Mick LaSalle

Biutiful exists, at its best and beautifully, in that space that's hard to define, between the outside and the interior, action and thought, body and soul.

This is a likable documentary that casts light on two respected but relatively unknown people, who made major contributions to film and managed to have a normal life — and in Hollywood, of all places. It’s nice to know such things are possible.

For those interested in this rich period in American literature, it’s a treat.

By being more than a superhero movie, it reminds us of what it’s worse than. Its greatest virtue isn’t that it’s a superior comic book movie, but rather that it comes close to not being that at all. Close, and yet not close enough.

Directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West, the team behind the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary, RBG, the film makes the case for Child as an instinctive feminist and a profound cultural influence, who transformed how and what Americans ate in the second half of the twentieth century.

It's an art-direction, Dolby-sound, special-effects extravaganza, a grand-scale effort that's more awe-inspiring than completely successful as entertainment.

Moving On is effortlessly intelligent in depicting the experience of being old. Even if you’re not there yet, you know intuitively that old age has very little to do with sitting in a rocking chair in perfect equanimity. It’s about living with the accumulation of things you did and things you didn’t do.

About halfway through Red 2, in the midst of all the laughs and action, suddenly Anthony Hopkins shows up, and he doesn't care one bit that nobody is going to notice his acting in a movie like this. He's going for the Oscar anyway.

Sure, not everything is great. Here and there, the movie goes out of its way to be sentimental. But The Lovebirds is a pleasing comedy, funny from beginning to end. That should be enough for anybody.

In Mimic, director Guillermo Del Toro has created a dark, grotesque world that's hard to look at, and impossible to stop looking at.

It's so wonderfully silly, coarse and down-to-Earth that its radiance sneaks up only over time.

Men will watch Crazy, Stupid, Love thinking they're finding out things about women, but if anything, this movie works the other way. Women will get a glimpse into the male mind.

In almost any other filmmaker’s oeuvre, this film would be considered a highlight. But for the director who made “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Match Point” and “Blue Jasmine”? It’s right up there with “Melinda and Melinda” and “Scoop.” Good, not great.

Tom O’Connor’s script hits all the right notes, and Dominic Cooke’s direction brings out unspoken subtleties of the characters and their interactions.

The obvious thing to expect here is that writer-director Christian Petzold is using the Undine”myth as a metaphor. But no, he’s doing the actual myth.

There have been many adultery movies over the years, but Leaving has some aspects that make it different and interesting.

Darkman is big, stupid and wonderful -- an absurd, grand-scale adventure and a vicious comedy rolled into one nasty, unpleasant, hard-to-resist mess. [24 Aug. 1990, p.E1]

For a thoroughly fascinating, true glimpse into the horrors that vanity and self-delusion can wreak, take some time to see The Baader Meinhof Complex.

Old is, at times, clumsy and obvious, but it’s different and weird, and it taps into something essential. It might be a distant second to The Sixth Sense, but it’s the second-best movie Shyamalan has made.

One of the few big-fish horror films that still has the power to surprise.

What Ritchie is able to convey is the terrifying nature of this kind of small-scale combat, with the enemy coming out from nowhere and from every direction. Even if you’ve never experienced anything like this, there’s something about what Ritchie does here that feels authentic.

Wildlife isn’t dazzling entertainment but an intelligent, low-key and satisfying film with a rare respect for every character.

People who go into Hot Shots! Part Deux knowing what to expect will not be disappointed, and people who stumble in unawares won't be too sorry. At its best, ''Part Deux'' is very funny, and at its worst, it's a complete waste of time -- with the balance about even between the strong and the weak sections. [21 May 1993, p.C1]

Dreamland has vitality and emotional truth underlying all its interactions. And the young women, Agnes Bruckner and Kelli Garner, are superb.

An irresistible movie about a guy who goes on a journey, the kind an audience can't wait to take with him.

A shrewd thriller that takes the time-honored plot about an innocent man wrongfully accused and gives it a film-noir twist.

Aselton gets a lot said in 78 minutes. I think the main thing she says is something never overtly spoken, that life is essentially a lonely experience - even when we're surrounded by activity, and even if we never shut up.

It’s a sci-fi action movie that spoofs the form to strong comic effect, and yet it profits from every good thing about the genre it’s mocking. It tries to have it both ways, and it succeeds.

A paranoid, prurient sexual nightmare.

Beautiful in a girl-from-the-neighborhood sort of way, Carano inhabits Soderbergh's elaborate frame with wit, physicality and just a hint of ironic distance, the suggestion of someone who's not overawed by the opportunity or taking herself too seriously.

I don't see Edge of Darkness as a great movie, or a particularly exalted one, but I do see it as one made by people who know where the buttons are - and who know how to press them. Hard.

Compelling.

A faithful portrait of a period in American social history.

The Assistant isn’t a particularly enjoyable film, but its message and quiet power linger for days.

It is 140 minutes long and repetitious beyond belief. Yet for all its weaknesses - unconscious contradictions, travelogue simplicity and mix-and-match spirituality - Eat Pray Love is, like its central character, on a genuine quest.

Dumb Money is a tale of 2020, and the movie captures that 2020 feeling — gray, depressed, anxious and almost comically miserable.

What makes Rampage especially enjoyable is the way it sneaks up on the audience. Before casting off every shred of dignity and abandoning itself to good-humored excess, the movie passes itself off as a reasonably serious science-fiction movie.

Cop Land isn't a perfect piece, but it's sober, wise and adult.

The documentary is interesting as a human story. And anyone who loves the Kuchar brothers' films or underground cinema in general will take extra pleasure in it.

It’s not an exciting film, and it’s not a film with some wider social relevance. But it’s a film that’s wise about people in a way that’s rare. It also launches Dylan Penn, and someday that will matter.

A spiritual successor to "The Pursuit of Happyness," but darker and more oblique.

Whatever it is, it’s the rare case of an intelligent disaster movie.

The film provides an intelligently imagined future world.

Despite very little dialogue and only one actor with a speaking role, Arctic has a smart script. Something is always happening.

It’s not a question of believing it, exactly. Director Ridley Scott has simply made us want to be there, to wish we really were there, and to accept his illusion as the most ready answer to that desire.

It has action sequences that will appeal to people looking for the usual pyrotechnics, but the core of the movie - and the source of the audience's interest - is emotion.

Take a cowboy movie, add space aliens. That's a gimmick that could easily have exhausted itself after 20 minutes, but director Favreau, a team of screenwriters and some well-cast actors keep it alive, and the result is a crowd-pleasing summer movie with more wit than most.

The result is a winning comedy.

This is a movie about power, and its spectacle is that of a woman losing all of it.

He )Robert Zemeckis) creates a movie that is old-fashioned in every possible good way, but that in no way seems passe or cliched.

Yet the personalities of the actors are so appealing here and the direction by John Badham (''Stakeout,'' ''Saturday Night Fever'') so filled with inventive comic bits and details that Another Stakeout plays much better than you'd think. It's a consistently entertaining two- hours-or-so at the movies. [23 July 1993, p.C3]

Considering all the possible ways BackBeat could have been really ridiculous, it's all the more impressive that it should turn out to be an intelligent, sincere and entertaining piece of work. [22 Apr 1994, p.C3]

"Bombshell” tells the story of a triumphant and consequential life. And there’s more: Everybody interviewed on camera about her apparently really liked her, especially her children. That’s no small achievement.

Hornby's humane and humorous screenplay is true to the film's title: In short order, young Jenny finds out important truths about identity, glamour and how adults really think and live.

Only occasionally does the film fall into the trap of making the prisoners cute, but it never falters in important ways.

A smart and unsettling atmospheric thriller.

It has a life and style that other buddy action movies lack

The best of Jackie Chan's American movies, a pleasant little action comedy that makes one wonder how other filmmakers could ever get it wrong.

Superior animated film from Japan.

The Imitation Game is the one film that might have been better off longer. Starting the story in 1938 and just going through Turing’s life chronologically might have taken an extra 20 or 30 minutes, but it would have been worth it.

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is tasteful and restrained, and though it was made by someone known as a wild man, there’s no grandstanding here. The performances are modulated, not pushed. If anything, the viewing experience is like being a fly on the wall of a real court-martial. The difference is that every minute of it is interesting.

It's a gripping, maddening and thoroughly satisfying thriller, made with artfulness and integrity. Soderbergh sees things in his actors and gets things from them that other directors don't.

Magician is worth seeing as a kind of curated tour through the movies and through Welles’ interviews. However, if you have more time and want to get into Welles on your own, an afternoon watching YouTube videos followed by a few evenings of watching his best movies might be even better.

What it's really about - and this sounds so boring, and so nothing, when in fact it's really rather wonderful - is people. Just regular people, a mother and daughter, whose lives are observed with economy and precision, and with an eye for the telling detail and the tense, revealing moment.

Along the way, this funny picture does exactly what a satire should: It irritates everybody. At least it runs that risk.

More accomplished, adventurous and original. Instead of Allen's usual investigation into the nature of existence, this new film looks at the way stories are created, particularly comedies.

As a film, The Birth of a Nation is raw and ungainly, but it’s definitely alive.

A story of courage and sacrifice, as well as a moving love story that’s really three love stories in one.

A gangster movie with the capacity to surprise. People do unexpected things and for reasons we wouldn't anticipate.

Horrible Bosses 2 is harsh and tasteless, not to mention broad and shameless, but that’s not a bad thing in this case. Softness and good taste, as well as restraint and carefulness, are the enemies of comedy, and “Horrible Bosses 2” is a very funny movie.

Mercury Rising is a Bruce Willis action movie, which means that most of us know what it will be like going in, and the only question is whether it's a good one or a lousy one. Answer: This is a good one.

At times almost unbearably ugly, but by the time you walk out of the theater, you know you've seen something.

In the end, that just might be the takeaway from the "Up" series, that a 28-year-old, say, has more in common with another 28-year-old than with his own incarnation at 70. Who knows? There are mysteries of life captured within the frames of this film that are eluding our grasp. We're still too close to it.

Wonder Woman achieves touching and powerful moments that are unusual for a movie of this kind.

Scott removed the adventure aspect, and some of the movie's passion was lost, too, like a dolphin caught in a tuna net. Perhaps it's for that reason that a movie that starts out with the potential to be great somehow falls short, and what seems as if it's going to be a revelation ends up, instead, simply a worthwhile, reasonably interesting variation on an old theme.

A particular strength of Alan Partridge is that the writers (Coogan among them) don't trade entirely on the audience's familiarity with the character, but rather come up with a flashy, eventful story in which Alan can be showcased in a variety of contexts.

Can't Hardly Wait has freshness, comic invention and an engaging romantic spirit.

A sympathetic look at what it's like to be a Brazilian transsexual prostitute working in Milan.

Man of the Year remains an interesting proposition throughout, and a tale well told.

By avoiding the usual cliches of the freedom saga, Suffragette finds its way to its own, specific integrity. It’s a movie that’s easier to respect than love, but it is something to respect.

Applegate gets by without a false moment in a role that's more serious and has more angles than the airhead she plays on television. I want to see the movies she'll be making in about five years. [07 June 1991, p.E6]

This is one well-made thriller, and for a director who wants to work in that genre, this is as strong a first feature as any filmmaker could hope for.

A passionate, chronicle of an extraordinary artist, and a love story that can't be beat.

Hero was directed by Stephen Frears, who has made some of the better movies of the last few years (Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters), but here his direction isn't nearly as sure-handed. Watching it I got the distinct sense he wasn't liking the movie he was making, or that, at the very least, he was struggling to keep up. [02 Oct 1992, p.C1]

The most exciting contribution to The Girl on the Train is that of Wilson. It’s exciting because it shows that it’s possible, despite the odds, for a distinctive screenwriter to express herself consistently and dominate a film. And it’s exciting because this is a unique voice, and very much a woman’s voice, that our cinema needs.

As played by Boseman and Gad, Marshall and Friedman are a complementary pair, like something you’d see in a buddy movie — one fit and one fat, one black and one white, one tall and one short, one calm and one stressed, but both Americans working together in a just cause.

Wood is superb at delineating Tracy's slide into desperate incoherence, but equally impressive is Reed, who has to conceal her writer's intelligence in playing a character who's entirely instinctive and unreflective.

The new Footloose does everything it needs to do. It's a vibrant youth musical that will appeal to audiences who haven't seen the 1984 original. And it has enough charm and life to it to compete with the memory of the earlier version.

The picture moves slowly but never sluggishly, and it never grinds down. The measured pace shows real assurance on the part of Costner. [9 Nov 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Darkly comic tone of heroin-addiction film sets it apart

One of the most witty, entertaining family films to come out in some time.

The Apprentice is an anti-Trump movie, depicting his early career as a real estate developer in New York City, but it treats Donald Trump with a modicum of sympathy.

The overall experience of the movie is of something fresh.

Has a lighter spirit than its predecessor, but it arrives at the same warm and touching place.

If there’s a surprise to Top Five, it’s the emotional undercurrent that Rock writes and Dawson brings out. What lingers hours later aren’t just the laughs but the people.

We’ve gotten too used to action as mere spectacle, explosions on a video screen. Plane takes time — not a lot of time, but just enough — to make this a story about people.

Weisz’s conviction, passion and galvanizing outrage drive Denial. For a Jewish academic, this was no intellectual exercise, and Weisz lets us see it. Between the frames, Weisz likewise assures us that Denial is no routine movie for a Jewish actress.

The acting is splendid. Fellowes’ dialogue may not be subtle, but the actors are so familiar and at home in these roles that they make up for whatever is lacking.

In this new Conjuring, every scene of demonic possession, every demonic hallucination, and every underworld visit and visitation land with unsettling impact. These are, in a sense, action scenes, and they’re creepy, chilling and very well done.

What's immediately apparent -- and refreshing -- about Chasing Liberty is that it doesn't play cute with its premise.

The spectacle, which is colossal and at times staggering to behold, begins within two minutes of the fade-in and keeps coming until the finish. I thought I'd seen it all. I hadn't.

The results in an experience that is smooth sailing for the first 45 minutes, but then hits a slog that goes on for another 40, before the movie revives again in its last half hour. Obviously, a film can’t be great if you spend 40 minutes wishing the thing would end already. A 95 minutes, The Florida Project could have been a masterpiece.

After two hours of The Walk, I felt as if I’d walked the wire myself. I was agitated and exhausted. During the movie, I was squirming and wincing, and a few times even had to close my eyes, just to find some relief.

Like every other action movie, it's designed for a 14-year-old boy's mentality, but it's enjoyable enough to turn most people into 14-year-old boys.

You will look in vain for some definite logic to Holy Motors. You could see it as a metaphor for the actor's life, or a story about the desire to transcend the self. Anything you decide is fine.

Vengeance is unexpected and, in the best way, weird. In his first film as a writer-director, B.J. Novak takes familiar elements, but puts them together in ways that are original and unexpected. Even when the plot turns go off the deep end, it’s impossible not to appreciate Novak’s audacity.

Eye in the Sky is refreshing in its lack of a political message. Mirren is chilling as the cold-blooded colonel.

It’s low-key in tone and not a splatter fest, even remotely. You Should Have Left is horror for a thinking audience.

The fine quality of the new film is good news for anyone disappointed by "Star Trek Generations," which got the new "Star Trek" feature film series off to a shaky start two years ago.

What lingers in the memory is the impression of having experienced a frolic, a ride through the park on a bright winter day.

Argentine filmmakers Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn (who wrote the film in collaboration with Duprat’s brother, Andrés) direct Official Competition with a sophisticated understanding of its tone, which is essentially realistic and deadpan. The world isn’t crazy, just the people in it.

Imagine a biopic about Ronald Reagan that leaves out Gorbachev but instead dramatizes his years with Alzheimer's, and you'll get an idea of this film's misplaced focus.

In his quiet, sad stoicism, Boyega at times seems to be channeling Denzel Washington. He embodies the dignity of suffering.

We see the tormented, limited and potentially dangerous man underneath.

The film is mentally graphic, not sexually graphic.

A must-see for Mamet fans.

The music is hit-and-miss, and the movie sinks into as many cliches as it avoids. But the characters are appealing, and the storytelling is just unconventional enough to keep an audience guessing.

This is kid stuff, but such well acted, well made stuff that inside 15 minutes you're sitting there like a teenager yourself wondering which girl Keith will wind up with. [27 Feb 1987]

The soundtrack, full of jazz standards, is an enjoyable feature, though in the context of the movie, audiences will mostly feel anxiety hearing them. The amount of work required to sound breezy and effortless is daunting.

After a slow start, it moves.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be there - to actually be there, man - this movie gets it.

Sharp and irresistible, and there's no other movie like it.

A crime drama in a special class.

Loses steam only when it strays from the sisters and attempts to depict their parents' loveless marriage.

Moretti's performance is low-key but detailed. He makes the psychiatrist a fascinating guy, rather austere and restrained, a Northern Italian, not an expressive Neapolitan.

Even if a quarter of what Boreman claimed was true, she had a lot more coming to her than a sympathetic hearing and much prettier actress playing her onscreen. She practically deserved an apology from the male sex, and that, in a way, is what this movie is.

This documentary is not just interesting, but timely.

If you love the “Fast & Furious” franchise, you will like Fast X. If you merely like the series, the new movie will leave you indifferent. And if you’ve never seen a “Fast & Furious” movie, Fast X is not the place to start. It’s a middling installment, a big step down from the stupid-wonderful “F9: The Fast Saga,” but with just enough of the crazy stunts and chases that you can’t find anywhere else.

Yet as ridiculous as Hefner's life sometimes seems, he has been an exemplary citizen, as this documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Brigitte Berman spells out.

A sleek, intelligent thriller.

The Baxter is just an OK movie, but Showalter's performance is the gem to take from it.

Cate Blanchett has the title role, and she does wonders with it, bringing a degree of passion but also suggesting something essentially unevolved in Charlotte's character.

Despite some weaknesses, a sense gradually emerges in this film- not just an idea, but a strong feeling mixed with an idea - about the dance of good and evil over time.

Even at its silliest, it's a better picture than most, with surprises and inventive turns and performances that remain strong throughout. [14 Aug 1992, p.C1]

Toy Story 4 is genuinely gripping for most of the way, with just a couple of minor dips. But it arrives at a lovely place, with an embrace of life in all its danger and uncertainty.

An entertaining and perceptive film with one big problem.

Blackthorn imagines a scenario for Butch's later years and gives us a different kind of Western - somber, reflective and set in the elevated plains and salt flats of Bolivia.

Does what good horror movies do: It taps into the baser emotions.

An exceptionally perceptive film about what it's like to be 19 years old.

Though the film makers would probably like us to regard Guncrazy as a commentary on alienation in the '90s, in the end the picture isn't about much more than its own style. But this commitment to style and the movie's peculiar emotional honesty make it more than a self-conscious genre piece. [05 Feb 1993, p.D1]

Washington, no surprise, is terrific, his sensitivity offset with touches of knowing, self-deprecating humor.

Just as essential is Seth Rogen, as Adam's best friend. Rogen isn't even 30 yet, but he is already an important actor - not just because he's popular but because he best embodies this particular comic moment.

As in "The House of Yes'' and "Freaky Friday,'' Waters keeps it wild but real, and the result is not only a series of lively scenes but lively close-ups: The big-eyed, expressive performances are just fun to watch.

A smart, controlled film, made with considerable integrity. It doesn’t try to scare you with loud noises or threaten you with the imminent certainty of seeing something disgusting. Instead, it throws a handful of characters into a simple, yet harrowing, situation and then explores that situation in depth.

Adams sparkles with quick-mindedness and verbal agility. This is a worthy and underused talent.

It is not a pleasure to sit through, not even remotely, not even by some stretched definition of the word “pleasure.” It’s work, but it’s ultimately rewarding work. It tackles some truths that other movies wouldn’t touch, not even with a stick and thick gloves.

The results are comical and unexpected -- and just a bit eerie.

Some people may be put off that For Your Consideration lands in a serious place. But I see it as evidence of an expanding vision, of continued artistic growth.

There's no joy and little playfulness about this caper comedy, which, despite a lighthearted script, has a sober undertone to it, almost a melancholia.

It weds all the winning aspects of the Neeson formula to a ticking-clock plot, full of tense moments and gripping sequences.

This is Almodovar's stab at serious drama, and the result is bizarre and affecting but also unsettling in ways that the filmmaker may not have intended.

It isn't elegiac, but enraged. It doesn't look back with sorrow, but forward in dread. And it's made with a clear intention - to stop the Iraq war.

Promised Land is a fine place to start appreciating Matt Damon, who always makes it seem as if everybody else is acting and he's just going through the movie being natural.

Ordinary Angels has some of the feeling of an after-school special because it’s a heartwarming movie in which everybody is nice. But it’s more well-made than most. It hooks the audience from the first scene and then builds in tension over the course of its almost two-hour running time.

A modest documentary, small in scope and ambition, but it achieves one of the higher callings of art in that it forces viewers to look at a something in a newer, deeper and more humane way.

This is a remarkable performance, remarkable not only in its force, but in its strength and precision. Oyelowo is reason alone to see Selma, and if you need another reason, there’s Carmen Ejogo, as a lovely, strong and haunted Coretta Scott King.

Man on a Ledge doesn't aim high, but what it aims to do, it does. It grabs the audience's attention, engages its anxieties, stokes its resentments and, at the finish, sends people out saying, "That was good."

No film biography can capture or explain or add to the magic of Chaplin at his best, because these screen moments are perfect in themselves. But Chaplin, with dignity and some vitality, does what it can -- it holds up a light and points the way. [08 Jan 1993, p.D1]

This is smart, inspired, no-fuss entertainment.

It's a film of tension and spectacle, with a singular point of view behind it. It grabs the viewer thoroughly, even as it invites audiences to watch it with a cold, careful eye.

A modest but charming romantic comedy.

The sequel is even more enjoyable than the first, with action sequences that are as good or better than anything you’ll see at the theater.

The Sessions is moving. At times, it's even erotic, which is unexpected, to say the least. It sends viewers out of the theater with a heightened sense of the physical and a real feeling for all the things that sex means in human life.

Along the way, My Best Friend offers insights into the emotional and psychological components of both friendliness and friendship. They're not synonymous, though both have value.

A small and not particularly ambitious movie, but it's pleasing and exceptionally well made. It was directed by Stephen Frears, and while it's not up there with his best - "Dangerous Liaisons," "The Queen," "High Fidelity," "Cheri" - Lay the Favorite lavishes the same attention on the personal, on relationships, and, like most Frears films, it puts a woman at the center of the story.

Bleak, dark and strangely arresting throughout, Blast of Silence is not quite a can't-miss proposition, but one comes away from it feeling as if one has seen a minor classic of some kind. Yes, minor - but still a classic. [04 May 2008, p.N36]

It’s a good, not great, movie, but it has some of the elements that make Linklater’s work special. Few filmmakers are quite as keyed into the passing of time, as the source of all sweetness and heartache in the human experience.

The A-Team is a Joe Carnahan movie, i.e., an experiment in propulsion and personality over substance and story.

The rare case of a movie that gets better as it goes along.

The film's impact has a lot to do with Fabio Vacchi's original score, which is both plaintive and coldly modernist, with echoes of Charles Ives.

As a slice of life, Les Misérables is satisfying enough, but as the film wears on, the movie goes beyond the slice of life. It steers in the direction of drama and consequences, as the story narrows, and pressures come to a boil.

The key to any Amy Schumer comedy is how often she gets to play self-delusion, embarrassment, fear and rage. As long as the emotions, terrors and humiliations are big, she’s funny, and her latest, “Kinda Pregnant,” gives her lots of opportunities to be funny.

Jeremy Irvine is the sympathetic focus, but it’s Noah Wyle who holds the movie together, as a former teacher who lost his job through a malicious student’s prank. Smart, self-possessed and capable, this fellow nonetheless carries himself with an awareness of some underlying guilt.

Ross surrendered himself to the tale, lavishing time on the characters, getting the period details right and making the races look authentic. The result is a faithful, loving piece of work, and the love shows.

One could argue about which "Lethal Weapon'' is the best, but No. 4 is certainly the funniest, warmest and most idiosyncratic.

The film depicts a treasure hunt, only in the sense that the movie has to have a running story. But it doesn't really trade on suspense or adventure, and in the few places Clooney pushes it that way, it doesn't feel right.

Much of the success of Little Pink House comes from the casting and the performance of Catherine Keener, an actress that has, simultaneously, an aura of glumness and an atmosphere of fun about her.

A grim and sometimes funny examination of life on the margins and of a singular artist's world.

The sweetest little movie about a neurological disorder that we're ever likely to see.

Would be worthy of the highest rating, except for a slight slackening of energy in the last 20 minutes.

A shrewd satire about stardom and the cult of celebrity.

A Bigger Splash takes four characters with strong needs, drops them into a single location and invites us to watch what happens. It’s strange how compelling that can be.

The dreaded question with a film like this is, “Wouldn’t a documentary have been better?” In this case, there’s a double answer. The first half of The Glorias is better told as a drama, because it’s fascinating to see (and not just be told) the obstacles in front of Steinem and how she overcame them. But the second half would have been better as a documentary.

Watched today, in light of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump administration, it has an extra intensity, as a possible preview of coming attractions.

A smart, sexy romantic drama, directed within an inch of its life by Hans Canosa.

I've seen many films about Italy, but this one - possibly because it's so colorful and stylized and possibly because the songs are such economical distillations of a state of mind - feels like being there.

With Stewart, we arrive at the only saving grace of Seberg, but a genuine saving grace. She is the only reason to see the movie, but she’s a really good reason.

Nonstop crudeness, vulgarity and unpleasantness. It's without any redeeming social value whatsoever. And it's funny from beginning to end.

The action is not just big — big is easy. It’s creative. It’s choreographed. It’s unexpected and delightful. It’s lots of fun and a stark contrast to the previous film, “Furious 7,” which was huge but flat, just commotion without inspiration.

If anything, this modest but entirely charming movie may deserve a tiny slice of immortality by showing the kind of goofy, escapist fun that can be created even in a grim time.

What's exciting is that the Sprechers have delved into territory that is normally the domain of literature and have emerged with a film that's neither overly literary nor simplistic.

Instead of concealing it, I'll just come out and say that I find it difficult to be enthusiastic about this well-acted and gracefully directed movie, but for reasons that might be called philosophical.

The best teenage werewolf movie ever made.

Not a masterpiece that will change your life, but you’ve probably had your life changed enough lately. It’s 90 minutes of thoughtful, atmospheric, well-made entertainment, and that’s more than good enough.

The atmosphere of Loving, the feeling it evokes, is the film’s most distinct quality. The mood is somber and restrained, and the characters — not just the principals, but the people they know — seem beaten down.

If Eddie Murphy gets an Oscar for "Dreamgirls" later this month, the deciding factor with voters may be his performance in Norbit. It's much more impressive than anything he does in "Dreamgirls."

A particularly strong element is the story of Carlotta’s father, played with arresting intensity by Laszlo Szabo.

An unlovable movie. It's morally ambiguous, which means there's no real rooting interest. It's episodic, with the same kinds of episodes repeated over and over, so there's little sense of forward motion. It feels philosophically and politically confused, so there's no message to take from it.

A substantial examination of character, morality and destiny.

The brilliant comic observation behind Strays is that dogs never quite get the complete picture. They misunderstand much of what they see — they believe rival dogs are in the mirror and that the mailman is the devil — and thus by staying entirely inside the dogs’ point of view, the movie taps a major source of humor.

There are dull stretches — interrupted by moments of terror — but that’s not really a complaint for a movie such as this. “All Quiet on the Western” is only partly a narrative. It’s also an immersive experience, an invitation to walk in someone else’s shoes, albeit from the safe side of a screen.

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

Fortunately, What If rights itself well before the finish and finds its way back to the truth and the light.

A film for anyone who enjoys an intelligent thriller, but for illness phobes this movie is a special pleasure in that it presses all the right fear buttons even as it validates a very particular vision of reality.

While The Edge of Seventeen does deliver on the promise of being funny, it’s mostly dead serious and deserving of respect and attention. It’s far from the usual thing — and better than the usual thing.

Maria, despite being occasionally slow, is a weird, good movie.

A story so good that maybe anybody could have turned out something decent.

A two-hour nervous breakdown.

A better- than-average children's film, dolled up with some high-priced art direction and extraordinary special effects.

Before I Go to Sleep emerges as a mystery — one with a slow burn leading to a big payoff. But what keeps the movie going, beyond questions of what is true and what is false, are the issues raised by the illness itself.

A small, independent comedy-drama that does a number of things very well. It does them all quietly. The scenes don’t swing for the fences. The emotional work is true, not pushed, and by the end, the movie ends up giving the sense of a world.

A sharp, engaging look at what it's like to be hungry and not-so-young in New York.

The success of Chloe is largely due to the contribution of screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson.

Expansive, but succinct. Leigh tells a small story and doesn't try to make something huge of it.

Angourie Rice, who plays Gosling’s intelligent and highly moral 12-year-old, deserves a special mention. The character is an unexpected presence that adds dimension to the story, and Rice plays her beautifully.

Howard and Pratt don’t get to do much besides run like hell, but a movie like this in a way emphasizes rather than obscures the importance of star quality. They’re just so good-looking that it’s a pleasure to watch them -- idealized surrogates for humanity.

Clemency is slow and without much suspense. The real question isn’t whether this person or that person will be executed, but whether Bernardine will go to pieces, and yet with a performance like Woodard’s at the center, that’s all a movie needs.

Kemper is good throughout. Her radiant likability gives her the power to sell weak material, which means she will often be offered weak material. But there’s enough in Happiness for Beginners to make me glad that she did it.

Witty and lively, with a soul to it, as well.

Embraces its identity as a sci-fi-summer-action-blockbuster extravaganza. Along the way, it actually comes close to finding the balance that Lee was looking for.

Funnier than the silliest comedy because it's surprisingly real.

The main pleasure of Sword of Trust is in watching an ensemble of expert comic actors play off of each other. The movie was improvised, based on a tightly constructed story, and every scene has some comic jewel in it, some unexpected touch or moment.

She-Devil is a witty picture that's not afraid to stoop for a punch line. [8 Dec 1989, p.E1]

As for Murray, it’s just a shame he can’t make a Sofia Coppola movie every year. As in “Lost in Translation,” Coppola brings out all of Murray’s many colors, sometimes all at once — his flippancy, his authority, his warmth, his isolation, his expressiveness, his inability to say everything he wants to say.

You don’t see many sci-fi action extravaganzas that are about late middle-aged disappointment, about wondering what it’s all about and whether any of it was worth it. It’s this element that gives The Last Jedi an extra something, a fascinating melancholy undercurrent.

Knocked Up has some rough edges, but it's a noteworthy film by a significant and blossoming talent.

In The Burial, every character gets a chance to shine, but not like in a “Star Trek” movie, where Sulu gets his moment and then Chekov. Rather, it all feels natural and organic. There’s something almost philosophical in a directorial point of view that understands that supporting and featured players are just as human as the main characters.

You know what movie is even better than this? “Never Goin’ Back” (2018) from writer-director Augustine Frizzell, about two 17-year-old girls trying to raise money for a weekend getaway. It’s something like Booksmart, minus the rich Californians and the faint whiff of politically correct self-congratulation. Unfortunately, no one saw “Never Goin’ Back,” because it’s about working-class girls in Texas.

The experience of watching it is rather like swooping down and catching people living their lives.

In place of the tension, climax and easy resolution of the old "Perry Mason'' show, A Civil Action offers murkiness, bitter successes and frustration.

What keeps us glued to our seats are a series of unexpected plot turns, little and surprising story moments that create curiosity and sometimes anxiety. Just as one of these elements resolve, Almodóvar presents another, so that there is no point in Parallel Mothers at which the audience can become bored or complacent.

The success of this film may ride entirely on the alchemy of these particular actors, but whatever is carrying it, The Intern gets there.

By the end, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly achieves a victory over difficult material, but celebrating that fact doesn't preclude recognizing the story is not a natural for movies and remains an uneasy match.

A strong thriller, slick and sleazy in a summer-movie sort of way, but intelligent too.[22 May 1993, p.C3]

A poignant, quirky and effective alternative to the usual soulless, computer-generated summer fare.

Dolby provides Dern with a chance to be cranky and vicious, but what else is new? The revelation here is Lena Olin, who gets her best role in years as the artist’s second wife, Claire, an artist in her own right who gave it all up to make a home with and for a demanding husband.

The filmmakers put their faith in a character, not fireworks, and the result is big blockbuster that feels more like a sweet little movie.

The movie’s intelligent respect for that which is unknowable allows it to cover an enormous swath of ground in just 85 minutes. Sarah Silverman is very good in I Smile Back, and the movie is even better.

A funny, satisfying action comedy that never disappoints.

The weakness of “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” aside from the fact that at 136 minutes it’s a little too long, is that it follows the less interesting character of Baranov. But this isn’t Dano’s fault. He can’t make this fictional fellow more interesting than Putin.

Lacks one thing -- an epic grandeur.

Tasteful but not compromised.

Clifford the Big Red Dog brings a warm feeling every time I think of it, and I’m really glad I saw it.

North American viewers will have one advantage over their South American brethren — the capacity to be surprised. We knew how “Lincoln” was going to end, but The Liberator is a question mark all the way to the finish.

Collateral is a good idea for a movie, backed up by expert execution... It's straight-up entertainment, not something to see and then talk about a month later, but definitely something to enjoy.

The essential mistake that's made about Lewis is assuming his movies were intended mainly to be funny. I suspect they were intended mainly to be really, really weird.

Anyway, thanks to Lourd, Clooney and Roberts — who radiates an appealing groundedness and sanity, despite having been suffocatingly famous since her early 20s — “Ticket to Paradise” is a lot more enjoyable than it deserves to be.

Sometimes I Think About Dying is a good calling card for Ridley, who proves that she’s not limited to playing spunky adventuresses from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Rather, she has a compressed intensity that could be put to good use in a variety of roles.

The music links it all together, creating the sense of some overarching, unseen logic connecting all human activity and making everything inevitable. Indeed, it’s that last impression that elevates Dawson City: Frozen Time to the level of poetry. The story of the town is interesting, without being scintillating.

This is a well-made, well-plotted and sensitive movie.

A movie about the power of the imagination really becomes a movie about a certain element of surrender - about the release of power - that is practically a requirement for loving somebody.

It's hard to imagine any movie ever topping this one's depiction of killer tornadoes laying waste to the Midwest.

It's a strong, lean piece of writing that moves quickly. Nothing is wasted, and nothing happens the way you'd expect.

Modern film noir done with flair and commitment.

Though it would be inaccurate to reduce Thelma to an extended metaphor, it’s fair to say that Trier uses the supernatural element to illustrate, in a forceful way, the power of lust, the selfishness of love, and the world-obliterating intensity of a first romance.

Trumbo is breezy and pithy without ever undercutting the seriousness of the subject. A certain degree of wit is appropriate in a writer’s story, just as any Hollywood tale must at least have a whiff of absurdity, or else it can’t be true.

Perhaps the most promising thing in 2 Days in Paris is that Delpy shows that she can direct herself.

It feels like living inside a pressure cooker with one particular family — experiencing their turbulence as if from the inside, while always a little glad to be watching from a safe distance.

It's a film of sensitivity, observation and humor - a must-see for Fellini enthusiasts and a worthwhile investment for everyone else.

The last half hour and the lively opening make us almost forget the movie’s so-so middle. It brings all the elements together, points to the future and keeps the action to a human-scale minimum. If you want to see Solo: A Star Wars Story, I wouldn’t talk you out of it.

It's a strange film, very original and very good. Just by virtue of the subject matter, it can't help but be erotic, and yet eroticism is not the movie's purpose.

The movie is more about how many things Michael Bay can smash up -- lots. That might not be a talent most people respect, but it gets through to people anyway, and here Bay does it exceptionally well.