Roger Moore

The leads are pretty much flawless.

It’s set up the way Chekhov’s play is traditionally-mounted these days, as an actor’s showcase. That’s just not enough to put His Three Daughters over.

If there’s an overbearing flaw to Custody, it is its lack of surprises.

Of all the gonzo-goofy comic book adaptations that embrace video gaming sensibilities, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the gonzo-goofiest.

Nice period detail, a few cute situations, one half-interesting character and three laughs, that’s the pickle this picture puts itself in.

Unwieldy, overlong and overly reliant on melodramatic coincidences, A Place in the Pines is still better than it has any right to be, thanks to its cast.

Overlong, polished but drab civics lesson of a comedy. This “Barbershop” is in sore need of a trim, and not just a little off the top, either.

Silver’s given us a wry, wise and whimsical movie who cutting edges are somewhat removed from the lead characters, whose wit involves both leaning into Jewish stereotypes, and upending them.

The Wind Rises was a dream project for the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, and this gorgeous film makes a fine capstone for his career.

It’s comical, but not really a comedy, spiritual without being all that deep. But as it grapples with what drives a creative person, paints the “after life” and “before life” eternity in Picasso-with-a-light-pen strokes and questions what makes life worth living, it can be quite touching.

It’s a reminder of when civility, fair play and principles mattered, of when decent people of influence like Sullivan didn’t think twice about standing up to myopic bigots like Georgia Gov. Herman Talmadge.

In My Own Time gives us a taste of what might have been much more than a soulful novelty act, an American Original who might have been too “authentic” for her time, if not for ours.

Turning Red isn’t so much a bad movie as a tentative one. It came to life with grand intentions, some cute characters, a ready-made toy tie-in and a hint of controversy. It plays as focus-grouped and watered-down — not the daring, boundary-pushing children’s edutainment it might have been.

Creadon presents all this in a brisk, lively film, with lots of topical music underscoring the archival footage, and interviews with everyone from former students who became journalists or members of Congress to Ted Koppel and former Senator Alan Simpson.

It’s an intricate, intimate thriller about a single soldier’s nightmare day and night on the front lines.

The grace notes don’t obscure the ugly situation we’re shown here. It’s not compact, perfectly organized film, but The Cave is an honest fly-on-the-wall/cinema verite portrait of a place and a couple of the people working in it.

This is as thorough a take-down of a business and its practices as you’re likely to ever see.

A movie that progresses at this rate gives you a lot of time to pick over what it’s really getting at.

Lester’s film underscores how few TV talkers today have the stature, much less the spine, to ask questions that people don’t want asked, much less be required to answer.

Here's a documentary so slick, novel, touching and outrageous that your first thought might be "This has to be fake."

The Lighthouse stands apart as one of the beautifully composed, shot and acted films of the year, as well as the most harrowing.

The story’s direction becomes deflatingly predictable once all the various characters and plot elements are set up. But Rose Plays Julie is a psychological thriller where pathos, suspense and the silent confusion of our heroine compete for primacy. Start to finish, this is damned unsettling.

Comedy is the most subjective film genre, and all this menstruation, abortion, Catholicism and Meeting Mr. Wrong won’t be to every taste. I found Saint Frances a real indie comedy shot in the arm (first-timer Alex Thompson directed). And I cannot wait to see what O’Sullivan comes up with next.

It’s still a welcome, entertaining and overdue delivery of credit where credit was and is due.

It’s not a deep film, but it is a rich one — full of flesh and blood characters, realistic “coming of age” moments and pithy homilies on the state of relationships, gender roles, “the California Dream” and the American one.

The shifts in tone, stakes and genre are abrupt and so clumsily-handled you’re allowed to wonder “What just happened?” And the heist is such a non-starter as to leave one at a loss as to what the Oscar winning actor, one of my favorites, ever saw in this.

The shocked inability to focus on what one must do despite the pull of pretending, saying and repeating “it’ll all be over soon” is vividly recreated in this small-scale version of a larger scale tragedy to come.

It's rooting against grandma that drives this violent, hardhearted film, and waiting for the pride of lions she's created to devour her that gives Animal Kingdom its animal energy.