Mick LaSalle

The film is a showcase for a talented ensemble of Black actors, not the least of whom is Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Doaker, an older, mellow wise man.

If you haven’t been to the movies in a while, Top Gun: Maverick is a way to get back in. It’s pretty much what “going to the movies” is all about.

For pure, uncomplicated enjoyment, it's the movie to see right now.

An exceptionally well-written script, full of unexpected turns and clever reversals, and a trio of deft actors in the principal roles.

It should come as no surprise that Jonathan Hensleigh's script was not originally written as a "Die Hard" film. The blend of "Die Hard" and "With a Vengeance" is sometimes smooth but never complete. It's as if "Die Hard" were wearing a rented tux.

A harsh and thoroughly unromantic examination of the scarring effects of war.

For almost half of the movie, you might wonder why Nicole Kidman chose to take such a lackluster role. The answer: Just wait — and brace yourself. Kidman is never happier than when she gets to go to extremes, and by that measure, Queen Gudrun is one of her happiest roles.

Not a stirring piece of drama, and it does not altogether work in the ways it was intended to. But in its own shambling, elliptical way it's an entertaining, memorable movie whose 2 1/2 hours go by without strain.

The movie is really a sexy, emotionally true portrait of a handful of people wrestling with their impulses and trying to find their way to happiness.

Comes closer than any other recent animated film to the Looney Tunes ideal. Just as Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny entertained without either condescending to kids or lobbing adult jokes over their heads.

Till confirms Chukwu as an actor’s director and should establish Deadwyler as a major presence in movies.

It's a delicate, intelligent movie about modern parenthood and the pressures that children face, and it features a cast of talented actors who were clearly committed to the movie's message.

It's sober, never flashy or exciting but always engrossing.

Prada just feels authentic, from its glossy look to the specific and sometimes curious behavior of the secondary and tertiary characters. To watch it is like being entertained while getting an anthropological crash course.

Any director who sees Short Term 12 will want to cast Larson in something. This movie puts her on the map.

Joy Ride feels like it easily could have been better, but it’s certainly good enough, and it might be remembered as an early milestone in some significant careers.

It's entertaining and inoffensive.

Silent House feels relentless, suffocatingly tense and almost unbearable. And that's a very good thing.

It's almost a great movie. For half of its running time, Anderson maintains a distinct and arresting tone of vague absurdity, and then he loses control and the film begins to dip into silliness. Individual scenes become labored. Yet even at its worst, The Life Aquatic is always interesting -- there's really nothing else like it.

A very funny romantic comedy that nicely combines Adam Sandler's acerbic sweetness with Aniston's down-to-earth warmth.

David Lowery has made a movie that is as outside the pattern of our current popular filmmaking as can be possibly imagined. That takes more than vision alone. It takes courage.

Angel Eyes is the rare film that presents a family dynamic as demented as ones we know from life.

This is a special movie. For almost 20 minutes, Drinking Buddies does almost nothing to indicate where the story is going or whether there is even going to be a story. And yet everything onscreen is interesting, because of the truth of the emotion and the specificity of detail.

You won't see another film like Fay Grim this year, and we should give Hartley credit for making it work on his own terms.

The visuals are splendid. Even close-ups of face and hair are something to marvel at.

For Friday night this will do just fine. It's definitely a good matchup -- Stone's cynical bravado versus Berry's resilient spunkiness in a world-class cat fight.

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.

The result is a satisfying and original picture.

Emily Rose is the thinking person's demon possession movie, which presents a chilling case history that's hard to explain away.

Those who love Nader will appreciate the respect and attention given his career. Yet others, even those for whom the mere sight of Nader's face is enough to cause a spike in blood pressure, will appreciate the film's evenhanded elucidation of Nader's faults.

The result is that after two hours one gets the sense of having seen a panorama of human experience, of having witnessed a moment of time in all its true fullness.

Ghost in the Shell is like an amalgam of 2017 anxieties. Fear of technology. Fear of big business. Fear of being spied upon. Fear of the sacred disappearing, and of the crass, the loud and the empty crowding into every corner of existence — crowding out life itself.

A Quiet Place is the closest thing to a silent movie since “The Artist.”

Johns is terrific, the heart and soul of the movie, playing the kind of guy that’s the heart and soul of any industrialized country on the planet.

The acting, the setting and a feeling for the time period make “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” more than the usual action movie thrill ride, though it’s that too. That combination of elements makes this one of Neeson’s best movies of the past few years.

Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, the subject brings out everything that’s good about Sorkin’s writing — not just the clever banter, which is a constant delight, but his way of conveying who the good and bad guys are without succumbing to hero worship or moral posturing.

The result is a genre-bending yarn, an entertaining mix of period drama and flat-out farce that should please history fans.

Though many of Parker's well- known wisecracks make their way into the screenplay, Mrs. Parker ultimately does not give us the Dorothy Parker of legend.

There’s enough variation and suspense, enough complication in the form of other characters with other concerns, that Ambulance stays fresh until the finish.

Petite Maman immerses the viewer in all the things you might have forgotten about childhood — what’s funny to a child, what’s valued, what’s priceless, what will be remembered and valued in years to come. Just watching the almost-identical Sanz sisters play and interact becomes fascinating, like witnessing from the outside some lovely and enclosed world.

A satisfying story of a grand-scale swindle, but it also retains the impishness and charm of "Ocean's Twelve." Even better, it solves the Roberts problem in the most thorough and economical way possible: She's not in the movie.

Neither a masterpiece nor a remake of one, but its wistfulness is infectious, and its melancholy mood lingers for days.

A tough movie about tough people for a tough audience. So prepare to get roughed up a little.

On the surface, it's a mystery in which someone is going around stealing personal items, and the women are suspected -- and suspect each other. In a larger sense it's about how corporate culture is not only antithetical to individuality and human kindness but also hostile toward these things.

The best thing Harrelson brings is his own sweetness of disposition, which somehow never goes completely into hiding.

In the end, Knight and Day isn't really about much of anything besides having a good time or perhaps the meaning of Tom Cruise-ness in the universe.

Palindromes isn't a wise movie, or a particularly true movie, but it's an honest one and a singular experience.

Most important, there is an emotional undercurrent in this installment that the earlier films only aspired to. When for a brief moment, the younger Charles Xavier meets the older, there is the sense of time's mystery - and also of the long, magnificent slog of a purpose-driven life.

Fresh music and silly dialogue - those aspects of Purple Rain haven't changed over the years. [Review of re-release]

Guare's play is austerely funny and cerebral, and the film stays true to it, neither warming it up nor dumbing it down. [22 Dec 1993, p.E1]

Makes a persuasive case.

In addition to being funny and endearing and having a lively script and lots of nicely observed performances - is something of an education.

22 Jump Street is exactly what comedy is today. It's coarse, free-flowing and playful.

Underneath the seeming blandness of its presentation -- the sparse dialogue, the affectless characters -- there's a ferocious and caustic view of humanity.

What makes Aniston, of all actresses, especially right for Cake is that her comedy has always had a certain ruefulness underlying it, an understanding of life’s limits, a kind of glum acceptance. So the transition into sadness and desolation is a natural step for her.

By grounding everything that went before in an earthy realism, Hardwicke earns the elevation of the nativity sequence, one of the more beautiful scenes in this year's cinema.

At its base level, Dalíland is all about what a drag it is getting old, especially for a narcissist. But more importantly, it’s also a cautionary tale about the dead-end that is narcissism — not just in life, but in art.

Skyfall is a different kind of Bond movie, one that works just fine on its own terms, but a steady diet of this might kill the franchise. One Skyfall is enough.

As is often the case with Farhadi’s films, Everybody Knows progresses as though nothing special were happening, and yet it’s all very interesting, anyway.

Chalk it all up to prettiness, if you like, but Lane's case has more to do with spirit -- with warmth and emotional readiness, plus a kind of open-book quality that makes her both lovely and comical, usually at the same time.

In all ways, it’s unexpected — in its subject, in its treatment of its subject, and in its whole look and feel. It’s an original and interesting movie.

There are lots of cameos, as well, too many to count. However, it is worth mentioning that singer Taylor Swift shows up in a couple of scenes, playing a vapid Valley girl, and she's very funny.

Mature, thoughtful and occasionally dazzling.

Compelling parable from Canada that's open to a number of interpretations.

Powerfully documents the human cost of the Iraq war.

The film is a methodical and loving examination of two people constructing a fantasy for themselves. [08 Oct 1993]

There's a way to love City of Ghosts, and that's to watch it not as a story that should add up to something, but as a series of little episodes with their own specialness and integrity.

Death Wish is easily the second best “Death Wish” movie ever made, and not a distant second.

Just in the last few months, we've seen "Snowpiercer" and "Divergent," which also deal with what happens after a civil collapse. The Giver, the latest in this weird trend, approaches a now-familiar topic from a new angle, and, of the three, it's the most visually arresting.

On its own terms, the movie succeeds. Like a fable, its meanings are unspecific but haunting.

FernGully: The Last Rainforest has a creeping sweetness that sneaks up on the viewer. This musical animation gets off to a slow start, and it's just as slow in the middle. But by the end, it acquires an emotional impact, and later you really feel as though you've been somewhere new. [10 Apr 1992, p.C1]

Playful and energized enough to keep an audience guessing.

At the finish, the filmmakers give us at least three different endings, probably because they have no idea what Freedomland is saying, probably because it's not saying much of anything. But a film with this many virtues can't be written off as just another average entry.

The movie also allows Chan to demonstrate that he can act. In between setting traps, blowing things up and rendering people unconscious, Chan plays grief in The Foreigner, and his face contains all the sadness of the world.

Here, as in the "Friday" movies, the jokes are big and rude and vulgar and very funny.

For le Carré fans, The Pigeon Tunnel is a must-see, but the film will also be useful to people wanting an introduction to his work.

You're in that world, sucked in by the music and the performances. Appreciate the big things, but while watching, also pay attention to the little grace notes that make up a quality production.

Eddie Murphy's latest picture, Coming to America, is a harmless, fairly amusing comedy that will delight Eddie Murphy fans and keep everyone else mildly entertained. [30 Jun 1988, p.E1]

It's good nonetheless, an artfully arranged account of Hemingway's current life, mixed with footage shot by her late sister Margaux for a 1983 documentary about the family.

If you ever liked Madonna, this concert film will remind why you weren’t wrong. Madame X is somewhere between a success and a triumph.

The pregnancy monologue isn't funny at all, despite cuts to audience members laughing it up. It's a small false note in a movie that's otherwise as honest as they come.

What The Banger Sisters offers in place of an eloquent statement is the charm of two actresses at the top of their game in flashy roles and a smart script that's decidedly more coarse than sentimental.

Fascinating.

Director James Ponsoldt knows what his job is here. He keeps the camera on his lead actress and doesn't cut away. For Winstead, Smashed is the doorway to great things.

You don't walk out thinking or feeling anything in particular, except satisfied that you got your money's worth and maybe even got a little tired from laughing so hard. [2 Dec 1988]

Won't go down as an action thriller for the record books, but it's a pretty good one for right now. First of all, the villain is a bank. How's that for timing?

Brothers has the careful observation, measured pace and lived-in feeling of a good European film.

The movie is rich with music and more than a few moments of painful exaltation.

Klapisch still gets these characters to sneak up and make us care about them - though it might help if you remember them from when they were young.

Perry is at his best playing frenetic confusion.

It’s hard to say what McCarthy intended with “Brats,” but he ended up making a cautionary film for journalists. As such, it may have a limited audience, but if it’s seen by the right people, it might do some good.

Something special about it. It's a formula movie, to be sure, but it's Formula One.

A sophisticated story of disappointment and accommodation.

In retrospect, Levinson might secretly wonder if the bizarre casting was the right move after all. But at least he got strong performances from his lead actor, and he took a good script by Pileggi (“Goodfellas”) and made a good movie out of it. You can’t ask for much more than that.

The movie is saying something worth hearing about the place the future holds, the concept and promise of it, in human existence. It’s an attempt to wrest that vision from the narrow fantasies of doom-peddling action filmmakers. That’s an attempt worth making.

The important thing is that Dreamland accomplishes its main intention, which is to make us invest in this strange love story.

The problem is that the story, as constituted, is of necessity against organized religion, but Farmiga, as director, pretends that it's ambiguous. So you get a movie slightly at cross-purposes with itself.

So, Dial of Destiny isn’t great, but it’s still a lot of fun — even compared to some previous “Indiana Jones” movies.

Best in its first hour, when it concentrates on the politics and the specific horrors of Panem. It becomes more conventional in the second half and loses steam, but it's always heading somewhere.

There are laughs throughout, but Guilt Trip isn't joke-happy. The humor is light and well observed, as when Mom keeps playing the audiobook of "Middlesex," and the son gets uncomfortable hearing about anything sexual in front of his mother.

But probably the best thing about The Prince & Me is the way the story doesn't end in the obvious place but keeps going, showing the characters continuing to develop.

Hit Man is not among Linklater’s best movies, but he gives his best to it, and the results are on the screen.

Almost single handedly, [Louis-Dreyfus] muscles “Tuesday” into the territory of being worth seeing.

Appealing movie, one of the summer's pleasant surprises.

Lyne has always gone the extra step, and Deep Water shows that he hasn’t lost his touch.

An authentic piece of Americana. There's no lying or condescending from this director. Nebraska feels pure.

A conventional suspense thriller, but the details kick it up a notch.

Margot Robbie plays Tanya, Kim’s best friend and professional rival, and it’s a real asset to have someone with that kind of a star wattage in a supporting role.

It’s good to see Spielberg, at 71, still finding new forms of cinematic language with which to express his humanism. It also should be said that though Ready Player One wears a cheerful face, there are none of the usual heartwarming, classic Spielberg moments. That’s because, second to “Munich,” this is his most pessimistic film.

Neeson has a way of getting upset - a frantic purposefulness - that fills viewers with both empathy and anticipation: He's so miserable that we care.

One of the most quietly powerful endings in recent memory.

We encounter a man of great talent and usefulness, and yet someone most of us can be glad never to have met.

"The Family Stone" did nothing for Parker, but Failure to Launch makes a strong case for life after "Sex and the City."

The hardest thing to describe is tone, but it's the thing that most sets Killer Joe apart and makes it one of the most interesting and satisfying movies of the year so far.

Air might not quite be in the class of “Gone Baby Gone” or “The Town,” but it’s old-fashioned in the best sense: solid, confident, simple, straightforward and entirely entertaining. It’s the work of an intelligent classicist.

Significantly, this hyper-stylization of 300 is limited to its visuals. The performances are played straight, and this combination -- straight performances and stylized visuals -- produces an uncanny effect.

This is a movie you might want to talk about afterward, so try to see it with other people.

Brad Pitt is in ecstasy here, despite the cool demeanor throughout. This is an actor who is never better and never happier than when he gets to be seedy, slick his hair back and wear a leather jacket.

An entertaining film. Few will agree with every word spoken, but Chomsky’s vision of history is worth encountering and considering.

Watch Infamous on its own. It's a worthy film in its own right, with its own virtues.

Breillat is inviting us to really look at sex as it occurs in life, and to engage with it mentally, as a driving mystery of human existence.

Ambles along and has a feeling of randomness about it, but, in fact, it's tightly plotted. Every moment, however seemingly haphazard and casually presented, is keyed to the progress of a young man from lost to not so lost.

This whole concept is a rich vein for gags, especially with a comic as at-home with herself as Schumer. But there’s something sweet and wise about it, too.

Neighbors is funny for all 96 of its minutes, not counting the credits, and it contains the single best sight gag of the year so far. (We're talking laugh-out-loud funny and then laugh again later, just thinking about it.)

Hook never reaches Nirvana. It doesn't grab the audience, fling it into another world and make people forget where they parked their cars. But it does leave the viewer with a glow, and along the way it has magical moments, even if it's not fully magical as a whole. [11 Dec. 1991, p.E1]

A curious thing about "Revenge" is that auto executives who might have been portrayed as villains in Paine's earlier documentary are likable characters here.

Spike Lee is too passionate and distinctive a film maker to make a lousy movie. So although Mo' Better Blues, his latest, is a misfire, there is a personality behind every camera shot. An audience is willing to go farther down the road with Lee than with another film maker, and even when, as in this case, the road leads nowhere, it's hard to resent the trip. [03 Aug 1990, p.E1]

The limits of Dallas Buyers Club are the limits most true stories come up against, which are the facts. A good story lands and reverberates. In real life, stories have a way of just stopping and leaving you a bit unsatisfied. The latter is what happens in this movie, but perhaps that couldn't be avoided.

It eschews obvious effects, but even more impressively, it tells a story without an obvious moral. It assumes that kids can wrestle with a fairly complicated narrative and draw their own conclusions.

Now comes this American version, which turns out to be the exception, an American remake that's better than the European original.

The result is an original picture, not entirely successful, but successful enough, and delightful in its ability to surprise viewers, and juggle tones and keep every ball in the air. The World's End has the aura - and this might only be an attractive illusion - of something imagined whole, in a burst of inspiration, rather than as something labored over.

It's a movie to feel. Even when the thinking isn't all there, the emotions are, all the way to the film's poignant last seconds.

Not Fade Away is a movie by a filmmaker who treasures his memories, cares about social history and relishes getting it right.

That irresistible thing - a movie about the making of a movie - combined with a bit of a history and a political message.

Belle isn't a perfect movie; in some ways it's obvious. But even if it's not true to history, it's true to that painting and worthy of its inspiration.

For Pérez Biscayart, it’s the sound equivalent of a masterful silent-film performance, and for Perelman, it’s the welcome return of an important filmmaker.

An entertaining film that's true to its world.

With a thriller like this, details almost don't matter. It's entertaining enough to watch it get to where it's got to go. Liotta is seedy and creepy as the obsessed cop, disintegrating before our eyes. ''The only problem I have is sleazy, low-life whores like you,'' he tells a woman he picks up. Officer Pete has some hostility issues he needs to work on. [26 June 1992, p.G1]

As a piece of filmmaking, the trick of Operation Varsity Blues is that it provides first-rate entertainment even as it incites sputtering rage.

Still, as Dylan biopics go, this is probably the best imaginable.

After the heights of "Casino Royale," the series falls back into routine with this above-average thriller, filled with over-the-top action, familiar Bond atmosphere and a story that's impossible to follow - and why bother anyway? Daniel Craig is still the coolest man in the universe. That definitely helps.

Often silly but it's an honest, unselfconscious exploration of the conflict between a man's physical and psychological age.

In Water for Elephants, Waltz plays a circus owner and ringleader during the Great Depression, and when he's onscreen, every eye is on him, no matter who is talking.

The brilliance of what Iñárritu does here is that, if you watch any scene in “Bardo” for 30 seconds, you will keep watching. But you have to be willing to give him those 30 seconds at the start of each scene. You have to work with him a little.

It's instantly forgettable, but smooth fun most of the way.

Taken as a whole, the movie is far-fetched and even faintly ridiculous; and yet, in the moment to moment, it's compelling and truthful.

Juliet, Naked is very like a Hornby novel in that it’s irresistible and appealing and full of tenderness and idiosyncrasy, and yet when you try to tell people what was so great about it, you can’t do it justice.

Both Mastrantonio and Harris are terrific, never missing a beat, always convincing, even when playing the most extreme emotions. [9 Aug 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Don Jon deserves praise for wearing its message lightly and yet for daring to present such a lecture in today's Internet-drenched environment. Gordon-Levitt may be blithe in discussing pornography, but his movie nonetheless asserts that porn is addictive and destructive, that it intrudes on intimacy, and that it short-circuits the capacities for interaction and also, ultimately, for pleasure. That's a serious subject and a committed viewpoint, handled with wit and intelligence.

September 5 succeeds as a tense and involving film, at least partly because it makes the case that the tragedy, despite all its other consequences and ramifications, marked a signal moment in news broadcasting. It was the first time that a hostage drama played out on live television.

The film is partly a comedy, because no movie with protagonists this stupid could be a straight drama. And yet the film contains a lot of truth about its place and time.

Features some of Clive Owen's best work and a startling movie debut by the 15-year-old Liana Liberato.

As a documentary, it is very much what it set out to be - a celebration bordering on propaganda. Yet enough slips through to keep it interesting.

Pay attention to the camera, and you will see that Polanski is a clinician. He is in the thrall of no one.

A thoroughly entertaining film by a director at the height of his ability.

Desperados is a lot of fun and announces “Saturday Night Live” alum Nasim Pedrad as a comic actress in the tradition of Sandra Bullock.

Some sections are better than others, but all of them benefit from the various ways the character and the actress illuminate each other.

The old saying, "It's hard to find good help nowadays" takes on a new meaning in Murderous Maids.

McNally takes a thin story and pumps it up, bringing in waitresses and busboys, all of them lonely, all of them broke. In the hands of director Garry Marshall, the material becomes deadly. He turns on the schmaltz, brings up the violins and shows them in their tiny apartments, alone and miserable but kinda cute, living their small, dull lives. This is the working class as viewed by the clueless wealthy -- condescension trying to pass as compassion. [11 Oct 1991, p.D1]

More than the standard, cranked-out genre piece. Its characters linger in your mind, and the quality of its actors lift the movie into another league. [14 April 1989]

The film's appeal has a lot to do with the casting of Juliette Binoche as Sand, who brings to the role her pale, dark beauty and characteristic warmth.

The Equalizer is silly but irresistible, taking situations of inherent gut-level impact and exploiting them for every bit of emotion and tension. It could never have been a great movie.

Though he crafts a story worthy of a thriller, Hancock’s main concerns here are twofold: the type of personality drawn to this kind of police work, and the effect this work has on them.

The movie itself is a worthy thing, too, but it's not as good as Clooney is here, which is to say, it's not great.

Both Sides of the Blade is what people like about French cinema. Its indulgences are worth wading through because, in its commitment to the truth about people and its willingness to explore the hugeness of normal human life, it’s unlike anything you’ll find in America.

In fact, none of the performances here are phoned in. Freeman shows great aptitude for the presidency and should consider running — then he could play the president onscreen and off. And as the vice president, Tim Blake Nelson finally gets a role worthy of his depth.

Things isn't linear, and it isn't all that lively. But it captures the experience of some modern women, and it feels from the heart.

A melancholy, well-observed film.

This is the old stuff, the good stuff, the tried-and-true stuff of shrewdly accomplished audience manipulation.

Fifty Shades Freed has something extra going for it, in that it depicts something that movies and pop songs and pop culture in general tend to avoid, which is the romance of familiarity.

Irrespective of what the future holds in terms of gun control, the movie is a striking portrait of a married couple who expected one kind of life, got another, and are making something useful from their misfortune.

For at least a half hour, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a brilliant and exciting film and seems almost sure to be one of the best of 2010. Then it becomes simply good. Then it becomes merely interesting. And then, about 15 minutes before the finish, it becomes dull and interminable.

Reveals essential truthfulness about families.

The fuzziness is suddenly and definitely gone, and Reeves emerges as a mature, charismatic movie star.

You should approach Resistance as a fact-based World War II movie and not think much about the Marceau connection. The truth is, even if young Marcel didn’t go on to become a major artist, this was a story worth telling.

In the end, it’s hard to know whether to see the Iran of Desert Dancer in optimistic or pessimistic terms. Young people, especially, want to be free, but the other side has all the power. Having YouTube on your side certainly helps, but an army and some tanks can come in handy, too.

To extend the boxing analogy, it's as if Morris, after getting pummeled for 12 rounds, just taps Rumsfeld with his finger - and scores a knockout.

Morris is a storyteller of the highest order, and within seconds, he draws us into his subject, doling out details, making us wonder what will happen next and dropping bombs for maximum impact.

The takeaway on Friends With Benefits is that mores change, styles change, the rules change, and even humor changes. (There are two jokes involving apps, of all things, that are pretty funny.) But people's emotional needs remain the same from era to era.

Intelligent, observant entertainment designed for an adult audience.

Claude Chabrol has a wonderful way of making audiences nervous.

Can’t we just stipulate that everything that Greengrass is saying is right, and then go see “A Star Is Born” again? Can’t we give ourselves a break?

It's still a good [movie], with its self-contained world of concert arenas and smoky clubs and sad, weird people who linger in the mind.

What keeps I Am Not Your Negro just short of greatness is, alas, the competition from Baldwin himself. Watching it, it’s hard not keep wanting to see more of Baldwin and hear less of Jackson.

Has all the usual virtues of a good action suspense drama, but it lacks that extra something - that context, that vital interchange - that made the original "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" such a memorable experience in 1974.

Jennifer Jason Leigh (Baumbach's wife) appears in two scenes, as an ex-girlfriend of Greenberg, and she's quietly brilliant, as always.

Rebecca has a couple of slow stretches, but James is always interesting and always sympathetic, if only because we see her struggling to do her best. After all, it’s much easier to not give up on a character when we see she hasn’t given up on herself. The movie further benefits from the absence of 1940s-style censorship, which suppressed a key plot detail that’s restored here.

The result is a nice little movie that does its job and doesn't spread misery under cover of spreading joy.

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.

Thompson and Asomugha are nicely paired. Too much is made by critics of the notion of “screen chemistry,” but there is something complementary in the personalities of these two actors, as well as in the roles they’re playing.

Bohemian Rhapsody is probably what Freddie Mercury was aiming for all along, a big, splashy, half-true biopic in the Hollywood style. It’s a bit corny, but grand; a bit obvious, but entertaining, and inspiring almost in spite of itself.

Last Vegas is an entertaining movie with a lot of integrity, and it gives all of its actors - all heavyweights and Oscar winners - real moments to dig in and play something.

With his crisp intelligence always a step away from collapsing into paralyzing self-consciousness, and his polished good-boy veneer often giving way to hysteria and vulgarity, Grant is a delight. [18 March 1994, Daily Notebook, p.C-3]

With skill and also with love, writer-director Eric Mendelsohn creates a delicate and airy mood, a kind of cinematic haiku.

The role of Arielle was originally supposed to go to Diane Kruger, whose tough-minded realism would have been interesting here. But Marlohe, earthier yet more ethereal, is ideal.

If all the laughs come from Depp, who gives Willy the mannerisms of a classic Hollywood diva, the film's heart comes from Highmore, a gifted young performer who had a leading role in "Finding Neverland." His performance is sincere, deep and unforced in a way that's rare in a child actor.

Tremors gets its characters into a series of hopeless situations and then resolves these situations in unexpected ways. I tried to out-guess the movie and couldn't. The movie might be nothing more than light entertainment, but care and thinking clearly went into it. [19 Jan 1990, p.E1]

Affleck is magnificent, but the movie is something less than that, because it can’t completely overcome some built-in challenges.

Writer-director Peter Landesman has a fascinating and appalling story to tell here, and that cuts through the layers of corniness.

Using footage mostly from the cameras of various passengers and crew, the documentary takes us inside the experience of being stuck inside a floating prison, unwanted by any port, as COVID cases and fears mount. It’s an experience you would not want to have directly, but it’s fascinating to watch.

In the end, what makes Equity an intelligent and honest movie keeps it from being a total crowd-pleaser.

As thrillers go, Rapt is long on intellect and short on action, a virtue to some degree, though not entirely.

What’s fascinating about Kirby here is that even when she appears to be doing nothing, she’s worth watching.

Needless to say, if “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained” were too much for you, The Hateful Eight won’t be any easier. This is a big step beyond.

It's funny, broad and never stops moving. It's made to please, and succeeds.

In a way it’s just another well-made thriller, but there are things here — currents captured, ideas frozen in time — that might make it more interesting as the years pass. For the time being, it’s good entertainment and deserves to be seen now.

As fresh as today’s newspaper — or a blog post — or a tweet from a minute ago. It’s a response to what is going on right now, and it feels like it, not only in content, but in form.

The movie is as interesting as spying on your neighbors during the most interesting 85 minutes of their lives.

A rare film about the class and educational divide that can happen even within families.

Lawrence's take on pop music success is exactly right, satiric without being absurdist, and therefore a prize worth the effort.

All of it works. All of it holds together, guided by the sure hand of director Simon Stone, who subtly imparts his sense of the story. His idea is that everyone involved mattered, and so we come away with an impression of an entire moment of time.

So the situation is fraught, without being clear-cut; in other words, interesting.

Neither resting on formula nor audience goodwill, the “X-Men” series is going deeper and getting better as it goes along.

The pace of Master Gardener is measured, but there’s nothing relaxing about it.

Nomadland is too singular a film to dismiss on technicalities. It’s very much its own thing, very much an original experience, and must be counted as some odd kind of good movie.

The Shape of Water is brilliant, but sick — or maybe it’s sick, but brilliant. In any case, it’s something to see.

The documentary takes Tower through his much publicized recent stint as the chef at New York’s Tavern on the Green, a rather hopeless assignment for a perfectionist.

It would really help to get into the right frame of mind before seeing The Time Traveler's Wife, because viewed from some angles - maybe most angles - the movie is ridiculous.

If you want to know years in advance what old-age nostalgia is going to look like for Baby Boomers, look no further than Pirate Radio, in which the sun always shines, the music is great and the sex is available, guilt-free and glorious.

Because Living is all about unexpressed emotion — and an unexpressed life — there are times when we’ll feel impatient with the characters; we’ll want them to throw off their restraints and say everything they’re thinking. Just don’t be in a hurry. Living gets where it needs to go, and gets its characters where they need to be, in its own good time.

It's not much of a comedy - even Steve Carell, as the therapist, plays it straight here. But it's very effective as a cautionary tale.

Armie Hammer’s performance is a brilliant exercise in subtlety, suggesting a genial yet inappropriate space-taking, the carelessness of the beautiful.

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.

Cleaner is a good-not-great thriller in the “Die Hard” mold that gets an extra lift from Campbell’s skillful direction and from Ridley, who is slowly but surely showing herself to be a performer of wide range and appeal.

Elba's performance is commanding and physically meticulous. As he ages through the film, he takes on the stiff gracefulness of the elderly Mandela, so familiar to us from news footage.

Much of the movie has a structureless, documentary feeling to it, which is good and should have been pushed further.

The documentary is eye-opening and very much worth seeing, even though it can’t help but be disheartening.

After shooting lots of people and cutting lots of throats, Deadpool tries blowing himself up, something he probably should have done first. And with that, the movie shifts. Deadpool 2 becomes less violent and a lot funnier. It becomes a much better movie than the original “Deadpool,” not an action bloodbath with laughs, but a knowing spoof of the superhero genre.

Though it never runs out of gas or even shows signs of sluggishness, del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” runs out of importance about a half hour before the finish. But it’s still an entertaining movie by a distinctive filmmaker.

The premise might sound gimmicky, but it's realized honestly and specifically. [27 Sept 1991, p.D6]

Wham! tells a sweet story, but also a goofy and entertaining one, because these guys were more ’80s than anybody, more even than “Miami Vice” and Duran Duran.

After a devastating opening, the movie gets sluggish here and there, but it remains interesting throughout, not just culturally, but as a piece of drama.

Back to Black holds back from wallowing in Winehouse’s dysfunction. Instead, like an authorized biography, Back to Black chooses to be kind to everybody. It’s not the flashiest choice, but the world is big enough for one kind biopic. Winehouse deserved to get lucky, at least once.

Instead of getting smirky and campy and blowing out the joke in the first few scenes, Grahame-Smith and director Timur Bekmambetov straight-face it. They ask themselves, well, what would it be like if the main struggle of Lincoln's life were with vampires intent on taking over the new world? And they answer the question as realistically and soberly as they can within this loony framework.

The gentle spirit of Wild Mountain Thyme envelops us early, to the extent that, midway through, even though there is very little left to resolve, we are in its spell.

Get Out reveals an underlying unease. It diffuses tension, even as it points to its source. It may be somewhat rough and unrefined and even ill-considered in some of its particulars. Yet it may stand as a kind of pop culture document of this historical moment, a moment that’s not nearly as funny as this movie.

It's excessive and psychologically imprecise, coarse where it should be refined and too much like a David Cronenberg horror movie in places where restraint and intellectual rigor are called for.

Few movies are as delightful as Julie & Julia.

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.

Ginsburg herself is determined to last. Several scenes show her working out with a trainer. Her goal is to live long enough for a Democratic president to appoint her successor.

Wallace’s 2008 suicide informs the film and Jason Segel’s performance. What Wallace wants to say, tries to say but can’t quite say is that, having reached the summit of success, he sees an even bigger mountain in front of him. His anxiety about holding it together in the face of newfound celebrity is no affectation. He’s frightened of it and probably has good reason to be.

An oddly structured tale about Francisco Goya and the Spain that he lived and worked in.

A film that might have seemed faintly academic six months ago becomes an anxious expression of its historical moment.

There are many things to admire about this movie, but the main one is that it doesn't compromise.

As Russell Boyd's remarkable cinematography emphasizes the dwarfing grandeur of the surrounding topography, Weir shows how the corresponding smallness of individuals is compensated for by the grandeur of their aspiration.

It takes an extraordinary film on the order of Joyeux Noel to make it all suddenly vital, immediate and human.

Far superior to its companion piece, "Flags of Our Fathers," released earlier this year, "Letters" is a grim and humane film that has to be counted among the director's better efforts.

Polanski directs the film without a wasting a moment. The occasional humor does nothing to relieve tension but, as in a Hitchcock picture, has a way of increasing it.

Connects on a gut level in two ways, political and existential.

A big leap forward for Penn as a director and deserves to be one of the most talked about films of the season.

For most of its 110 minutes, City Hal is a strong, hard-boiled drama that gives an insider's look at the wheelings and dealings in and around the mayor's office.

The film's special effects are astonishing, but the most notable and unexpected thing is its tone.

Giamatti and Pike are backed by a strong cast, including Minnie Driver, lots of fun as Barney's Jewish princess second wife.

An extremely funny movie, and this is coming from someone who barely cracked a smile during ``Friday,'' the first installment of this franchise.

Indeed, without Hudson's magic, without that extra feeling that comes from seeing the launch of something extraordinary, Dreamgirls might have been a break-even affair. The film has strong roles, good actors and a compelling story that takes place over the course of 10 or 15 years. But it has, with only a couple of exceptions, a pedestrian score that sounds like generic show-music schlock and lyrics that are not distinctive.

This adaptation does not allow for the energy and primal healing quality of sexuality. The movie’s grief of tone finds no antidote in the exuberance of this physical connection. The rhapsodic language of Lawrence’s text gives way to the spectacle of grinding between two average-looking mortals.

Mainly Blank City shows a succession of engaging, intelligent, middle-aged people showing some very bad home movies that they once hoped were something more.

Despite a few shortcuts and some small but nagging inconsistencies -- not to mention weak performances in a couple of key roles -- Just Cause delivers.

Has a shameless B-movie exuberance.

Its story is paint-by- numbers...But it's funny, and funny covers a lot of sins.

One-half of an unremarkable war movie, followed by a touching story about the importance of animals in people’s lives. Fortunately, the stronger part is saved for last.

Pike’s own commitment is wonderful to witness. Radioactive is a good movie, a bit more imaginative than most (at several points, the movie takes a quick leap into the future to show the various ways radioactivity has been used, for good and for ill), but Pike makes it something to see, simply by giving it everything.

Epic in sweep and scale and packs in enough incident to cover two "Godfather" movies.

A study of middle-class, middle-aged disappointment in its varying forms, a sober look at different life choices.

Maren’s direction is tonally right, full of warmth and touches of humor; he makes it an inviting film to watch.

It blends an intriguing concept with a suspenseful plot, and the result is a gripping 103 minutes at the movies.

A thriller that presses all the buttons: parental love, childhood terror, fear of Vince Vaughn.

Philomena is a wiser movie than it seems, with much to say about justice and forgiveness and the healing of wounds over time. Actually, it says next to nothing about any of those things, just implies its messages with a light hand.

It feels both big and little, concentrating as it does on the small movements in people's lives and the huge tides of history.

The picture looks like it cost about 3 cents to make, but it packs a nice punch, with tense moments, unexpected turns and a hot performance by Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. [30 Oct 1989, p.F3]

Though there are political elements here, to be sure, Pray Away has more the feeling of witnessing multiple spiritual journeys. These journeys are, by their very nature, moving.

A movie for adults, of a kind that usually isn't made in America,

Austin Powers sounded like a silly idea, but it turns out to be one of the best comedies of the year.

Your Place or Mine has a feeling of old and new about it. It’s an old-fashioned romantic comedy in that it depends almost entirely on the charm of its principal actors, Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, yet it comes up with a new way of telling its story.