Mick LaSalle

If “Remarkably Bright Creatures” only had that magnificent octopus going for it, it would be halfway to a good movie. But the human characters are interesting, as well, showing the stresses of the different stages of life.

It’s a good film, very unlike most “disease of the week” pictures, in that it’s often quite funny, and it tells a fascinating story about something that remains mysterious to most people.

Instead of settling for a tour de force from McKellen, Soderbergh goes for something better — a fascinating give and take from start to finish.

Jonah Hill has directed and co-written an impressive little movie with “Outcome.” It could be called a Hollywood satire, but what’s striking about it — and audacious and unexpected — is that it’s dramatic and heartfelt. Here and there, it even comes close to being sentimental.

Like “It Ends with Us,” which was also based on a Colleen Hoover novel, “Reminders of Him” is a movie whose willingness to be deeply unpleasant saves it from becoming a soap opera.

The Optimist could be described as a Holocaust drama, but it approaches that history in an unexpected way.

It’s a sneaky little movie about what people are really like, and it’s impressive.

I’ve been fascinated by McCartney for decades, and “Man on the Run” made me feel like I was getting closer to understanding the real guy.

In America, it might be called a mess, and at times this movie sags. But overall, there’s something about it that holds interest. “A Private Life” is an odd ramble that eventually arrives somewhere.

You can love or hate “The Chronology of Water,” but if you don’t come away from it marveling at the brilliance of Poots’s performance, you just weren’t paying attention.

If “Dead Man’s Wire” has a weakness it’s that it doesn’t create an intense desire to find out how it all turns out. It compensates with dark humor and with a central performance by Skarsgård that’s fascinating.

Fortunately, the last 30 to 40 minutes of “The Housemaid” are so propulsive and unexpected that it makes up for what the middle lacks.

The movie’s biggest asset, aside from Buckley, is the set design. To look at the physical interiors of the houses is like stepping inside a Vermeer painting. Care was taken to provide “Hamnet” with the most realistic and detailed of settings.

Jay Kelly is Baumbach’s best film and, from an artistic standpoint, his first complete success.

What truly propels the film is the growing realization, through both the script and Sweeney’s performance, that Christy isn’t an ordinary person blessed with an extraordinary gift. Rather, she’s an extraordinary person whose very life force is awe-inspiring.

Not enough can be said for how strong [Crowe] is in this film, and how welcome it is every time he appears on screen. He seems able to read people. He also seems German, complete with German gestures.

The quiet intensity of “Blue Moon” is at times agonizing. Any more would have been too much.

The only weakness of the movie is that, because it’s a true story, it can’t rearrange the order of events for maximum drama. Thus, what is essentially the climax of the film comes about three quarters in, and the rest of it, while never less than interesting, feels like falling action. The good news is that Sweeney and Kirby get their best scenes, respectively, in this last section of the movie.

Though Hauser and Sweeney can’t exactly save the movie, they keep it from derailing.

Night Always Comes isn’t an especially ambitious movie, but it’s simple where it needs to be simple, and it’s complex when complexity is called for.

Neeson is a delight and seems to be having as much fun as the audience. But the surprise here is Anderson, who was sad and plaintive in “The Last Showgirl” and now reveals herself a skilled and self-aware comedienne. Anderson is having a moment right now, and I’d like to see it continue.

Oh, Hi! is that rare case, a movie that’s engaging and interesting moment by moment, but everything else is wrong with it.

In 1925, Charlie Chaplin released "The Gold Rush," his best film to date and one of the best he would ever make - or anyone would ever make.

Sweeney gives the movie its extra spark, its sense of occasion.

As suspense thrillers go, “Dangerous Animals” is as uncompromising as it gets. It doesn’t aspire to much, but it’s well-acted and well-written, looks great and full of surprises.

Clown in a Cornfield will never be ranked among the classics of our time, but there are aspects of it that are worthy of admiration.

It’s a wail of grief, an expression of love, a testament to the body. Cronenberg puts it all on the line here, and he gets his actors to put it all on the line with him. If you don’t feel its visceral charge, you’re not paying attention.

Drop is the kind of film that separates the real movie lover from the conditional movie lover. It is manipulative, fundamentally ridiculous, obvious, far-fetched, gut-level in its appeal and irresistible. As such, it embodies the true soul of movies.