Steven Rea

Although James and Madden are no Fred and Ginger when it comes time for the fabled ball, her breathy swoons and glitter-splashed décolletage and his personable imperviousness bode well for the couple's future.

Run All Night isn't dull. The pace is breakneck, and necks get broken. But the violence is relentless, ugly, unredeemed by any real humanity.

1971 is a testament to a generation's idealism, heroism, foolhardiness, fearlessness.

All manner of subplots weave their way through the film, which teems with "colorful" characters and saccharine cliches. But, like the first film, it's next to impossible not to find diversion in the company of such stalwarts as Dench and Nighy and Smith. And George Thorogood is, happily, never heard from again.

Chappie has a nothing-to-lose Roger Cormanesque quality about it, low on budget (except for the CGI robots) and low on meaning, but full of high-velocity chases, helicopter pursuits, and weapons blasting around empty warehouses marred by graffiti and trash.

It's a story of global consequences and historic proportions, and of astounding athleticism and synchronicity - and filmmaker Polsky ices it.

Amirpour clearly studied their films and listened to some Sergio Leone spaghetti Western scores while she was at it. The music in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night pulses with a late-night Persian vibe, reverby and twanging, soulful, hypnotic.

The movie pulls off the worst kind of con: the one that disappoints.

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

There are good things to say about the inspirational Disney sports film McFarland, USA, starting with its up-from-the-scrap-heap story, which happens to be true.

In the future, in the past, at all points along the space-time continuum, the Theory of the Teenage Male Mind throws everything out of whack.

What's up in The Duke of Burgundy is a straight-faced homage to 1970s European erotica, full of soft-focus nudity and soft-core kink.

The haunting mastery of Leviathan comes not from these broad indictments of a social order, but from the specifics of the performances, the actors wearing their hurt and rage, their defiance and dread, like well-worn clothing.

There's real hypocrisy here. If a movie like Fifty Shades of Grey is supposed to offer a voyeuristic experience - and not a ridiculous experience - have some integrity about your nudity. Despite what the filmmakers may want to believe, there isn't a lot else going on here. Fifty Shades of Grey Matter, not so much.

As for Kunis, she gets to wear some out-of-this-world couture, and gets to make her entrance at a marriage ceremony on a floating dais, kind of like Katy Perry at the Super Bowl.

It's a good story, a sad story, a story of triumph and prejudice and terrible hypocrisy. And Cumberbatch aces it all - another smartly realized but deeply soulful performance from an actor who seemingly can do no wrong.

Tonally askew (Altman-esque one minute, Austin Powers-esque the next), Inherent Vice is a sun-glared, neon-limned muddle of noir plotline and potheaded jokery that not only doesn't make sense, but actually seems to try hard not to.

Mr. Turner is no barrel of laughs. It's a barrel of life - an extraordinary one.

Selma may be flawed, even spurious at points. But in its larger portrait of a man of dignity, purpose, and courage, and in Oyelowo's performance as that man, the film rings true.

A moody cyber-noir with not much on its mind but looking good, Blackhat is a must-see if you like your dialogue (romantic, dramatic, subtitled Cantonese) peppered with techspeak.

The Dardennes are aces at these small-scale human dramas, and Two Days, One Night is almost without flaw.

Directed in moody, downbeat tones by Daniel Barnz, Cake doesn't know when to stop piling on the angst.

With creepy sound effects (thuds and clangs and groans, oh my) and a mounting - make that sinking - sense of dread, Black Sea is at once fist-clenchingly suspenseful and, well, dull.

A boldly sappy melodrama that plays on - and off - racial stereotypes.

Mommy is too long for its own good, its sense of hysteria too relentless. But the headlong energy is intoxicating more than exhausting, and Freud would have a field day with Die and Steve. A mother and child, so sweet, so tender, so terrifying.

Gritty, suspenseful and almost poetic in its depiction of an unforgiving town, A Most Violent Year is just shy of being great.

Moore is nominated this year, and whether she wins or not, her performance deserves attention. It is one of this very fine actress' defining roles. And it resonates with humanity and heartbreak.

Beefed up and twanging like a true cowboy, Cooper nonetheless carries the full weight of his character's achievements - and the questions that come with them - as he tries to find his footing back on Texas soil. If American Sniper fails at being a truly great film, it is no fault of its star.