Peter Hartlaub

The end result is an interesting documentary that is as unpolished and gutsy as the championship-caliber high school hoop stars at the other end of his camera.

While it's riveting throughout, The Mist is a bit bloated.

Throughout Zootopia, each bustling frame is packed with so much repeated-viewings-rewarded imagery that the screen must be sampled rather than taken in as a whole.

Has a solid story, which keeps things interesting during the quiet moments when nobody is getting kicked in the head.

Anyone can make a bad movie. But it takes a unique set of circumstances to make a movie so horrible that people are celebrating its badness two decades later.

The end result is flawed, but also funny, heartfelt and inclusive movie making.

Dawson turns out to be a necessary ingredient, propelling the emotional core of the film forward, while somehow convincing the audience that a smart, attractive woman could find a schlub like Dante desirable.

The similarity between the children is the most striking part of the movie.

Instructive as a portrait of activism.

The ego trips and sexuality and driving are all filmed with equal intensity, to the point where the emotions and flesh and crunched metal seem to blend together. The movie's only major problem is that the tension sometimes overwhelms.

Tribe superfan Rapaport doesn't fawn, but he juggles too much, and the ending feels pat. It's still an outstanding effort, and one of the more honest band biopics in recent years.

A tough internal struggle must take place before one can come forward and admit enjoying The Devil's Rejects, a movie so fundamentally horrible that even its creator has to admit he's basically made a 101-minute snuff film.

Undefeated is filled with wonderful narratives, which impressed academy voters enough to garner an Academy Award this week. It's a credit to directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Daniels that the personal stories of the kids and coaches resonate more than the wins and losses.

It’s a good sign for the intelligence of your science fiction movie, when it’s easy to imagine the story working as a stage play with just two actors.

It's one of the least scary films that he's made - but still entertaining, and very, very gory.

Blake Edwards' moody suspense thriller captures San Francisco from unexpected perspectives, starting with a dark drive with a perfect noirish Henry Mancini score across the Bay Bridge, and ending with then-new Candlestick Park. [08 Feb 2015, p.D6]

An unexpected pleasure that’s heartfelt at times and humorous throughout. Yes, the plot is ridiculous and often coarse. Yes, the story is predictable. Yes, a condom stuck to a women’s jacket is played for laughs. But it’s a very steep uphill climb from there.

If you were ever wondering what "Die Hard" would have been like if Neil LaBute directed it as an art film, prepare to enjoy Lovers of Hate.

Patterson's verite style is bettered by the work of cinematographer Eric Koretz, who surrounds the bleak characters with beauty and color.

Crown Heights is a challenging film with long treks between uplifting moments. And there’s no question the film earns every moment of grace.

Fright Night isn't quite a classic vampire movie, but it's refreshingly straightforward and self-deprecating.

Yet it's very funny, a disappointment only to those who expect to see something bold and new.

Hardy's performance takes a little bit of the sting away from seeing Gandolfini perform on a big screen for the last time. As irreplaceable as Gandolfini may be, it's invigorating to see a young actor elevating to similar heights right before your eyes.

Funny, very clever and still packs some cover-your-face bloody thrills that top any "Saw" or "Hostel" movie.

Satan is optional in The Last Exorcism. This is the rare horror film that would have been entertaining even if nothing scary happened.

A clever, heart-pounding thriller, and a welcome return to form for the director.

The film is charming throughout, literally from the beginning of time to the final goal.

It's an entertaining, depressing and ultimately hopeful movie about the times we live in.

If studios insist on remaking classic horror films, this is definitely the way to do it.

The female actors, particularly Hudgens and Ashley Benson, are game for the ride. And Franco is indispensable, bringing humor and pathos to one of the more repulsive cinematic creations in recent memory.

There should be more American family movies like Pete’s Dragon. Since there aren’t, we should get behind this one.

The movie's shockingly tasteless setup is also its secret weapon. Despite many scenes in The Ringer that could individually be viewed as politically incorrect, audiences will be laughing with the athletes most of the time.

Lots of people will leave screenings of this movie in disgust -- and laughter is the last thing they will hear on the way out.

The movie turns from good to great as the layers are peeled away and director Hahn provides an insider's look at the creative epicenter of the studio.

Considering the fact that a young girl is picking her nose on the movie poster, The Croods is surprisingly evolved.

A film that is at its best onstage.

The themes are also dated. There are times when Dredd 3D feels like an escapist companion piece to "The Day After." But there we go again, thinking too much. No sense in ruining such a fine piece of cheap entertainment.

This is a quality movie, carefully disguised as a mediocre one. It’s a chore to get through the beginning, but builds a strong story, and leaves legitimate good feelings on the way out of the theater. Smallfoot is not a “The Lego Movie”-style surprise classic, but it’s better than most.

It's funny, clever and marginally educational.

Captures an artist who has decided not to burn out, but to fade away with dignity.

The biggest strength of the movie is the chemistry between Cumming and Isaac Leyva, a first-time feature film actor with Down syndrome, who does as much to make these scenes work as the experienced actors he's sharing scenes with.

Succeeds in its modest goals of building tension slowly and generating a handful of legitimate scares. A few people in the audience were laughing during the first half of the film. No one was laughing during the long walk out of the theater.

This has to be the first children's film to weave a Grand Theft Auto joke into the script -- and like most things in the movie, it's pretty amusing.

Always watchable, and occasionally great. And that’s probably more than even the most forgiving former Shyamalan fan ever thought they’d see again.

Beyond some network television-quality production values, the sequel to the 2015 film is completely satisfactory family entertainment. It's hard to imagine anyone putting "Goosebumps 2" on their end-of-year worst movie list. And not just because it's hard to imagine anyone even remembering this film beyond next Tuesday.

Perhaps anticipating an older audience, most of the lessons are one-sided, with the old-timers seemingly harming the children while actually saving them.

It's a stoner movie all the way, with much deep thought but little active conflict.

A victory lap of a comedy film taken by a star whose talent continues to propel his career, but doesn’t seem particularly hungry.

There's little illumination.

There are some nice moments and beautiful scenery, but the film is often slow and the dialogue is overwrought.

The filmmaking is unremarkable, but the obsessiveness of the lead character is infectious enough to make this drama passable entertainment.

If you like gore, this is the movie for you.

As the camera follows four campers in a Portland, Ore., rock school for girls, the result is less a journey than a collage of random thoughts, circumstances and events. There's plenty of telling, but not enough showing.

Lego Ninjago is still nowhere near bad “Alvin and the Chipmunks” sequel territory. But at this rate, we may be only one or two movies away.

The sexual tension is thick between the woodland creatures in Alpha and Omega, an animated children's film with a plot that has more in common with "The Blue Lagoon" than "Bambi."

The Providence Effect" is flawed, but it's still a moving film.

Basically, this is a really good movie until the last part, where director and co-writer Darren Lynn Bousman ruins so much so fast that you'll wonder if his actions are deliberate -- or if the studio interfered.

The result is an interesting but often frustrating effort by the director of "The Sea Inside," who proves that ambition and talent aren't enough to ensure a compelling drama.

If you can get past a few swear words, the film's simplicity makes Glory Road a good starting point to get young kids to talk about racism.

Even if it means blowing more than half the budget on animal wranglers, any movie that profiles Saddam Hussein's eldest son and Iraqi psychopath Uday Hussein is incomplete without the presence of his personal zoo. It's like filming a Michael Jackson biopic and leaving out the chimp, Ferris wheel and kid who played "Webster."

Has beautiful scenery and some enjoyable moments but leaves the viewer feeling the need to find the book to get the rest of the story.

Although intriguing to look at, Renaissance -- the latest animated film geared to adult audiences -- is undone by a plot that is ridiculously hard to follow and hackneyed.

Unfortunately, the writing has become so bad that it becomes impossible to keep your head in the game - even as your toes continue to tap to the beat.

Most audience members will probably want more.

A movie for people who value heart and earnestness over technical filmmaking skill, and consider unpredictable plot turns a betrayal.

The picture eventually collapses under the weight of its own gimmickry, but it's still an entertaining distraction for cerebral horror fans who want an appetizer before the B-horror feast that is "Diary of the Dead."

Despite the fact that the movie covers some new cinematic territory, much of the humor feels recycled, mostly from the "Seinfeld" episodes "The Boyfriend" (the one where Jerry has a man crush on Keith Hernandez) and "The Outing."

It's a pleasant and well-intentioned end of summer diversion that doesn't possess the imagination-stoking qualities of a premier children's movie.

Definitely worth your time, if not your $9.50. In other words, wait a few months and definitely check it out as a rental.

The “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series has been, at its core, “Alvin and the Chipmunks” without the rodents.

The movie is too lethargic for its own good, and many of the events and minor characters don't quite ring true.

Reynolds often seems lost for material, whether it’s the restrictions of the PG rating, or deficiencies created by the four screenwriters. By the halfway mark Pikachu might as well be in an “Alvin and the Chipmunks” sequel, resorting to bodily function jokes.

The result isn't a great film, but it's true to the original brutal vision.

Ponderous, repetitive and lacking a single rousing action sequence.

The uneven result is definitely not for prudish moviegoers, definitely funny for everyone else, and even approaches poignancy in one or two scenes.

It's a kids' movie from a better time, with a few small concessions to modern audiences.