Steve Davis

If you’re a movie geek and Hitchcock freak (guilty!) who can never get enough of this kind of stuff, 78/52 will rock your world.

This weighty French/Polish production is chock-full of moral dilemmas borne from its unthinkable scenario. At times, it’s not an easy experience.

The gentle lift you feel in watching Defying Gravity is propelled by the earnestness of its emotions.

The way the destinies of four people converge in a small Arkansas town in One False Move is nothing short of wondrous.

Less adventurous in structure than many in Davies’ oeuvre, Benediction is both expressionistic and vivid in recounting selected particulars of an outwardly fascinating life, though something feels missing in the totality of things.

A chancy work of self-promotion. Of course, Madonna is a master of image manipulation, forever reinventing herself, so it's difficult to assess exactly what was up her sleeve when she commissioned this movie. Whatever her purpose, Truth or Dare succeeds in somewhat demystifying the icon she's become, giving her a human dimension that has eluded exposure since her rise to superstardom.

Don’t expect any hokey scare tactics here. Under the steady hand of Oscar-nominated director Abrahamson (Room), the film is a calculated slow burn, one that plays a cunning head game with those viewers willing to be entranced.

It’s a cliched happy ending, one you’ve seen countless times before, but never in this way.

Taking the concept of the dysfunctional family to a degree that might even boggle Leo Tolstoy's mind, Flirting With Disaster is every son or daughter's nightmare… multiplied.

While sturdily constructed, Simon Beaufoy’s upbeat screenplay spells almost everything out in capital letters, with little nuance. It seldom trusts you to make your own judgments about the diverse cast of players in this chapter of pop-culture history.

The studio’s 1967 version of Kipling’s classic tales (the current film qualifies as a remake of sorts) softened the source’s edges a bit, but it offered a New Orleans jazz-infused score unlike anything in the company’s previous animated features. The new Jungle Book retains the two best songs, although their inclusion may strike the unfamiliar as clunky and unexpected.

After it has ended, you may want to view it all over again, just to see if you can beat the odds and pick up on what you missed the first time around.

For a comedy about an old weapon with a dulled blade, Sword of Truth is razor sharp in just about every way.

When the gut-wrenching conclusion of A Hijacking comes in the form of a single, random act, it’s only then you realize how far you’ve been pulled into its emotional core. It’s a staggering moment, one for which you may not be fully prepared. It’s a moment that differentiates the merely good from the very good.

For a while, you wonder whether the movie will become a thriller about the perils of solo travel, particularly for single females. But the intimacy of director Kuosmanen’s Dogme 95-inspired camerawork hints that something more is happening here.

Mention must be made of James’ guileless turn as Cinderella. Like the beautiful crystalline-blue ballgown worn in the film’s centerpiece section (you can’t take your eyes off it; it literally dazzles), she looks as if she’s lit from within.

All three principal actors – Weisz, McAdams, and Nivola – give effectively constrained performances. They work as a team here, consistent with the delicate balance in their characters’ complicated relationships with one another.

Young@Heart more than subtly suggests that the secret to growing old is to feel young, and – based on what you see in this film – there may be some truth to that platitude.

Though this capable documentary is comprehensively informative in so many ways (perhaps to a fault), the one thing it doesn’t quite convey is the wonder and marvel of the undersea world of Cousteau, which continued to move him until his death at age 87.

At first, you fear this uncharted emotionalism may undercut the delicious pleasures of Christie’s clever plotting, this one being a particularly nifty stumper, but in the end, it subtly enhances the film without being pretentious.

In a genre dominated by computer-generated compositions and design, its old-school simplicity is sweetly anachronistic, while its hand-drawn elegance is often something to behold.

Veteran Italian director and co-screenwriter Crialese (Respiro, Golden Door) embraces a vivid visual sense here, abetted by Gergeley Pohárnok’s sumptuous cinematography and the Me Decade fashion sense of Massimo Cantini Parrini’s breezy, eye-popping couture. It’s a look that idealizes memory, much like when you conjure up something from the past in your mind and try to make it stick there for a while.

What takes The Theory of Everything into the cosmos is Redmayne’s extraordinary performance. The disciplined precision with which he progressively embodies Hawking’s failing body is nothing short of astonishing.

The film's greatest strength undeniably lies in Gosling's revelatory portrayal of Danny.

Nearly three hours in length, the movie becomes an endurance test with each heartless act, relentless in its depiction of a Hobbesian state of humankind, in which life has little innate value.

Rebuilding Paradise speaks to the resiliency of human beings, and maybe something about the American can-do spirit.

The film is one big advertisement for the multicolored building blocks from which it’s made. The Lego Movie may be the shrewdest marketing ploy you’ve ever seen.

The movie’s wit and energy hold your interest, but they don’t spark the pleasure of the unexpected, the thrill you felt in "Laura," "The Last of Sheila," "Chinatown," "The Sixth Sense," or the 1974 adaptation of Christie’s "Murder on the Orient Express" (not Kenneth Branagh’s inept remake), movies whose big reveals surprise you in their elegant simplicity.

Though it’s impossible to know exactly how these two people felt in coping with this untenable situation – they only wanted to get married and raise a family, nothing else – Nichols gives you a damn good idea, even when it slightly wears your patience.

Even the most ardent of neoconservatives might find this intimate and nuanced documentary about life in occupied Iraq difficult to shake – all politics aside, it is the human element that ultimately defines a nation as a people.

For once, the Coen brothers' neurotic filmmaking style works to their advantage; it's giddily appropriate for a movie about a man who's losing his mind.

If ever there were a happy summer movie, it’s Hairspray. But for all its bubbly musical numbers and effervescent good humor, this film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical feels oddly lacquered -- it’s John Waters by way of Disney.

Perhaps the bigger canvas here is a native daughter’s tribute to the resiliency of the people of her homeland. It’s no coincidence that the mascot chicken in this rustic Utopia is named Survive.

Even the usually unbearable Rourke, who plays yet another psychopath here, is surprisingly subdued and effective -- his performance gives the film its menacing undercurrent. Although Daniel Pyne's otherwise sharp screenplay falls short in explaining why who's doing what to whom, perhaps a little ambiguity is necessary in a movie in which appearances are deceiving. After all, sometimes, you've just got to take these things on faith.

It’s Robinson’s tender portrayal of Joe that sticks in your mind. He and Tye Sheridan from "Mud" are the summer’s real finds: young actors with promising futures.

The comic strip’s late creator Charles M. Schulz would undoubtedly approve of The Peanuts Movie, given his progeny have ensured the film remains true to his artistic and humanist vision.

What is not debatable, however, is that Cruise is an actor of limited emotional resources, one who lacks the presence required for the film’s protagonist, a character intended to inhabit more than one dimension.

A satisfying Cinderella story in which its outcast crew finally get their glass slippers, if not handsome princes. In the greatest of storytelling traditions, it is a true fairy tale with a happy ending.

When it works, Shall We Dance? has a way of sweeping you off your feet.

When the movie shifts from psychological to physical terror, the film (like Sawyer) unravels and finally loses its bearings.

Predicated as it is on Huppert's pensive, provocative blankness, the action moves a bit slowly, although, as is often the case with Jacquot, events make more sense after the movie is over. Dares to provoke rather than titillate in its delineation of love's strange ways. As the French might say, “L'amour, l'amour, toujours l'amour.”

It may not sound like much of a storyline, but there’s a subtle beauty in the ability of human compassion to cure one’s shortcomings.

Although its ambitions often exceed its reach, the meta-mad Filipino film Leonor Will Never Die (a terrible Americanized title) bursts with imaginative impulses, scoring slightly more hits than misses in a Charlie Kaufmanesque storyline that flip-flops between reality and fantasy using the tropey device of a movie within a movie.

In the end, Tea With the Dames peters out as a conversation, given there’s no real beginning, middle or end to the film. It’s a privilege, however, to have been given a tableside seat to listen to this foursome reminisce and ruminate for an hour and a half, with laughter punctuating the conversation every few minutes.

There’s enough intelligence and wit here to sustain your interest, especially when Curtis and Lohan are in peak form. They put the freak in this Freaky Friday.

Loses something in its translation to celluloid.

Predictable but never coy about it, After Words speaks to the fateful connection that sometimes occurs between two people under the most improbable circumstances.

The movie struggles to find the right kind of humor for its adult demographic, given that a talking dog flick is a genre usually targeted at kids somewhere in PG territory.

Starts off promisingly by empathetically depicting the fear and anger children feel when their parents separate, but ultimately its human emotions are dominated by goblins, trolls, and other CGI-generated creatures running amok on the screen.

Ryan and Duchovny hold their own in this talky two-hander, navigating their characters’ highs and lows with conviction.

If you take this stuff seriously, one way or another, you're sure to be duped. You've got to hand it to Mr. Brown: So dark the con of man, indeed.

That Zellweger had the audacity to decide to actually sing the standards in Garland’s act, rather than lip-synch them, and then perform them with such bravado in a voice eerily channeling Garland is the real icing on the cake here. In Judy, a star is reborn.

It's an engaging recollection that's more sweet than bittersweet, tempered by an eagerness to please that pulls us into its remembrances of things past.

As in the Mercury biopic, an unexpected performance by a relatively untried actor in the central role anchors Rocketman.

As real as the Astroturf in the Brady's backyard and as eager to please as Alice's meat loaf, The Brady Bunch Movie is -- to exhaust this string of metaphors -- pure junk food. But like most junk food, it sure tastes good.

Viewers hoping for a foray into "Donnie Darko" territory will be disappointed by this shift in tone. But those who like things sentimental and sweet – and there’s nothing wrong with that – will find comfort in the notion of leaving the past behind to allow the future to go forward.

Blessed with an ensemble cast of young actors without Brat Pack pretensions, Where the Day Takes You is often so authentic in its depiction of street life that you'll find yourself flinching, a response undoubtedly intended to result in a little consciousness-raising.

While the tone of Rafiki is simple and direct, director Kahiu demonstrates a delicate touch when she enhances Kena and Ziki’s early euphoric attraction to one another through a subtle shift in the otherwise vibrant cinematography by Christopher Wessels.

As in "The Pianist," Polanski is content to allow the film's narrative to evoke the emotions he wishes his audience to experience.

Though occasionally emotional, this ain’t no heart-tugging rehash of Lassie Come Home. And there’s something to be said for that.

The titular role of Monsieur Ibrahim is not a terribly taxing one, but Sharif effortlessly demonstrates that he still has the stuff that made him a star so many years ago – he exudes a charismatic appeal that is apparently timeless.

With its unconventional take on pet sounds, Keanu is refreshingly silly, an unabashed mix of humor and violence topped off by a big dollop of cuteness.

Filmmakers Boden and Fleck don’t appear interested in eliciting your full-out sympathy for these low-rollers, though the happyish ending seems somewhat a sellout (albeit a satisfactory one). Who’s to blame them? After all, everybody loves a winner.

This gloriously messy celebration of New Orleans’ musical legacy is a savory gumbo of uniquely American ingredients – jazz, blues, soul, rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, funk, hip-hop – generously seasoned with love and respect for the largely African-American artists who forged that heritage over the past three centuries.

To its credit, Downhill strives to remain character-driven rather than devolve into a jokey take on a delicate premise.

In a film that otherwise prides itself on the subtlety of its anecdotal narrative and character development, the diagnosis is jolting, and about as welcome as some of the unsought counsel that streams from Marnie’s mouth.

It's hard to imagine how anyone could remain dry-eyed while watching the scene in which John Q. tries to cram in a lifetime of fatherhood advice in a goodbye speech to his son.

Although Scott Frank's screenplay has more than a few holes in it...they're forgivable, mostly because this movie is so utterly likable. Little Man Tate is a small movie by industry standards, but it nevertheless stands pretty tall.

Refreshingly unsentimental and straightforward.

This young actor is good, very good in fact. Watching him become beautifully alive in Viva is this little gem’s greatest pleasure.

Something this bad can’t help but be good.

To MacLachlan's credit, his impersonation of the indomitable is serviceable, although it must be said that the role is weirder than anything David Lynch ever dreamed up for him.

Luckily for Franco, Cranston makes for the perfect comic foil in Why Him?.

A remarkable documentary in its own right.

To the delight of its young audience, juvenile humor abounds in Captain Underpants, but the movie is smart about the way it contextualizes this lowbrow comedy.

Aside from Segel’s grounding performance, the pleasures of Our Friend lie in some of its observational specifics about human behavior.

Although a Norwegian production, the film has a muted Hollywood sensibility that keeps things real. It’s an absorbing and often lyrical piece of storytelling that doesn’t overembellish the facts or rely on a pumped-up score or whiplash editing to heighten the dramatic action.

Most important, there are the photographs themselves – lots of them – which director Freyer freely uses to illustrate Winogrand’s genius in capturing the ambiguous now, urging the viewer to fill in the details of the story glimpsed in the shot.

Not surprisingly, the best thing about The Boss Baby is Baldwin’s imperious vocalization as the authoritative rugrat with a head the size of a bowling ball, punctuated by Margaret Keane eyes.

A confounding movie on many levels. For all its sophistication and sensitivity, it turns out to be little more than an upscale B-movie about getting even.

In the end, trying to compartmentalize this movie in some neat fashion is folly. This is Todd Solondz and, refreshingly enough, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Although Moffie is competently executed, its genre-straddling will leave you vaguely unsatisfied if you decide too quickly the kind of movie it should be.

In video segments scarier than any couch-jumping antics on a talk show, actor Tom Cruise salutes the organization’s Napoleonic chairman David Miscavige like a soldier in an army of darkness, and rambles on about a world free of suppressive persons like he’s auditioning for the loony bin. One thing is clear in Going Clear: The man has taken one super-big gulp of the Kool-Aid.

The impressionistic documentary Ailey communicates this visionary auteur’s comprehension of the art form: through his own words; through the words of others, most notably, his muse Judith Jamison and fellow choreographer Bill T. Jones; and, with great potency, film clips of archived performances (some of them original performances!) of his work.

It ain’t Shakespeare, but if the bread-and-butter movies of Butler’s career were as compactly entertaining and as plausible (granted, a relative term) as Plane, he might get a little more respect

Hopelessly muddled but doggedly entertaining.

The more you become acquainted with these men, the more this movie grows on you. This is the sneaky power of authentic cinema verité. The purer the form, the purer the truths that may be revealed.

Muscle Shoals may not appeal to every generation’s musical tastes, but for those of you who love that sweet soul music and crave that ol’ time rock & roll, believe me: It’s just the ticket.

Although Belushi's scruffy charm has its moments, it's the late Shakur's performance as the conscience-stricken half of the duo that draws the most attention. There's a gravity to his performance that is totally unexpected, a surprise that -- given the circumstances -- is as sad as it is welcome.

The Dog reveals both expected and unexpected things about this oddball character to keep you interested.

In Triple 9 and so many other films today, the twists and turns of the contemporary thriller have become a Gordian knot that audiences are not invited to untangle. You may rightfully ask: Where’s the fun in that?

As the down-on-his-luck Roth, Orser gives the darkly comic performance of a man barely able to keep his head above water.

While the cabaret performances are the documentary’s draw, the movie comes most alive in the interspersed interviews with servicemen and women willing to speak their minds, whether it’s about institutional racism in the military, the imperialistic siting of bases in Asia, and, of course, the ugliness of the war itself, in all of its manifestations.

Amidst the rubble of political rhetoric that underlies Arlington Road, one thing is clear: The enemy is us.

Whatever your perspective, there’s one thing for sure: The Red Turtle is unlike anything else you’ve seen in a while.

Graduation may not occupy a place at the top of the class of contemporary Eastern European cinema like some of Mungiu’s other films, but it definitely sits above the curve.

Iconoclastic British environmentalist and sculptor Andy Goldsworthy doesn’t experience the world in the same way the rest of us do. Using more than just the conventional five senses, he profoundly intuits his surroundings as if in a meditative trance, mentally and physically absorbing the details of his environment like a forensic scientist in the pursuit of a unique artistry that’s brought him worldwide acclaim.

Compared to other franchises that have resurrected their seemingly indestructible purveyors of murderous mayhem long after they should have remained dead and buried (Halloween Ends, anyone?), this latest entry in the ongoing saga of Ghostface demonstrates its premise remains viable, though admittedly showing a few signs of calcification.