When embraced on its own terms, the film will provide an ironic bridge for those who want to share a greater closeness with Smith.

The Girlfriend Experience uses nonprofessional actors, aside from lead Grey, who is the acclaimed star of more than 80 porn films and here debuts in her first "nonadult" role.

Sausage Party glints of greatness, but this is half-cocked comedy at best.

Diary of the Dead is meant to scare your pants off, blow your mind out the back of your skull, and then deposit you ungently back into reality, quaking a little, maybe, but still alive and, unlike the undead, thinking.

Instead of a radical call to action, it's a long slog of wigs and oration.

Alan Partridge is one of the more satisfying comedies in recent memory, and with rumors of a sequel, let’s hope that this is the beginning of Alan Partridge, movie star. He definitely wouldn’t have it any other way.

The monster waves are truly awe-inspiring, and the language is never too technical, ensuring appeal to an audience larger than strictly hardcore surfer bros.

The film probably won't draw in audiences who aren't already fans of the quirky, subtitled pastoral, but it's more than worth a look.

It's easy enough to forget there are special effects involved, so convincing is Stu's rippling fur and big beamy eyes filling up with tears.

The set and art direction are superb, evoking Sixties and Seventies décor with a dazzling precision.

Barry Sonnenfeld's stunning cinematography and the sharply etched characterizations make this film one for the ages.

Unsettling and odd, it's the perfect film for a dreary, rainy day.

Though undeniably sincere and crafted with a sturdy visual sense from cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, there’s as much rote storytelling here as there is surprisingly thoughtful character work.

Farrow and Walken are terrifically semicomatose as Abe's mom and dad, and Murphy – as a co-worker who takes what appears to be pity on the eternally adolescent Abe – is equally memorable. Yet Dark Horse feels like a lesser Solondz film, despite its cavalcade of misanthropy.

Hopelessly muddled but doggedly entertaining.

The casting is solid, with an even more pumped-up Jordan once again anchoring the movie as the conflicted young boxer in the title. But it’s the underdeveloped villains of the piece who ultimately prove more intriguing, despite their one-dimensionality.

An impactful film, one that’s made for the season of giving, if giving means never giving up.

It rings true. Living in the twilight, between right, wrong, legal, illegal, good, bad, is dangerous but it's sheer hypocrisy to deny its attraction.

In the end, trying to compartmentalize this movie in some neat fashion is folly. This is Todd Solondz and, refreshingly enough, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

The playful and well-meaning spirit of the film carries it through its shakier moments of awkward narration and inscrutably busy camerawork.

An actor most at home playing devilish, Keaton’s got the last-reel Machiavellian shrug down cold. But neither he nor the filmmakers do much to illuminate the neural pistons fired from brain to bodily shrug.

The filmmakers’ decision to stay out of the way and shape the story largely in the editing room bears different returns – a less mediated, more immersive, and ultimately quite moving portrait of hopeful youths headed into a harder adulthood.

It smartly skips the goofier aspects of the original, too. Once you’ve shed musical numbers and Eddie Murphy cracking wise as a dragon, you’re in far less jocular territory...And that feels right for the material.

I’m afraid there’s more than 2% evaporation going on in Loach’s latest.

What really keeps Wander Darkly together is yet another convoluted, conflicted, and honest performance from Miller.

Las Vegas may demolish its own history, but The Last Showgirl will break your heart by showing you a woman clinging to the rubble of her life.

One of the truest-seeming movies I've seen in some time and as one of the most odd and haunting.

Fascinating, no? Of course, that's just one (obvious) reading of Fast Five. You could also say it's a kickass demolition derby – pure dumb summer fun – and often easy on the (hetero) eyes thanks to the inclusion of Brewster and Mendes.

It's unclear where the buck stops in terms of creative authority – at one point, Clayman complains that "the only thing I feel in control of is the money" – which renders OC87 at once a remarkable achievement, and a fatally compromised film.

This thing’s a journey, y’all – the miraculous coexisting with yawning boredom.

The movie's tone concurrently embraces melodramatics and wry humor, a twisted suburban Oedipal knot seen through a sardonic, yet deeply involved, eye.

It is an inspired, strange, and occasionally choke-on-your-popcorn funny ensemble piece that, frankly, blows just about every other current comedy out of the water.

Knight, coming from a born animator’s background, retrofits the intergalactic Sturm und Drang for a more humanistic tone that manages to be both more entertaining overall and moderately Spielbergian (he continues to executive produce the franchise) in this tale of a girl and her big, lovable, lemon-colored E.T. It’s a kinder, gentler Transformers movie for the holidays. Go figure.

As we begin to follow the trail of journalist Areez Rahimi (Ebrahimi, who received the Best Actress award at Cannes for this role), the film becomes a very effective thriller. Through her, we also experience the country’s entrenched misogyny.

Depends on the magical for the inner workings of its story, and that might not suit viewers desirous of more concrete explanations. But, again, the movie seems just right for the viewers it aims to please.

If Victorian Manchester had been remotely like this, H.G. Wells never would have bothered to pen "The Time Machine" – he'd have just stepped outside and into the fray.

Notably, Phantom Boy treads territory that’s similar to much of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, with a main character seeking the otherworldly in the face of a terrible reality. Missing, though, is the narrative and emotional cohesiveness that would likely have led to Felicioli and Gagnol’s film being a more engaging and memorable work

American Me is crafted with heart and conviction and intelligence. It demands no less of its audience. It insists that there are no quick fixes, but that solutions are of the utmost urgency. It demonstrates how the capacity for change resides within each individual.

This is a film that can’t decide if it wants to be a war movie or a rescue dog melodrama and therefore falls into cinematic no-man’s/woman’s-land.

The problem with The Bling Ring is that it feels as soulless as its young protagonists, and of course there’s little sympathy to be found either for the story’s über-rich victims like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

Although it’s no doubt intentional that Driver plays Jones as tireless and single-minded, the overall narrative of The Report might have been helped by more character-building.

Solet may not have explicitly made a horror movie, but it’s truly terrifying nonetheless because it stares point-blank at the lunacy that allows a seemingly normal farmer to blame every outsider for his ills. If you've ever wondered where a Cliven Bundy comes from, or an Andrew Joseph Stack III (the maniac that flew his plane into an Austin office building in 2010 because he was mad about his tax bill), this is a trip down every twisted nerve and malevolent neuron.

Causeway is at its most successful when the film is patient, giving the space to have its characters ruminate over how their past experiences don’t have to define their futures. It’s the kind of film that only succeeds with incredible performances to back it up, and Neugebauer achieves that with Lawrence and Henry guiding her film in such a touching, beautiful way.

Often the discussion about a film is more interesting and worthwhile than the film itself, and that's why You Don't Nomi exists.

There’s not a whole lot new here in this story of rival lifestyles and familial skeletons, but just allowing yourself to immerse yourself in the initially catty melodrama is pleasure enough.

The delivery in Idiocracy is frequently flat, but it's vision is dead-on.

Koepp's film examines the interconnections between man and the electronic society, and the terrors that are unleashed once those connections are severed, and does so in a wholly original and unnerving manner.

Maybe Soderbergh felt as though he already did a straight-ahead version of this story with "Erin Brockovich" and therefore decided to revamp the tune in the key of Richard Lester.

For sheer, sepulchral eye candy at this most horror-ific time of year, del Toro’s Crimson Peak leaves Tim Burton – reigning misfit king of hyper-stylized, goth-y weirdness – in the dust and well-nigh forgotten.

The story – two guys, one girl, much deceit – is eternally contemporary. Sometimes gigglingly so in the hands of ever-erratic Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pan), who injects horny, corny musical theatre-kid energy into this latest iteration of Rostand’s doomed love triangle.

A lauded Shakespearean actor and adapter who won an Oscar last year for his collaboration with director Steven Spielberg on "Bridge of Spies," Rylance portrays the body (via motion-capture) and certainly soul of this gentle giant. In his mournful, lyrical cadence, he makes poetry out of the BFG’s gobbledygook command of English.

A bit of action, a bit of humor, and a whole bunch of teachable moments.

A must-watch for animal lovers with a strong stomach (there is some pretty graphic surgical footage) and a stronger heart (because no one likes to see an animal suffering), The Dog Doc isn’t always going to convince everyone.

It's the most compelling American movie to come around in a long, long time.

Despite The Danish Girl’s lack of specificity regarding what motivates Einar’s transformation into Lili Elbe, the film is still quite lovely. Its compositions are lovely to look at, and the performances engaging.

The film owes what charm it has to a whip-smart script (heavy on double entendres – a delight for word nerds and game geeks alike), and the chemistry between its actors.

Although the film’s character portraits are vividly drawn, they remain largely one-dimensional.

This moody Hong Kong thriller puts a stylish new spin on the old "Hands of Orlac" horror motif.

There's nothing terribly bad about Bend It Like Beckham -- in fact it's a fine Friday-night-out film -- it's just that it strikes me as being an awful little piffle cloaked in the garb of something so much more.

Truth itself is little more than a word in The Prestige, a film that both celebrates the wonder of being fooled and the foolishness of wanting just that.

Worth imbibing, if for no reason other than the bellyache it generates.

That Zellweger had the audacity to decide to actually sing the standards in Garland’s act, rather than lip-synch them, and then perform them with such bravado in a voice eerily channeling Garland is the real icing on the cake here. In Judy, a star is reborn.

I.Q. doesn't profess to explore the theory of relativity, but even as a light romantic comedy it fails to engage the viewer completely.

A shaggy lead actor, a mundane setting given sci-fi spice, and a quick rattling off of the film’s central pitch – Rockwell’s Man From the Future needs six people to come with him to save the world – all fulfill the Fantastic-Fest catnip check list. Yet that intense energy can’t sustain the movie’s two-hour runtime, even with charismatic infusions from the star-studded supporting cast.

It takes only moments into the film, when star Timothée Chalamet first opens his mouth to sing, to discover Wonka’s two fatal errors: The songs are not good, and the guy singing them is even worse.

Writer/director James Vanderbilt...sticks to Mapes’ version of the truth, and the film serves as a valedictory for Mapes and Rather. Still, the movie never negates the truth’s other strands, while also showing what a human profession journalism is.

Smart and self-deprecating story about love and mortality: It’s merely a winter's tale told with a summer's palette.

There’s tension as the two hole up in Santa Fe to work on the book, but the bottom-line feeling is of two old friends, now two old men, who have found their place in each other’s complicated lives.

The sights are ingenious, impressively rendered in 3-D, and the sounds – including cheeky voice work by Mr. T, Neil Patrick Harris, and Benjamin Bratt – are a blast.

Looks like a million bucks (or rather, a million bucks gone to compost), but at its dark heart it's a tedious, bewildering affair, lovely to look at but with all the substance of a dissipating dream.

Elisabeth Holm and Robespierre’s screenplay is both quirky and grounded, gleaning pearls of wisdom about the toxicity of secrets in the face of truth without getting preachy.

Stardust has lost a good amount of its magic in the transformation from page to screen. It's the cinematic equivalent of getting a punch in the mind's eye by a bunch of faeries wearing the coolest Doc Martens this side of Florin.

Silly, inconsistent, and completely frivolous, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby also happens to be one of the funniest movies this side of 2006.

Much to cheer here, from its treasure trove of early and alternate versions of songs to the triumphant finale.

Square peg, round hole. That's what the twentysomethings who drift through Margarita Happy Hour are like.

A provocative documentary that shines light on a little-explored dimension of the international debate regarding homosexuality and religion: that of gays and lesbians who also wish to belong to the Orthodox and Hassidic Jewish communities.

The scenes of Chong loitering around the house, playing guitar and generally being a degenerate, are quite humorous, as is the duo's satirical venture to the welfare office.

The fact that Russians appear to have dash-cams as standard equipment in their four- and two-wheel rides is as foreign and fascinating as anything President Donald Trump could come up with.

Coolidge has no axe to grind with Valley Girls. They’re simply teenagers subject to the classic problems of love and peer pressure, albeit spiced with their own distinct valley jargon. Coolidge directs all this with a light hand and the non-stop musical score features music by the Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, Clash, Men at Work, Sparks, and many more.

By turns wry, quirky, joyful, and above all human, this easygoing but never less than fascinating documentary focuses on the surprisingly tolerant township of Eureka, Ark.

Ultimately, it’s an aspirational and inspirational tale of daring to reach for the stars even when authority figures tell you they don’t exist – and the value of having a friend who believes in you, even if they have an umbrella handle for a nose.

The story, alas, is colorless and flat: a terribly earnest picture of two sad people looking for somebody or something to jump-start their battery.

A pretty spot-on distillation of human weakness, but my god, must they all be so inhumane in the process?

Although there are some exhilarating moments here, they're offset by frequent distractions: Lewis' standard (and now boring) weird performance, an occasional lack of logic in the story line, a tendency to go operatic, and the overall feeling that the movie is unsure of where it is going.

At times it's almost like "Lord of the Flies," with the camera serving as the flypaper dipped in the honey of the promised land of celebrity.

With a concluding chase/shoot-out episode that might even make Hitchcock jealous, Carlito's Way is a dandy piece of entertainment. If the story needs a bit more depth and reason, who really cares? There's hardly time to notice.

Neither Hopkins nor Baldwin can be faulted. Both explore and illuminate their half-realized characters as best they can, but creating any real power or suspense is just too big a bear to kill.

Just the kind of vicarious excitement for which the movies were invented.

The next time he (Baumbach) attempts something similar, he might take care to lessen the bile and amplify the heart.

Go see it, get the adrenaline rush, and then go home and forget about it. It's noisy and fun, but that's all it is.

DeLillo’s style, a mismatch of tonal understatement and the absurdity of an event, is basically the de rigueur of contemporary comedy, and Baumbach harnesses that style to great effect for much of his adaptation.

Irving again delivers personal observations about curious creatures in a manner that’s part nature doc and part meditative exploration. The result is as mixed as the process.

Maltese writer/director Buhagiar emphasizes the character’s transformative path rather than her pitiable starting point, and with the help of some suspension of disbelief and a symbolic pigeon (no, not a Maltese falcon) Carmen comes into her own.

The abyss between the boy and the man he may become is cold, black, and unforgiving. Adapted from Jan Terlouw's 1972 novel, this is an often emotionally harrowing depiction of a young idealist running smack into the brutal reality of occupied life.

Just because you can shove a bunch of IPs together, should you? Especially when the motivation is a 90-minute joke about beloved TV series, with a lot of cheese-as-cocaine gags. Who is it for? People who still laugh at uncanny valley jokes. For those that don't, no reason to worry, because most of the references will be explained to you.

Craven is obviously having a ball here, and it's impossible not to sit back and go grinning into this dark, gory ride.

What makes Fully Realized Humans all the funnier is the couple's conviction that they're always doing the right thing: and, again, if it wasn't for the wide-eyed smart-naïve performances from Wexler and Leonard the whole thing would be insufferable.

Cameron’s journey is a complicated and poignant one, though the muted aura that maintains a rigid hush over scenes keeps the viewer at something of an emotional detachment.