Randy Cordova

This is a wonderful movie.

Thanks to the nicely layered characters and a near-perfect mix of action and merriment, the movie feels wonderfully vivid and alive.

The movie just hits the nail on the head: that sense that we're just going through life, trying to navigate it the best way we can in each moment. There are a lot of things to love about Truman — including the dog — but that could be one of its best and biggest attributes.

Once the movie is over and you realize how the filmmaker has turned the tables, you can't help but be amused — and amazed.

People Places Things is filled with that kind of heart-piercing comedy that makes a viewer cringe and laugh at the same time.

Gregg really reaches far, scattering in bits of magical realism and an art-house ending that is simultaneously wondrous and a trifle heavy-handed. The finale may be a bit much for some, but movie buffs will likely give Gregg the benefit of the doubt.

It actually is quite funny. It is also warm and empathetic, though a viewer's reaction to the film might vary depending how they view the subject of assisted suicide.

Director Craig Zobel (he made the creepily effective “Compliance”) lets the story unfold in wonderfully hushed fashion.

The most remarkable thing about Ira Sachs’ richly textured new film Little Men is how it manages to be about so much, and yet so little.

The characters in the film don't shed tears, but you'll be fighting them at certain points. Pain and Glory stays with you, and grows richer with reflection.

It's clear-eyed and remarkably honest, and Macdonald shows a flair for illustrating how Houston's life fits in the bigger picture

As a love letter to a talented and endearing soul, it's hard to fault Love, Gilda. Like its subject, it feels remarkably honest and genuine.

The movie’s best moments are the small ones.

Trapero handles the movie's pacing with a masterful ease.

A scary fun-house ride that expertly blends jittery tension and laugh-out-loud humor.

For all its missteps and machinations, the film mostly achieves its goals. In other words, have some Kleenex ready at the theater.

The charms of the leading ladies are hard to resist, as are their rare moments of clarity and self-awareness. Saunders is a tumbledown hoot while Lumley can generate a laugh with simply a deadpan stare, yet both seem a tad more human this time around. Just a tad.

Den of Thieves isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it's fun, exciting and hard-boiled, and the actors are doing solid work.

Sneider, who keeps the tone starkly unsentimental, manages to stay fairly neutral with the couple. Both characters are wildly flawed, and you can feel your sympathies shift during their knock-down, drag-out fights.

The cast is excellent, anchored by the one-two punch of Colunga and Yañez.

It is high-spirited, buoyant and full of laughs.

Despite the film's predictable nature, it's hard not to become engaged. The performances are excellent and Härö directs with a clean hand, pushing toward a suspenseful, stirring climax that hinges on the team's success as well as Endel's freedom.

If anything, the movie's third act is the only thing that feels a bit a disappointing. The plot is carefully constructed, the performances are rich (both girls are excellent), the characters are believable and a sense of dread grows throughout. Heck, the movie is even great to look at, with its period sheen and slightly muted colors.

The characters are fully rounded, and you wind up emotionally invested in them.

Freeland does a fine job, waiting for her characters to converge in a way that doesn't feel overly forced, though there is a bit of that "Crash" tidiness in how things fall together. Still, the film is moving and human.

Call it a battle-of-the-sexes comedy set in a devout Orthodox community in Jerusalem. But, in its own quiet and friendly way, the film goes deeper than that, looking at how conservative religious views can clash with more moderate ways.

An affectionate documentary.

It's fascinating and unpredictable, so much so that the fate of Irene almost becomes a secondary concern. And thanks to the very clever and very compassionate way that Farhadi has crafted this film, that's not a flaw.

The film could merely coast on the charms of its three stars, but it's smarter and brighter than you'd expect.

But for all its missteps, it's tough not to be engaged. Cruz's full-tilt flamboyance is just too much fun, and her more down-to-earth moments can be devastating.

Strange, surreal and compelling, All I See Is You is a dreamy exploration of a marriage, and what happens when all of its imbalances and insecure quirks are suddenly thrust out in the open. It’s also something of a thriller, and the two worlds don’t mesh in a way that is completely satisfying. Still, it’s riveting to watch everything unfold.

DeCubellis sets up a satisfying, stylish mystery, populated by striking characters and situations.

It’s one part history lesson and one part ode to the rapidly fading quality of refinement. But mostly, it’s a chance to indulge in juicy celebrity stories, catnip for those who love that kind of thing.

White House Down aims to be a low-brow slab of mindless summer fun. Most of the time, it comes pretty close to hitting the bull’s eye.

Breathe is a valentine, but it's a valentine that is quite moving.

For all its ludicrous plot twists and a mystery that falls too conveniently into place, A Simple Favor is just fun. It's light and frothy.

The film is nakedly candid, but Stritch is also a ham who is almost always aware of the camera.

More than simply a look at the conversion therapy, the film examines the bonds between parents and children.

Despite its flaws, Judy can leave you feeling like an emotional wreck by the end.

The buddy comedy Papi Chulo could go wrong in all sorts of ways, so it’s kind of a minor miracle how much it actually gets right. Funny, empathetic and tender, it pretty much sneaks up and catches you off-guard with its sly charms.

While not everything works in Todos Caen — "Everybody Falls" in English — the film is breezy and engaging, with sharp and snappy dialogue. Most importantly, you want to see the two main characters wind up together.

There's comfort food and there are comfort movies. In Lasse Hallstrom's The Hundred-Foot Journey, you get a full helping of both. And guess what? It's all very comforting.

Bird Box is scary, but it also feels very human.

Director Eran Riklis starts the film off with a playful, whimsical tone that grows increasingly darker as things progress. It reflects the life of the movie's protagonist, which finds him facing challenges that would make most people bitter.

Director Michael Dowse (from the underrated Topher Grace comedy "Take Me Home Tonight") fuels the story with atmosphere, with lots of nighttime activity and bustle. He keeps things grounded in reality, though little touches (Chantry imagines her drawings coming to life) add an extra — and, perhaps, excessive — sweetness.

It's bold, nasty and gleefully disturbing, and will stay with you once the lights go up. For horror fans, those are all good things.

Director Susanna White keeps things low-key and absorbing, as the action moves from Marrakesh to London to Paris to Switzerland.

Everybody Loves Somebody doesn’t reinvent the rom-com, but it manages to take the formula, shake it up a bit, and come up with something that feels fresh and inventive.

The Meddler is one of those movies that surprises you by being something it’s not.

The heists are bigger, the illusions are flashier, and the pace is quicker. Even the cast is livelier and more fun. Perhaps best of all, the movie captures the first film’s twisty ability to twirl an audience around, so you’re never entirely sure what’s happened until everything is explained.

Winocour has crafted such a tightly coiled film that once violence finally erupts, it's more of a letdown than an emotional release. But the movie still works, both for its bracing ability to keep a viewer on edge and the sheer force of Schoenaerts' performance.

Gleason is disturbing, brave and compelling, which is exactly what it needs to be.

The movie boasts a tricky structure, but director Jonathan Teplitzky ("Burning Man") does an expert job of sewing together the World War II moments with sequences set in the '80s.

Searching is a thriller with a gimmick. The entire story takes place on screens — we see the action play out on devices like laptops and phones. But the movie never feels gimmicky, which is perhaps the neatest feat achieved by first-time director Aneesh Chaganty.

The dialogue snaps with precision and cringe-worthy humor; at times, you feel like you're having one of those awkward moments in which you watch a couple bicker. The movie is delicately perched between low-key believability and telenovela melodramatics, yet never falls too far to one side.

It's a smart, well-crafted tale that is thoroughly contemporary, yet somewhat old-school in that it doesn't go for cheap shocks. Instead, the emphasis is on mood, atmosphere and some sharply etched characterizations.

The movie is fascinating when it looks at the mechanics of Big Bird, which are physically challenging.

One reason the movie works so well: Writer-director Malcolm D. Lee returns from the original, so the characters feel true to the first film. Secondly, most of the cast is back, and they have the kind of comfortable chemistry you can’t fake. It’s easy to believe these people have a history together.

This “Mamma Mia” takes a lot of the original’s qualities and then amplifies them to the nth degree. It’s bigger and crazier, and the emotions actually seem to run a bit deeper at times.

It's mindless entertainment with enough thrills and chuckles to make the time pass painlessly. Just don't examine anything too closely.

You'll admire it and maybe even be astonished by its twisty nature, but that very twistiness can also feel more like a filmmaker showing off rather than something that emotionally engages a viewer.

Although it won’t win any points for originality, it is a fast-moving little chiller filled with creepy atmosphere and convincing performances.

When it’s good, Doctor Sleep is mighty good.

There are some poignant moments in the movie's latter half, as well as a couple of genuine laughs. If it never achieves the heft it wants, it at least manages a sitcommy kind of charm, like an extended episode of "The Golden Girls." Perhaps more importantly, it gives Rowlands a lead role, which is never a bad thing.

If you had to update the film for the Instagram generation, you could do a lot worse than what director Shana Feste (“Country Strong”) has come up with. She has crafted a stylish, evocative journey into overheated-teenager territory. For a good chunk of the time, it works.

Ultimately, Anthropoid is quite gripping, even if it feels like two movies in one.

For all its vivid period atmosphere and striking scenes, there is a meandering quality that keeps the film from being truly involving. It's not the lack of sentiment, but perhaps the absence of any sort of momentum.

Perhaps because the bar was set so low, Mother’s Day turns out to be surprisingly watchable.

Roth's tale is fairly twisty, as the behavior of the women grows increasingly violent and more outrageous. The two are not simply nut jobs; Roth presents them as a form of avenging angels who target philandering husbands. That's an interesting premise, but the movie lacks the depth or layers to make that truly compelling.

Gerard Butler boasts an engaging screen presence that can make even junky movies fun. Maybe it’s the blustery swagger or his jokey attitude that essentially screams, “I’m not taking any of this too seriously.” Either way, it works, especially in Angel Has Fallen.

It’s a genial, pleasant farce that grows more enjoyable once it calms down and stops being so frantic.

It’s not that this slight, good-natured comedy is going to set the world on fire. But the movie boasts an understated sweetness, largely fueled by Camil’s movie-star charms.

The no-holds-barred comedy generally works, largely thanks to a game cast that plunges into the raunchy material with gleeful abandon.

Monster Party is a twisted, grisly little shocker that isn’t afraid to grab you by the guts — or to show you a man’s guts cascading to the floor. It’s that kind of movie. It’s also pretty effective and rather fun, if you have the stomach for this sort of thing.

Writer-director Noah Buschel (he was behind the Corey Stoll boxing drama “Glass Chin”) has crafted an odd little film that is sometimes compelling, sometimes maddening.

Director Enrique Begné, who helmed this year's winsome "Busco Novio Para mi Mujer," directs with an emphasis on action over comedy. Sometimes that feels misplaced; the stretches without laughs grow increasingly longer as the plot moves forward. But he keeps things enjoyably fast-paced, so it's hard to complain too much.

Above and Beyond is a straightforward, rah-rah documentary.

The film feels overlong and a bit repetitious, but it’s obviously a complex subject that deserves a thought-out treatment.

Schull's quietly commanding performance is a stunning piece of acting, in which the character seems to reveal new layers every time she's on screen.

There are quite a few genuine laughs along the way. Director Ken Marino has a firm hand with big, silly slapstick, but he also knows how to make the most of dialogue.

Watching unpleasant characters onscreen isn't always a fun experience, so casting Reeves and Ryder is genius. They're both full-on movie stars: charismatic, wildly photogenic, the whole nine yards. But they're also good actors, and they make these two neurotic misanthropes quite engaging.

Writers and directors Bob Fisher and Rob Greenberg don't do anything particularly clever or inspired, but they display a knack for snappy dialogue and draw solid work from the cast. It's enjoyable watching Leonardo and Kate draw closer together, and the film's emotional moments strike the right notes.

There is a staginess to the action that creates a certain distance between the film and viewers (an opening sequence almost feels like like you're watching a play). That's another Tarantino-style touch. However, you never feel too disconnected, thanks to the good work from the cast.

The film is often moving, and some of the performances have a depth and naturalness. But it moves at a pace that can be maddeningly slow and is often long-winded, two traits that stop the momentum dead at times.

As mysteries go, writer-director Aaron Katz hasn't really created an effective one. Gemini is entertaining, but Jill isn't much of a detective, and the big puzzle at the center of the film just sort of falls together. You never completely check out of the plot, but don't feel fully invested, either.

Even if you've never watched a whole episode of "Dora the Explorer," you'd have to be a grinch not to be slightly charmed by the whole thing.

Granted, all the fine elements don't add up to make the deepest or most compelling film. Instead, it's a series of self-contained scenes that don't always hang together as a whole. But like a good hotel, there are enough comforts to make the stay worthwhile.

Weinstein normally directs documentaries, and Menashe has a fly-on-the-wall feel at times, particularly in the warmly believable interplay between father and son.

One is left wanting to know more about Mr. Rogers, but the film reduces him to little more than a kind of superhero family therapist.

The movie, like Jackie, loosens up a bit, and her relationship with Ian adds a nice bit of warmth. Hunt directs the film, and at times its tonal shifts are a bit jarring.

Newbie director Aleksander Bach handles the project with a competent precision. The film doesn’t rise above the genre and the plot is muddled, but he pulls off the basic elements with a distinctly chilly European style.

It's sometimes compelling, sometimes frustrating, and usually chaotic.

It feels like a filmmaker’s exercise rather than an involving motion picture. Although you may never be bored with All Is Lost, you are rarely fully engaged.

Just when you're ready to throw in the towel, Plummer does something that keeps you going; maybe it's the quietly affecting way Jack turns up the twinkly charm as age and illness are starting to take things away. Then there's Farmiga's ability to mine a laugh out of angst and yet remain human, and MacDougall's sly, sleepy charm.

The movie makes some observations about the worth of human life — the title refers to the monetary value put on the life of the injured waiter — and the economic class system, but they're not terribly interesting or surprising.

The makers of Wish Upon must love the “Final Destination” films, because they perfectly mimic the style, which is alternately nerve-wracking and slightly silly.

Despite all its noble qualities, the movie boasts a stiffness that keeps it from ever feeling fully alive.

Although everything here works for the most part, there is also a definite lack of oomph as the movie pushes toward the inevitable climax.