Mike Scott

Fruitvale Station is only the first in a string of civil-rights minded movies set to hit theaters this year -- contributing to what could be the most racially conscious award season in recent memory.

Those who connected with "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" last year or the lesser "Quartet" earlier this year likely will find things to appreciate about Williams' film, given its similar senior citizen angle and general sense of niceness and decency.

You can color me unimpressed.

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

It so shamelessly borrows from so many other movies, and then does absolutely nothing to add to them -- nothing to raise the bar, nothing to make it more interesting, and really nothing to make it the least bit appealing.

A great storyteller, however, is one who can entertain an audience in the moment -- but who also gives them something to think about, something for them to take home with them when the story ends, which is exactly what Polley does in Stories We Tell.

It's not a film for everyone. Those who see it, however, will have trouble forgetting it.

Lazy and stupid and unwilling to put forth the effort needed to distinguish itself even from a mediocre Internet video, it all amounts to a forgettable, slapdash bit of comedic nothingness.

Easily the most enjoyable animated film of 2013 so far.

It tickles both funnybones and eyeballs.

What the Cairns brothers have created is something rare for a horror film: Not only does it get the job done without making you want to shower after it's all over, but they've created multi-dimensional characters who inhabit a believable and expansive environment. In so doing, they've also created a bloody good bit of twisted fun.

The chief problem with such gimmick films -- including Maniac -- is that storytelling so often takes a back seat to the gimmick du jour, resulting movie that can be interesting from a technical perspective but not nearly as compelling as one would want.

This is solidly a genre picture, and one that follows all the necessary conventions -- but it's also one that does it all very well. That means lots of big, dumb and loud action -- but it also means good, popcorny, summer fun.

Roenning and Sandberg never dig deeply into the real, underlying motivating force behind Heyerdahl's voyage aboard the Kon-Tiki -- the name of his visually unimpressive but ultimately seaworthy raft -- other than relying on the fact that he wanted to prove his theory correct.

Watching it, one gets the feeling that Coppola knows these vampiric types all too well. What unfolds feels like a cross between "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and "Natural Born Killers," and a film that is far more disapproving than glamorizing of the go-go-go Los Angeles lifestyle -- but fascinating nonetheless.

What Monsters University fails to do, though, is to scare up any real emotion.

This is the kind of movie that is so embraceable that it floats smoothly over those imperfections almost unnoticed.

Not only is the result edifying, but it's also rewarding. And it's a heck of a lot cheaper than a therapy session.

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

So we get no zippy, Tony Stark-flavored one-liners. No comic-relief characters. No nonsense. But that means we also get no up, up and away, either.

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

This is a movie purely for grown-ups, with its enjoyment coming not from its explosions or attacking aliens but from spending time with these characters and savoring its optimistic, "never too late for happiness" message.

A sleight-of-hand heist film that feels like a cross between David Blaine and "Ocean's Eleven," with a little Robin Hood thrown in, it's a ripping bit of fun. If, that is, you let it be.

And therein lies one of the film's most glaring problems. Perhaps that vilification of Big Agro will resonate with farm folk, but it's not the sort of thing that will have many city slickers -- even those who sympathize with the little guys on this issue -- exactly sitting on the edge of their theater seat.

This would be a difficult film even for the charismatic Papa Smith to carry. That he spends nearly the entire movie in a chair doesn't help matters.

Although Epic isn't quite an animated masterpiece -- or as enchanting as the vastly underrated "Guardians" -- it's still a fun, sweet-hearted kid-pleaser that boasts some downright lovely animation.

Just don't think too hard -- or at all, really -- or else you run the risk of realizing that Fast & Furious 6 is running on little more than fumes, with just a shot or two of nitrous.

And so the real question isn't whether director Todd Phillips' third -- and, he insists, the final -- installment in the unabashedly crude, very R-rated comedy trilogy is funny. Of course, it is.