Steven Rea

The film doesn't hold together in any compelling way.

By the end of their arduous journey, Lore and her siblings are changed. But it's the kind of change that will take years, perhaps generations, to understand, to heal.

Another high school vixen movie, this one with a potty mouth (the vixen) and pretensions of social commentary (the movie), Pretty Persuasion brings to mind a number of other titles, all better.

A bizarre counterculture jukebox musical.

This gory horror romp is a goofball medley of "Dawn of the Dead," "28 Days Later" . . . , and Monty Python-style severed-limbs/blood-spurting sicko comedy.

If Edel's Oscar-nominated film drags in its final 40 minutes, it's a function of the director's fidelity to the facts - and the fact that the founding trio (and the film's stars) have become prisoners of the state, confined and confused.

The talented Hansen-Love, with clarity and economy, manages to avoid the maudlin.

Despite Scorsese's efforts to pump up some drama - the director, with his signature glasses and Groucho brows, gets huffy about not receiving a set list - drama is sorely lacking. This is just a concert film.

A Very Long Engagement is "Cold Mountain" with French people.

Gripping, sobering, inspiring stuff.

Cartel Land offers a chilling glimpse into a world of violence and vigilantism.

There's real joy in O'Day's eyes - and larynx - as she bobs and weaves through an amazing songbook.

Zany screwball farce.

It's complicated. And it's fascinating.

How the film plays out, and what happens to the boy and the adults in his company, may prove a revelation, or a disappointment, or something in between. But getting there is thrilling and wondrously strange.

Brothers is about how people change, how they can rise to an occasion, or sink to one. It's a tale of love and allegiance, of truth and the cruelties that men can bring to bear on one another.

It's hard to feel compassion for these Masters of the Universe. I'm not even sure Chandor wants us to, but if he doesn't, then what's the point?

A slasher spoof of sorts, except that unlike the "Scream" pics, scant effort seems to have gone into the spoofing aspect of the story.

Deschanel does what she does seemingly without effort, managing to convey Summer's mixed-up messed-upness.

Although Me and You and Everyone We Know requires patience on the part of the viewer - to get past the faux naivete of its grown-up characters, to get past its deadpan arty tone - Miranda July's feature debut is worth the time.

Scott and Davis bring heart-rending sadness and telling detail to their roles, and imbue Secret Lives with something real and true.

The Revenant is exhilarating cinema.

A small, beautiful film exploding with big ideas.

Safe, disturbing and edgy and grounded by Moore's riveting performance, resonates with uncertainty.

Buscemi has pulled off a deft feat: He doesn't romanticize his characters, but he doesn't condemn them as losers either. They're just people. [25 Oct 1996, p.12]

The vampires in What We Do in the Shadows are symbolic of something else altogether: epic unkemptness.

Wickedly clever nightmare entertainment.

There's an icy chill, a detachment, to A Dangerous Method, too. Of course, there are no talking cockroaches (Naked Lunch), no naked steambath knife fights (Eastern Promises), and that may have something to do with why this all feels so un-Cronenbergian.