Rene Rodriguez

Will Noah anger some rigid purists and scholars because of the liberties it takes? Perhaps. But the point to take home is the message the movie leaves you with, which works regardless of your faith (or lack thereof). Humans are inherently flawed. How we deal with those defects is what truly matters.

That’s one of the great accomplishments of Ascher’s film: Intercutting his interviews with fictional recreations of what the subjects are describing allows you to see a version of what they saw, and you don’t need to believe any of it for The Nightmare to give you a major case of the creeps.

Whip It is completely predictable from the first frame. It also is ridiculously, utterly entertaining.

Weiner tells a different story — a riveting portrait of a man so consumed by hubris and confidence that he is utterly blind to his failings.

The graphic sex scenes radiate an uncommon heat, and Im can pull off a hugely effective shock when he wants to.

Primer is obviously not for all tastes, but if it connects with you, prepare to be obsessed.

This is a comedy about imbeciles who fall blindly in love with a concept, without giving any thought to what they are doing. And although some of them eventually have a moment of self-realization, it arrives, sadly, much too late.

A sparkling exercise in movie cool.

The tone and mood of Shutter Island are different on the screen from on the page -- the shadows darker than you imagined, the violence more ghastly, the blood redder.

Lacks emotional depth and sweep -- but the movie still delivers the type of rousing, large-scale adventure that marked the best films of its kind

Most contemporary sci-fi movies come on with all CGI-guns blazing, trying to blow the roof off the theater. Moon settles for trying to blow your mind instead.

I can't imagine anyone seeing Once and not instantly falling in love with it.

The more you know about the 1912 tragedy, the more you will appreciate the sights of Ghosts of the Abyss.

The actors all suffer beautifully, but their pain doesn’t register: It’s all affectations and red-rimmed eyes.

Has that formulaic, cookie-cutter feel typical of many Disney toons. The premise is inspired, but the follow-through is merely adequate.

The movie is at its best when it flirts with becoming a meta-sequel — a film whose characters know they’ve been in a movie called “Trainspotting.”

This Is the End is a marvelously sustained, high-wire goof – a movie so nutty and daring, so crazy and out-there, that it feels like a low-budget independent except with big stars and a sizable budget.

Despite the actors' admirable efforts, everyone in The Door in the Floor is too affected, too fancifully written, to come off as anything other than conceits.

Unapologetically slanted -- and often hilarious.

You have never seen a movie quite like this one.

Has a crackling, almost farcical pace, even though its subject matter could not be more serious or complex.

Gibney even convinced Armstrong to sit down for one final interview in May. In it, he comes off as somewhat contrite but also victimized, as if he were being single out for something everyone does.

Van Sant's refusal to delve into his subject in anything but an abstract way renders the movie pointless and frustrating -- a lyrical, lovely tone poem, signifying little.

Often makes for a compelling comedy-drama about family ties. It's only when the cancer takes center stage that the movie feels like a wash.

The same premise could have been turned into a satirical comedy, but Better Luck Tomorrow opts for a more corrosive, challenging route, one whose troubling, morally ambiguous ending offers no easy resolution.

Even though The Business of Strangers loses its nerve in the third act -- you'll wish Stettner had dared to push things further.

Washes over you with an enjoyable gloss, and it might even make you cry a little, but it evaporates in memory like fairy dust.

Steven Soderbergh has been telling interviewers that he's planning to take a sabbatical from filmmaking because he has lost his inspiration. His lack of interest is palpable in Haywire, a rote exercise in action filmmaking that is sleek and polished and instantly evaporates from memory.

After a while, hearing Martin say ''Zee area eez zecure!'' doesn't cut it any longer, and that's pretty much all The Pink Panther has to offer.

There's a fine little western lurking inside Open Range: Too bad it gets drowned out by director Kevin Costner's pretentiousness. Almost everything in the movie feels inflated, overblown, drawn out.

For all its peripatetic energy, Limitless still winds up with the same-old blazing guns and wanton destruction of property. No matter how smart you may be, Hollywood will figure out a way to dumb you down.

Gosling continues to prove he may the best actor of his generation. His performance in The Ides of March, following his comedic turn in "Crazy, Stupid Love" and his portrayal of a stoic loner in "Drive," proves this actor is capable of practically anything.

Despite moments of intense suspense and glints of bizarre horror, Tom at the Farm is ultimately a psychological thriller.

Kline salvages the picture with his dynamic, utterly unpredictable performance -- the work of a highly skilled comedian thrilled by the opportunity to go nuts once again.

There's no denying the intelligence at work here, or Braff's skill at weaving off-the-wall humor and sight gags into a story that, at heart, is profoundly sad.

Unlike Pedro Almódovar's "What Have I Done To Deserve This?," which focused on a similarly harried wife and mother who reached her breaking point, Alice's House does not leaven its heroine's plight with dark humor. Nor does it offer any easy escape route.

Here is a film in which nothing is at stake: Cars crash into each other head-on at high speeds, vehicles sail off cliffs and tumble down rocky mountainsides, people jump out of buildings and fall six stories to the ground, then characters just dust themselves off and continue as if nothing had happened. Even Wile E. Coyote wasn't this resilient.

The movie ultimately plays as a dead-on snapshot of the much-maligned post-Baby Boomer generation. In 10 years, Reality Bites might seem dated and irrelevant. Right now, it feels remarkably astute. [18 Feb 1994, p.G5]

The performances are all terrific - Stillman gets his actors to latch onto his absurdist vibe, then gives them wonderfully rich dialogue to play with.

The screenplay is fiendish, clever and airtight: Like a magician, Coimbra uses sleight-of-hand, but he never cheats, and the film is even more engaging on second viewing, when you really know what’s going on before your eyes.

Superbad never forgets the lesson one learns when looking back on one's awkward youth: Cool isn't just where society dictates; it is also where you find it.

With a steely, unblinking resolve, Downfall stares into the abyss, but does not pretend to comprehend it.

Nowhere Boy is great at depicting the birth of Lennon's love for his art.

The latest Christmas-tree movie from director Wes Anderson, who makes pictures so carefully appointed and decorated, they sometimes feel like they're made to be looked at instead of watched.

For the story of a man who made his mark on pop culture by being a likable buffoon, the irritatingly arch Confessions of a Dangerous Mind takes itself way too seriously.

If Soderbergh set out to make a galvanizing conversation piece, he has certainly succeeded. But this cold, occasionally dull movie practically defies you to embrace it.

As a piece of storytelling, Fight Club is a bit of a dud: It's a good 15 minutes too long, and the tension doesn't build the way you wish it would.

This is an intentionally fanciful, gossamer movie, extremely personal and heartfelt, influenced in equal parts by Michelangelo Antonioni (although never so elusive) and Gus Van Sant (just not quite so self-conscious).

A very complicated movie. It is also pretty wonderful.

Condon and screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher reward your patience by bringing the threads together in a beautiful, stirring manner that celebrates the genius of the literary icon while also honoring the man McKellen is playing.

The best stuff comes early in Ruby Sparks, which was written by Kazan (granddaughter of Elia) and directed by the husband and wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine).

Director Kim Jee-woon's astonishing story of a serial killer who picks the wrong man's fiancée to murder, is so extreme and intense that it had to be trimmed down in its native country before it was released to theaters. We lucky westerners get to see it in all its hair-raising, stomach-churning glory, and that's a wonderful thing.

One of the scariest films I've seen in ages, although I cannot in all honesty explain exactly what the movie is about.

A straightforward, earnest, sentimental picture: It's all the things you'd think a Sept. 11 movie directed by Oliver Stone would never be.

The film is filled with scenes about scrappy, cut-and-paste filmmaking, and the movie-within-a-movie that drives the plot also ends up as the centerpiece of the hugely affecting final scenes.

Engaging and enjoyable.

The excellent performances by the three leads, and the filmmakers' refusal to sugarcoat reality, elevate the film far beyond after-school special territory into something far more lasting.

This is easily the funniest of the Terminator movies (although not, it should be stressed, the lightest). It is also the shortest and most compact.

The movie could have used a few more scenes focusing on Child at work in the kitchen -- a few more scenes with Child doing anything, really.

Whedon knows this is all nonsense, but it can be great fun, too. Age of Ultron is all rush and sensation with little substance. But what a feeling.

Evans – always a reliably dynamic and vivacious screen presence – can't do much to bring the character to life. As far as superheroes go, Cap remains a bit of a stiff.

After starring in a string of heavy dramas, Andy Garcia lightens up and goes for the funny in City Island, a breezy comedy that fits the actor like a güayabera.

It's a glossy, somewhat condescending comedy, with all the substance of a cone of soft vanilla ice cream.

If watching cartoon characters spout four-letter words is your thing, this might well be the greatest movie ever made.

Isn't exactly original: This is basically "Heathers" for a new generation, its satirical edges dulled, if still sharp enough to sting.

Diary of the Dead is at its best when Romero is just goofing off, like when he shows us home video footage of a children's birthday party.

War is hell, and so are bad movies about war.

Campos, a cinematic disciple of Stanley Kubrick and latter-period Gus Van Sant, opts to let the movie do the talking for him. The fact that this is a film of few words only adds to its hypnotic, relentless pull.

It's a clammy, depressing movie, but not a very illuminating one.

There's a streak of compassion in Dark Horse, a sincere empathy for a thoroughly detestable man, that is as surprising as anything in Solondz's earlier, more transgressive work.

At the very least, Corman would have remembered to make the movie fun.

For a good hour, Seven Psychopaths is lively, bloody fun. Then the yawning starts.

The movie is sloppy and scattershot, and proud of it. It wears its slipshod, anything-for-a-laugh structure like a badge of honor: Smith is nothing if not self-deprecating.

In its best moments, the movie works much like an inspired episode of The Twilight Zone, raising provocative What if? questions about human nature that linger long after the end credits. [30 Aug 1996, p.5G]

A whimsical and light-hearted spin on a serious story of corporate whistleblowing.

How can a movie as overstuffed with funny people as The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard be so listless and leaden?

Don Jon is nominally a love triangle between a woman, a man and his laptop, but the movie is much more thoughtful and substantial than that, and it takes a compassionate and humane approach to all of its characters, even when they’re at their most despicable.

As the movie breathlessly cuts back and forth from a boisterous wedding celebration to a high-stakes soccer match, even the grumpy cynics will have been won over.

Nolan, who has become an assured, stylish filmmaker in the span of only a few films, keeps the complicated plot spinning.

The movie is at its best when Spurlock dives deep into his subject, interviewing directors such as J.J. Abrams and Quentin Tarantino.

Don't let your brain interfere with your heart, says Albert Einstein -- yes, that Albert Einstein -- in I.Q., neatly summing up the message of this sprightly romantic comedy. It's a movie with an inventive premise that works better than you'd think. [24 Dec 1994, p.J3]

Truth should have felt like a tragedy, a story about a monumental but fascinating failure of journalism, the flip side to the upcoming Spotlight, about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of sexual abuse within the Catholic church. Instead, Truth wants to make your blood boil. It succeeds — but not in the way the filmmakers intended.

As formidable as Kingsley is, Elegy wouldn't work if his object of obsession wasn't worthy of him.

A joyful romp, devoid of the tiresome pop-culture references.

Director Pablo Trapero ( Lion's Den), like so many contemporary Argentine filmmakers, reserves the bulk of his wrath for a country whose authorities and judicial systems have been so grossly corrupt there appears to be no way of correcting them.

Ferrell's shtick never grows tiresome, because it's constantly changing.

An uncommonly perceptive and finely shaded character drama.

Seductive, ultimately frustrating.

Parkland is wildly uneven, although compulsively watchable.

You start out fearing Don’t Breathe, but by the end you’re laughing at it — and the humor is not intentional.

It is almost completely devoid of any trace of humor. It radiates a luxurious, all-encompassing mopeyness.

For 2 1/2 hours, Strange Days swirls and blooms its way into your head, sounds and colors popping like fireworks, a stream of ideas flowing steadily beneath the dazzle. It's a light show for the mind, a kaleidoscope of exhilarating action, social commentary and post-modern science fiction -- yet when it's all over, you can't help but think, "Is that it?" [13 Oct 1995, p.5G]

The Edge was written by playwright/filmmaker David Mamet and directed by Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, Mulholland Falls). Both excel at dissecting that complicated beast known as male angst, but both fall flat with this confused misfire that plays as a banal stranded-in-the-wild adventure for grown-ups. [26 Sep 1997, p.4G]

Bitter, brittle, condescending and petty, the titular character of Margot at the Wedding, fabulously played by Nicole Kidman, is a successful short story writer who resents other people's happiness.

Kick-Ass reminds you of the great pleasures and thrills of superhero comics -- then turns everything you ever learned from comic books upside down.

If The Tailor of Panama doesn't quite gel, the attempt is still worth savoring.

It's impossible to watch this beautifully chaotic, excessive movie impassively. You'll either embrace what Luhrmann has done here or run out of the theater, holding your head.

This is more of a thinking man's action flick -- a small, intense film made on a giant canvas that finds Mann experimenting with and pushing at the boundaries of mainstream filmmaking.

One of the chief pleasures of Paris, Je T'aime -- is seeing how each filmmaker adheres to their assignment of making a movie about love in Paris but still comes up with a distinctly personal work that bears their artistic sensibilities.

Jackson has become too distracted by his digital toys to give his characters the same weight and importance he used in the Rings trilogy.

Part of the reason The Amazing Spider-Man feels so fresh and invigorating is that its story is so simple - anyone remember exactly what the deal was with Loki and that cube? - and its protagonist so relatable.

The best moments in director David Koepp's slight, dull movie are the scenes in which bike messenger Wilee pauses at busy intersections to figure out the path of least obstruction.

By the time the film's climactic 15 minutes rolled around, viewers at a preview were laughing as if they were watching "Knocked Up." For a horror picture, such a reaction is the equivalent of a stake through the heart.

What's lacking is the simplicity that made the original.

Carries a whiff of disappointment: There's little here Mamet hasn't done before, and done better.

There are precious few moments in Elf when Ferrell doesn't manage to at least get a smile out of you. Considering how cloying the movie might have turned out without him, that's a huge gift all its own.

Its stop-and-start feel keeps you from ever getting fully absorbed in the story.

The performances in Bandslam are uniformly strong -- good enough to make you wish this bunch of charismatic, talented kids had been given better material.

Big and fast and silly, but it's never dumb, and it's certainly never boring, either. The summer movie onslaught has begun on a high note.

You’re Next is built on such an enormous pile of guff, it’s practically insulting.

The movie is oddly impersonal - you remember the concept more than the story - and feels like something that was made simply for the opportunity to pair Streep and Jones for the first time.

There are no "Crying Game" switcharoos or "Sixth Sense" plot twists in store here. But knowing too much about Catfish beforehand ruins the experience.

For horror fans, Halloween came a little later than usual this year, but it was worth the wait.

Unfortunately, Life After Beth starts feeling more conventional the wilder and darker it gets, and the laughs become more sparse as the movie winds to its bizarre and but unsatisfying conclusion.

The good news about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first in a planned series of stand-alone movies set in the “Star Wars” universe, is that the last half-hour of the film is a sustained stretch of rousing action, indelible images and cliffhanger thrills. It’s pop sci-fi bliss...The bad news about Rogue One is that getting to the good stuff is a slog — and the movie is pretty long.

This is a movie best seen cold.

Befitting a story about marriage, adultery and murder, all the characters in Married Life are constantly lying to each other. Sometimes they even lie to the audience.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is creaky and sentimental and schmaltzy. The movie lacks any of the unhinged qualities of Daniels’ previous films (The Paperboy, Precious, Shadowboxer).

The movie tends to lapse into soapy melodrama and heavy-handed preaching whenever possible, and the feel-good ending that appears out of nowhere essentially negates a lot of what has preceded it, adding one more moral to a movie already weighed down by life lessons.

It's a very busy movie, designed to appeal to short attention spans, and it leaves you feeling full, but not satisfied, because it's missing the most important ingredient of all: genuine magic.

One of the most pessimistic movies about love Hollywood has ever made, a star-studded, glossy anti-date movie.

Great actors can do more than carry a movie on the strength of their performances: They can also elevate it to a height it does not necessarily merit, and for much of In the Valley of Elah, Tommy Lee Jones does exactly that.

Owing to a supremely engaging cast, The Client turns out to be stand-up Hollywood entertainment. Grisham's uninspired storyline can't ruin the efforts of two of the industry's best actors at the top of their form. [20 July 1994, p.E2]

Without a hint of sanctimony, it is a love story as much about soul as heart.

Today, you can see it for yourself and bask in all its insane glory.

Circumstance, the story of the budding romance between two high school girls, is unlike any adolescent love story you've ever seen: This one takes place in Tehran.

This is speculative, heady stuff, far removed from traditional Hollywood summer entertainment, which alone will earn A.I. a devoted following.

Feels like a cobbled collection of ideas and conceits rather than a stand-alone story.

The Runaways ultimately feels too lethargic and conventional for the wild story it tells.

Return to Ithaca is a bracing and surprisingly vocal expression of angst and frustration by people torn between love for their country and the harsh letdown that resulted from their loyalty.

One of the chief pleasures of My Week with Marilyn - which should not be approached as anything other than fluffy entertainment - is watching Williams bring to life Monroe's inner demons and her movie-star allure with equal aplomb. By the time the film's book-ending closing musical number comes around (That Old Black Magic), the illusion is astounding and complete.

The movie's attempts at zaniness are flat, almost embarrassing.

The script was kept under unusually tight wraps during filming, but the biggest surprise in the picture is how talky the whole enterprise is. Particularly deadly is a long stretch in mid-film where the heroes walk through caves, talk about what they're seeing, get captured and talk with their captors, escape and talk some more.

Grim, relentless and immensely satisfying, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 sends out the dystopian sci-fi franchise on a feel-bad high. Readers of Suzanne Collins’ source novel, who already know what’s coming, will be pleased by the movie’s merciless fidelity to the source material (or perhaps, considering the book is the least popular in the trilogy, will just be annoyed all over again).

Likable but uneven comedy by writer-directors Glenn Ficara and John Requa (Bad Santa).

The directors complied and made some trims, which helps explain why the film works better as a thrilling but superficial celebration of two incredible athletes instead of a personal portrait of two world-famous women who continue to make sports history.

For all its cross-cultural hijinks, Japanese Story winds up as a tale about the fragility of human beings and the lasting strength of the bonds we form during times of crisis.

A crackling crime drama assembled from a scrap heap of hoary cliches, Takers proves that everything old can sometimes really be new again.

Saving Mr. Banks is two movies crammed into one cumbersome, overlong drama.

An uncommonly polished and sophisticated superhero movie.

Monsters University feels half-hearted and lazy, like they weren’t even trying. At least show a little effort, guys.

A high-tech freak show, a gallery of grotesqueries that are fascinating and repellent.

It's pure popcorn entertainment, and it's pure formula, too: It's already been described, somewhat derisively, as Home Alone for grown-ups, which is not entirely off the mark.

Linklater's Bears are even scrappier, fouler and worse-behaved than their 1976 counterparts.

This is a big, audacious stunt of a movie -- pointless, perhaps, but incredibly fun to play with.

Wild Grass, which employs a wry, self-deprecating voice-over narrator and some highly stylish camerawork, feels like a comic thriller building into a kind of strange romance.

The volume is pitched high, perhaps so you won't notice how lackadaisically structured the picture is. Get Him to the Greek isn't really a story but a collection of comic set pieces.

Despite the movie's bouncy ebullience (courtesy of a terrific period soundtrack) and dashes of fantasy, the film quickly becomes an endurance test.

Achingly beautiful and visually transfixing, Samsara offers a transporting vacation from the usual multiplex fare. It's a movie to get lost in.

What a grand and dazzling route Coppola takes.

Through Tautou's performance, Coco Before Chanel reveals the formation of an artist.

There's never a question which side the movie is rooting for during the trial, and the light tone trivializes what might have been a much more intriguing exploration of the American legal system.

Buoyed by strong performances from Perez and Miami-resident Milian, Washington Heights overcomes the familiarity of its premise through its passion and conviction.

Despite its flaws, Sleepy Hollow stays with you, the dark beauty of its images powerful enough to invade your dreams.

Turns out to be far more interesting for grown-ups (the movie is probably too long, and too much, for little kids anyway).

It’s the cinematic equivalent of a kid playing with his toys and smashing action figures together, except del Toro does it with more grace and imagination than most. There are long sequences in this movie that merit that most overused of terms, “awesome.”

Best of all, L'Auberge Espagnol uses Barcelona as a veritable character, a picturesque, vivacious place where, as one character puts it, ''No one eats before 10 p.m."

We Were Soldiers feels strangely irrelevant -- a well-acted, well-crafted and inconsequential visit to woefully familiar territory.

A lot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One feels like slushy set-up for the climactic all-out battle due in theaters next summer. The movie doesn't even give us the expected cliffhanger ending, although I'd be lying if I said I'm not eager to see how everything turns out.

Down in the Valley becomes increasingly harder to believe as it goes along, with people behaving in ways that strain credibility.

The action, which bookends the movie, is atrocious, defying all laws of gravity and physics and machine gun-edited into incomprehensible lunacy.

Even in the 21st century, public discussions of homosexuality still make a lot of people awfully jittery. With passion and candor, Outrage argues that everyone needs to just get over it.

After an exciting high-speed car chase reminiscent of the Mad Max pictures, The Rover settles into a two-character drama between Eric and Rey, but Pearce is so one-note that their relationship is never engaging.

Gere has never been better cast.

For all its Buck Rogers-style derring-do, gorgeous vistas of an Art Deco New York and sepia-toned cinematography, Sky Captain is a static, uninvolving experience.

As slight as the picture is, though, its hero is an indelible creation.

Traitor is "Syriana" for dummies, a globe-hopping, multi-character look at the war between America and Islamic terrorists that keeps things as relatively simple as an episode of 24. Not that there's anything wrong with that: 24 is a really good show. But it doesn't pretend to be something it's not, either.

Despite the efforts of the cast (Byrne and Murphy are particularly good), you rarely feel a thing for any of them, but I don't think you're really supposed to, anyway. The characters in Sunshine tackle thorny ethical questions and debate the sanctity of life on their way to the sun, but the movie is really about the voyage, not the voyagers. Enjoy the sights.

Nowhere near as insightful as Boyz N the Hood, nor as uncompromisingly truthful as Colors, South Central still has some worthy things to say. But the film continually resorts to stock situations to express them. [22 Oct 1992, p.F8]

Mother and Child is good when it takes a harsh, unsparing look at lament and the burdens we carry throughout our lives. Then it goes for your tear ducts, and we're suddenly stranded in Lifetime TV territory.

It's the cinematic equivalent of a good page-turner, and even if it's nonsense, its claws dig surprisingly deep.

14-year-old Noah Fleiss gives a performance that's every bit as astonishing as Haley Joel Osment's work in "The Sixth Sense."

For most of its running time, Wes Craven's New Nightmare is simply a s-l-o-w- tease to a paradoxical, reality-bending shockfest that never materializes. [14 Oct 1994, p.G9]

After a promising start, this ambitious but ultimately clunky and unwieldy movie dissolves into a pile of ideas in dire need of dramatization.

It's all pretty hoary stuff, but you'll be willing to overlook most of it because the premise is so compellingly delivered, with flashy sturm und drang, by director Wolfgang Petersen. [10 Mar 1995, P.5G]

The most fascinating aspect of The Imposter, though, is why the missing boy's family believed his story.

The script, which Harron co-wrote with Guinevere Turner, presents a disappointingly superficial portrait of Page as a person.

An insufferably artsy, pretentious work, the sort of picture that gives art films a bad name.

It's only near the end, when Romanek sets out to release the tremendous tension he's built up, that One Hour Photo loses its bearings.

The whole of Prometheus - which was written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, and rips off everything from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "Event Horizon" - feels derivative and passé: The film is a shiny, high-tech relic.

Canner is able to keep Orgasm Inc. trained on its eponymous theme with a brisk pace and precise detail that will be equally illuminating to men and women.

You expect something far different and better than the same-old.

The movie is essentially a vehicle for Smith, but the actor more than rises to the challenge. Rarely has attaining the American Dream seemed so impossible or daunting or so intensely, profoundly satisfying.

For about an hour or so, 1408 has you thinking you're watching The Next Great Horror Movie: That's how good the first half of this adaptation of Stephen King's short story about a haunted hotel room is.

Repetitious, uneventful and, in the end, dull.

Clearly, this unabashedly silly movie, written by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, is the work of people with a grasp of the stream-of-consciousness creativity that a few bong hits can impart.

There's an irrelevance to the movie that the filmmakers, hard as they try, can't quite shake - something awfully square about the picture: It would have played a lot better a decade ago.

Although not quite as over-the-top visually as his Oscar-winning The Great Beauty, Youth is still spectacular, filled with tableaux (a group of people sweating silently inside a sauna, a naked man and his prostitute inside a hotel room) that juxtapose the desires and personalities of young and old without dialogue.

Despite some admittedly intense sequences and a lean, spare script, The Hills Have Eyes hasn't aged all that well, particularly the business with the cannibals, who are more likely to inspire laughter from modern viewers than anything else. [31 Oct 2003, p.22G]

With Kaboom, Araki takes a huge step backward from the maturity and restraint he demonstrated in 2004's "Mysterious Skin," his best and most-assured film to date.

Has the feverish intensity of a bad dream, leavened with a subversive sense of humor that is both sophisticated and cracked.

The movie is polished, well-acted and atmospheric, but still pure formula, and not very scary, either.

Egregiously vulgar satire on terrorism, global politics and Hollywood action movies gets an immeasurable boost from its wonderfully designed, old-school string puppets.

Leoni's presence adds a jolt of energy to a movie that, while not necessarily worth going out of your way for, turns out to be a lot more clever than it initially appears.

There are a few surprises lurking in Cloverfield, and director Matt Reeves has an uncanny ability to time his jolts and scare when you least expect it.

Fury aims for history, and the contrived resolution shows a timidity by Ayer that is uncharacteristic of his previous work. Still, the action sequences, which use actual vintage tanks and little CGI, are pretty extraordinary and, at times, incredibly gruesome. War is hell. That’s entertainment, folks.

The filmmakers capture enough of the book's essence -- and the power of its knockout, transcendent ending -- to more than justify the movie's existence.

This is a thriller that embraces stillness and silence where others prefer noise and bombast. It thrives on the hush before the explosion instead of its aftermath, and it's that eerie sense of expectation that gives the film its thick aura of suspense.

Considering the seedy nature of the adult film industry and the sad fates of many of its stars, Inside Deep Throat is surprisingly light on tragedy.

The movie is filled with wonderful music, memorable characters and rich, quotable dialogue. But what makes the picture really soar is the way it reminds you what it feels like to fall in love -- and the endless, countless possibilities a new romance brings.

Dark, grim and exciting entertainment.

Duigan instead relies on a light, whimsical touch, with just a dab of fantasy and much beautiful imagery. The result has the feel and texture of a bewitching, richly gratifying dream. [11 March 1994, p.5]

Like binging on a bottomless box of truffles: Tastes good and sweet at first, but after a while, you start feeling a little green.

It's Amy Poehler and Will Arnett, as a rival brother-sister skating team who are a little too intimate for comfort, who seem to be giving it their all. If only the movie had been about them.

It's the kind of movie for which the phrase ''you've never seen anything like it before'' was invented. The question is whether anyone would want to.

No atmosphere, no tension -- nothing but Costner, flailing away. It's a buggy drag.

Yes, Pineapple Express is exceedingly crude, but it's never mean or lewd, and for all the drugs and gore in it, the movie is also strangely, unrelentingly sweet, even when its characters are bleeding to death.

It's like watching "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" as remade by "Nightline."

Explosively funny in spots -- this is easily Vaughn's best work since "Swingers" -- but it comes wrapped in a package so sweet and sugary, so tediously moral and conventional, it sabotages the laughs.

Little Ashes succumbs to the dreaded Masterpiece Theater syndrome as a talky historical drama weighed down by self-importance.

This is a slight and unessential picture, but its quirky, compassionate tone seems destined to attract a cult following, and members of high-school drama clubs everywhere will be riveted.

The most enjoyable piece of pop fantasy of the summer; sleek, elegant, exciting and wildly, outrageously imaginative.

There’s exactly one good scene in all of The Hangover Part III, a hilarious bit of business halfway during the end credits that reminds you what made the original film so good.

Whenever the film starts getting overly sticky, Perez swoops in to even things out. If there isn't a fat smile plastered on your face as It Could Happen to You comes to its whimsical, crowd-pleasing finale, consider yourself a cynic. [29 July 1994, p.G6]

The Muppet Christmas Carol never approaches the freewheeling atmosphere of earlier Muppet movies. While all the familiar Muppet characters appear, they often seem stilted; watching Kermit and Miss Piggy acting as Bob and Emily Cratchit is nowhere near as much fun as watching them play themselves. With too few exceptions, the movie doesn't allow the Muppets to inject their own personalities into their characters. [14 Dec 1992, p.C6]

As far as production values go, this Peter Pan is a work of art. So why, then, does the movie feel so crushingly dull?

There's also something to be said for a movie that's content with telling a simple yarn, and telling it well.

Shortbus is, first and foremost, an experiment -- an accessible, audience-friendly movie about love and sex in which the screen doesn't fade to black once the actors start taking off their clothes.

Neeson is always compelling, even in a movie as ridiculous as The Grey.

Fast Food Nation would have benefited from a longer running time -- the movie often feels like it's missing big chunks of plot -- but Linklater's cautionary message gets through.

Serial Mom is one of the most consistently funny films in years, moving from one hilarious set piece to another just when you're sure it has nowhere left to go. [15 Apr 1994, p.G5]

Yes, the Naked Gun series is showing its age, resorting to spoofs that have been done countless times before (there's a long, mostly unfunny parody of prison movies) or sketches that simply don't work (like a lame Thelma and Louise takeoff.) This type of rapid-fire, joke-a-second comedy is on the verge of cliche -- imitations like Fatal Instinct, National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon, and the Hot Shots! series have turned what was fresh and rollicking into a formidable challenge. Audiences have grown used to this style of stupid humor, so if a movie is going to employ the Airplane! format, the jokes have to be funny. [18 Mar 1994, p.G5]

One of the most searing experiences to be had at the movies this year.

The tug of war for Caterina's political soul is left open-ended, and her relationship with her difficult father is resolved with a plot twist that feels completely out of character. Caterina deserved better.

Hard Target is pretty much a bust from every conceivable aspect, except the visual -- it looks terrific, and one sequence, a shoot-out on the streets of New Orleans between Van Damme and a progressively larger number of bad guys, comes close to capturing the trademark frenzied, exhilarating feel of Woo's previous work. [20 Aug 1993, p.5]

Flowers is a quiet, eloquent movie about big, overwhelming emotions, and the constant presence of its eponymous plants, in all kinds of colors and shapes, is a metaphor for the ways in which we respond to what life throws at us, be it a sudden trauma, a perpetual state of melancholy or an unexpected opportunity for romance. Some people blossom and bloom; others wither and give up.

The more preposterous Out of Time gets, the more enjoyable the movie becomes.

The characters in Secretary never feel the least bit human. Their quirks, sexual and otherwise, are all on the surface. Inside, where it counts, nobody's home.

It's big, exciting, ambitious, and it makes you cry in all the right places.

But if the film disappoints on an intellectual level, at least it doesn't skimp on pageantry. This is, without question, one of the most beautifully crafted, visually thrilling war pictures ever made -- a painterly spectacle that leaves you looking for Caravaggio's name in the end credits.

With considerable passion and more than a little anger, Cronicas argues that our appetite for an increasing coarse and sensational type of news programming has skewed our inner compasses.

Scott Cooper, who directed and co-wrote Out of the Furnace, empathizes with people who feel their lives have hit a dead end (his previous film, "Crazy Heart," earned Jeff Bridges an Oscar as a washed-up country singer who had given up on himself). These are difficult characters to dramatize.

Mistress is a black comedy about the trials and tribulations of a writer/director trying to get his film financed, and if it had been released last year, it might have seemed better. But memories of Robert Altman's The Player, which deftly covered similar ground, are still fresh, and Mistress suffers badly in comparison. [30 Sep 1992, p.E7]

This bleak, oh-so-dark comedy is one of the best movies you almost didn't get to see.

Cachorro's main flaw is in its ending, which seems somewhat abrupt and unfinished, but these characters have become so endearing by then that it hardly seems to matter.

The movie is pleasant overall and occasionally comes up with a big laugh. When the movie's over, though, it evaporates from memory, just like a one-night stand that didn't go nearly as well as you'd hoped.

By the halfway mark, even the most devoted Gibson and Foster fans will start wondering when the movie will do something beyond superficially showing off its stars. It's not until the end that you realize that's all Maverick has to offer -- and it's not enough. [20 May 1994, p.G4]

The more hellish the story gets, the sillier and less involving the movie becomes.

Not all of the characters in the movie get just and fair send-offs, but Virzi’s stylish picture argues that’s the price we pay when a capitalist society trains us to place our own selfish interests above everything else. It’s a rat race that ultimately has no winners.

Cannot sustain the level of comic insanity the filmmakers hoped for -- no movie could -- although it's bound to play much better on late-night cable TV, especially when accompanied by a few beers and the occasional bong hit.

The movie asks tough, unflinching questions about America's responsibility to maintain world peace -- and the price we are willing to pay in order to accomplish that. Timely stuff, indeed.

A lazy, self-satisfied piece of work -- a comedy made by people who think so highly of themselves, they assume they'll get a laugh just by showing up in front of the camera.

The movie has an epic sweep but an intimate, personal feel. If Changeling lacks the knockout power of, say, "Million Dollar Baby," it proves that Eastwood continues to seek out stories that take him places he hasn't been before -- and the audience along with him.

The movie fares less well when the plot and Simon’s neuroses come to the surface, but there is some tremendous suspense in the movie’s final scene.

It doesn't spoil any of the story's surprising twists to say that Three of Hearts ends up uncovering some poignant truths about the nature of love, the pressures of commitment and the limits to the compromises we are willing to make for the people we care about.

Although the premise sounds gimmicky, Rob the Mob is based on a true, incredible story, and the sense of mortal danger is palpable every time Thomas goes in to score some loot (these men were not to be trifled with).

Rocky Balboa is far from essential, and there are moments in it bad enough to make you wince. But I dare you not to feel at least a tiny little rush when that opening bell rings, and Rocky starts swinging one final time.

A rollicking, jumbo-sized swashbuckler, awash in sword fights, cursed treasures, plank walkings and hurtling cannonballs. This stylish, rousing movie has been directed with refreshing levity and wit.

The movie doesn't make you care.

The River Wild is simply a procession of banal, dull situations that add up to nothing. [30 Sep 1994, p.G4]

It's a dreamy Southern gothic, a la "Night of the Hunter," with an emphasis on the dreamy.

The Jungle Book won't replace memories of Disney's earlier version, but it's the perfect choice for action-hungry kids who won't sit still through Little Women. [23 Dec 1994, p.G3]

The movie is wild, but not in the ways that you expect, and it’s also surprisingly chaste — you think you see a lot more than you actually do.

For all its charms, sometimes feels as self-obsessed as the characters it slyly mocks.

Unlike "Jaws," Open Water isn't much for traditional popcorn-movie scares. Instead, the movie is more interested in depicting the gradual deterioration of its protagonists' sanity, and how that affects their relationship.

As much as I laughed throughout the movie, I cannot mount a cogent defense of the film as entertainment, or even performance art, although the movie does leave you marveling at these guys' superhuman capacity to withstand pain. Compared to these jackasses, Vin Diesel is a big, overpaid wuss.

It is a testament to how well the movie is made that even the most hardened viewer might find himself tearing up at moments -- and you won't have to hate yourself in the morning.

Six years after its release, "City of God" is still electrifying and fresh: It hasn't aged a bit. City of Men, though, already feels strangely stale.

Although there are some initial feints at using zombies as a metaphor for third-world issues and cultural differences, the picture forgets all that stuff by the final reel. World War Z opens with an undeniable bang. But if this is the way the world ends, we’re going out with a whimper.

Although the movie never so much as flirts with melodrama, there is still a bittersweet undercurrent.

Costner does things he hasn't done in years: He's funny and playful; he laughs and cracks jokes; and he doesn't look like he's carrying the weight of the universe on his shoulders.

The Dreamers argues that life must be lived, not dreamt. But it also remembers the confounding pleasures of dreaming with your eyes wide open.

A thoroughly satisfying and engaging children's picture that never forgets those kids probably didn't get to the theater by themselves.

Everyone in the movie is a buffoon or a dolt. No one is redeemable. The humor comes at the expense of the characters: You're always laughing at them, never with them. The Coens have never seemed this disdainful, this mocking, of their fellow man.

One gigantic pile of cornball clichés, but there's no denying the movie works you over anyway.

This is the sort of small, intimate movie that, if it had been made on a low budget by independent actors, would be celebrated to the skies.

But even if the film is short on analysis and skepticism, Tammy makes for a fascinating subject anyway.

Boiler Room's behind-the-scenes veracity makes it highly compelling.

The third -- and thinnest and weakest and least funny -- installment in Ice Cube's popular Friday series.

Simply too odd and unconventional to ever appeal to a broad audience, either at the multiplex or on home video.

Buoyed by a superlative soundtrack, ATL plays a familiar song about growing up, but hits notes that sound brand new.

The slight but enjoyable Youth in Revolt finds plenty of mayhem to take advantage of Cera's against-type performance. Oh, the things we do for love.

Charles Bukowski would have loved this foul-mouthed, fiery, reckless woman. Against all odds and common sense, you will, too.

All the right elements for a rollicking farce, except one: The movie isn't funny.

Even if V for Vendetta isn't nearly as incendiary as it's been made out to be by some alarmist critics, there's still something enjoyably subversive about it, beginning with the way it tramples over the conventions of the contemporary action film.

The movie is funny and scary and touching in all the ways the best children's pictures are, but it is also fast and compact, running a perfectly paced 93 minutes (including credits).

The movie is more somber and less wondrous in tone than the first film, especially since the lion Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson), who would have been instrumental in leading the Narnians to victory, has disappeared.

Marvel Studios will only be able to draw from this well only so many times, though, before fatigue sets in.

As funny as a lot of the film is, Dogma remains as frustratingly uneven as the rest of Smith's work.

Instead of leaving you lamenting the lack of creativity and originality in the film industry, this modest, playful thriller puts you in a forgiving mood.

Aggressively bland coming-of-age story.

Everyone in Hit and Run is clearly having a good time. It's the audience that gets left out of the fun.

Here, finally, is a giant monster movie made in the anything-goes CGI era still capable of making your jaw drop.

You end up feeling sorry for all the actors forced to humiliate themselves, except for McConaughey, whose portrayal of sadistic, manipulative evil is mesmerizing, in part because it was so unexpected. He continues to surprise. Friedkin, sadly, continues to coast.

It's an odd little movie, one directed with such a sure hand, you can't help but go along on its bumpy, mesmerizing ride. [29 Apr 1994, p.G4]

With such a large cast, none of the actors is able to turn her character into a fully realized person.

Where the book was preciously and carefully crafted, the movie just feels precious.

A glittering, beautifully made goof, and the bulk of its fun comes in watching so many talented people chasing after such trivial, disposable pleasures on such a large, big-budget scale.

Vaughn and Favreau are a dynamite pair, and there's enough give-and-take between them to satisfy any diehard "Swingers" fan.

She (Blanchett) single-handedly forms the human heart of this engrossing, if ultimately preposterous, supernatural thriller.

Kong: Skull Island is fast, playful and ridiculous, a big-budget extravaganza with the soul of a spirited B-movie.

City Hall is a labyrinth of a drama about big-city government that goes through many intricate plot machinations to reach its stunning conclusion: Politics is a very dirty business...It's not much of a revelation, and City Hall is not much of a movie. Sure, its backroom maneuverings and power ploys feel authentic (one of the screenwriters, Ken Lipper, was Ed Koch's deputy mayor), and there's undeniable momentum as the movie reveals, layer by layer, the depth of the corruption at the center of its mystery. But you can see City Hall's big "twist" coming a mile away, and the movie ends limply, without much payoff for patiently sticking with its convoluted storyline. [16 Feb 1996, p.5G]

The rare sort of movie that gives predictability a good name.

My One and Only isn't exactly memorable, but this little, personable movie is a fine showcase for Zellweger's talents and a paean to the sort of mid-1950s America best remembered in Norman Rockwell paintings.

Unlike much of Roberts' previous work, it's a movie about characters, not high concept, and it requires her to do more than make cute faces and flash her dazzling grin. [4 Aug 1995, p.4G]