Steve Davis

While Levi gives you someone to genuinely root for, once the movie reaches Warner’s debut game for the Rams in 1999, all nuance goes out the window as you’re pounded into semi-hysterical submission to cheer for a proverbial win for the gipper.

Contradictions abound in this messy and unfocused drama that purports to believe that family is everything, when all else fails.

It's an occasionally entertaining ride, although one fraught with numerous logical holes.

The premise is ripe for potent melodrama, but director Jacquot (who gets co-screenwriting credit) ultimately doesn’t finesse the situation.

If Tuff Turf had used a little more of Downey's relaxed intelligence and amiability, and a little less teenage angst and sense of violence as retribution, it might have been tough stuff. As it is, it's a lightweight in a genre populated with featherweights.

There's much to enjoy here as long as your expectations aren't too high.

Whatever the case, Foxcatcher provides little insight. Art can shape the truth in ways that resonate beyond the obvious. Regrettably, the truth-shaping here grapples for significance, without any apparent aim. Catch as catch can.

It’s meant to be thrilling fun, but it never takes off in the way imagined.

You can almost smell the desperation in the twisted psychosexuality of Savage Grace.

It's too bad that Gas Food Lodging is as disconnected as it is because there's a real current of feeling here, especially in Balk's sympathetic performance and the film's unflinching depiction of a single woman trying to raise a family on her own. Rather than make a lasting impression, it makes only a passing one, as impermanent as the momentary view of a dying town on the highway.

Despite its best intentions, The Lost City of Z never finds itself, doomed to aimlessly wander to an unsatisfying conclusion of a dream that betrays the best of men.

The temporal jumps between the present and varying points in the past deprive the film of a sense of completeness; the transitions from scene to scene are largely disorienting, leaving you struggling to find your bearings.

In the end, while both of these performers look great together, they really don't seem to belong together. And that's the biggest hitch in Hitch.

There’s an intriguing story to be told here, but there’s a better way to tell it. To borrow from the Bard, the spots in Lady Macbeth simply won’t wash away.

The antithesis of a feel-good movie, Listen Up Philip is a challenging experience, largely because it refuses to compromise its protagonist’s dogged preoccupation with himself.

It’s the subtext of 19th century gender politics that keeps this footnote in Dickens’ life mildly interesting, but it’s a not much upon which to rest an entire movie.

A nagging question persists throughout Darkest Hour: Is Oldman’s compulsively meticulous turn here anything more than a brilliant impersonation? The answer is yes, but it’s a performance that always stands apart from the rest of the film.

Every so often, a spark in Marinelli’s mesmerizing blue-gray eyes flickers and you can imagine the passion that drove the man to his madness. In those moments, Martin Eden subtly flames, if only briefly.

That’s the problem with this well-meaning but ultimately hollow film romance: You don’t see it; you don’t get it.

This is a guy who marched to the beat of his own drum, even one that’s got two spoked wheels and some handlebars.

Frankenheimer resorts to gunfire and explosions to bring the film to its predictable end. It's when things get mundane that you find yourself wishing that Brando would reappear on the screen to make things interesting again.

This is an action flick for those who like form over substance in their popcorn movies which explode onscreen every summer.

It never really rollicks like a good political satire.

It feels like a veiled apology for Babs Johnson and other exercises in bad taste. In my book, the filthiest person alive will always win the prize.

Renaissance man extraordinaire Michelangelo Buonarroti is frequently accused of greed in the incohesive historical drama Sin, but the only real transgression is his pride, whether it’s nurturing his own divine genius or badmouthing the mediocrity of contemporaries like Leonardo and Raphael.

The decibel level in Little Voice ranges from a delicate whisper to seismic bellowing; aurally speaking, it traverses the spectrum of human sounds.

The seen-it-all-before elements of this supernatural thriller directed by the filmmaker who gave us "Saw," however, are more hoary than horrific. It might as well be retitled "The Amityville Exorcist."

It’s Hauser who keeps the movie from tilting over, even though Eastwood and Ray initially seem to patronize the character. The knuckleheaded scene-stealer from "I, Tonya" and "BlacKkKlansman" has the chance here to play a fuller, more rounded character for a change, and he’s unexpectedly up to the task. The performance is an eye-opener. With a little refinement and polish, we may have found our long-awaited Ignatius J. Reilly.

That’s the central problem with The Way, Way Back – it’s more manipulative than truthful.

40 Years in the Making is a cliquey undertaking that leaves you mostly on the outside looking in, but after witnessing the joy of its participants at the end, there’s little to begrudge.

For most of the film, Bateman, the director, manages to bring out the two principals’ anguish without resorting to sentimentality, until the unsatisfying last quarter of the film.

This oddly dispassionate film about a young man dying of cancer is the French antidote to those Hollywood weepies in which the heroine courageously faces her own mortality with every hair in place.

Though Take Me to the River also offers up some civil rights history lessons between recordings, it feels like a mishmash effort overall, more a home movie than a theatrical release. That’s fine. If you approach it on those terms, you can’t help but feel the love, too.

Animated films have trended toward a perceptive intelligence in the past few years, but Storks wades in shallow waters most of the time.

The next time he (Baumbach) attempts something similar, he might take care to lessen the bile and amplify the heart.

The not-so-fresh Prince charts a familiar cautionary tale about the bad choices economically disadvantaged young men sometimes make early in life, but to its credit, it seldom feels hackneyed or cliched.

It honors this extraordinary couple’s defiant and unwavering love for each other, but it doesn’t celebrate it much beyond a cliched falling-in-love montage and a chaste wedding-night scene. You can look, but you better not touch.

A documentary with a decidedly prurient slant, Gay Sex in the 70s isn't for everyone – it's definitely aimed toward the older gay crowd who somehow lived through the experience and the younger one who might wistfully wish that it had.

The saving quality here is Thompson’s performance as the prickly Travers.

In the end, the preordained ménage à quatre that culminates the evening’s funny games titillates neither mentally nor erotically. Without any such catharsis, the whole thing feels like a big tease. No doubt what The Overnight could use at this point is another happy ending.

Outbreak has the feel of a movie written by a committee of writers -- it's totally lacking in personality.

Unfortunately, there's not much of a story to go with Hunter's engaging performance and LaGravenese's words.

Perhaps the film’s most telling moments, however, are wordless ones in which no actor appears. They’re the bird’s-eye views of American tableaux – suburban tract houses, elementary schools, interstate highways – that mimic similar sky-high perspectives just before a drone fires its missile.

There’s also something to be said for wanting a little bit more.

For both kids and adults, CWCM2 is little more than a vague memory as soon as it’s over.

The movie remains patchy as it continues to jump somewhat arbitrarily from day to day without fully realizing its subject matter. The one dependable constant in all of this is Christo himself. Smiling ecstatically one minute, despondently hangdog the next, he exhibits a genius lunacy on par with his life’s work.

Given the outlandish premise, you'll wish the film twinkled with a more savvy sense of humor and adventure, like the chapters of the "Toy Story" series, for example.

While the documentary offers a few delicate glimpses of a self the writer did not openly share during her 74-year lifetime – she lived as a lesbian, albeit privately – it falls short of conveying the vital essence of this modern and enigmatic woman of her time.

By the end of Bug, you may find yourself scratching yourself as well -- your head, that is -- wondering what the hell this is all about.

Speaking in a barely audible rasp bordering on monotone, Kidman bravely submerges herself in a performance with some genuinely harrowing emotional moments, and yet the unswerving conviction she brings to the role is conspicuous.

Director Miner (Friday the 13th, House) executes some of the scary scenes competently (one in which Sands gives his male host the ultimate French kiss is grossly memorable), but he never takes the material beyond its rather limited parameters.

The metaphoric title about the danger in beautiful things sounds like something from Byron or Keats, but this compressed film adaptation of an Oprah-endorsed bestseller plays like the Dickens.

Any film in which grande dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench share the screen is one worth seeing, if only to marvel at their deft skills in the art of acting.

There’s some gorgeous animation and impeccable camerawork on display here. But as George Lucas’ 2015 fiasco "Strange Magic" demonstrated, beautifully executed visuals will get you only so far. There’s no emotional core to Abominable, which mostly proceeds at a glacial pace as the travelers’ journey across China.

An example of how good intentions don’t necessarily make for a good movie.

It's bigger, but it ain't necessarily better.

There’s little juicy about his life, except for maybe when he briefly left his stalwart, long-time male lover and business associate, André Oliver, for the sultry French actress, Jeanne Moreau. While House of Cardin devotes a few more than a glancing minute to this intriguing episode, perhaps it’s a worthy topic for another documentary at another time.

As improbable as Valerie’s endgame seems once revealed, it plainly demonstrates she’s nobody's chump. It’s not exactly a feminist reading, but one that gives Fatale a little backbone.

Davies tells David's story in a striking series of tableaux and dioramas, all impeccably executed to the last detail. As in Martin Scorsese's work, there's a great deal of control in Davies' directorial style, to the point that it seems totally lacking in spontaneity. But unlike a Scorsese movie, The Neon Bible implodes rather than explodes.

Bigelow stages the film's action sequences with a brutal efficiency (they almost redeem the movie), but she can't keep the increasingly silly script in check.

Mighty Aphrodite may take its thematic and structural cues from Greek tragedy, but it's second-rate Borscht Belt all the way.

Strives to depict its love-hate relationship in emotionally neutral terms, but the sympathies are ultimately lopsided.

Cape of Good Hope is a hopeful piece of humanism that is difficult to begrudge too much.

If the movie isn’t so fabulous, should die-hard fans who can quote the show by heart see it? Absolutely. (The gays are sure to love it.)

Whatever the reason for its disappointments, Mission: Impossible is a mission gone awry, prompting you to hope that reruns of its television incarnation will pop up on cable soon.

Regardless of whether Cry Macho merits a rating of good, bad, or ugly, Eastwood’s mere presence, despite any perceived physical frailties, can’t help but dwarf this slenderest of movies.

If you’re the type of moviegoer who finds the idea of 19th-century characters using phrases such as "Be cool" and "You must work out" in their conversations, this is the film for you.

The characterizations are sincere, but overly familiar.

The Aviary, a modest mindf*ck of a thriller about two young women fleeing a cult in the New Mexican desert, goes round and round and round in a circle like a snake swallowing itself. A beguiling metaphor, but by the end, you’re left with a self-cannibalized movie.

It’s hard to completely accept the up-and-coming Wolff as a total geek with no social or love life. With those puppy-dog brown eyes and enticing grin, the guy exudes intelligence and charm from top to bottom of his lanky frame. Up until now, the actor has shined in secondary roles, but in Paper Towns he proves he may be the next prom king.

Because screenwriter-director Brock fails to create a moving relationship between its mentor and student in life's lessons, the film hardly resonates five minutes after it's over.

In the movies, black comedy is a difficult proposition: it's a genre more suited to a ten-minute sketch than a two-hour film. For every brilliant black comedy like Dr. Strangelove, there are a hundred duds. Unfortunately, the $50-million-plus Death Becomes Her doesn't quite make the grade either, although its wicked take on modern vanity is often hysterically on-target.

Of course, the selling point of this movie is the boy wonder Culkin, making his first screen appearance since the inexplicable megahit Home Alone. Relegated to a supporting role, Culkin is natural and appealing, a picture of blue-eyed innocence. What a more interesting movie you'd have if it were entitled My Guy.

As the whimsical setup in Yesterday deteriorates until its unimaginative conclusion, the familiar Lennon/McCartney collaborations (along with a couple written by Harrison) provide the only solace, timeless songs that make it better. Viva Los Beatles!

Screenwriters Nina Fiore and John Herrera have modernized Keene’s decades-old storyline without completely chucking the quaint qualities of the original.

This empty-headed comedy about a Playmate who finds herself a house mother to a group of misfit sorority sisters is little more than a recycled version of "Legally Blonde" with bunny ears.

Even if you accept this plot contrivance, the consummation of this union of souls isn't very emotionally involving -- it lacks that transcendence you associate with stories in which love knows no bounds.

By the end, however, the movie’s predictable wind-down and ho-hum twist at the end make this Life hardly worth living. In space, no one can hear you yawn.

For those who adore McCourt's work, Angela's Ashes will most likely disappoint; for those unfamiliar with this inspiring chronicle of a survivor, it will neither impress nor dishearten to any degree.

No wonder the movie feels something like a retread: It gets you there, but the ride is neither nowhere as smooth, nor nearly as compelling.

What’s missing here is the full adrenaline rush associated with this dangerous but exhilarating sport and pastime. The documentary’s start/stop narrative structure never allows anything to accelerate full throttle.

Perhaps the fault lies not in our stars, but in our shameless need for a sappy ending.

It’s all veddy stiff-upper-lip -– this is romance from a masochist’s point of view -– and the intimacy of the emotions often feels cramped.

It’s a pity party to which you’d like to RSVP an unequivocal “no.”

The cast is an impossibly beautiful bunch of actors who could hold your attention even if they spoke nothing but gibberish, which sometimes is the case in the pillow-talk dialogue provided by director/screenwriter Chick.

This is a movie tailor-made for cheering on the not-so-little guy to find his self-esteem, dazzle the judges, and win the girl.

About the only thing that makes any sense in La Vie Promise is Huppert's face, a visage that has aged in the most extraordinary way.

The storyline lacks credibility.

While retaining the core story of a bionic man tormented by the memory of his former human life, the film doesn’t play with the concept or give it new dimension. The whole enterprise raises the question: Why do filmmakers insist on remaking movies for no good reason?

The result is a visually fantastic but sometimes exasperating entertainment that (once again) gets lost in its own chaos. It’s one funned-up spectacle of a movie.

It’s a tale full of sound and fury, signifying something that’s nothing less than appalling.

No matter whether the cast is male, female, or somewhere in between, the absence of a well-constructed story, particularly when the humor goes south (literally), will doom any movie to quick obscurity, no matter how many d**k or p***y jokes get told.

Movies shouldn’t have to meet a PC checklist so they won’t offend – who wants that kind of cinema? – but when they poke you in the eye one too many times, it’s fair game to poke back.

Scatologically speaking, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is best described as one of those summer movie turds: It passes easily and then disappears with a single flush. It’s crap any way you look at it, though there are less pleasant ways to spend your time on a day marked by triple-digit temperatures.

The biggest shame in this movie is how it wastes Frances McDormand.

Call it humanism, call it advocacy, call it old-fashioned entertainment – there’s little difference in the end. Whatever you call it, Spare Parts stands and delivers on its own intriguing merits.

This overly sentimental family Christmas drama, featuring a veritable checklist of prominent Hispanic actors, falls victim to the shortcoming so prevalent in similarly ethnic-themed movies with similar casts – everything and everyone is so damn serious.

Taking its cue from the notion that American society is obsessed with covert political intrigues and machinations, Conspiracy Theory is an interesting but flawed thriller in which the wildly paranoiac is something really real.