness. And whatever your opinion about Gibson the man, so is Gibson the actor.