Mike Scott

It also includes the elucidating, offering a rare glimpse at the architecture of Spinney's elaborate Big Bird costume.

To be clear: Despite the holiday flavor, and despite the pint-sized hero, this is no kids' movie. There is swearing. There is blood. There is an army of 180 very nude Santas coursing through the snow. That's not the kind of thing Frank Capra ever could have dreamed of -- and that change of pace is exactly what makes Rare Exports a rare, if unexpected, holiday treat.

Far more often than not, Lee's talented ensemble -- who really do look like they're having a blast together -- generate more laugh-out-loud moments than lulls, all of which help make Girls Trip work nicely as a mood-elevating mid-summer diversion.

And let's be honest: Hawking and Wilde's romance is lovely in its own way. But his scientific work? That's important. That's staggering. That's life-changing, not just for him, but for all of us. And The Theory of Everything? Despite that title, and despite those performances, it just doesn't feel like any of those things.

It's provocative stuff, and The Yes Men approach it with a wicked sense of humor.

Few of the film's secondary characters feel fully developed, with the possible exception of Nelsan Ellis' portrayal of Brown sidekick Bobby Byrd.

Just as key to the movie's impact are its well-acted scenes of heart-wrenching emotion, although some stray perilously close to melodrama.

Dawson, who to this point has largely built her career playing supporting characters, seizes the opportunity to stand center-stage, all but taking over the film.

An admirably full portrait of a film that reflects, with thrilling discomfort, the darker recesses of our minds.

That's the kind of movie this is, the kind that sticks with you, that prods you to examine things. In the process, it reveals itself to be something of an emotional roller coaster -- but one well worth riding.

Built on an interesting idea -- but which, unlike Strug, can't quite stick the landing.

A movie with a message, but the subtle kind; it's whispered wisdom, wrapped up in a story of mystery, of love, of regret, of repentance and redemption.

Like Paddleton itself, Romano's performance isn't flashy. It isn't dripping with self-awareness or desperation. Rather, it's quietly, subtly beautiful. And it deserves to be seen.

So here's what moviegoers can trust from the Russo's Captain America: Winter Solider: They can trust it to be a brisk ride. They can trust it to be entertaining. They can expect it to be suspenseful.

There's plenty of melodrama, plenty of whispered intensity, plenty of dramatic pauses in his story. There also are a few bizarro -- and, in some cases, unnecessary -- detours. But when it's all said and done, there's no real call for any emotional investment on the part of his audience.

Pure cinematic fluff, the kind of film that tends to evaporate within a few hours of seeing it. That being said, Manville is so charming, and the rest of Fabian’s film is so well meaning, and so well realized, that by the time it hits its inevitable third-act moment, it’s hard not to be swept up by the joy of it all.

If there's a prevailing problem with director Richard Loncraine's bit of period fluff, it's that many of the characters encountered along the way are a touch too cartoonish to resonate meaningfully with audiences.

Granted, it takes a while to get to that point. Nearly an hour, in fact. That's owed to Zvyagintsev's penchant for long, lingering shots, which emphasizes mood over kinetic energy, and which also at times creates a drag on the narrative. That mood, however -- tragic, hopeless, heartbreaking -- is expertly created.

These women deserve to have their voices heard, and this film finally lets them have their say.

Brilliant in its simplicity, as he turns the floor over to the three masters with this simple instruction: The guitar. Discuss.

It's a decent comedy, mind you, one with its fair share of chuckles. But it's really more amusing than it is fall-out-of-your-seat funny.

Never Let Me Go isn't the kind of movie you talk about on the drive home -- it's even better. It's the kind that makes you sit quietly and think, rolling it around in your head and considering the angles.

The result is a deliriously watchable and darkly comic portrait of a high-velocity death spiral.

The magic is back at Pixar.

Among them, Polanski's four-person cast boasts four Oscars and eight more nominations, so these are big-league actors who are capable of carrying a film such as this through its occasional miscalculations.

Ali and Mortensen are both fantastic in their respective roles. Every bit as important is the surprisingly charming script, which uses humor to soften its touchy subject matter.

Lucas Hedges is terrific in the lead role of a sneaky movie that, rather than preaching and shouting, becomes something uplifting, something hopeful, something moving and something important.

They're fascinating characters, to be sure, with back stories ripe for development. But Whedon doesn't commit here, and the results are shrug-worthy.

This is a world where training wheels are called "stabilizers" and where children leave something called "mince pies" for Santa. (Um. Ew?) As a result, the occasional line will fly over your little ones' heads. But you can also expect for them to be charmed by it all.

As strong as that cast and those visuals are, however, they don't quite add up enough to guarantee a happily-ever-after for moviegoers looking for a memorable in-theater experience.

Oddly, though, Everyday Sunshine ends up being a mostly optimistic tale. That's because, despite it all, Fishbone is still gigging.

It's not that Climax is a poorly made movie. It's that it's an abjectly mean movie. Some would try to excuse it as arthouse cinema. In reality, it's frighthouse cinema. And that's not meant as a compliment. The ultimate message, at least in this case: Just say no -- to Noé.

The Birth of a Nation is ultimately involving as a cinematic history lesson. It is its flashes of modern relevance, however, in which it scores most effectively.

Trumbo isn't monotonous, but it falls short of genius.

Don't get me wrong: Gyllenhaal is a great actor, one who exhibits a rare blend of strength and pathos. But not even he can elevate that kind of lazy writing.

There are moments when the freak-show elements of the film threaten to overpower its message, but that message is such a fascinating one -- and the debate an important one as well -- that The Elephant in the Living Room manages to overcome them.

Inside Llewyn Davis isn't as goofy as 2008's "Burn After Reading," nor as solemn as 2009's "A Serious Man," but it's an embraceable film just the same.

There's not much meat to the story. So while the picture on the menu suggests filet mignon, we really get mostly fish-and-chips stuff.

Formally, Berg's film is at its root a police procedural, albeit an exceptionally well-executed one.

It all adds up to a film that is at times interesting, and at times funny in spite of itself. But more than all that, it exudes a sense of heart-rending, chest-penetrating sadness.

Without a doubt, stupid, but it's willfully stupid, built in the comic style of "The Hangover" and "Due Date." Better yet, it also is genuinely funny, which is the point.

The result is a movie that is about as riveting as -- well, as your average Robert Novak column.

Without Hardy, The Drop would be in danger of becoming just another crime drama. With him, though, it's something else entirely -- something alive, tightly wound and irresistible.

A refreshingly original take on the comic book adaptation.

Unlike most enforcers in the movies, Jacky isn't just a brainless slab of meat.

Katniss is gritty, she's flinty, she's intimidating -- and she doesn't have to compromise one iota of her femininity for it. And Ross' movie tells her story wonderfully.

Boasting a rock-solid academic architecture, Bhutto is a film bursting at the seams with gravitas.

The engine that really makes Crazy Stupid Love go is the same one that has made Ficarra and Requa's films to this point so appealing: While they thrust their characters into outrageous situations, they always keep things grounded in real, relatable emotion.

With Deepwater Horizon, Berg strikes an unlikely but impressively delicate balance. On one hand, his film honors the men and women killed and injured in the explosion off Louisiana's coast. At the same time, it works just as well as a fast-moving and absorbing disaster drama.

Potiche never becomes funny enough or interesting enough.

Being a fan of the character is not a prerequisite for enjoying the film.

The characters aren't fully formed enough to care about, the humor is baseball-bat dull, and the story - such as it is - is never treated as anything more than a half-hearted means to get the audiences from one spectacular snuffing to the next.

Flaws aside, the journey will be largely worth it for audiences, particularly for fans of the genre.

Even if it doesn't provide all the answers, "The East" asks some pretty darn good questions.

It's the little moments in Farhadi's film that are its most important, speaking every bit as loudly as its big, narrative-driving moments.

A highly enjoyable -- and, for better or for worse, a very Tarantino -- movie.

As with everything in which he appears, Schreiber is one of the best things about the movie.

That's not to say the sobering Take This Waltz is nearly as emotionally agonizing as "Blue Valentine." Still, it's every bit as truthful in its examination of the evolution, and subsequent devolution, of love.

The result is a hoot, as Nelson breathes comic life into the proceedings with an effortless, unselfconscious joie de vivre.

John Wick makes a few feeble attempts at witty repartee, but, in the end, Leitch and Stahelski's film feels like an unintentional parody of itself.

The Way, Way Back is way, way good -- and a welcome breath of fresh air at the summertime box office.

Here's a film that feeds the heart and the soul.

Unfortunately, on the way to delivering that message, it becomes weighted down by its own dreary self-importance.

It does enough things right, and generates enough powerful moments, to make it an effective social-justice drama.

It's not a perfect film. There's still room for Cianfrance to grow as a storyteller. But it is entirely rewarding -- and I, for one, can't wait to see where he takes us next.

A surprisingly uplifting examination of life and loss.

Most real horror fans, however, will likely be left wondering where the heat is.

12 O'Clock Boys is reminiscent of the Ross brothers' far more lyrically shot 2012 film "Tchoupitoulas," which tagged along with three New Orleans boys for a night of exploration and boundary-testing in the French Quarter. The setting is different in Nathan's film, and Nathan doesn't commit as fully as the Rosses did to visual artistry. But there are thematic similarities, to be sure.

Can it be considered a comic masterpiece on the same level as "Animal House," that mother of frat-house comedies? Not by a long shot.

Granted, nobody should expect Black Widow to unseat Spider-Man as the world’s favorite arachnid-inspired superhero. But between Shortland’s storytelling chops, the cast’s charm and Eric Pearson’s solid screenplay, this “Black Widow” has plenty of bite of its own.

The result is a film that is equal parts fluff and tough.

The whole thing is kind of comforting in a damn-the-torpedoes, laugh-at-what-scares-you-most kind of way.

More than anything this is an intelligent film, a satisfying bit of old-school sci-fi suspense.

An enjoyable diversion, a lightweight bit of philosophizing that blends humor with the bittersweet. It won't likely stick in your memory for too terribly long.

The real point of This is The End, however, is to make people laugh -- and it accomplishes that. Often, in fact -- and satisfyingly.

Open-ended and decidedly un-Hollywood, it is faintly dissatisfying, especially coming on the heels of such as engaging and crisply presented story. But it offers movie-goers a wonderful opportunity to roll it all around in their heads and discuss it, even debate it, as they drive back to that cozy little cult compound they call home.

The result is a documentary that is as interesting as it is irresistible.

In addition to being the rare modern romantic comedy that manages to nail both the "romantic" and the "comedy" with equal aplomb, Juliet, Naked is also a wonderful, welcome late-summer fling, the kind that can be enjoyed with no regrets and no apologies before harsh reality resumes once more.

The sort of movie you should go see with someone you love. You should also hold their hand during the movie. And be thankful that that hand is there.

Burger's film would have been better had he ended it about three minutes earlier than he does -- a move that would have given his movie at least a dash of profundity.

Both taut and satisfyingly relevant, it presents a portrait of a compromised elections system -- one that should give the left wing, the right wing and the fringe-dwelling nutjobs something they can all agree on. Namely: We're in deep doo-doo.

There isn't a whole lot of nuance in writer-director Rachid Bouchareb's unapologetically political movie. As such, it doesn't take much brainpower for a viewer to stay a step or two ahead of his plot the entire way.

The result is a film with sporadic outbursts of wackiness, but one that (Oh, Fortuna's Wheel!) never gains traction from a storytelling standpoint.

It is, in its best moments, an interesting exercise for Bullock — and a just-passable diversion for audiences in the mood for something a little more gritty and somber than a repeat airing of It’s a Wonderful Life or some other feel-good holiday standard.

Furious 7, formulaic or not, knows exactly what kind of movie it is. It is a superhero movie without the tights. It is a comic-book franchise without the radioactive spider bite. It is, plain and simple, an automotive "Avengers."

Even if a filmmaker is dealing with familiar themes, when he or she fills in the blanks as sweetly and amiably as writer-director Geremy Gasper does in Patti Cake$, any desire to pick things apart all but vanishes.

Like the work of Callahan, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot is dark, it is irreverent, it is often willfully offensive. But there's also an admirable frankness at work there, an honestly that helps keep things rolling forward -- even when its own wheels occasionally get stuck in the sand.

Rarely is an actress asked to do so much with so little -- and even rarer does that actress succeed as well as Clarkson does.

That character flaw makes for some great shock-fueled laughs in Lewis' film -- Giamatti does full-on comic rage as well as anyone.

An up-tempo and upbeat concert documentary that celebrates, rather than mourns, the last hurrah of a pop-culture touchstone.

Thoroughly, and disappointingly, pedestrian.

Slowly becomes a thoughtful and interesting deconstruction and demythologizing of American celebrity.

An enchantment, plain and simple. And while it won't make many forget Disney's iconic animated version, it certainly joins it as one of the more enjoyable re-tellings of this classic tale.

A satisfyingly fresh take on a character we all only thought we knew well.

Has potential to be fun and meaningful, but it's not exactly a novel idea. In fact, it feels like a literary-minded "Lars and the Real Girl," the 2007 dramatic comedy that starred Ryan Gosling as a man who falls in love with a sex doll, and which coasted along on its charm and smarts.

As with most Ferrell projects, there's nothing profound going on in The Other Guys. It's just a bit of good, stupid fun, had at the expense of an uber-formulaic genre that has long been ripe for the spoofing. But it also works.

The result is a movie that, in its best moments, is delightful. It does lose a significant amount of steam halfway through -- likely due in part to its two hours of running time.

Age of Ultron -- for all the eye candy and mindless entertainment it has to offer -- stays safely within the franchise's established parameters. Here, there are no real surprises.