Nathan Rabin

Chalk pays homage to the kind of teachers students never forget, which makes it all the more perverse that it's so stubbornly, albeit affably, forgettable.

In its third act, this funny, bittersweet, tonally assured coming-of-age story grows unexpectedly poignant as Rolleston comes to realize he doesn't need a super-cool buddy or co-conspirator in his misadventures. He needs a father, and Waititi's stunted man-child is fatally unsuited and unqualified for that role.

The rare popcorn movie that delivers. High-spirited and kinetic, it's the most endearingly goofy low comedy since "How High."

By the time everyone in Carnage has revealed themselves, we're left not with flawed human beings, but with monsters of banality whose company represents a brutal form of punishment in itself.

Consistently clever without ever being funny. The film is so in love with its own carefully calibrated outrageousness that it doesn't bother to give its characters any depth beyond sitcom-level stereotypes.

A fascinating, frustrating documentary.

It’s about just about everything, so while the subject might seem niche it’s actually so broad and expansive the film strains to cover it properly in a trim 82 minutes.

Hokey and convoluted, but as a sticky-hearted fable of redemption, it's surprisingly seductive.

Darts around maniacally before congealing around a touchy-feely message of personal empowerment whose secular humanism and moral relativism is bound to strike fundamentalists of all stripes as downright Satanic.

The female lead in Duplicity calls for the kind of atomic, glow-in-the-dark, Rita Hayworth-in-Gilda sexuality that is most assuredly out of Roberts' range. Angelina Jolie effortlessly conjures up that kind of fire-breathing sexiness. Roberts? Not so much.

Sidney Lumet’s uncomfortably intense adaptation of Edward Lewis Wallant’s novel gets inside Nazerman’s skin and lets the audience see the world as he does: as unspeakably vulgar, corrupt, and oppressive, a nightmare from which he cannot wake up.

The 2005 version refashions the material into a dual vehicle for Chris Rock and Adam Sandler, "Saturday Night Live" alums who specialize in lazy, ramshackle comedies that are just okay enough to not completely suck.

The film executes its bad-taste gags with such delicacy and unexpected emotional truth that they don’t even seem like jokes. This is attributable largely to Hollyman’s fearless, convincing lead performance, which grounds the movie in a believable reality, no matter how crazy things become.

Isn't a particularly well-assembled documentary, but the queasy, hypnotic power of its story and subjects makes its technical shortcomings forgivable.