Match is no masterpiece, but it is an intriguing and entertaining example of actors lifting the material they're given to greater heights, with Stewart leading the way.

Director Kevin Macdonald offers a suffocating visual feast. Some of the particulars don't add up, so much so that you do notice them even as the action plows forward. But it's still a thrilling ride.

Song of the Sea is a lyrical treat for those willing to sit still and let it wash over them.

Black or White is more remarkable for what it isn't than for what it is. For example, it isn't ripe with drama. It isn't a thoughtful exploration of racial identity in America. It isn't a compelling look at judicial bias and class conflict. It is, instead, a movie that's every bit as oversimplified and obvious as its title.

It's not a fascinating (or even particularly interesting) character study — the film never lets you get close enough to its leading man to understand his damage — but it's nevertheless an intermittently moving one.

Song One is an odd little movie. It seems as if there is more going on than there is, which you realize after it's over. As pleasant diversions in the moment go, however, you could do much worse.

It's Moore who makes the movie worthwhile, who elevates it from disease-of-the-week fare to the role of a lifetime.

[Jennifer Aniston's] performance in Cake is rightly being praised as a dramatic breakthrough (no one doubts her comedic chops). She's really good. It's just too bad the movie does her no favors.

It's no surprise The Boy Next Door is junk. What is disappointing is that it's not fun junk. It doesn't even merit a good hate-watching, because the whole thing is so meh.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a terrific film, if you give yourself to it. You should, because, with Amirpour's blending of influences and pop culture, she has created a true original.

There are some poignant moments in the movie's latter half, as well as a couple of genuine laughs. If it never achieves the heft it wants, it at least manages a sitcommy kind of charm, like an extended episode of "The Golden Girls." Perhaps more importantly, it gives Rowlands a lead role, which is never a bad thing.

Director and co-writer Jeremy Garelick doesn't even reach high enough to pick the low-hanging fruit, opting instead to gather half-rotted, fly-infested jokes off the ground and expect Kevin Hart to make them funny by virtue of being Kevin Hart. Only grudgingly will I acknowledge that he sometimes does.

Spare Parts is the kind of feel-good underdog movie that almost can't help getting waylaid by cliches.

Paddington is a mostly smart update loaded with charm, and it preserves enough of the fuzzy feelings for purists to walk away with a smile.

Blackhat is a mess of a movie from Michael Mann, a would-be cyberthriller slowed by stupidity and sabotaged by a stunningly silly subplot.

The film is slow at times, despite bursts of action, and Chandor could have let it breathe a little more. The seriousness grows stuffy every now and then, but these are small quibbles. A Most Violent Year is an outstanding movie about business and marriage, not necessarily in that order.

It's Cooper's movie, and, although he has been good in pretty much everything we've seen him in, there is a depth to this performance we haven't seen before. It's a tricky balance: As the legend grows, the man diminishes. Cooper and Eastwood do an exceptionally good job of maintaining that.

Olivier Megaton (he helmed "Taken 2") starts things off at a sluggish pace and never picks up speed. Even the action scenes, which often are filmed in jittery fashion, don't generate thrills.

Everything is lathered with a syrupy, string-laden musical score designed to gnaw at a viewer's tear ducts. It's about as subtle as having an off-screen narrator yell "Start crying!" before big scenes, and probably as effective.

This isn't a warts-and-all portrayal. More like a warts-and-little-else one. But it is an inspired film, a beautiful exploration of art and creation and difficulty, with Spall's brilliant performance at its center.

Does it all add up? Maybe, if you follow the letter of narrative law. It's certainly imaginative, with high-minded ideas, but Hawke and Snook are what keep it grounded in truth.

Inherent Vice is an aggressively weird movie, which you should take not as a warning but as a compliment and an invitation to see it, to let its stoner vibes wash all over you.

It is not hyperbole to say Oyelowo is a revelation. The British actor brings phenomenal humanity, grace and torment to a historical figure who once seemed to loom too large a legend to make flesh on screen.

You can't get close to Bennett — not because he's a morally ambiguous character, as the movie would have you believe, but because he never puts anything on the table. He struts through every consequence, a man with nothing to lose because he never had anything worth losing in the first place.

The story is just so downright weird that the film can't help but be compelling. Just not as compelling as it could have been.

It is a harrowing journey, and an inspirational one. But, as director, Jolie takes far too long to tell it, particularly in such a conventional manner.

The cast is top-notch, the story is satisfyingly dark, the performances are fun and, of course, the songs are terrific.

Give credit to Esmail, however, for coming up with an inventive way to tell the story, even if the execution doesn't live up to the idea. He shows great confidence as a director, and the film has a unique look, with heightened reality providing clues that this really is a different world, or worlds, even.