Violette doesn't abandon that playbook, but it does a better job than most of putting the viewer in its artist's headspace.

While individually some of the scenes are terrific, they don't add up to much, making Hail, Caesar! one of the Coens' lesser comedies, better than "Intolerable Cruelty," say, but nowhere near the genius of "The Big Lewbowski."

The Color Purple is a spectacle with big ensemble numbers, powerful solos and duets that will pull on your heartstrings. At a whopping two hours and 20 minutes, it never drags. The music propels the story instead of interrupting. Meanwhile, the performances will have you gasping and cheering.

How much you enjoy all this will depend on how much you like Glazer. She’s funny, no question, and sometimes intentionally grating. But she also gives off a genuineness. Maybe she is just saying out loud what other people are thinking.

This is the rare movie with no one to root against, a film filled with good guys and weird guys (and gals), all of whom you hope find what they're looking for, even if you know that's not possible.

Star Trek Into Darkness is a giddy homage to what’s come before it, but it also at least tries to go boldly where ... well, you know.

Throughout the film Famuyiwa, who also wrote the script, uses split screens and backs up the film and jumps around and freezes the action, but he's not showing off. He uses these techniques to tell his story, and doesn't overuse them to the point of annoyance.

At 2 hours and 17 minutes, the film is a little bloated, though the expansiveness and inventiveness of the filmmaking make that sound like complaining about too much dessert.

Monkey Kingdom is a delightful gambol, visually stunning and educational without feeling like it, with a propulsive drama about escaping one's lowly social class at its core that inspires reflection on some uncomfortable truths about ourselves.

Every image feels intentional, with nothing left to chance. (This results in some amazing images, many of them involving Stone’s face.) Along with the precision of the performances, this makes Bugonia one of the more enjoyably weird times at the movies in recent memory.

Even if its stunted ambitions come as a disappointment, Pieta nevertheless is an expertly crafted thriller and a fine addition to East Asian revenge cinema.

Bursts at the seams with wild creativity.

50/50 is a tremendous movie. It's also a really funny one, which doesn't mean it won't make you cry.

It is just a tremendous amount of fun.

It's very much an old-time moviegoing experience; the film could have been made in 1940, and that's a compliment.

This is the kind of movie about teenagers that an adult audience should embrace. It's simply that good, and Stone is nothing short of wonderful.

Bell lets the action onscreen tell a story that’s every bit as rousing as a Disney adventure.

This is a challenging, brilliantly constructed film that, despite its patience and quiet tone, is engrossing from its first moments, especially an opening scene that encapsulates Jandal's poignant contradictions.

We don’t need to continually revisit every horror movie ever made. How many versions of “Friday the 13th” are we up to? Too many. But the best thing about this is that Candyman is not just another sequel. More like a revelation.

It’s not quite the triumph that the exquisitely excruciating “Listen Up Philip” was, but it’s another example of Perry’s behavioral alchemy that’s well worth checking out.

What makes this film work is that it is exactly as advertised: a chaotic romp through a fantasy world that has enough structure to be believable. But the key here is that we don’t get bogged down in details over which race or land is which. We don’t care nor need to know all the details of this world. We just go along for the ride.

It's always entertaining to see a genre tweaked, at least when it's done so with the proper mix of respect and madness at work in Slow West.

Maybe there are no more stones unturned when it comes to the Beatles. Maybe The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years is not especially revelatory or earth-shaking. But the band was.

While Midsommar is too overwrought to be a masterpiece, it’s also too entertaining in its abject lunacy and assured in its craftsmanship to be considered a sophomore slump. Aster is a filmmaker still defining his voice, and despite the growing pains, Midsommar is an intriguing step in its evolution.

Lawrence takes up that challenge and then some, with a performance that could have been rendered in broad strokes, and sometimes is, but also relies on small moments, a look in her eyes, a quick movement, to draw us in and keep us there.

There is nothing erotic about it, nothing sexy, nothing but a brutish satisfying of carnal desires. Without an astounding performance from Michael Fassbender, it would be almost too painful to watch (and at times, too boring). With him, it's not exactly easy.

Derrickson’s use of computer-generated action is a strength instead of a strain, and it’s not just showing off; in the context of the film, the bizarre images make sense.

Eventually the film's subtlety gives way to a more straightforward conclusion. But Okuno and Monroe still make Watcher worth watching.