Steve Davis

Without preaching from the pulpit, A Fantastic Woman powerfully communicates the hostility and hatred that persons such as Marina encounter simply due to their otherness. In its way, it resembles those Hollywood-era message movies like "Gentleman’s Agreement" and "Pinky," but without the self-congratulatory importance that weighs those films down with all the subtlety of an iron anchor.

This love letter dedicated to opera’s biggest rock star, the larger-than-life Luciano Pavarotti, achieves something most documentaries about the deceased rarely do: It brings a man back to glorious life.

The best thing in this movie is the performance by a cast that rarely falters. It’s solid, from top to bottom.

The movie brims with unexpected zest, an enthralling joie de vivre that seduces despite any reservations you may have.

In her assured film debut as Freddie, Park holds your rapt attention.

All said, Nightmare Alley is something to be admired, rather than treasured. It’s big, classic moviemaking with a moral in the end. And there can be a lot to be said for that.

Though the movie delivers its chuckles and elicits its sighs in a calibrated narrative arc that softens the hard edges of its late bloomer’s life, it would be shortsighted to hastily dismiss Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris as sentimental escapist fare that quickly evaporates into the ether of silly romanticism.

There’s something refreshing about the old-fashioned way in which it entertains, a mix of silly slapstick and sight gags combined with a gentle heart.

The jokes fly in the college intramural football comedy Balls Out like a fourth-down Hail Mary thrown deep toward the end zone: unpredictable, risky, and just a little desperate. But when they hit their marks – and make no mistake, the number of completed passes here is high – they score big laughs in the most unconventionally funny, weirdly absurd movie of the year.

Boys on the Side is surprisingly effective, although its narrative often advances awkwardly.

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.