Walter Addiego

It’s a complicated tale, and at 92 minutes, the film is a very brief summary.

Gattaca is a welcome throwback to the days of good, low-tech sci-fi, stressing character and atmosphere over computer-generated effects and juvenile thrills.

There’s already a small library of films about the Who and its music, but this is the first I know of that examines the men who almost accidentally wound up managing one of the most incendiary of ’60s rock groups.

We're compelled to admire these athletes because, despite their obvious skill, they are in constant danger.

An affable comedy (with some serious notes).

It’s an intricate thriller about a con game, but so loaded with wicked humor and sensual appeal — ravishing cinematography, high-temperature eroticism — that for long stretches viewers might forget there’s any plot at all.

The film is cleanly made and moves quickly, which enhances its effectiveness. It raises moral issues that simply can’t be addressed too often.

A potent and disturbing experience. Fortunately it’s much more, offering sharp performances and genuine drama.

My Old Lady is affecting, even if many of the revelations and high-voltage speeches occur at predictable moments. But if you can look past this formulaic side, it's a movie worth seeing.

The film is far from perfect but has enough going on to compensate for its excessive length and some sentimentality.

Presenting Princess Shaw looks and feels like a DIY project, which is fine because the documentary is really a hymn to self-reliance — although bolstered with a modest amount of plain old luck.

Rao avoids high drama, and while there is humor, the film's tone is one of melancholy.

See Love Is Strange for its sensitivity and understated jokes, but mainly for Lithgow and Molina's expertly modulated work, which pulls the movie back when it threatens to stray into melodrama or heavy-handedness.

It's fascinating stuff, but secondary to Ebert's genuine passion for the movies, which, if anything, grew toward the end of his life. He saw film as a great civilizing force, "a machine that generates empathy," as he says in the film. If that idea appeals to you, see Life Itself.

The movie has lots of ironic humor, especially in the earlier segments, and laughter doesn't disappear entirely when the thriller element kicks in.

The result is a thrill ride with enough plunges and turns and loop-the-loops to make it worth a spin. What the picture lacks is the magic and resonance you feel in the best of popular entertainments.

The actor suffered deeply, and however much he’s responsible for that, it’s hard not to feel some compassion for a bright and sensitive artist who, at least early on, seemed full of life.

Director Patrick Creadon, who in 2006 made the entertaining "Wordplay," about crossword fanatics, probably errs on the side of advocacy here. But give him credit for acknowledging that idealistic endeavors don't always pay off.

Who can resist a good horse story? Simply and directly made, Dark Horse is a rousing documentary.

It may not sound funny, but there's a bleakly comic air about the story, and a bit of surrealism, suggesting the most caustic side of the Coen brothers.

Does about as good a job as any film could be expected to.

It's impossible to listen to Francesca's parents, deadly serious about art as a higher calling, without feeling both saddened and disturbed.

A gripping documentary about the most exacting and expensive scientific experiment ever conducted, and one that may be among the most significant.

Entertaining but predictable, and too long.

It may surprise you to hear that in the end there is a sliver of hope offered in Under the Tree, so thin that it’s almost not there. A less interesting movie might simply have served up a headlong plunge into the abyss — but Sigurdsson gives us a tiny flicker of light.

Works a familiar mine and produces more than a few nuggets. It's a good tonic, if one's still needed, for '80s-style cynicism: Greed is not good.

The hits just keep on coming in Muscle Shoals, a hugely entertaining, perhaps overlong, documentary about the renowned recording studios in the small Alabama town of the film's title. It's mandatory viewing for fans of the classic rock, soul and rhythm and blues of the 1960s and '70s.

The Great Escape is great entertainment. [06 Jun 2004]

The film doesn't see any contradictions between the man and his work, which is folkloric, mostly upbeat, often humorous. Both art and artist are outsized and entertaining, and that's about all that Bel Borba Aqui has to say.

If you stare at it too hard, In Another Country, an exercise in drollery from South Korea's Hong Sang-soo, simply evaporates. But if you take the film as the bauble it is, you'll be entertained by its lighthearted wit, social observations and resolute sidestepping of profundity.

The film's sense of intimacy, its closeness to real people and painful events, allows it to reach a deeper place than more conventional pieces of political rhetoric.

The scale is small, but Jellyfish has deep currents.

It’s a lot of ground to cover, but if the movie fails to plumb the depth of Lear’s mystery, it succeeds in being an entertaining look at an influential figure.

A powerful polemic leavened with moments of beauty and humor.

Gets blue-ribbon results from its thoroughbred cast of improvisational comics.

Creating this kind of otherworldly mood takes exceptional talent, and this is a film worth experiencing.

A potent and troubling meditation on the state of Western society.

What's on the screen may not be a letter-perfect Mansfield Park, but something true to its spirit.

A sobering documentary.

Outstanding in support roles are Alison Lohman, playing a friend of Jerry's, and John Carroll Lynch, playing a neighbor who befriends Jerry.

An engaging documentary attempt to probe her mystery, and it offers some answers - she was secretive and stubborn, a hoarder of epic proportions who seems to have had fits of instability. She also wasn't always nice to her young charges.

An intense and affecting report on the experiences of U.S. troops in one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.

The real joy here is the gorgeous nature cinematography.

A charming and moving film about a slightly racy subculture in a highly rule-bound society.

There’s much of value to be had along the way to a nicely handled ending. It would be a mistake to call it a surprise, but it’s something that few viewers are likely to expect.

In the title role, Kikuchi is impressive, easily handling Kumiko’s comic and more somber sides and never allowing us to settle into a single or simple interpretation of the character.

History rendered with enough brains and imagination to more than make up for its few stumbles.

This new picture is mainly in the spirit of fun, a loose, generally good-natured comedy with screwball overtones.

It's dark fun, in the spirit of "Gremlins."

It’s best to accept Don’t Breathe as simply a piece of lowdown fun — connoisseurs of creepy and sometimes brutal chills will have a good time.

It's compassionate but unblinking.

Bujalski has a serious talent for finding resonance in the mundane.

While Pick of the Litter can’t be described as innovative, it still creates a solid emotional punch when we see several of the five now-grown dogs finally matched with grateful humans. It’s quite moving to hear the recipients detail how liberating it is to have the assistance of one of these amazing animals.

The strangeness, humor and melancholy of aging are deftly explored in this film.

Exhilarating for Lynch diehards.

That the movie works so well is also due to the exceptional talents of leads Simonischek and Hüller, who hold nothing back — especially the former, whose Winfried is one of the oddest ducks in recent movies.

Overall it's a remarkably eccentric work coming from a cagey old Hollywood hand who directed Bogart and Hepburn in their primes. [28 Jun 2009, p.Q30]

The most amazing act in the Gran Circo Mexico doesn't take place in the ring - it's the grind between performances.

Eventually comes into its own as a wacky commentary on the state of America in the fifth year of the Iraq war.

It's a testament to what happens when all the right ingredients come together. Wag the Dog is the best political satire in years.

An exceptionally fine movie that plays out on a large and leisurely scale.

The director takes an unpromising premise - the switched-at-birth plot - and gives us something that's touching and unexpected.

The glory of the picture is the eye-popping, surreal backgrounds that blast the conventional characters off the screen.

It's full of visual flash, and can be enjoyed as a giddy ride, but you would waste your time trying to puzzle out the nuances of the story.

Metroland is a provocative rumination on how relationships are warped by two people's inability to be truthful with each other.

I can't help thinking, though, that maybe Thornton was too ambitious in trying to wear three hats.

You may find yourself weeping toward the end, and, later, you may also find yourself wondering why. The revelations are staggeringly obvious.

It's not as good as the original - which was fresher, funnier and scarier - but if it were, then by the criteria of the film's resident movie scholar, it wouldn't be a genuine sequel.

Lacks the spark of the best recent Disney spectaculars, like "Beauty and the Beast."

Speaking of bangs, the special effects include one of the better mega-blasts in recent memory: vast fireballs tear through the busy tunnel at dizzying speed and with devastating results. This is the money shot, what the Stallone audience is paying for. It remains to be seen if they'll buy a Stallone who's been downsized and reformulated - about a teaspoon's worth of added complexity.

It's soft-edged fun that loses direction (or, given the scattershot plot, directions).

His good-natured slob routine compensates for a lot of the film's dead spots, and the picture winds up a modest cut above the usual vehicle tailored for a would-be film star.

Some delightful surprises, but the sort of heavy-metal, high-definition sci-fi look that dominates the proceedings, plus the relentless pace and endless morphing, are somewhat tiring.

Cher is an inspired bit of casting, while the talented Dench is underused. Smith seems to be going through the motions as the fatuous and deluded aristocrat, while Tomlin has a ball as Georgie. But what really stays with you is the work by Plowright - she is a beacon of good sense (both as actor and character) and plucky as you please.

Director Troy Miller, making his feature debut, does a decent job with schmaltzy material.

There seems to be a pretty good film lurking around inside Bullhead, which makes what we actually see on the screen all the more frustrating.

A bonbon, not of a full-course meal. Foodies will smack their lips over many delectable shots of victuals prepared by the film's engaging protagonist, a provincial woman chosen to cook for the president of France. As a story, though, it's insubstantial - there's conflict here, but it feels perfunctory.

The film raises significant questions about manhood and offers a few gripping sequences, but isn’t fully satisfying.

Taking a stand would have made the film stronger, and might even have been helpful to young Pug and his peers.

The title comes from Indian legend in which Lord Rama tests the purity of his wife by a flaming ordeal (which we see enacted in an open-air pageant with comic overtones of Bunuel). This bit of mythology too handily prefigures a major element in the film's conclusion.

The film was clearly a labor of love, for good or ill. At one point, Galinsky jokingly refers to the production as “semi-unprofessional.” This is unusual and welcome frankness from a moviemaker.

A modestly entertaining martial arts melodrama with impressively staged fight sequences that help compensate for a stale plot and some less-than-stellar acting.

A doleful melodrama. There are some intense, moving sequences, but too much emotional badgering and a general shortage of finesse.

Although this leisurely tale of an aged French sculptor offers a few other small pleasures, in the end it lacks heft.

In short, a nice, predictable film unlikely to linger in the memory.

Trying to be provocative with a capital "P," Anne Fontaine's Adore undermines itself by provoking unintended laughs.

Turns into a pedestrian slice 'n' dice feature.

The New Zealand feature Boy almost pulls off the trick of merging cartoonish humor and '80s pop culture with a story glancing at deeper family issues. The film has an appealing 11-year-old hero, but in the end feels half baked.

A mediocre college comedy that blends bits of "Revenge of the Nerds," "Mean Girls" and "Legally Blonde" and doesn't have much to show for it.

Requires us to repress any thoughts about stale material and keep Caine's heartfelt performance front and center.

This is an unabashedly pro-democracy message movie. Judged strictly as drama, it's pretty routine.

The film never quite overcomes a slightly stodgy quality.

Affecting at times, but finally feels overblown and heavy-handed.

This tale of a young rape victim further brutalized by officialdom never lives up to its potential.

Oristrell's comedic sense only seems to succeed in spurts, and he often burdens the proceedings with a theatrical and contrived air that undermines the humor.

This Paramount-DreamWorks collaboration, with Stephen Spielberg credited as executive producer, is competently made, strongly focused on its characters' relationships and surprisingly light on special effects.

Amenta was deeply moved by Rita's story, but his prosaic direction can't do it justice.

The Dance of Reality may not succeed, but it may hold some interest to cinephiles as a relic of a kind of extravagant, overheated personal cinema that doesn't exist anymore.

Far too precious and eager to please to really deserve its self-description as a fairy tale.

The particulars of the plot don't make a great deal of sense, but Hartley's films have much more to do with style, or rather a philosophical refusal to show emotional involvement.

Mainly for those who already know and like Jodorowsky’s work.

It’s always fun to watch the charismatic Bernal.

Spiritually it's a John Woo-George Romero-Jim Thompson picture, outrageously bloody and weird.

There’s nothing wrong with stretching audience credibility, but, to quote another movie that dabbles in the highly improbable, these things must be done delicately.

Too raw for kids and too simplistic for adults.

Carbon Nation serves us a full portion of scary statistics, but overall tries to accentuate the positive.

By casting model-turned-actress (and his now-estranged wife) Milla Jovovich as the Maid of Orleans, Besson gives us an over-amped spectacle with an annoying, sometimes ridiculous cipher at its heart.

The film has its flaws, but after watching its catalog of shifty hedge fund types, Kardashians, plastic surgery addicts, bling-laden rappers and children of Hollywood royalty, you can’t help but agree.

The real trouble is that it's supposed to be an outrageous comedy, but in fact it's fairly tame and not all that funny.

Ronin shows the mark of a veteran hand and is entertaining in fits and starts.

It could have been something substantial.

The needle on the laugh-o-meter barely budges.

Joner is a capable actor, but he’s required here to remain for such a long time in a one-note condition of mental fragility that our sympathy for the character starts to give way to exasperation.

Capably made but simplistic story.

A counterfeit of a Woo movie, even though Woo himself co-produced it.

The Honeymooners isn't the worst of the endless spate of TV rehashes, but it still feels perfunctory.

The plot is somewhat pedestrian and the dialogue needs more zip. But it's amusing to watch the Bayaka poke good-natured fun at the gangly Larry, who has only their best interests at heart.

There's no getting around it. Though it's not without virtues, The Loneliest Planet may try the patience of even the most dedicated lovers of art film.

Excess Baggage aims to broaden her appeal beyond her established, youthful audience. It won't, because it's a messy mixture of so-so comedy and unmoving drama; its inconsistent tone suggests a production where no one was fully in charge.

The film finally seems to stagger under the weight of its own significance.

At its best, Gordon's work is bracing and pointed, though it's not for the queasy.

As a grab bag of reminiscences by veteran funny people, bolstered with richly entertaining performance footage, it's boffo.

Tries too hard to be even-handed.

Mocking Tinseltown is a pretty exhausted subject, and even Jaglom, a genuine insider, has a hard time making it fresh.

Bateman comes off well, humanizing his character with a strain of melancholy that’s one of the movie’s genuinely touching elements. Fey is all right, though she falls back on her patented shtick. Driver makes the most of his hipsterish role, nicely playing off the other siblings’ tension.

An intriguing portrait of an insular community, but its recounting of the seduction of a bright young man by the surrounding culture is heavy-handed.

Filmmaker Doris Yeung tries to mix a whodunit with a story of explosive family dynamics, but the effort succumbs to a weak script and a one-note lead performance.

In the end, there’s some naughty, voyeuristic fun to be had from Studio 54, but the bottom-line story of the club — assuming that is of value — is still to be told.

There's more than a touch of whimsy in A Touch of Spice, a sentimental Greek offering that's been immensely popular in its home country but doesn't translate well.

To be sure, Censored Voices can hardly be seen as anything but a political document, one that shares Oz’s views.

Overall, it's pretty elementary stuff, along the lines of a Disney Channel TV movie. It's uplifting, and it's in a good cause.

So there’s talent on view here, but in service of a questionable proposition, with the whole thing tiptoeing toward the exploitative. It would be nice to see Mascaro try his hand at less volatile material.

You can't help cheering for Selena, but the good feeling is diminished by the sense that her story's been simplified and sanitized.

Though short on subtlety, A Walk on the Moon does offer the consolation of some decent performances.

Besides some fine dogfight sequences, it often feels threadbare, just an exercise in recycling.

Well-intentioned but heavy-handed.

A misfire.

Breaking Upwards has its amusing and touching moments, but we're left wondering just what we're supposed to make of it all. In the end, the relationship at the film's core is less absorbing than the filmmakers imagine.

Modestly better than last year's awful "End of Days," though it falls well short of Arnold's "Terminator" peak period.

Nicholson squeezes every wretched drop of buffoonery from this character, and it's distressing to watch him play an easy role for easy laughs.

This film is mainly for “Night at the Museum” diehards.

The movie isn’t really bad, just tepid, and it’s partly redeemed by a good lead performance.

If nothing else, The Inbetweeners Movie proves that raunchy comedies about horny teens aren't just an American quirk.

Maybe the film works best as nostalgia for Baby Boomers who recall the picture from their childhood.

The film is implicitly advocating a New Age or holistic perspective, with a dollop of Eastern religion added for good measure. (The title is Sanskrit meaning "wheel of life.")

Not up to Ozon's standards.

In the end, all the bitterness seems like window-dressing to disguise a trite story.

It would be wrong to say Close’s performance in The Wife is wasted, but it certainly deserves a better movie.

Do Not Resist amounts to little more than a grab bag. Viewers looking for depth will have to find it elsewhere.

It's the story of a young married couple undone by a family tragedy, but the film loses its way, at one point turning into a political harangue.

A fast-moving Congolese crime thriller loaded with graphic sex and violence - basically an exploitation picture. But it's hard to surrender to the gritty flow because the story is stitched together from such crushingly familiar bits.

There’s lots of eye candy, and the pace is fast, but somehow the movie falls short. You’re forgiven if you get the idea that “Scorch Trials” suffers from “middle movie” fatigue.

The film refuses to soft-pedal Dickinson’s heartbreaking descent into bitterness and near-misanthropy, but sometimes operates with a heavy-handedness that’s certainly at odds with her poetry.

Skillfully made and offering moments of great power, the French Canadian drama Incendies nevertheless overplays its hand, piling tragedy on tragedy until we feel browbeaten with misery.

By the end you can't help but wonder whether it was a good idea to keep the youngsters under camera scrutiny for more than 12 years.

Despite highly enjoyable moments and the welcome presence of Kate Winslet, even sympathetic viewers will be put off by the movie’s bewildering variety of genres and tones.

The entertaining work by Spacey and Pepper is a good thing because the film has problems, including an utter lack of subtlety.

Lacks the finesse of other puzzle films.

There's some amusement in watching Michael Cera play an unalloyed jerk, but in the main this trifling film shuffles by with a few low-key jokes and observations, building to an abrupt moment of seriousness.

Francis Ford Coppola's Jack has its affecting moments, but in the end illustrates the pitfalls of the "concept" movie, the kind you can boil down to a one-line hook.

At 126 minutes the movie is excruciatingly long, but it is still too short to pack in all the subtle changes in character he means but fails miserably to convey.

Has compelling stretches, but the film's formal concerns overwhelm the storytelling.

Like Someone in Love is best suited to viewers already familiar with this extraordinary filmmaker's better work.

Lane, with his extensive stage experience, is acerbic, profoundly cynical and endlessly disgruntled. As the foil, Evans strike the right comic nice-guy note; he has fun with the character's sweetness and refuses to degrade him.

While recognizably Ceylan's work, is more of a genre piece - a noirish suspense film - and less successful.

It’s all so heavy-handed that it’s hard to stay engaged with the movie.

Tired comedy.

The film is sprinkled with “f” bombs, which fails to disguise that the enterprise is based on a surprisingly dated notion of what’s racy. Also, you simply may not find Bridget quite as adorable as the filmmaker’s clearly believe her to be.

Throughout, Croghan knows where she wants to go, but has no fresh ideas for getting there. The characters are reasonably appealing, but the jokes are mostly weak.

With a handful of blackly humorous jolts and some game performances by a good cast, Thin Ice is a watchable, if not terribly original, piece of Midwestern noir.

It's funny in spots if you can tune out the Farrellys' ultra-crass jokes - along with any memory of the first movie.

Surprisingly pedestrian.

You feel the full weight of the movie's three hours, since the filmmakers only had 90 minutes' of plot.

Painfully sincere but tired.

Despite its worthy subject, this feature by veteran Brazilian director Bruno Barreto has a bluntness that's at odds with Bishop's personality and work.

It seems like another misstep - the story just doesn't hold up to Ritchie's treatment.

Credit Freyne for ambition — he’s trying to make a zombie movie with a certain amount of discretion, and evoke sympathy for at least some of those who’ve perpetrated unspeakable actions. But he’s juggling too many themes here, and manages to lose us somewhere along the way.

The picture is a relentless blast of color and movement that's based on the old TV show, but boils down to a supercharged version of old-time Saturday-afternoon movie serials.

No-one's-home acting by Bierko and Mol doesn't help, while the talented D'Onofrio ("The End of the World") and Mueller-Stahl (a veteran of European pictures) are better than the material.

Its examination of identity and loneliness begins to feel like a soap opera season boiled down into one very long episode with too much happening.

That's the real problem with this melodrama. Whether or not you agree with the pacifist message, the presentation is often overwrought and maudlin.

Costner’s performance is mostly monotone, but Harrelson has some nice moments portraying Gault as surprisingly reflective.

It’s a great story, but the movie has a flatness that can’t be denied. Who’d have expected a Herzog film to invoke thoughts of “Masterpiece Theater” and Merchant-Ivory productions at their most stiff and formal? I surely did not.

The comedy-drama is worth seeing for Christie's performance as a former B-actress married to a philandering handyman. She radiates a mature sexuality that's a rare treat on screen these days, and when the camera strays from her, you want to reach over and turn it back.

Good chemistry between the lead actors and nice supporting performances help Friends With Kids survive a formulaic story and just-OK filmmaking.

The idea is intriguing - an inflatable sex doll comes alive and experiences the world with wide-eyed innocence - but Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Air Doll" is only partly successful. The film's poignant depiction of human loneliness is undercut by saccharine notes and a drifting tone.

These pictures need a light touch and a lot of attitude, but this time you can hear heavy breathing in the background.

Hawke has created a standard-issue, Sundance-friendly indie film that's full of the predictable angst suffered by Manhattan artistic types, but unfortunately the lead characters are both so callow that you finally don't care much about them.

The Eye of the Storm is performed with zest by a fine cast and offers some nicely biting moments but, in the end, falls short of its large ambitions.

There are some compelling performance moments, and it's sad to watch these talented and basically nice people drift apart. But overall the film seems like a collection of bits and pieces, and it's hard to see how it could have much resonance for non-fans.

Congratulations to director Mick Jackson and writers Jerome Armstrong and Billy Ray for liberating themselves from the tedious demands of believability.

It's an apocalyptic ghost story with some eerie images and a surprising turn toward the end, but it bogs down considerably between the good scenes.

Campbell's admirers will probably enjoy the documentary, but I don't think it will do much for anyone else.

It doesn’t really add up, either as a psychological portrait or moral commentary.

Nostalgia for the groves of academe weighs heavily on Liberal Arts, which both exploits and undermines romanticized memories of campus life.

Some scenes are mild fun, but the mishaps that befall our hero aren't especially inventive, and although the South African setting provides a bit of interest, it's never really used incisively.

Never gets the mixture right, lurching between bullet-happy shootouts and overwrought domestic content.

A big, juicy bone for canine-focused humans, but much less of a treat for others.

Because he made "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004), there will always be high expectations for a new film by Michel Gondry. But while his new movie The We and the I, is intriguing in fits and starts, it isn't in the same league.

Linklater has less success telling a story; time passes amiably, but the film has no center.

There are “gotcha” jolts that definitely got me, but for each of those, there must be a half-dozen scares telegraphed in very large letters. I think Annabelle: Creation is suffering from sequelitis.

It serves up a broad humanistic lesson with absurdism and black comedy more sad than barbed.

Well made, but it's a talkfest that wears its stage origins on its sleeve.

Has an impressive cast and captures some of that era's fuzzy rebelliousness and humanism, but taken on its own the picture is finally thin stuff.

By showing so many examples of his art, the film attests to Giger’s real gift for startling images. But it’s hard not to see, in addition, elements of repetitive adolescent provocation.

You may experience Visitors as more of a sedative than a punch in the guts.

Not sure we need to know this much about his family life.

His personal efforts are praiseworthy, but if glacial melting is in fact the "canary in the climate coal mine" (his words), the movie might have given us a bit less of Balog and a bit more of the startling sequences he produced.

Standard-issue slasher pic.

Director Paul Morrison ("Wondrous Oblivion") nicely re-creates the period, but puts too much weight on the sexual relationship as determining the men's artistic courses.

The picture seems to have been intended as a political satire, but only a Hollywood executive could mistake it for the real thing.

The direction, by Ben Nott and Morgan O'Neill, is average, except for the surfing sequences, which are easily as striking as what we see in documentaries about the sport. Another positive is the soundtrack, with amusing high-energy rock tunes of the era.

Miserly on food porn but not on prefab characters, it's well short of a cinematic feast.

As an indulgence in creative verbal abuse, the film offers some nasty fun.

What Laika achieves is an effective mixture of hyper-real and hyper-stylized, a combination that keeps “Kubo” appealing to the eye for audiences of all ages. If the film’s plotting and dialogue had measured up, “Kubo” might have been a masterpiece.

Earnest and kid-friendly -- also simplistic and dramatically creaky.

While there are entertaining segments, and even a couple of comedic touches, in the end the film isn’t convincing, and parts have a paint-by-the-numbers feeling.

Ovation has a self-involved air that may be off-putting to those who don’t feel deeply immersed in that world. You may get the sense you’ve wandered into a super-intense acting class or someone’s therapy session — a hothouse atmosphere that’s oppressive.

Too much of nothing and far from the potentially star-making material that Foxx deserves.

The talented Murphy is appealing here, performing with sincerity and restraint - a wise choice, since his co-stars are a menagerie of wisecracking animals.

Although it’s good to have a critical accounting of his role in modern American politics, most of what we see here has been reported elsewhere, and this documentary seems aimed at rallying the troops.

A romantic sitcom that never transcends its gimmicky plot, but offers enough screen time to Gwyneth Paltrow to satisfy even her most rabid fans.

the movie comes perilously close to implicitly justifying the killing that sparked the plot - a killing, by the way, that is close to senseless.

Writer-director Mark Herman seems genuinely moved by the plight of the mining communities, but his attempt to translate those feelings into a story shows the effects of hard labor.

If you want lots of Will Smith and industrial-strength special effects, the movie delivers.

Offers some hit-and-miss pleasures, but may finally strike you as pedestrian.

Despite a super-dark noir plot and respectable cast, Deadfall is a thriller that never quite delivers on its promise.

Tonal inconsistency is the iceberg that sinks The Pretty One. The film is a mashup of wacky comedy, romance and sorrowful elements that would tax a more seasoned filmmaker than first-time writer-director Jenée LaMarque.

I'll stick out my neck and say that Park Chan Wook's wildly gruesome Thirst is the most whacked-out version of an Emile Zola novel ever to reach the screen.

Strict plausibility isn’t necessary in these movies, and while No Escape doesn’t completely throw it out the window, it still inspires the occasional unintended giggle.

The film is beautiful but troubled, achieving in stretches the director's signature dreamy mood but dragged down by narrative confusions.

The movie is probably best appreciated by devotees of the cult director, who has made some good films and some interesting ones (and some that are both): "King of New York," "Bad Lieutenant," "The Addiction." "4:44" isn't quite in that company.

This is highly skilled filmmaking, but the movie is not for everybody — the relationship involves dominance and submission, sexual games played at a high pitch. This material falls short of pornographic, but still packs plenty of erotic punch.

Freed from the demands of adapting an established and complex literary piece, the filmmakers seem to have relaxed - and so can their audience.

A frantic, epic-sized blowout of campy, "Indiana Jones" -style derring-do mixed with lots of computer-generated gee-whizzes.

Aims to make epic drama of Algeria's battle for independence, but there are moments when you would swear you're watching a "Godfather" knockoff.

Kline is good in a role that suits him perfectly, and his scenes with Steenburgen are among the film’s most affecting. Jacobs is pretty good, too, really pouring on the Southern California “charm.”

Good-looking and empty.

An old-fashioned and family-friendly comedy.

The film is good enough to inspire viewers to learn more about Fela, but it should be better than that.

Perhaps Patten is trying to do to us what Rinpoche does to his followers, but the film's meandering structure and intrusive narration detract from the focus on the master.

Some of the talking heads say entertaining or thoughtful things and some of the locations are quite exotic. But does this justify 98 minutes of screen time?

A melancholy Spanish drama that’s competently made and checks off all the boxes defining a contemporary art-house movie. But it lacks the spark that separates top-of-the-line films from the pack, and watching it becomes something of a slog.

Whatever It Takes is DOA -- dated on arrival.

This is a slacker comedy with "festival" stamped all over it, so you can bet the consequences will be quirky.

The characters are mostly likable, and despite some comic sallies the film takes a compassionate stance toward them. But it feels like a glossy, overly neat take on what should be an explosive topic.

A relentlessly quirky British comedy-drama that demonstrates why more is not always more.

The tales are worthwhile, but it's challenging to find a common thread among them that goes beyond vague generalities.

The dramatic payoff is a bit disappointing; the movie is often overwrought; and its sense of its own importance finally wears you down.

Offers some memorable stories, but it simply tries too hard.

At some point, the movie itself crosses the line, from a modestly thoughtful attempt to extrapolate a drama from real and urgent events to a generic action piece with predictable good and bad guys and pat, civics-book morals.

It's an interesting spectacle, but not enough to carry a movie.

Your heart will go out to Shlain, who clearly adored her father. But other parts of Connected may remind you of an Al Gore lecture.

Really doesn't pay off much.

Occasionally funny and touching, but often embarrassing and cringe-inducing.

Short on complexity and depth, The Divine Order gives us a parade of heroines and villains. Instead of raising questions, it seems to want to induce in viewers a sense of smugness.

The film is well acted, with especially strong work by Alonso and Zegers. And director Larraín has a powerful knack for depicting human monsters. But he stacks the deck so heavily that at times the film can seem like simple-minded anti-clericalism, and at least some viewers are bound to resist.

Wilson is basically playing an even more feckless version of his "Office" character, Dwight, another intense and self-deluded doofus. It's a character that works better in smaller doses.

I liked this movie somewhat, even if I'm not sure exactly what it means. Possibly it has something to do with arriving home, in the broadest sense. But in a Maddin film, uncertainty comes with the territory.

Ari Gold’s The Song of Sway Lake is saturated with a kind of melancholy nostalgia, and viewers who can accept that will find other virtues as well in this flawed film. It’s a story of familial unhappiness passing down through generations, impressive before it begins to lose focus.