Todd McCarthy

Succeeds in capturing the book's essential themes and concerns, albeit in a hectic style that could not be more antithetical to that of the literary master of international intrigue.

Bright, glossy, grandly scaled and dramatically stolid, 79-year-old writer-director Jerzy Kawalerowicz's longtime dream project mixes earnest religiosity with the depraved cruelty of Nero's Rome in the classic De Mille tradition.

Sedentary at these encounters may be, they are also frequently riveting and invariably fascinating, as they provide first-hand accounts and insider insights of the sort infrequently heard. These almost invariably underline the significance of the film's title in the scheme of diplomacy and rewardingly reveal the hopes and regrets that come with the territory.

An insightfully observed and exceptionally acted ensemble piece precisely about what the title suggests.

Barry emerges as an involving and credible portrait of a smart young man with a good deal of growing and learning yet to do.

Dazzlingly nimble and light on its feet, this breezy but densely textured love letter to modern, multicultural Paris in the guise of a romantic suspenser returns its director to the vibrant vein of his pre-Oscar work in "Something Wild" and "Married to the Mob."

Fennell’s film could be called a polemic, but dramatically it’s so sharply and boldly laid out that its narrative shocks rule the day. It’s jolting to witness how it refuses to let anyone off the hook.

An impeccably made and genuinely moving account of how Scottish author J.M. Barrie came to write "Peter Pan."

Genuinely spectacular and historically quite respectable, Ridley Scott's latest epic is at its strongest in conveying the savagery spawned by fanaticism.

Befitting the subject's personality and entertainment predilections, What She Said is adamantly engaging, full of lively, appreciative voices that, more than anything else, bring her enthusiasm and keen-mindedness back to life.

The director and screenwriter downplay the conventional melodrama inherent in the situation in favor of emphasizing how practical problems should be addressed with rational responses rather than hysteria, knee-jerk patriotism or selfish expedience.

Well-made and acted Coen Brothers remake lacks the humor and resonance that might have made it memorable.

Sad, compelling documentary leaves a few key questions frustratingly unanswered, but the raw materials here are sufficiently bracing.

Marked by some powerful scenes, fine performances and colorful dialogue, this talented directorial debut by actor-writer Billy Bob Thornton has its effectiveness diluted by serious overlength and a rather monotonous, unmodulated tone.

This surprising collaboration between director Clint Eastwood and "Milk" screenwriter Dustin Lance Black tackles its trickiest challenges with plausibility and good sense, while serving up a simmeringly caustic view of its controversial subject's behavior, public and private.

With Ledger onscreen more than might have been expected, the film possesses strong curiosity value bolstered by generally lively action and excellent visual effects.

Just as quirky and idiosyncratic as the Gotham-based writer-director's earlier efforts, this one pushes the spiky humor a bit more to the fore while unfolding a tale loaded with offbeat oppositions and odd character detailing.

Upstream Colors certainly is something to see if you’re into brilliant technique, expressive editing, oblique storytelling, obscuritanist speculative fiction or discovering a significant new actress.

An entertainingly eccentric horror tale that envelopes the audience in a dreamy and bloody nightmare.

Fury is a good, solid World War II movie, nothing more and nothing less.

Exceedingly imaginative, beautifully realized animated epic adventure.

A pleasurable throwback to the sort of gritty, low-tech international thriller that was a staple of the 1960s.

Audacious, confident and fueled by youthful energy.

Engaging, refreshingly human in its humor and becomingly modest in its aspirations, this hip look at being out of it announces some promising new talent and will play well with young audiences looking for comfortable entertainment that doesn't feel manufactured.

Underachieves in its own way by trapping an expansive, probing story in a brittle, highly artificial style that constricts character and emotional development.

The film yanks the viewer to attention with its keen sensitivity to the rough winter conditions and limited prospects faced by the locals. It also features one of Jeremy Renner’s best recent performances, but does fall into some traps when it ventures into Tarantino and Peckinpah territory.

An unusually fresh-feeling indie with a nice sense of style. The potentially predictable story of a young man who undertakes an impromptu journey to resolve some unfinished family business emerges as an appealing tale of personal growth with hand-crafted contours.

Beautifully acted by a diverse ensemble, this Good Machine production is carefully crafted and deliberately paced.

Increasingly exhibits a desire to amuse and distract rather than go deep, which ultimately generates disappointment in light of its announced intentions.

Rough as can be in both content and style, Ghosts will be welcome everywhere tough, provocative docus are shown.

Planet Terror delivers only momentary kicks...while Tarantino's Death Proof is a juicy, delicious treat, its pleasures stem much less from the play with genre conventions than from great dialogue and electric performances.

John Mathieson's widescreen cinematography is magnificent, and the pacing across 2½ hours is well modulated.

A deliriously trashy, exuberantly vulgar, lavishly appointed exploitation picture, this weird combo of road-kill movie and martial-arts vampire gorefest is made to order for the stimulation of teenage boys.

Taking film noir material and turning it inside out visually and morally, The Deep End is an absorbing, beautifully made melodrama that succeeds on formal levels more than it does with suspense or emotion.

Serves up a judicious blend of showy action, political intrigue, ticking-clock suspense and intramural CIA one-upsmanship for mainstream entertainment.

So consistently odious, diabolical and simply anti-humane is Cohn’s lifetime portfolio that you really feel the need of a cold shower afterwards. But this kind of dark brilliance is always fascinating, and the doc is able to trade on this all the way through.

The fact that a genre entry of this nature, with no intrinsic need of being philosophically nuanced, goes out of its way to endow even its ostensible villains with comprehensible motives rates as a notable achievement.

After building up a narrative head of steam, the film relaxes too much back into expository documentary form. What might have been thrilling is merely entirely engrossing.

Wendy in every way feels like a handmade, one-of-a-kind, exceptionally fresh and — one hesitates to use the word — organic piece of work that quite quickly imparts a desire to see it again.

A randy, irreverent, slice-of-life no-budgeter that's played for laughs and gets them.

Never really addresses why aspects of the ratings don't work, proposes concrete improvements or compares the system to those in other countries. Still, picture's bracing, hilarious and out-there elements make it a landmark.

It's juicy, fascinating stuff, well orchestrated by Carion and finely thesped -- especially by Kusturica.

A knockout documentary with a renegade personality ideally suited to its anarchic subject matter.

Tony Kushner's densely packed script has been directed by Spielberg in an efficient, unpretentious way that suggests Michael Curtiz at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, right down to the rogue's gallery of great character actors in a multitude of bewhiskered supporting roles backing up a first-rate leading performance by Daniel Day-Lewis.

Resourceful filmmakers Bud Friedgen and Michael J. Sheridan have come up with a bang-up third anthology of Golden Era musical highlights that capably holds its own with its predecessors.

Digging deep into the archives for rare and revealing material to accompany interviews with many of his collaborators and intimates, filmmaker Amy Scott packs a lot into 90 minutes with this insightful and warm look at an artist whose best work always revealed a heightened social conscience.

The actors throw themselves into their roles with terrific zeal, enlivened by the often blunt dialogue and the issues at stake.

Contemplative and absorbing rather than rip-roaring and exciting, the film will likely play better to Western connoisseurs than to general and younger audiences, but it's an estimable piece of work grounded by a fine-grain sensibility and an expertly judged lead performance.

A well-observed and deftly performed examination of upper-middle-class emotional deep freeze, The Ice Storm is an intelligent, adult American film.

As Oscar, Jordan at moments gives off vibes of a very young Denzel Washington in the way he combines gentleness and toughness; he effortlessly draws the viewer in toward him.

An array of supporting craftspeople pull the viewer into a credible alternative world, even if the film itself is more prosaic than inspiring.

Palmason boldly risks audience disenfranchisement by pushing his disturbing story to unexpected lengths dramatically and stylistically, thereby winning a creative wrestling match with a potentially intransigent narrative.

A roundly entertaining romantic comedy, Love Actually is still nearly as cloying as it is funny…its cheeky wit, impossibly attractive cast and sure-handed professionalism are beguiling.

Directing himself for the first time, Redford has lavished his usual meticulous care on popular material that comes alive on the screen in ways that it never could on the page.

Director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg deliver the goods again with a rugged drama about an incident that created an environmental disaster and a worldwide scandal.

Like it or not, Wanted pretty much slams you to the back of your chair from the outset and scarcely lets up for the duration.

Hakonarson observes all this with the practiced eye of a good documentarian but, in the compositions, the rigorous timing of the editing and the performances of the two leads, he lifts the material beyond the observational to a modestly accomplished work that not only neatly observes an obscure lifestyle but brings to life a most peculiar sibling relationship.

The final installment of the immortal Bella/Edward romance will give its breathlessly awaiting international audience just what it wants.

One of Caine's meatiest roles, and he handles it with power, humanity and remarkable emotional fluidity; from the opening moments, an enormous amount comes through his eyes alone.

The clear-eyed film dedicates itself to breaking through the debris of cliched, one-dimensional public impressions of vets, bikers, immigrant wives and kids and trailer-park lifestyles as it fashions an involving portrait of a deeply scarred man sustained by certain rituals and an unextinguished sense of empathy for others’s problems.

Jennifer Eight is an unusually intelligent and unexploitative late-season thriller, which probably won't help its chances at the box office. Involving without being exciting, pic is notable for avoiding most of the standard suspense film contrivances, as well as for Conrad Hall's utterly smashing cinematography. Interesting cast and sober approach will mean more to critics and sophisticated viewers than to general audiences, resulting in OK results during brief release window before Christmas heavy hitters put this out to video pasture, where it might fare better.

A vital chapter of mid-century history is brought to life concisely, with intimacy and matter-of-fact artistry.

Geremy Jasper’s dynamic debut crackles with energy and grassroots authenticity. But it wouldn’t have worked at all without the right leading lady, which it found in Danielle Macdonald, whose rapping seems convincingly born of her character’s rough life experience.

Best of all, von Sydow is absolutely wonderful, with the great veteran actor clearly relishing this very unusual role as he darts, skulks and, in a stealthy way, mugs across town. Without saying a thing, he dominates the middle part of the movie.

Cohen employs a comic range that ricochets between wicked political barbs and the lowest anatomical farce, to often funny and occasionally hilarious effect.

A seamless, pulsating, dazzlingly visual revenge fantasy that stands as one of the most effective live-actioners ever derived from a comic strip.

Suffern puts this tragic story to purposeful and, in some respects, inspiring use: The power of forgiveness can be remarkable, and some countries in the world have actually improved over the past 25 years.

Charlie Wilson's War is that rare Hollywood commodity these days: a smart, sophisticated entertainment for grownups.

Although marred by a couple of too-convenient plot contrivances, this often humorous drama lands firmly in the plus column among the Woodman's recent works.

A very loose and contemporized remake of one of the more celebrated late '40s films noir, Kiss of Death is a crackling thriller that feels unusually attuned to its lowlife characters.

A funny and unexpectedly beguiling account of the outrageous humorist's unlikely rise to the pinnacle of radio celebrity.

A film that is continuously enjoyable from its action-filled opening to the dazzling final shot, one that offers a very generous welcome to newcomers to the play, and reminds those familiar with it of its heady pleasures. Only real drawback, and not an insignificant one, is pic’s visual quality, which is unaccountably undistinguished, even ugly, especially considering the sun-drenched Tuscan location.

All the dramatic components have not only been well thought out by Talbot and co-writer Rob Richert, but they’re adorned, for the most part, by a sense of reality that keeps pretentiousness at bay. To be sure, this is a highly calculated and worked-out story, but the humor and lively playing of the entire cast keeps the film aloft across its two hours.

Although Nava's screenplay hits the subject of every scene right on the head and doesn't ask for much subtlety or subtext, Lopez is wonderful to watch in the dramatic sequences as well as in the numerous musical interludes.

Viewers looking for old-fashioned movie thrills as a change of pace from the glut of alien and digital-oriented features might paradoxically enjoy the feeling of being back on terra firma with this airborne adventure.

This is a Wes Anderson film -- more lightweight than some, possessing a stronger emotional undertow than others -- that will strike the uninitiated as conspicuously arch.

To his credit, director Scott Derrickson...navigates through the different zones with a fair degree of actual coherence, and delivers the entire package with evident ease and some flair.

In the spirit of the venture, the entire cast gets down and comes off all the better for it. Both Efron and McConaughey get very messed up physically, and both actors seem stimulated to be playing such flawed characters.

In revisiting his darkly comic 1998 ensembler "Happiness," Todd Solondz may have made his best film with Life During Wartime.

This vigorous, colorful and clever melodrama smartly rethinks both the play and the character, making her a far more proactive figure than Shakespeare did in addition to entirely reimagining her fate.

Nearly as extravagant as the characters it depicts, Martin Scorsese's comic, operatically-scaled film is, on a moment-by-moment basis, often madly entertaining due to its live-wire energy, exuberant performances and the irresistible appeal of watching naughty boys doing very naughty things.

The Whale is a thoughtful, philosophical, political and ultimately sad documentary that ponders the impulses behind, and advisability of, intense interaction between human beings and another smart species.

A violent fairy tale, an increasingly entertaining fantasia in which the history of World War II is wildly reimagined so that the cinema can play the decisive role in destroying the Third Reich.

Gibson still has all the energy, impulsive gear-shifting ability and growly vocal command to anchor a muscular film such as this; he co-wrote it for himself, after all, and he certainly knows by now what he does best. Hernandez is entirely credible as a tough little customer with real guts, and all the actors playing bad guys seize their opportunities with relish.

This is Holofcener’s sweet spot, the depiction of the emotional confusions, self-deceptions, uncertainties and misguided decisions that can cloud and get the better of otherwise bright, aware people, especially the female characters she tends to specialize in.

Fassbender cuts a more prosaic, realistic figure as the tormented, romantic Rochester than did the screen's most celebrated performer of the role, Orson Welles, in the effective 1944 version.

A wonderful, serious-minded romantic comedy-drama.

Feels lavish by normal documentary standards and will have great appeal in such F1 hotbeds as Europe and South America.

It is never boring and does provoke and stimulate, although not as a turn-on, not remotely.

A full-blown musical that commutes between Disney's patented cartoon universe and the "real" world with cleverness and grace, this splashy production reminds one of nothing in the Disney canon so much as "Mary Poppins," not least due to the "star is born" aura that surrounds Amy Adams here, just as it did Julie Andrews 43 years ago.

Carey Mulligan shines in a captivating performance.

It’s an impressive debut, an ambitious project pulled off with confidence.

An intermittently compelling and occasionally hilarious road movie.

It takes a little while to get in gear — or perhaps just to adjust to what's going on here — but once it does, Deadpool drops trou to reveal itself as a really raunchy, very dirty and pretty funny goof on the entire superhero ethos, as well as the first Marvel film to irreverently trash the brand.

Ending is on the conventional side, more so than anything else in the picture , but script by Ann Biderman and David Madsen keeps the tart surprises coming throughout most of the picture with only occasional lapses into red herrings and artificial manipulation.

An eye-popping visual spectacle that serves up a vivid picture of what the planet might have looked like when reptiles ruled the Earth.

Eastwood's latest picture boasts tight storytelling, sharp acting and an eye for unexpected, enlivening detail.

Wellesians will vigorously debate the aesthetic results of this torturously achieved accomplishment but, to the credit of those who, against daunting odds and nearly a half-century's worth of obstacles, arduously pushed this project to completion, the end result feels like a plausible fulfillment of the style Welles himself established for it.