Todd McCarthy

Breezy, often self-mocking tone proves fresh and invigorating.

Raunchy humor laced with gradually revealed vulnerability makes for a winning combination in Obvious Child, a wildly funny and appealing female-centric comedy that launches very promising talent on both sides of the camera.

The connection between art and technology is explored in an entertaining and accessible way in Tim's Vermeer, a documentary that demonstrates how a savvy and dedicated amateur with sufficient resources was able to create a remarkable likeness of a great 17th century painting.

Created as a comic vehicle for the lead actor, pic depends entirely too much on Wayans to carry the day, but at this point he is far more eager and willing than he is funny.

Gubbins’ script is tart, verbally lively and neatly constructed, while director Josephine Decker, in her first outing since her well-received 2018 Sundance entry Madeline’s Madeline, keeps a very tight rein on things, adroitly mixing in tension, innuendo and dark humor to keep the drama at a satisfying low boil most of the way.

The film’s virtues are modest, but Buscemi has come out on top by taking on people and a place he clearly knows inside out.

Precise, lucid and thrillingly disciplined, this story of boundary-testing in the early days of psychoanalysis is brought to vivid life by the outstanding lead performances of Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender.

Whit Stillman's stiff directorial approach ill suits the sensual ambiance of the club scene so intently depicted, and the mostly self-conscious, uptight characters seem to have made a left turn out of "Metropolitan" and walked through the wrong door to turn up in this flamboyant druggie scene.

Absorbing, exciting at times and undeniably entertaining, and is poised to be a major commercial hit. But great it's not.

A collection of five femme-oriented vignettes that are not intricately linked dramatically but overlap characters, this observant, emotionally acute drama is distinguished by a pronounced poetic sensibility.

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

A desperately slight romantic comedy marked by contrived romance and little comedy.

This is a safe, serviceable, carefully crafted action drama in which the subversive seeds planted in the first story take welcome root.

Disappointingly, Death of a President shrinks from its promise as a piece of genuinely radical or adventurous speculative fiction.

The bawdy jokes score big points, but it's the rueful acknowledgement of adolescent embarrassment and humiliation that most distinguishes Superbad, another ultra-raunchy and commercial sex comedy from the Judd Apatow laugh factory.

Performances are aces top to bottom

Structurally and thematically similar to John Frankenheimer's original but entirely different in style, feel and nuance, this political thriller about a brainwashed soldier being positioned for the White House provides a delectable network of dramatic tripwires that teases the mind and quickens the pulse. This is brainy popcorn fare.

As a study of stasis and of people conscious of not living the lives they had imagined for themselves, the picture offers a bracing undertow of seriousness beneath the deceptively casual, dramatically offhand surface.

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

Cedar impressively creates a complex and intricately detailed portrait of the web of political, financial, social and religious affiliations that has everything to do with how the world works.

Walks the line between conviction and camp with a not entirely steady step.

The film has nothing if not great vitality and an active creative spirit, but it has all been channeled here in a way that comes off as erratic and sometimes ill-judged.

The mash-up of elements combine with a singularly unpleasant roster of characters to create a work of genuinely off-putting quirkiness.

A passably entertaining hodgepodge of old and new animation techniques, mixed sensibilities and hedged commercial calculations.

La Belle Epoque is the sort of vastly entertaining mainstream French film that was produced with regularity during the 1970s-'80s and was sometimes remade by Hollywood. Those days are long gone but it could happen with this witty, sexy and original romantic comedy that touches many points of satisfaction.

Engaging, intermittently insightful but too glib to wring full value out of its subject matter.

Everything the film has to offer is obvious and on the surface, its pleasures simple and sincere under the attentive guidance of director Jon S. Baird.

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.

Spielberg is such a talented director it’s a shame to see him lose all sense of subtlety and nuance.

Neither the establishing dramatic linchpin nor the final conversion of conscience is terribly convincing, leaving this pared-down rendition of the original work diminished in power and meaning as well.

As usual, there are only fragments of thoughts, nothing is developed, and it will be left only to the tiny band of die-hard Godardians to try to make any meaningful sense of the disparate fragments stitched together here.

Has a jaunty, cosmopolitan air that proves appealing for considerable stretches, and Chin's love of cinema and mostly humorous approach to weighty themes will win points with buffs who have seen the same films the director has.

More than the film that surrounds him, Jack Black is worth the price of admission in Bernie, an oddball May-December true life crime story that would have profited from being a whole lot darker and full-bodied than it is.

For longtime Wiig fans, this uneven, overlong, emotionally involving and discreetly ambitious film will represent a welcome and overdue step up from her popular sketch work on "Saturday Night Live" to something sustained and searching, not to mention pretty funny.

A career high point for Ralph Fiennes as both an actor and director, this unfussy and emotionally penetrating work also provides lead actress Felicity Jones with the prime role in which she abundantly fulfills the promise suggested in some of her earlier small films.

A breezy, keen-to-please attitudes prevails, and director James Bobin (The Flight of the Conchords, Da Ali G Show for TV) moves things along with good cheer.

With Gere’s character so lacking in memory and mental clarity, the film provides very little for an audience to latch on to. Tedium quickly sets in and is only sporadically relieved in this labor of love that simply doesn’t reward even the patient attention of sympathetic viewers.

McCarten’s scene writing is tart and efficient and Wright infuses the drama with unquestioned energy. But this is a film in which every point and meaning is hit directly on the nose.

A pounding, pulsating thriller that provides an almost constant adrenaline surge for nearly two hours.

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.

Lightning strikes twice, but not as brilliantly as before, in Shrek 2. The welcome sequel to the monster 2001 Oscar winner about an ogre's unlikely romance with a beautiful princess successfully recycles many of the qualities that made the first one an instant animated classic and worldwide smash.

An exemplary and dynamic work that goes about as far as a narrative film can in both analyzing a complex personality and portraying a cultural scene.

Blandness and lack of daring characterize nearly every minute of the very long two hours, which are marked by a high degree of professionalism at the service of little content.

Has a casual, freewheeling nature in contrast to the creeping grandiosity of some of Disney's A-list animated titles.

An uncommonly smart, sharp and irreverent American picture.

In trying to merge this alarmist theme with an old-fashioned murder mystery, the filmmakers throw at least one plot-twist sucker-punch too many, leaving the viewer with an “Oh, come on” reaction to the entire film.

A spectacular demonstration of what modern technology can contribute to dramatic storytelling.

Carlos Lopez Estrada’s debut feature brandishes brash exuberance and stilted storytelling tropes in roughly equal measure, yielding a result that stimulates just as it cheapens itself dramatically.

This intelligently made picture is artful but not arty, political without being didactic.

Like "In the Bedroom," Little Children, at well over two hours, is somewhat long for an intense, intimate drama, and arguments could run many ways concerning what could be tightened or excised.

Intelligently conceived and well- acted, this compact, straightforward drama about two ordinary people caught in the ongoing political crossfire packs enough punch to command audience interest, but won't light up critics or the B.O. to the extent achieved by the team's previous outings, "My Left Foot" and "In the Name of the Father."

A superbly wrought yarn set in the milieu of first-generation Russian mobsters in London that is simultaneously tough-minded and compassionate about the human condition, Eastern Promises instantly takes its place among David Cronenberg's very best films.

Opulently produced, fittingly enough, and quite entertaining as a surface ride through the up, down and somewhat up again life of one of the New Hollywood's most colorful characters.

Barry Levinson goes deep with Liberty Heights, and the result is a grand slam.

Like a trot around the track for the thoroughbreds involved, and one of the results is that it takes them far too long to get to the finish line.

Particle Fever succeeds on every level, but none more important than in making the normally intimidating and arcane world of genius-level physics at least conceptually comprehensible and even friendly to the lay viewer.

Rib-ticklingly funny at times and genial as all get-out.

Those who see it at fests, and in carefully tailored specialized release, will be struck by the adroitness with which it addresses touchy issues, as well as by the outstanding performance of Ryan Gosling in the difficult leading role.

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.

The formula of ingredients is familiar and time-tested, to be sure, but some cocktails go down much better than others and McQuarrie and company have gotten theirs just right here.

Energetic, humorous and not too cloying, as well as the first Hollywood film in many years to warn of global cooling rather than warming, this tuneful toon upgrades what has been a lackluster year for big studio animated fare.

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

An excellent novel about the Iraq War and its homefront fallout has been turned into a rather flat and disappointing film in The Yellow Birds.

A resourceful, if rather hyperbolic documentary that devotes 90 minutes to analyzing one of the most famous scenes in film history.

It is nonetheless imaginative in a highly familiar and ultimately tedious way.

Goes down like stiff medicine, leaving one feeling exhausted relief when it's finally over.

The result makes you realize how few realistic and three-dimensional date movies have been made in an era of throbbing hook-up encounters and R-rated horny teen gross-outs.

A visually mangy but frequently hilarious low-budgeter.

Staccato, Mamet-style dialogue exchanges, breathless pacing and remarkably healthy, well-fed-looking actors create a cumulative sense of artificiality that seriously undercuts the devastating effect clearly being sought.

Result is a kidpic long on invention but short on likability.

After examining the rarefied world of debutante socialites with wit and obvious expertise in “Metropolitan,” Stillman opens up his artistic universe a bit more here and displays an increased ease with filmmaking craf

Basically the film consists of a bunch of techies in white shirts and glasses laboriously discussing their views, exchanges you get the feeling the filmmaker thought would come off as humorous.

In the end, The Last King of Scotland is much better when it plays it cool and amusing than when it tries to ramp up outrage and indignation.

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

An all-star remake of the all-star original, Ocean's Eleven is a lark for everybody concerned, including the audience. Breezy, nonchalant and without a thing on its mind except having a little fun.

Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl excel as, respectively, British wild man and hedonist James Hunt and Austrian by-the-books tactician Niki Lauda.

Little kids will enjoy it all, while parents, when not checking their cell phones, will be thankful for the thoughtfully brief running time.

Beautifully made pic will spur newsy media coverage and possible consternation on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, but members of the general public will be glancing at their watches rather than having epiphanies about world peace.

What neophyte scripterscripter Jeff Maguire's plot comes down to, however, is the cat-and-mouse game between Horrigan and Leary, and the craftiness and strategies involved on both sides, while not exactly ingenious, are tantalizing enough to compel interest.

The lead performances have power, whereas pictorially the film is pretty rough and ordinary.

For all its derivative poetics -- as many exteriors as possible were shot during or just after magic hour, a la Malick -- the film is a lovely thing to experience and possesses a measure of real power.

This story of suffering and almost inadvertent humanitarianism is harrowing, engrossing, claustrophobic and sometimes literally hard to watch.

It may be a specialist’s rarified sort of work now, but Gordon and Abel really know what they’re doing. It’s gentle and admittedly closer to a divertissement than a full-course comic meal. But no one else is doing anything like this at the moment.

An absorbing, shades-of-gray look at home-front intrigue in Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II. Ole Christian Madsen’s accomplished fourth feature plays out on a much larger canvas than he’s used previously and offers nuance and ambiguity in equal measure with violence and tragedy.

A vigorous and involving salute to professionalism and being good at your job, Sully vividly portrays the physical realities and human elements in the dramatic safe landing of a crippled US Airways jet on the Hudson River on January 15, 2009.

An overly calculated concoction that nonetheless delivers a pretty good rush.

This grandly conceived and executed epic tries to give equal weight to intimate human emotions and speculation about the cosmos, with mixed results, but is never less than engrossing, and sometimes more than that.

With "Shampoo" and "American Gigolo" now distant memories, the time evidently seemed ripe for another Hollywood stud movie. Despite Ashton Kutcher’s believability as an older woman’s kept boy, Spread isn’t a patch on those previous films.

Represents a passable follow-up to the venerable Peter Pan story and mercifully, at 72 minutes, is exactly half the length of the last attempt at same, Steven Spielberg's lamentable "Hook."

A seductively structured and superbly acted suspenser that breathtakingly piles swindle upon scam without giving away the game until the very end.

A faithful, powerful and superbly acted adaptation of Andre Dubus III's international bestseller.

A tough-minded, bracingly blunt look at the sometimes debilitating cost of doing business that casts an unblinking eye on the physical, emotional and moral bottom line.

Executed to near perfection in all artistic departments, this superior adaptation of the perennial favorite novel will find its core public among girls , but should prove satisfying enough to a range of audiences to make it a solid performer for Warner Bros.' family entertainment banner.

In his bigscreen feature debut, director and co-writer Jonathan Mostow displays real flair for visceral cinema while adroitly sidestepping many of the usual tripwires of this sort of film, particularly silly coincidences, stupid decisions on the part of characters with whom you're supposed to identify, and superheroics performed by ordinary people.

This can't-take-your-eyes-off-it documentary feels like both a mea culpa and a purge of lingering ghosts.

Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion.

This very New York tale is old-fashioned in good ways that have to do with solid storytelling, craftsmanship and emotional acuity.

For geeks, action freaks and sensation-seeking teenage boys of all ages, the price of admission will provide a one-way ticket to hard-boiled heaven.