Susan Wloszczyna

Cusack's distinctive handling of his sullen poet offers an opportunity for Adult World to make a statement about youthful ambition and middle-age disillusionment beyond Billings dubbing Amy and her peers as "Generation Mundane." But the film just stops short of truly achieving that goal.

Both David-Stahl and Bell are appealing actors but unfortunately their easy-to-relate-to storyline is pretty much upstaged by the rowdy air-sex scenes.

Everything in The Lego Movie is, indeed, awesome.

At Middleton is the just the sort of trite if inoffensive diversion that barely tiptoes into theaters before landing in the cable and video-on-demand listings.

At the very least, the makers of That Awkward Moment should get credit for savvy casting.

There is that feeling you get inside when a movie suddenly starts to push your every button, creating an emotional connection that goes beyond pure reason and mere emotion. It elevates your mood to such a point that you wish you could hug the screen out of sheer joy and recognition. That is what Gloria did to me.

Some have compared Maidentrip to a young female version of Robert Redford's "All Is Lost". But in Dekker's case, all seems to be found.

Once this self-consciously campy fairy tale stops trying so hard to emulate every high-school comedy and TV show from the past 30 years and relaxes into a stream of clever repartee and amusing situations, it eventually offers enough LOL opportunities to deserve a passing grade.

Too bad that the makers of The Nut Job eagerly purloined Scrat's primal motivation—food—but failed to note the charm of his minimalist approach.

While Lutz might possess the beefcake to fill out his chest armor, he lacks the acting chops to make us much care about the fate of his gleaming hero who looks as if he just stepped out of a Beverly Hills salon.

If the boozy epic confrontations of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" or "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" are your definition of a good time, then this is the place to be.

Heisserer doesn't get everything right, but he sure knows how to milk a taut ending, including a miraculous final shot, one that would have drawn tears even if Walker were still around. For those who wish to see the actor at his best, Hours is worth the time.

An intoxicating kiddie cocktail for young-at-heart adults, inspired by a Disney fairy tale based on fact: the making of "Mary Poppins."

Crave, a creepy and deliberately paced thriller that is effective in its unpleasantness.

Most of its pleasures come from the way it confounds expectations.

With each on-screen chapter, the poor girl from District 12 continues to fulfill her destiny as an inspiration and a rebel fighter. She is but one female, but she's the perfect antidote to the surplus of male superheroes out there.

If Sunlight Jr. does anything, it is to shine a light on the fact that the American dream is a dormant notion for far too many.

That the stars of the show are none other than the esteemed Richard Griffiths and Richard E. Grant in invaluable cameo roles and that they end up provoking some of the biggest laughs of the movie demonstrates why Curtis is a comedy genius.

As a piece of filmmaking, Torn is slightly above TV-movie quality.

A somber, meditative, almost poetic film that delivers the horrors of bondage stripped down and head-on.

The balcony scene takes a tumble. This is movie's greatest disappointment. Really, if you can't get this right, then why even do Romeo and Juliet?

It's one of the most emotionally draining climaxes of the year.

Wisely, Kornbluth strives to put a human face on the situation, focusing on several families who represent hard-working citizens who are barely making ends meet with their shrinking paychecks—let alone building up any savings.

The director was smart enough to take a trait that often caused an actor to be be typecast as a menacing figure and turn it into a strength.

I might have tolerated the film much more with the sound off. With the volume on, this movie feels like a mucho-macho Saturday morning cartoon—specifically Bugs Bunny toying with his eternal pursuer, Elmer Fudd.

All this sounds eminently promising. But it would need a wordsmith as witty and wise as Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar for adapting the big-screen version of 1995's "Sense and Sensibility," to pull it off and do Austen herself justice.

Save for a few references of being abandoned by his birth parents and adopted later, the source of Jobs's jerky behavior never is revealed.

Planes modestly succeeds. Very modestly.