Mike Scott

This is a film that could -- and should -- catch on. Just be careful nobody follows you home from the theater.

This being a period drama, all the expected visual grandeur is present and accounted for, from Yves Belanger's vibrant cinematography to Odile Dicks-Mireaux's period-authentic costumes to Francois Seguin's production design.

As is the case with "Amy," there's probably no way any of us could ever truly understand Brando, who often seemed to be living on a different planet than that occupied by the rest of us. But with its anguished first-person voice -- and its permeating sense of sadness -- Listen to Me Marlon comes as close as one imagines is possible.

Yes, it is first and foremost a thorough chronicling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but its real value is in its function as an expose on the energy industry, which, with aid and abetting from the federal government, repeatedly places profit above all else, including environmental concerns and human safety.

Berger's film is still far more magical than it is macabre. And so although a black-and-white, foreign-film adaptation of a very familiar tale might, indeed, be a hard sell, audiences who buy into it are in for an undeniably rewarding movie-going experience. In a word: ¡Ole!

It's that zippy dialog more than anything that moves "Django" along and that coaxes such fantastic performances from its actors.

With beautiful, artful images serving to break up the monotony of the film's wealth of talking heads, Surviving Progress is at times as visually striking as it is persuasive.

An easy-going gem that is at times funny, at times heartbreaking, at times scary -- but always, unfailingly engaging.

The result is an intelligent and well-crafted film that works to inspire audiences by finding the humor amid the prevailing bittersweetness of life, and that celebrates the strength of the human spirit with a dose of unbridled and entirely embraceable optimism.

The result is a movie built upon big ideas -- and timely ones, too, delivering a message of understanding in this frustrating age of great intolerance -- but also a great story and, thanks to Lee, a wonderfully satisfying cinematic journey.

It's a grand, colorful adventure, an escapist romp draped in tinsel. And, who knows -- if you're all good little boys and girls this year, perhaps it will also be the first installment in a new DreamWorks holiday tradition.

What McDonald ends up with is a film that serves both as tribute and as cautionary tale, and one that functions well as both.

This isn’t just a film. It’s a cultural treasure – and, given its unlikely journey – a minor miracle.

With its emphasis on relationships and character, Drive can best be described as a thinking man's action film -- or at least, it could if it didn't ultimately feel so oddly slight. As it is, for all of its positives, it functions mostly as a guilty pleasure rather than as a movie that resonates the way, say, "Blue Valentine" does.

A thoroughly and unmistakably modern film so rooted in the now that it's bound to be remembered as a cinematic landmark.

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

It's a film for patient moviegoers. But for those moviegoers, it stands to be a rewarding experience.

It is not uplifting and only marginally inspiring — and even then only as an ode to the amount of pain the human heart can endure. But in the sensitive hands of writer-director Sean Durkin (“Martha Marcy May Marlene”), it is also a well-told, smartly crafted story that can stake a realistic claim to being one of the more moving and compelling sports dramas in recent memory.

Pitt and Hill are fantastic individually, and hilarious when together -- and on a surprisingly engaging script by Aaron Sorkin ("Social Network") and Steve Zaillian ("Schindler's List").

It keeps things light and entertaining. And for $8 admission, that's never a bad investment.

It's an intriguing travelogue, showing parts of Iran that most of us could never see, or would never dare try to see, given that nasty "Death to America" thing.

Part eco-doc, part legal-doc, it is a troubling, real story -- and a well-told one at that -- that is inspiring and infuriating all at once.

It's also a British comedy, with that singularly British way of being clever and deliriously juvenile all at once, a combination that makes for scathing, laugh-out-loud, big-screen satire.

Part "The Great Escape" and part "Lawrence of Arabia, " Weir's epic The Way Back is ambitious in scope, grand in vision and rich with examples of the resilience of the human spirit.

The film is chilled by characters that never really come alive or generate any deep sympathy.

Mank is repeatedly brought back from the brink by its uniformly top-shelf craftsmanship, including some wonderful bits of dialogue.

Best of all, Disney seems to understand the limits of a preschooler's attention span.

Along the way, a raft of experts are featured -- including Times-Picayune outdoor editor Bob Marshall -- speaking bluntly about the cozy relationship between politicians and the oil industry.